Today on The Editors, Rich is joined by Michael, Maddy, and Jim for a rapid-fire discussion of national and foreign affairs. Our panelists consider Speaker Mike Johnson’s tough position as he tries to appease certain factions while also getting funding for Ukraine aid. But as Jim said, “Speaker Johnson is . . . trying to balance a wide variety of interests, but really there’s one big interest down in Mar-a-Lago that . . . feels like it outweighs everybody else.”

They also touch on Tucker Carlson’s outlandish claim that Russian grocery stores are somehow better and cheaper than American ones. Maddy points out that “one point about the grocery-shopping experience was Tucker was marveling at the fact that this cart full of stuff that they thought would come to around $400 was only $100. But the average salary in Russia is $14,000 compared with the average American salary, which is nearly $60,000. So these things are adjusted for how much people are earning.”

Finally, House Republicans are in a bad way, having just lost George Santos’s seat to a Democrat which hurts their already-slim majority. Do our panelists miss Santos? Listen below to find out.

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.