About this podcast
SEASON TWO: THE KINGMAKERS IS HERE
For early access to future episodes and exclusive bonus content, click here to upgrade to a paid subscription to The Lever.
Master Plan, the award-winning investigative podcast series from The Lever, reveals the hidden forces behind today’s biggest problems — and how small groups of powerful people engineered those problems to serve their own interests. We are exposing their schemes.
Narrated by David Sirota, an award-winning investigative journalist and Oscar nominee for his work on the film Don’t Look Up.
Master Plan has received the 2025 National Press Club Award for Audio Journalism, the New York Festivals Radio Award for Best Investigative Journalism Podcast, multiple Signal Awards for Best News & Politics Podcast and Best Writing. It was an Ambies finalist for Best Politics podcast and was named a Webby Awards Honoree.
Learn more at masterplanpodcast.com
Episodes
The newest 20 of 29 episodes
- The Fight for the Democratic Party's Future | Robert Reich & Patrick Gaspard · 56 min · Season 3 Episode 1After losing big in 2024, Democrats have staged a historic comeback, riding a massive blue wave back into power in Washington. Now comes the bigger question: What will they do…
- ENCORE: The Inside Story Of Citizens United · 1 h 3 min · Season 2You’ve probably heard of Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that helped unleash billionaire money into American elections. But few know the inside story of how a network…
- ENCORE: How The Powell Memo Changed America · 60 min · Season 2With the 2026 midterms approaching and billions of dollars flooding into American elections, we're revisiting one of our most popular episodes of Master Plan. In 1971, corporate…
- Introducing “The Future of Our Former Democracy: Season 3” · 37 min · Season 2Today, we are sharing the Season 3 premiere of The Future of Our Former Democracy, the Signal Award-winning podcast from More Equitable Democracy and Mori Strategies. The Future…
- Episode 8: The Inheritance | The Kingmakers · 57 min · Season 2 Episode 8In the season finale of Master Plan: The Kingmakers, we ask Democratic leaders what the next U.S. president should do with the expanded executive powers that Trump will leave…
- Episode 7: The King’s Man | The Kingmakers · 1 h 3 min · Season 2 Episode 7A little-known conservative operative spends years figuring out how to bend the machinery of government to a president's will. By the time Donald Trump returns for his second…
- Episode 6: Obama’s Kill List | The Kingmakers · 1 h 15 min · Season 2 Episode 6Obama vowed to restore the rule of law after the War on Terror. But behind closed doors, his administration created a secret system that allowed the president to decide who lived…
- Episode 5: State of Emergency | The Kingmakers · 1 h 4 min · Season 2 Episode 5September 11, 2001 brought chaos and terror to the United States. It also brought an unprecedented opportunity. After decades of watching what he felt was the erosion of…
- The Return of the Kingmakers · 3 minEvery crisis creates an opportunity. The final chapters of The Kingmakers reveal the plot to build an all-powerful presidency — and put it in the hands of a man who wants to be…
- BONUS: The Untouched Power That Could Stop Trump's Iran War · 52 min · Season 2As Trump’s war in Iran approached a critical 60-day deadline, we took a deep dive into the War Powers Resolution, the Nixon-era law designed to limit presidential war-making. But…
- Episode 4: The Meese Doctrine | The Kingmakers · 52 min · Season 2 Episode 4Rather than retreat from Iran-Contra and other scandals, conservative operatives inside the White House — led by Attorney General Edwin Meese — went on the offensive. Drawing on…
- Episode 3: President Rambo | The Kingmakers · 40 min · Season 2 Episode 3Emboldened by a landslide election, the president’s men began to see themselves as 1980s action-movie heroes, willing to break the law to get what they want. The result was the…
- Episode 2: Mandate for Power | The Kingmakers · 52 min · Season 2 Episode 2How did Project 2025 take control of the White House? It all began decades ago, when a beer-baron-backed think tank handed President Ronald Reagan an 1,100-page instruction…
- Episode 1: After The Fall | The Kingmakers · 43 min · Season 2 Episode 1Before Trump, there was Nixon. His attempts to seize the power of the purse and secretly expand the Vietnam War forged a constitutional crisis, a backlash, and a template for an…
- Season 2 Trailer: The Kingmakers · 5 min · Season 2A new season of Master Plan debuts on March 16. For early access to new episodes and exclusive bonus content, click here to upgrade to a paid subscription to The Lever. Learn…
- The Master Plan Book Is Here · 8 minWe’ve got big news — Master Plan is now a book! Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America, co-authored by David Sirota and Jared Jacang Maher, is now…
- S1 BONUS: The Master Planners’ Election (With Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse) · 55 min · Season 1In a special Master Plan bonus episode, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse joins David Sirota to break down the impact of the Supreme Court’s’ 2010 Citizens United ruling on 2024's super…
- S1 E11: Hell Or High Water | Legalizing Corruption · 1 h 8 min · Season 1 Episode 11We all live in the master planners’ world now, immersed in an ocean of corruption. The 2024 Republican presidential campaign is bankrolled by billionaires, while corporate…
- S1 E10: The Heist | Legalizing Corruption · 1 h 8 min · Season 1 Episode 10Unleashed by the Citizens United ruling, the master planners launch a three-part heist to crack the vault protecting democracy itself. First, the schemers take out the security…
- S1 E9: Going Big | Legalizing Corruption · 1 h 4 min · Season 1 Episode 9An anti-abortion legal activist starts using the federal courts to chip away at campaign finance restrictions, setting his sights on the Supreme Court. Indiana lawyer James Bopp…
