Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other

Terms of Service with Future Caucus

Two Minnesota lawmakers, one Democrat and one Republican, on what public service costs and what it took to keep going after tragedy.

Terms of Service is a new limited series from Future Caucus and TP&R, hosted by Future Caucus CEO Layla Zaidane. People run for state legislature to serve their communities, then find the fine print. Recorded at Future Summit, this first conversation brings together two young Minnesota representatives, Andy Smith (D) and Isaac Schultz (R), on political violence, pay, staffing, and what it takes not just to serve but to stay.

This series is a partnership between Scan Media and Future Caucus. Executive Producers: Future Caucus and Layla Zaidane.

Calls to Action

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Key Takeaways

A House split 67 to 67. An evenly divided chamber meant building trust across the aisle before any bill had a chance. Relationships came first, legislation second.

Coming together after political violence. The assassination of Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and the wounding of a colleague, changed how these two think about safety and each other. Shared grief pulled them closer across party lines.

The fine print of serving. Pay that runs about $10,000 below the average worker, little to no staff, and months living out of a hotel away from family. Both still call it worth doing.

About Our Guests

Rep. Andy Smith (D) represents Rochester, Minnesota, is in his second term, and runs a used bookstore with his wife. Rep. Isaac Schultz (R) represents a rural district, is in his second term, and works as an auctioneer and small business owner. Host Layla Zaidane is president and CEO of Future Caucus.

Links and Resources

Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=Nkbhx-o4FY0

Future Caucus: futurecaucus.org

Connect with us

Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty has spent a career asking why people do the things they do. The hardest answer she found runs through a wrongful conviction, thirty-four years lost, and a friendship between two men who had every reason to stay enemies.

A New York Times bestselling author and contributing writer for The Atlantic, Barb covered criminal justice and religion at NPR for nearly twenty years. This conversation runs from a kindergarten report card that called her whole life, to a cycling accident that took away her fear of death, to Ben Spencer and Jay Young, the wrongly imprisoned man and the victim's son, who somehow became friends.

Calls to Action

✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion
✅ Subscribe on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com
✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
✅ Share this episode with someone who reads the news and someone who's given up on it

Key Takeaways

Enemies, then friends. Ben Spencer chose to forgive and pray for the victim's family, and Jay Young chose to believe Ben might be innocent and show up for him. What made it possible was simple and hard: each stood in the other's shoes, then listened.

Two sets of victims. Every exoneration wrecks two families, the prisoner who lost his years and the victim's family, often told for decades that the right man was locked up. Jay Young was twelve when his father was killed.

The system isn't broken. People are. The prosecutors who fought Ben's release didn't make the original mistake. They just couldn't bring themselves to admit one had been made.

Losing the fear of death. A car hit Barb at thirty-five miles an hour while she was cycling. She came out of it with the sense that life is precious and can't be about her anymore.

About Our Guest

Barbara Bradley Hagerty is a New York Times bestselling author and contributing writer for The Atlantic. She spent nearly twenty years at NPR covering criminal justice and religion, including as lead Justice Department correspondent during 9/11. Her books include Fingerprints of God, Life Reimagined, and Bringing Ben Home.

Links and Resources

Barbara Bradley Hagerty and Bringing Ben Home: barbarabradleyhagerty.com

"The Other Victims of a Wrongful Conviction" in The Atlantic: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/wrongful-conviction-family/687394

Connect with us

Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Stand in the other person's shoes, then listen to their story. Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

The essay ran in The Dispatch. Then a few hundred readers wrote back, and a few of them changed my mind.

There is such a thing as Trump Derangement Syndrome. It just isn't what most people mean when they say it. This one goes behind the essay: the passages that got cut, the third man who never made it into the print version, and the comment section that turned out to be the best part of the whole thing.

Calls to Action

✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion

✅ Subscribe on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com

✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with someone who reads the news and someone who's given up on it

Links and Resources

"Does Trump Derangement Syndrome Have a Cure?" - thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-faith/maga-christianity-donald-trump

The Dispatch - thedispatch.com

Connect with Us

Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com

LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, X: @coreysnathan

YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

Our Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

Carl Cannon came up in newsrooms where editors challenged you word by word, and nearly fifty years on he's still keeping score on who gets the quote right. His one rule, for reporting and for arguing in general: describe the other side so faithfully they'd claim it as their own.

The Washington bureau chief of RealClearPolitics learned the trade from his father, Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, and came up the old way: small papers, police and courts, editors who challenged every word. This conversation runs from fake quotes and the reporters who hunt them, to the Yellowstone wolves as a lesson in fairness, to why doing your own thinking tends to leave you independent of both parties. 

Calls to Action

✅ Follow the show wherever you listen
✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion
✅ Subscribe on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com
✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
✅ Share this episode with someone who reads the news and someone who's given up on it

Key Takeaways

The Carl Cannon Rule. Describe someone's position so faithfully they'd claim it as their own, or you're just knocking down straw men.

Fair and accurate, not objective. The honest standard was never neutrality. It's doing the work, getting the quote right, and giving the other side its say.

Why the wolves matter. He dropped the ranchers' case into a pro-wolf story, and both sides came away sure he was secretly with them. That's the job.

Never needlessly make your own behavior the issue. His rule of life, and a fair test for anyone trying to argue in good faith.

About Our Guest

Carl Cannon is the Washington bureau chief of RealClearPolitics and executive editor of RealClear Media Group. The son of Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, he has covered national politics for nearly five decades at the Baltimore Sun, National Journal, and Knight Ridder, and is the author of several books.

Links and Resources

RealClearPolitics: realclearpolitics.com

Connect with us

Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Give the other side its say, and get the quote right. Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

Something a little different this week. This is a Village Squarecast episode, shared here in full, and you'll hear Corey host the top before turning it over to Liz Joyner, founder and president of The Village Square. Steve Seibert moderates.

The guest is Dr. Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, founder and editor of National Affairs, and author of American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation and Could Again. He has been on TP&R before. And we just loved hearing him with our good friends at the Village Square.

The argument that makes this worth your ninety minutes: we don't disagree too much in this country. We disagree too little. We spend our days talking about each other instead of to each other, and the Constitution was built less to make us agree than to help us act together when we don't.

In this conversation:

✅ Why the left and right at their best are both telling part of the truth, one a politics of formation, the other a politics of liberation

✅ Why unity was never meant to mean thinking alike

✅ How a system built to be slow and frustrating trades speed for legitimacy

✅ The case for growing the House by 150 members, and why it would only take a law

✅ Why term limits for Congress would hand the institution to lobbyists

✅ Martin Van Buren, party systems, and a tip of the cap to nobody's favorite president

About the guest

Yuval Levin serves as a senior editor at The New Atlantis and a contributing editor at National Review. He served on the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He holds a master's and a PhD from the University of Chicago and is the author of seven books.

More from The Village Square

This conversation closes out UNUM: Democracy Reignited, The Village Square's series with Florida Humanities marking America at 250. Subscribe to Village Squarecast wherever you listen, and support their work at villagesquare.us/donate.

Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Watch on YouTube. Leave a review at lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion.

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.