Offline with Jon Favreau
Crooked Media
Is the internet slowly breaking our brains, and if so, what can we do about it?
Offline with Jon Favreau is a place where you can take a break from doom-scrolling and tune in to deeper conversations about the impact of technology and the internet on our politics and culture.
Intimate interviews between Pod Save America host Jon Favreau and notable guests like Stephen Colbert, Hasan Piker, Chimamanda Adichie, ContraPoints, Margaret Atwood, and Rachel Maddow shed light on how our extremely online existence shapes the ways we live, work, and interact with one another. Together we’ll take on the most existential questions facing Americans right now, to figure out how to live happier, healthier lives, both on and offline.
New episodes drop every Saturday, wherever you get your podcasts and on the Offline YouTube channel.
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Episodes
Mentioned books
50 snips
May 9, 2026 • 52min
Healing Our Broken Brains
Cal Newport, computer scientist and author known for Deep Work and Digital Minimalism, explains why our attention is collapsing and why AI might make it worse. He discusses smartphones, social media, and studies showing sinking concentration. He warns about chatbots hijacking reward systems and outlines practical steps and cultural shifts to rebuild cognitive fitness.
37 snips
May 2, 2026 • 56min
How Screens Have Warped Morality
Megan Garber, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of Screen People, examines how screens turn everyone into performers and producers. She explores performance anxiety, how two-way screens flatten social life, and the blur between characters and real people. Short practical fixes like digital sabbaths and resisting 'main character' thinking also come up.
45 snips
Apr 25, 2026 • 1h 4min
God In The Machine
Christopher Hale, journalist and editor of the Letters from Leo Substack who covers the Vatican and religion-politics, discusses Pope Leo XIV’s clash with the Trump orbit. He explains why Leo is focused on AI and technology. He talks migration, U.S.-Vatican tensions, MAGA Catholics, and how Democrats could better engage religious voters.
29 snips
Apr 18, 2026 • 53min
The Revolt of the College Grads
Noam Scheiber, New York Times journalist and author of Mutiny, explores how a college degree no longer guarantees economic security. He discusses the rise of college-educated organizers, stagnant wages, exploding student debt, vanishing fallback jobs, and how AI could accelerate these pressures. They also examine the political consequences and how these shifts reshape coalitions and messaging.
36 snips
Apr 11, 2026 • 56min
Sam Altman's Big Little Lies
Andrew Marantz, New Yorker reporter who coauthored a deep investigation into Sam Altman and OpenAI. He walks through opaque probes, concentrated founder control, and the shift from nonprofit safety rhetoric to massive fundraising. He explores claims of risky portals, national security worries, and the structural incentives shaping AI power.
63 snips
Apr 4, 2026 • 59min
Big Tech's Big Tobacco Moment
Raúl Torrez, New Mexico Attorney General who led a sting that exposed predatory Instagram behavior. Casey Newton, tech journalist and Platformer founder who investigates social platforms. They discuss lawsuits holding platforms accountable, internal research likened to Big Tobacco, design features like infinite scroll and autoplay, age verification, encryption tradeoffs, and how state cases could reshape national tech policy.
23 snips
Mar 28, 2026 • 55min
Optimism In Our Age of Anxiety
Dr. Deepika Chopra, clinical psychologist known as the 'Optimism Doctor' and author of The Power of Real Optimism, explains optimism as a learnable set of skills. She discusses why brains default to worst-case scenarios. She shares regulation tools like breathing and scheduled worry. She outlines an optimism quiz and how to model hopeful habits for children.
11 snips
Mar 23, 2026 • 44min
What We Lose When We Bet on War
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut lawmaker pushing the BETS OFF Act to ban wagering on wars and government actions, joins with journalist Nancy Scola, who reports on how prediction markets reshape politics. They discuss the rise of platforms trading on conflict, insider-corruption risks, the limits of markets as public information, and how gamifying life-or-death choices reshapes civic norms.
41 snips
Mar 14, 2026 • 1h 3min
Trump's Memeification of War
Anne Applebaum, journalist and historian of authoritarianism, explains how Trump’s Iran war is being treated as meme-worthy theater. She discusses propaganda that dehumanizes conflict, how autocrats copy each other, Europe’s fraught responses, and why this chaos helps rivals like Putin. Short, sharp takes on strategy voids, propaganda tactics, and democratic erosion.
70 snips
Mar 7, 2026 • 1h 11min
Endless Slop, Cancer Cures, or Robot Apocalypse? Derek Thompson on Our AI Future
Derek Thompson, journalist and author who writes on economics, technology, and culture. He unpacks why AI’s labor impact is so hard to measure. He debates whether AI is a bubble or a boom. He explores AI in medicine, national-security risks like the Anthropic-Pentagon clash, and his 'Everything Is Television' take on how media and politics are changing.
