Join as you help us celebrate our 250th #WITHpod! In our recent Mailbag episode, we asked you all to send over clips sharing why you listen to WITHpod, where you listen and or what’s your favorite ep. We loved hearing all of your submissions. Here’s a compilation that we put together for our special milestone. Thank you and cheers!
Note: This is a rough transcript — please excuse any typos.
Chris Hayes: Hello and welcome to a special bonus and milestone addition of “Why Is This Happening?” with me, your host, Chris Hayes.
So, during our semiregular recent mailbag episode, we mentioned we’d release something special to celebrate our 250th WITHpod. And so, we asked you, the listeners, to send over clip telling us where you’re listening WITHpod, why you listen, what your favorite episodes are. And you folks are truly everywhere. Thank you so much for sending in your clips.
And I got to say, it was really, really profoundly satisfying and rewarding to listen to these voice memos from all of you and surprising and engaging and delightful and really just made us feel good about the work we’re doing. So, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Here is a brief sampling.
Aaron: Hey, this is Aaron in Seattle.
Sonya: Hello. My name is Sonya. I live in the South.
Koritha: Koritha Mitchell in Columbus, Ohio.
Jase: Jase Bumgardner from Atlanta, Georgia
Lori: Lori and I’m a U.S. expat living in Ottawa, Ontario.
Tom: Hi, this is Tom from Cary.
Erin: Erin, I live in Chicago.
Ray: Reverend Ray Jordan in Dallas, Texas.
Aaron: I’ve been listening to WITHpod since the beginning. First, while walking to work then during the pandemic, while walking my dog or doing dishes. And today when I’m trying to get my son to sleep.
Koritha: I listen to WITHpod usually while I’m taking a walk outdoors.
Ray: I listen to “Why Is This Happening?” podcast while in the gym usually.
Lori: I usually listen to it while laying down to bed at night with my earbuds in. Often, I also will relisten to them on long trips as well. That makes the trips go much shorter for me.
Sonya: While I’m walking through my neighborhood getting exercise.
Jase: I listen to WITHpod while doing everything, working out, taking walks, in the car.
Stacy: I listen to WITHpod while mucking horse stalls on Saturday mornings. My favorite episode by far was “Why Are People Acting So Weird.” When I heard the intro about rudeness, I was like, yes, other people are noticing this and someone is trying to actually figure this out. Let’s get into it.
Ray: So far, my favorite episode is “Dads Who ‘Lean Out” because, well, it showed a bit of the man behind the curtain but also offered a much-needed fresh perspective on modern parenting and fatherhood.
Lori: A tough one to listen to but it was good, it was with Martin Hägglund and it made me think a lot. I’m kind of agnostic. So, that gave me a lot to think about and I really appreciated that episode.
Sonya: My favorite program was number 197, the conjugal program, which gave me a chance to get to know Kate a little bit but also to have a more realistic understanding of the Supreme Court, how it really works, what’s going on in the background so that I see how politics and the Supreme Court connect.
Jase: My favorite episode was “Being Michael Jordan” with David Roth and Joel Anderson.
Koritha: It’s hard to pinpoint a favorite episode but I think I’ll have to choose the interview with Cori Bush because I already admired her so much but this interview showed me that there was so much more about her to admire and to hear her in conversation with Chris was just so much fun.
Zach: My favorite episode is the one with Casey Johnson because it got me out of my pandemic laziness and started with the starting strength program, and I still stick to to this day. WITHpod made me smarter, stronger and all around a better person. I enjoyed listening to WITHpod because there’s no other podcast that’ll cover fitness in one week, communism the next and climate change the third.
Ray: Chris Hayes has a unique ability to peel back the layers of the headlines and offer insight that is both informational and helpful in understanding how the parts fit into the whole.
Lori: I feel inspired a lot of times and I learn a lot and I just enjoy it. I look forward to it every Tuesday.
Jase: I like it because it is a really great distillation of information and insight, but it’s also really fun, has a great sense of humor.
Stacy: I enjoy listening to WITHpod because it gives Chris the space to go deep into topics.
Koritha: I absolutely love listening to the podcast because I always learn something unexpected. The topics, the people are always interesting. But Chris’ questions, his interviews draw something out that otherwise just wouldn’t be available to me.
Jase: I love the show. Keep up the good work.
Ray: Congratulations on your 250th episode. Thanks.
Lori: And I appreciate the whole WITHpod team, and I want to thank you all for putting out such wonderful material. Congratulations again.
Koritha: Many congratulations on 250 episodes. I look forward to everything else you all do. Thank you.
Sonya: Thank you very much.
Tom: Thanks.
Erin: Thank you very much.
Zach: Here’s to 250 more.
Aaron: Congratulations, you guys, on 250 episodes and here’s to another 250.
Chris Hayes: We absolutely love to hear it. Thanks again. We’re excited about the future of WITHpod. We’ve got a bunch of things coming up, Doni and I cooking up a bunch.
We’ve got some listener engagement stuff we want to keep developing because we do like hearing a lot from you. And I do like knowing what you’re thinking and how you’re thinking about different episodes or what these conversations are making you think of. So, please, keep sending us your feedback, your thoughts on episodes, what you want to hear more of, people you want to hear, all of it.
“Why Is This Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by Doni Holloway and Brendan O’Melia, engineered by Bob Mallory and featuring music by Eddie Cooper. You can see more of our work, including links to episodes you heard about here, by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening.
Tweet us with the hashtag #WITHpod, email WITHpod@gmail.com. Follow us on TikTok by searching for WITHpod. “Why Is This Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by Doni Holloway and Brendan O’Melia, engineered by Bob Mallory and features music by Eddie Cooper. You can see more of our work, including links to things we mentioned here, by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening.