AFP Podcasts

Two weeks into Trump Administration 2.0, and I feel fine

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t done raiding Fox News for his Cabinet, which is what we expected from the failed TV game show host elected to a second term in the White House.

It’s not quite the end of the world as we know it, but apologies if it feels like it sometimes.

On this week’s politics podcast, we dive head-first into:

• Donald Trump might have to give up on his first Attorney General nominee, Matt Gaetz, who we’re now learning as the new week starts reportedly participated in drug-fueled orgies that included underage girls during his first term in Congress.
  From Warner, Kaine raise issues with Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard Cabinet nominations
• We got ourselves a 2025 Virginia politics cycle shocker on Monday: Jason Miyares is going to run for a second term as attorney general, ceding the Republican Party gubernatorial nomination to Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
  From Shocker: Jason Miyares passes up run for governor, going for second term as AG instead
• Ken Mitchell, fresh off getting 34.6 percent of the vote in his loss to Ben Cline in the race for the Sixth District seat in Congress, is back for more.
  From Ken Mitchell announces candidacy for Sixth District seat in Congress in 2026 cycle
• Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline came up short on Friday in his bid to become the next chairman of the Republican Study Committee.
  From Ben Cline defeated in bid to take control of Republican Study Committee
• Virginiahas added 247,400 jobs since Glenn Youngkin took office in 2022, which we can thank the outgoing president, Joe Biden, and congressional Democrats for – see: Inflation Reduction Act.
  From Glenn Youngkin takes credit for Virginia jobs: It’s the federal government, doofus
• The low-income White MAGA folks who voted for Donald Trump will be the ones who feel the consequences. They’ll be the ones who lose their health insurance when he follows through on his promise to end Obamacare, and the ones who will feel the pinch of higher prices when he follows through on his promise to jack up tariffs.
  From Mailbag: MAGA reader uses the term ‘woke,’ hints Jesus wouldn’t have liked it

Joey Logano wins at Phoenix, putting a wrap on the 2024 NASCAR season

Joey Logano was the big winner on Sunday at Phoenix, bringing home his third NASCAR Cup Series championship, a month after leaving the track at Charlotte thinking he had been eliminated from the 2024 playoff race.

It was a remarkable turnaround for Logano, and an end to the 2024 NASCAR season that had begun nine long months ago in Daytona.

Chris Graham and Rod Mullins recap Logano’s victory and the highlights of the 2024 season on this week’s podcast.

Also on this week’s show:

• How will 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports approach 2025 without team charters as their antitrust lawsuit plays out?
• The latest silly season news
• Who would have won the 2024 championship under the pre-playoff scoring system?

How did AEW fare in the latest installment of the ‘Wednesday Night Wars’?

The road to “Full Gear” continued last night when AEW made its debut in Manchester, New Hampshire, at the Southern New Hampshire University Arena for Wednesday Night “Dynamite.” 

Last night, wrestling fans relived the “Wednesday Night Wars.” WWE’s “NXT” aired head-to-head against “Dynamite,” on The CW Network from the famed 2300 Arena, invoking shades of ECW.

Tony Khan needed to swing for the fences to compete with “NXT” in the ratings. Thankfully, he hit a homerun.

AEW showcased more detailed storytelling on ‘Dynamite’ this week

Is Tony Khan finally getting the hang of booking pro wrestling?

The question arises after taking in this week’s AEW “Dynamite,” which featured a payoff in a five-years-and-running tag-team feud between The Young Bucks and Private Party, Adam Cole’s return from more than a year out with a broken ankle and, finally, the debut of Bobby Lashley.

Chris Graham and Ray Petree dive into the deep end of the AEW pool here.

Other topics of interest include:

• Orange Cassidy challenging AEW world champ Jon Moxley. How should AEW approach this one, and the match that we know is coming after, between Moxley and Darby Allin?
• Should Allin get a run with the AEW title?
• Who is next in the tag-team division now that Private Party has the belts?

NASCAR heads to Martinsville with Championship 4 spots on the line

Tyler Reddick and Joey Logano have already punched their tickets into the NASCAR Championship 4 finale.

Two spots are still up for grabs as the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Martinsville for the Round of 8 playoff finale on Sunday.

Rod Mullins of Dickenson Media joins us to preview what we can expect from Martinsville.

Mullins also reports on changes on the team of 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, and the latest on the lawsuit challenging the NASCAR charter system.

Interview: Waynesboro City Council candidate Bobby Henderson talks with AFP

Former Waynesboro mayor Bobby Henderson is back, this time running for the At-Large seat on Waynesboro City Council.

Henderson joined AFP editor Chris Graham to talk about his decision to get back into the political ring after a two-year hiatus.

The focus for Henderson, a military veteran, retired Virginia State Police trooper and lifelong Republican, is on restoring the voice of voters in the city, which has been under the thumb of a MAGA majority led by the vice mayor, Jim Wood, the past two years.

Interview: Waynesboro City Council candidate Terry Short Jr. talks with AFP

Terry Short Jr. is running for a third term on Waynesboro City Council, this time running for the Ward B seat on the body.

Short talks with AFP editor Chris Graham about the 2024 race.

Short is one of three independents running for seats against a slate of Republicans hand-picked the sitting vice mayor, Jim Wood, the chairman of the Waynesboro Republican Committee.

Wood is the guy who was in national headlines last year for his homophobic slur of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Short was outspoken in his criticism of Wood, who stands to become mayor if the GOP slate is successful in next week’s voting.

That is, if we get the vote certified. Wood’s two appointees to the Waynesboro Electoral Board have filed a lawsuit saying they will not vote to certify the local vote absent a court order, raising issue in the suit with state election law.

We cover those topics and others, including housing affordability, education and economic opportunity, in this interview.

Interview: Waynesboro City Council candidate Lorie Strother talks with AFP

Lorie Strother, a candidate for the Ward A seat on Waynesboro City Council, sits down for an interview with AFP editor Chris Graham to discuss the 2024 election.

The biggest issue facing the city involves the lack of affordable housing, which plays into the growth in the homeless population.

Strother, who was homeless herself as a teen, shares her perspective on what the city needs to do to address the housing and homelessness issues.

She also discusses her nine-year tenure on the Waynesboro Economic Development Authority, and what the city needs to do to continue to grow the local job base.

UVA Basketball: Ron Sanchez addresses media for first time as interim head coach

I hate that I feel the need to start this story about Ron Sanchez being formally rolled out as the interim head coach at UVA Basketball by addressing an interwebs rumor, but this is the world we live in.

UVA Basketball: Tony Bennett, with humility, decides, it’s finally time

Tony Bennett, after giving a lot of thought to things during a weekend trip on the Rappahanock River, decided, on Wednesday, so, two days ago, that he was going to step down from the UVA Basketball job.

It was far from a spur-of-the-moment decision; he’d been going back and forth about his future in college basketball for the past three years.

“The thing that has choked me up the most, and the hardest thing to say is, when I looked at myself, and I realized I’m no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment, and if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be all in. You’ve got to have everything. If you do it half-hearted, it’s not fair to the university and those young men. In looking at it, that’s what made me step down,” an emotional Bennett said Friday at his retirement press conference.