The New Yorker Radio Hour
With the Podcast “I’ve Had It,” Jennifer Welch Goes “Dark Woke” on Politics
16 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. One of the big changes in our politics, and I don't think we've really gotten our heads around it yet, is the change in how and where people get their information. You know the top line here.
Very real declines in people watching the nightly news and reading the newspapers. And in their places come a much more scattered, much more siloed universe of social media feeds, TikTok explainers, podcasts, newsletters, and all the rest.
Now, I don't think it's unfair to say that most of these outlets, not all, but most, whatever their virtues, are not exactly obsessed with fairness and accuracy in the way that the best traditional journalism outlets are, or damn well should be.
And yet there's no denying the power, even the relatability of many podcasts, whether it's Ben Shapiro on the right, Joe Rogan wherever he might be on a given day, or on the left, someone like our guest today, Jennifer Welch. Welch came to political podcasts in a kind of roundabout way. She had a successful career as an interior designer, and she co-starred in a reality show on Bravo.
Chapter 2: What background does Jennifer Welch bring to her podcast?
But since 2022, she and her co-host Angie Sullivan have been pushing political buttons and getting millions of fans on the podcast called I've Had It. And that's Jennifer Welsh's daily state of mind. Furious.
I've had it with white people that triple trumped, that have the nerve and the audacity to walk into a Mexican restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, an Indian restaurant, go to perhaps their gay hairdresser. I don't think you should be able to enjoy anything but Cracker Barrel.
Her frustration is not only with MAGA. Welch has gotten particularly contentious in interviews with establishment Democrats like Cory Booker and Rahm Emanuel. And she takes real advantage of a certain surprise factor that a white woman in her 50s from Oklahoma has emerged as one of the most provocative voices on the left today.
I spoke last week with Jennifer Welch, co-host of the podcast I've Had It. So you have one of the biggest podcasts out there. And as you know, there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts. Everybody and their uncle apparently has a podcast at this point. How did you conceive of this show? Where does it fit in? What is it?
My friend Angie and I were on a reality television show in 2016 to run 2019. Our politics seeps through a little bit, particularly mine does, in the show because that's what was the hook for the Bravo executives. Like... They're liberals in Oklahoma.
Right, where you're from.
Right. I'm from Oklahoma City. So the show gets canceled, and I go back to being an interior designer. And then I'm doing national projects. So that was great fun, and I'm just booming. And then there was the post-COVID boom where everybody comes out of quarantine wanting to redecorate everything.
And my kids were like, you know, you still have a lot of people that follow you that are interested in the show. You should do a podcast.
Right.
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Chapter 3: How has Jennifer Welch's podcast gained popularity?
Give voice to that sense of frustration. Some of your recent episodes on your podcast have these names, and not all of them will be able to make it on conventional radio. No Country for Mega Men, New Year Same Assholes, Ring Out the Bullshit, Merry Griftmas, Fascism But Stupid, and finally, All the President's Morons. I think that's a different mood, say, than Pod Save America.
Yes, this is the era of FU politics and dark woke. What is dark woke? Okay, dark woke is a reaction to you have the purest woke people who are policing what everybody say, up in everybody's business, which is similar a bit to conservatives being up in everybody's business. Dark woke for me is we are fighting for good,
and for equality and for social justice for everybody, but we don't mind saying F you. You have to know what you're up against and you have to be ruthless.
Give me some examples and tell me who your allies are in that.
Well, some examples would be we have to go after these MAGA men. One example would be Jesse Waters. This man talks incessantly about masculinity. Joe Biden is not masculine because he sucks on soup. What kind of man sucks on a straw? He goes on and on and on so much about the idealized man, and that's a part of fascism, this idealism. you know, propelling this form of toxic masculinity.
Why are you so obsessed with men, Jesse Waters? What's all that about? Why are you so obsessed with trans people? Why are you thinking about genitals all the time? Kind of flip the script.
So when you look at the guys on, and it's almost all guys, on Pod Save America, do you look at them as very 2016, very 2008, very Obama, and you've left that behind?
I see the situation as being so dire right now that I don't see any of these people as competitors. I see the whole group as people of building a media ecosystem that is pro-democracy. And if people that are still stuck in the Obama era need to go listen to Pod Save, I know that they are pro-democracy and anti-fascist.
But you think it's a form of self-soothing almost, right?
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Chapter 4: What are the defining features of the 'I've Had It' podcast?
Yeah. But he has time to clean all of this up. But he recently said he opposed a billionaire tax. And I think he's going to have a very hard time if he doesn't really get in the trenches with where the base has moved. And I think that's going to be what's the most shocking for the Democratic establishment candidates is how much the base has moved away from corporate Dems.
So who does that leave you with?
I'll tell you, I love Ro Khanna. I don't think he's going to run for office.
Chapter 5: How does Jennifer Welch view the current political landscape?
But somebody who I think can be interesting is J.B. Pritzker. He's a billionaire.
And a real one.
A real billionaire. Yeah. He is Jewish, which he has an opportunity to speak to what a lot of people in the Democratic base have issues with, with Palestine. If he can call what is happening a genocide, if he can call Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, he would be a credible messenger.
Those are litmus tests for you.
I hate the word litmus test, but I'm realistic in the sense that I believe that we have to call what we're seeing realistically. You cannot gaslight people about it.
Would you have called LBJ or Richard Nixon war criminals?
Probably. I mean, I think that American foreign policy— has been problematic for a long time, and I've had a great awakening about this. But as I see what happened with Venezuela, When I saw that they were killing fishermen, I had to be really objective and honest. We didn't really do anything about what George W. Bush did in Abu Ghraib or the CIA black sites, Obama's drone program.
Remember, I love Obama. I'm super nostalgic about him. But if we are really to be honest about American foreign policy, these provocations that Trump just did, they're not new.
It seems to me that the people that you're looking at are Ro Khanna, AOC, the new mayor of New York. Is that the kind of area you're talking about?
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Chapter 6: What does Jennifer Welch mean by 'dark woke'?
Bernie won Oklahoma against Hillary. I know these people and their earnest and well-meaning. They need an off-ramp to get off of this Republican Party bullshit lie of trickle-down economics, of scapegoating marginalized people, of this— massive wealth gap that we have.
So if you take somebody who says, I'm going to fight for you, I believe, that might not happen the first election, but if there was footing in the state of people running based on facts and for Oklahomans over the course of a couple election cycles, I think you could see change. Jennifer Welch, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Jennifer Welsh is host of the podcast, I've Had It, along with Angie Sullivan. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell.
This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Mike Kutchman, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer. with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.
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