For Abortion Rights, Could Kentucky Be the Next Kansas?

In August, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have removed abortion rights from the state’s constitution. In a few days, voters in Kentucky will weigh in on a similar measure that will decide the future of abortion in that state. Jazmin Smith and Robert Kahne, co-hosts of the “My Old Kentucky” podcast, which covers Kentucky politics, join Ryan Grim to discuss how the vote is likely to unfold.

[Deconstructed theme music.]

Ryan Grim: In August, when Kansas voters went to the polls, surveys suggested that the state was on the cusp of a major victory for opponents of abortion rights. Instead, abortion rights won in a landslide, kicking off a wave of Democratic enthusiasm that perhaps Republicans had overreached.

For decades, abortion rights organizations had done everything they could to convince Democratic leaders that the issue was actually a winner for the party; that the country was genuinely on their side on this question. But the universal response from party leaders was always: No — it was a bad issue for Democrats because the antis would get all stirred up and come out and vote, and the pro side didn’t care enough.

Pro-choice leaders also told me they got the very real sense that party leaders felt icky talking about abortion. But after Kansas, it went 0 to 60, with Democrats everywhere, hammering the message relentlessly to the exclusion of talking about inflation or public safety — the other issues that are resonating with voters.

Now for a brief moment, it looks like Democrats at least had a slim chance to hold the House and codify Roe v. Wade. They’re instead staring down significant losses in the House and sources tell me that Republicans are extremely confident they’re going to win in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and hopefully, they’ll win in Nevada and New Hampshire, even. If they do, it puts Republicans within striking distance of 60 Senate seats after the 2024 election, particularly if Fed Chair Jerome Powell succeeds in producing a serious recession.

But none of that means that abortion rights are unpopular. In Kentucky, the antis have put an abortion ban on the ballot — Amendment 2 — and organizers on the ground there believe they have a real shot of defeating it.

Jazmin Smith and Robert Kahne are co-hosts of My Old Kentucky podcast, a show about the state’s politics. And they’re my guests today to talk about the fight over abortion rights in Kentucky.

Jazmin, welcome to Deconstructed.

Jazmin Smith: Thank you for having me.

RG: And Robert, thank you for joining.

Robert Kahne: Yeah, of course. Really love being here.

RG: So, for people outside of Kentucky, for a national audience — help us out here and set the political scene in Kentucky.

So Jazmin, Andy Beshear, Democrat — and I bet all of a sudden a bunch of national listeners are like: Wait a minute, what? A Democrat —

JS: [Laughs.] Mhmm.

RG: — is the governor of Kentucky? How did that happen?

So Andy Beshear is the governor of Kentucky. How did that happen? And how has he done? And how are people viewing his tenure so far?

JS: Yeah, so Kentucky has a history of electing Democrats. Democrats held the House, the State House in Kentucky, for 100 years and the House didn’t flip Republican until 2016, when Trump was elected — and it flipped from majority Democrat to a Republican supermajority. But, actually, the year before that, was when we elected a Republican governor and we elected Matt Bevin. And Bevin was a really unpopular Republican governor. We’d had Republican governors before; we had had Ernie Fletcher. But then we had Steve Beshear — but Matt Bevin was unpopular. He really upset working people like public school teachers. And so —

RG: That’s right. You had the giant teacher strike.

JS: Yeah, we did. And so the Andy Beshear campaign was super well-organized. They had a great ground game. People were really upset about Matt Bevin. He just didn’t talk to the people very well; he didn’t make people feel heard. And it was really an anti-Bevin thing. And it was still a really close race.

RG: Right. And he was sort of a — I don’t want to call him a Trump before Trump — but he tried to primary Mitch McConnell. He was one of these early Tea Party Republicans, who were like: The Republican establishment needs to go down.

JS: Yeah, he was like this early Liberty Republican. And he won the gubernatorial primary with three more moderate, more classic Republican candidates. He came out of that primary.

RG: They all split the vote.

JS: Yes, exactly. And so Beshear won in a really close race, and he had really just become the governor, and then Covid hit. And everyone was really impressed with his leadership at first. And then I think Republicans became really upset, began calling him “Tyrant Andy,” and things like that.

But even through all of that, I think that Andy Beshear has remained a popular governor because of the way he has handled not just the pandemic but other things in Kentucky. We had a disastrous flood in Eastern Kentucky recently.

RG: Mhmm.

JS: And then before that, we had tornadoes in Western Kentucky. And he has handled those disasters with compassion and effective leadership. And he’s remained pretty popular here in what’s an increasingly Republican state.

RG: Right. And Robert, you see polls that show him to be one of the most popular governors — and that’s despite the kind of Covid politics that he got wrapped up in. How’s he looking for reelection?

RK: It’s tough to say. I go back and forth all the time as to whether I think people overestimate or underestimate Andy Beshear’s chances.

JS: [Laughs.]

RK: I think Democrats, especially, in the state are pretty schizophrenic about thinking we’re on the verge of losing everything — which we constantly are — and then like, in really good shape to hold the governor’s office, which shouldn’t happen in a state as Republican as Kentucky, which we stand a pretty good chance to do that also.

I think the Republican primary, to face Andy Beshear, has already gotten really hot. There’s a chance that they could repeat the mistake that they made in 2015. Well, I mean, they won the governorship, I don’t know if it was a mistake. But, by nominating like the furthest right, pro-Trump-type person. They have some standard Republicans, and then they have some very fringy, I’d say more Ron DeSantis than the Donald Trump [candidates]. Who he faces will probably play a huge role in his chances.

But I think there’s no way to perceive this as anything worse than a coin flip. And I think, if anything, Andy Beshear should be slightly favored. But given just the Republican nature of Kentucky, it’s impossible to say he’s definitely going to win.

RG: Right.

RK: I think that those are his chances. And when you say getting embroiled in Covid, I think when we think about the politics of Covid, the loudest voices were, of course, like the anti-vaxxers, and the people that hated any of the restrictions that were placed on people. But I don’t think that that was really the median opinion in Kentucky or anywhere else. And one of the things that Andy Beshear is really good at is figuring out what people actually want — not what a lot of people are yelling for — and doing that. So I think one of the reasons he is popular is maybe even because of his Covid policies, even though he did have some very, very stringent detractors on that issue,

RG: And how would you define his Covid policies? Because in the beginning, he was doing a version of Andrew Cuomo. He was having these evening press conferences, or whatever you would call them, where the entire state was kind of gathering around and watching him — and his approval ratings were shooting up into the sky. And then there was this comparison with Tennessee, which was taking a much more do-what-you-want attitude around Covid. But then he did seem to, as you were saying, as people kind of moved on the issue, he didn’t stick with the same lockdown politics that you saw in other blue states.

I don’t know: Jazmin, how would you describe how he approached Covid?

JS: I think he really stayed somewhere in the middle. He maintained mask mandates and things like that, and he wouldn’t just let some of the deniers or anti-vaccine people just have a free-for-all, but he also wasn’t willing to keep schools completely closed forever, or things like that. And so I think there were people who thought he was a tyrant. And then I think there were people who think that his restrictions didn’t go far enough. But I think that probably there were a lot of people who thought he was doing a good job. [Laughs.] And so I think that’s why he has remained pretty popular throughout —

RG: Mhmm.

JS: — all of this. He hasn’t upset a huge majority of people one way or the other, I think.

RG: And I kind of feel like — and I don’t know if you have a take on this or not — that if other Democratic governors in states like New York, and California, and Washington state, and Oregon — even, let’s say, Virginia — had taken that more moderate road there, that Democrats might be looked on a lot more favorably nowadays.

What’s your sense of that?

RK: Do you mind if I jump in and answer this one?

JS: Yeah, go ahead.

RG: Sure, sure.

RK: Yeah. Yeah. So I think Andy Beshear is in a unique position among Democratic governors in that he didn’t hold the legislature.

JS: Mhmm.

RK: So as a Democratic governor, you have two sides of a coin where you say: Well, I’ll upset my base of people who are very concerned about Covid if I relax these restrictions, and I don’t really feel like I have the ability ever to placate these people who are really mad about Covid — or at least that’s kind of how you feel about it.

Andy Beshear was able to say: Well, I wanted to keep these protocols in place. But the legislature passed a bunch of bills that I vetoed — and they overrode — that loosen these restrictions, and there’s now nothing I can do about it. So your progressive people who are likely to get upset aren’t going to get mad at Andy Beshear.

RG: Ah.

RK: They’re gonna say: Oh, yeah, he tried the best that he could.

But the people who wanted these things to go away, got them to go away. So he’s not lucky to face this legislature. But maybe in this one specific instance, it worked out for him politically.

RG: And so to the question of abortion and Amendment 2 and abortion rights, what is the current law on abortion, Jazmin, in Kentucky?

JS: So in 2019, the legislature passed a trigger law that would ban abortion if Roe v. Wade would be overturned, and it would take effect when Roe’s overturned. And it only has one exception: If it would prevent the death or substantial risk of death, or prevent the serious or permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ of the pregnant woman. So that’s the only exception. There’s no exception for rape or incest or anything like that.

And so the trigger law went into effect after the Dobbs decision. The ACLU sued, and we had a challenge to that lawsuit, and there was a temporary restraining order that was granted in circuit court. And so you were still able to get an abortion in Kentucky, for a period of time while that temporary restraining order was in place, but the appellate courts here then gave the Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron relief from that temporary restraining order, so he’s now allowed to enforce the trigger law. And so now, while that case is still pending, you can no longer get an abortion in Kentucky, except for that very limited exception to prevent the substantial risk of death to the pregnant woman.

That case still has not been heard on the merits; that was just this emergency motion. And so the Supreme Court of Kentucky will hear arguments about whether the Attorney General will continue to have relief from the temporary injunction on November 15. Of course, that’s after the amendment will be on the ballot.

RG: And so what was abortion access like before that? Because across the country, you’ve seen a lot of trap efforts and others to shut down clinics and an end-run around Roe.

Robert, how difficult was it for people to get abortions at all?

RK: So for a long time in Kentucky, there was one abortion clinic and it was in Louisville. In the last few years of Roe, I think there was one that opened in Lexington that was a Planned Parenthood. But the one clinic in Louisville is quite legendary. It was the EMW Clinic. There were lots and lots of national profiles that were written about it; it was an independent clinic that was run by three doctors for a long time. They each retired after a while and there was just one of the doctors that were left — I think even still living — at the point when it closed. But it was a very important institution for progressives and for people who support abortion access in Kentucky.

But yeah, it was quite difficult to get an abortion in Kentucky, especially if you weren’t in the Louisville area. And like we mentioned earlier, the legislature finally flipped after a very long time of supporting Republicans at the federal level — only in 2017 was there first a Republican legislative session that was fully run by Republicans. And every session after that there were more and more abortion restrictions —

RG: Mhmm.

JS: Mhmm.

RK: — that were put in place. Now each of them were overturned under Roe v. Wade, but they remain on the books because that’s kind of how that goes.

So every year, there was an additional restriction on abortion. So we have a six-week ban; I think we have a four-week ban; like everything, you can imagine that could possibly be put in there. The legislature always wanted to have multiple different restrictions on abortion at the top of their docket every single year. So we’ve passed these things year after year after year. And now, with Roe gone, that is what happened.

And yeah, as I mentioned at the beginning, in order to get an amendment on the ballot, it has to pass in two consecutive legislative sessions, so they started this long before Roe was even on the docket of the Supreme Court, this movement to get this abortion amendment on the ballot. And now that’s just another one of this long line of restrictions that the legislature has put on Kentuckians.

JS: And so when the Republican supermajority took over in 2017, that’s when they begin passing these abortion restrictions. And a lot of those haven’t even worked their way through the court. So there are challenges to some of these abortion restrictions still going on right now: like the trigger law, and there was another bill in 2019, the heartbeat bill, which was a six-week abortion ban. There are state court challenges to those laws that are ongoing right now.

[Musical interlude.]

RG: Which brings us to the amendment, because it seems like the amendment is an effort to just cut all of those challenges off at the knees —

JS: Right.

RG: — to tell the courts. Like, there is nothing in the Constitution. In fact, it’s short, and I just want to read it here.

Because also: I grew up with dyslexia. I think I’ve mostly kind of developed out of it, but I don’t think it’s just my kind of lingering dyslexia that makes this hard to read. And this is not unusual with ballot measures — there’s so many different negatives.

JS: It’s so hard to read!

RG: So I’ll read — and it’s gonna be harder for people who are listening — but I’ll read it here.

So you’re in the ballot box, and it says this, Amendment 2:

“Are you in favor of amending the Constitution of Kentucky by creating a new Section of the

Constitution to be numbered Section 26A to state as follows: To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion?”

RG: Now, I think hopefully, if I sat there long enough, I would be able to finish with: Oh, so no means that I’m pro-choice, and yes, means that I’m the opposite. But it is by no means — I would have to play that back over multiple times to try to figure out which side is which.

But, spoiler: No, is the pro-choice side, which would at least allow people to continue to fight. Jazmin, do I have that right?

JS: That is correct. And there’s actually a really long story about why we have to put the full text of an amendment on the ballot that has to do with a challenge to Marcy’s Law a few years ago. But they’re always confusing —

RK: Yeah. [Chuckles.]

RG: Right.

JS: — and sometimes even more.

RG: How big a role does that play? Or does everybody in Kentucky know like, if you’re for abortion rights, you’re “no”; if you’re against abortion rights, you’re “yes,” and so it’s simple?

Or are there people who are like: Oh, hey, I’ve heard abortion is on the ballot, I need to go in and vote?

And then they get in there, and they’re like: Oh, crap, am I “yes” or “no” on this?

JS: I think people are confused. Because I know people that are texting for organizations. Protect Kentucky Access is the group that is doing advocacy for the “Vote No” movement. And I know people texting for that organization, and anecdotally, are just like: People are so confused.

They’re like: I am pro-choice. I thought “yes” was what I was supposed to vote.

And then I also heard an explanation of the amendment on a radio show. And the co-hosts were confused about it. And so I don’t think that people think it’s straightforward.

RG: Robert, what are you hearing on that question? Because that throws everything up in the air?

RK: Yeah. It really does. Jazmin mentioned the long story to get all of this text onto the ballot. So I don’t necessarily think it was like a dirty trick or anything like this. I just think it’s this weird quirk of our system that’s kind of new that was based on a different Supreme Court ruling that they have to put this full text on there. They used to just be able to give short explainers, and now they can’t do that.

It’s really hard to overstate the kind of rural-urban divide in Kentucky — and really across the whole country as a whole. But really, Jazmin and I live in Louisville, which is the biggest city in Kentucky. And it’s also really hard to overstate how much energy around Amendment 2 is kind of leading the charge in this election.

There’s a mayor’s race in Louisville, there’s an open U.S. Congress race, there’s the U.S. Senate race, there’s state legislative races up and down the ballot. We have a million judges on the ballot. But the thing I see the most energy around is this Amendment 2 thing and most of the energy in this urban enclave in Kentucky is for “Vote No.”

So I do think in this city, at least, there is a lot of information.

JS: Mhmm.

RK: People are seeing yard signs, they’re seeing advertisements, they’re seeing: Here’s why you should vote no.

I couldn’t tell you about how it’s working in the rural portions of the state, because I will say that I have a lot of connections with folks in the rural part of the state, but most of them are pretty progressive and they know that they need to vote “no” on 2. I don’t know if that’s as pervasive in the other parts of the state as it is in Louisville.

But it is getting a lot of airtime. There’s a lot of advertisements that are being run, mostly by the “Vote No” folks. There’s a big push, like Jazmin said, for texting. There’s a big field campaign. There’s a pretty substantial campaign around the “Vote No” group, so I think that there is a lot of effort to get people informed. Will it matter? I guess we won’t know until next week.

JS: And Protect Kentucky Access has raised a lot of money and has outraised the “Yes For Life” group and so that’s definitely encouraging. And I know that Protect Kentucky Access has really made it a point to have a point of contact in all 120 counties. And so I know that they’re trying to reach out to people outside of the two big cities.

RG: And I could see it cutting both ways. Because if you’re somebody who wants to ban abortion, you might say to yourself: Well, I’m a “no” on this. Although the “Yes on Life” — if you know the campaign is called “Yes on Life,” “life” is so coded — anyway, I guess we’ll figure it out. But it makes it tough for the national pundits who love to look at these races, and then divine how people are feeling in a particular area. Well, if they didn’t even know how they were feeling, it’s harder to tell.

But, Robert, you have a personal connection to this amendment. Do you mind sharing that?

RK: Yeah, certainly.

So my wife and I, we got married in 2015. Very shortly thereafter, we tried to start having a child. And we went through fertility treatments for several years and after a long and expensive travail there, we’re finally able to get pregnant. And that was in 2019.

And after 20 weeks of that pregnancy, we went to an anatomy ultrasound, the first one that we were supposed to have, and we were told at that ultrasound, and after some additional tests, that our child was not compatible with life. And that if we decided to carry to term, there was a 0 percent chance that this baby would live anything more than a few hours — or, at best, a few days — of very painful existence, and then die.

It was kind of wild, that whole experience. The high-risk pregnancy doctor that we spoke to was actually providing coverage from Texas. And the first thing that she told us was: I don’t know the legal situation in this state. So I don’t know what I’m allowed to tell you.

And my wife said: We are willing to consider termination.

And she said: That’s the best option.

And that was the medical advice that we got from every doctor that was willing to be straight with this — not their fault, I think it’s the government’s fault that they weren’t able to do that. And we made that decision and decided to terminate the pregnancy.

Like I mentioned, the EMW Clinic is pretty much a legendary institution in Kentucky. I’d never actually been inside of it. That was my opportunity to do that, in this entirely horrible experience. It was a strange thing to be able to experience something I never thought I would be able to. But it was a very, very difficult and painful experience.

We were in the midst of the General Assembly. They were debating abortion bills at the time that my wife and I were in the abortion clinic, while my wife was having the abortion. Because it was a later-term abortion, 20 weeks, it actually took two days to complete. And I was kind of worried that they were going to pass the bill and the Republican governor was going to sign the bill into law before we were able to complete the abortion, and I didn’t know what was going to happen.

Fortunately, we came through it unscathed. Roe was still the law of the land at the time. But what it was, without any question, the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I think my wife would agree with that. We desperately wanted to have a child. We do now! The story does have a happy ending. I have a two-year-old daughter at this point. She likes to watch “Paw Patrol” and tell me “no.” And she’s a joy. But that experience was so, so difficult.

We have a strong abortion-protest culture here in Louisville. There’s just the one clinic. This was also during Lent, so a lot of Catholics who don’t often come to protests were there on that specific day. And it was really hard to just walk by people telling us things like “we will adopt your baby, don’t kill your baby,” when this was a desperately wanted pregnancy. We wanted — we would adopt your baby, you know? That was just a wild, wild experience.

And our experience: My wife is a less public person than me, but I am not shy about talking about stuff. And we have talked about it quite a bit since then. And one of the things we’ve learned is how not rare this type of experience is. It’s not the best term for it, but they call what we experienced a therapeutic abortion. I didn’t think there was very much therapeutic that was going on. But abortions like that are not uncommon at all. They happen all the time and Amendment 2 definitely runs in a way that would make that type of abortion illegal. And that is just a huge, huge problem. It’s really shameful. And something that I really, really hope doesn’t happen.

RG: I’m so sorry that that happened to you.

And the term therapeutic abortion actually does resonate with me in the sense that if this happened to you and your wife now, with the law in place as it is now, every day that she left the house after she’s showing, she might have well-meaning people asking her: Is it a boy? Is it a girl? Do you have a name yet?

And just every moment being deeper trauma than some people have ever felt in their entire lives like to have to hear that question, and to know that the answer is that it’s not going to be either —

RK: Yeah.

RG: He or she is not going to survive. And then to ask yourself: How do I answer this question? Do I answer this question? Do I smile and nod and move on?

The amount of trauma that you would have to go through just walking around for that entire pregnancy is just, to me, unbearable to even think about, let alone contemplate going through.

RK: It is. And it’s something that we certainly talked about and have thought about quite a bit since the Dobbs decision came down, about what it would have been like if that had happened to us, and what is happening to a lot of women and a lot of other pregnant people in the current state.

The flip side of that is, of course, that there are a lot of people who choose to do that. And one of the big things I think in this entire debate is like: That’s a choice that you can make.

RG: Mhmm.

RK: And nobody’s trying to begrudge anybody that. We just want to retain the option to not do it if we don’t have to.

RG: Right. If that’s the choice that a woman feels, and a family feels, that they want to make for themselves, and that’s the kind of honor that they want to give to that moment and make it a long grieving process, I agree with you. That should be their decision to make.

Jazmin, has Kentucky had cases that have become public of health implications for women who have been caught up in this new legal regime?

JS: Not that I know of.

So right now, I think we’re waiting to see what happens with this state law challenge to our trigger law and our heartbeat bill. But I haven’t heard of any situation. I know we’ve heard about a lot of out-of-state stories with young teenagers who have been denied abortions and things like that, but I haven’t heard about anything like that here.

But it certainly — with our only exception being this prevent the death, or substantial risk of death, or serious permanent impairment — that’s such murky waters for a doctor to have to determine. Like, what constitutes substantial? How much time do you have to determine that? And when does a condition become a substantial risk of death?

And so I’m sure that those situations have arisen. But I’m not aware of any cases that have made their way through the courts or have been in the media, or anything like that as of yet. But I’m sure that they’re coming. [Laughs sadly.]

RG: And what’s your sense of how the vote is gonna look like? Now, anybody who was saying that they could predict the Kansas outcome — there were people who thought the Kansas pro-choice activists might win, but I didn’t hear many saying they’re gonna win in an utter landslide.

Robert, what’s your sense of how close this is going to be?

RK: I have to say, I’m pretty optimistic. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I feel a little bit the same way I feel about this campaign as I do about Andy Bashear’s chances of being reelected.

There’s a lot of things that are working in our favor. There’s a lot more money on our side. There’s a lot more organization on our side. There’s a lot more effort on our side. But just the fundamental dynamics of this state being so conservative is just a huge, huge thing that is going to be very difficult to overcome.

Testing an issue versus a candidate — or testing an issue against a party — is such a different situation. On our show that we just recorded, we were talking about the general chances of different legislative candidates across the state. And one of the things Jazmin mentioned to me, she’s from one of these areas that’s a heavily, heavily Trump area, very real, strong supporters of President Trump, but are very pro-choice. That is something that that community holds fast to. And there are these seeming contradictions in what people believe on issues and the candidates that they support.

And it’s really hard to ascribe a reason why people support different candidates. I know you and many other people make a living trying to do that. And lots of people are good and bad at it in different measures. But this is kind of an opportunity to really kind of see how tied-in people’s views on abortion are to the candidates that they support. And I do think it will be a lot closer than say the presidential election last year was. And I do think that that’s kind of illustrative as to the importance of the abortion issue to people’s political calculus really across the state.

RG: And I do feel like if the abortion rights world can follow up winning in Kansas by also winning in Kentucky, that could have some serious national impact on the conversation.

Jazmin, what’s your read on how this is looking on Election Day?

JS: Man, Robert took everything I was gonna say — even what I was talking about on our show earlier.

RG: [Laughs.] He stole —

JS: Yeah, so Robert —

RG: So this is a good corporate meeting then.

RK: [Laughs.]

JS: Robert is usually a little bit more optimistic than me in his predictions. But — I agree.

I think Andy Beshear beat Matt Bevin by about 5,000 votes — Robert can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s about what it was — and I think that’s maybe what this could look like.

I’m from an increasingly Republican area that votes for Trump. And I know the people that I grew up with, they’re not anti-abortion. Or they may be pretty pro-life, but they don’t agree with banning all abortions in every scenario.

But then there are also people in Eastern Kentucky who may vote Democrat sometimes, and they’re pro-labor, but they’re also staunchly pro-life who might vote “yes” for this. And so party politics just don’t tell the whole story when it comes to this amendment, I think.

And so I do think it’s tough to gauge how this is going to go. But I do feel pretty good about it. I think it’s been the main conversation that voters want to talk about. It’s an issue that I think Democrats in suburban areas in the state used to avoid and stay away from, and now they want to talk about it with voters. And so I feel pretty good about it. I think it’s gonna be really, really, really close.

RG: Well, Jazmin and Robert, I really appreciate you guys taking the time.

Again, their podcast is My Old Kentucky podcast. Thanks again, and looking forward to seeing how this goes next Tuesday.

JS: Yeah, thanks for talking to us.

RK: Yeah. We appreciate it. Thank you very much.

[End credits music.]

RG: That was Jazmin Smith and Robert Kahne. And that’s our show.

Deconstructed is a production of First Look Media and The Intercept. Our producer is Zach Young. Laura Flynn is our supervising producer. The show was mixed by William Stanton. Our theme music was composed by Bart Warshaw. Roger Hodge is The Intercept’s editor in chief. And I’m Ryan Grim, D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept.

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