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Government
The Melting Pod
by Amanda Baran, Doug Rand, and Claire Trickler-McNulty
Today: #154 in Government on our combined chart.
Today: #190 in Government, Canada on our combined chart.
Chart positions today · United States
Not on the United Kingdom charts we track today.
Not on the Australia charts we track today.
Not on the Germany charts we track today.
Not on the Brazil charts we track today.
Not on the Mexico charts we track today.
Not on the New Zealand charts we track today.
Not on the Ireland charts we track today.
Not on the India charts we track today.
Not on the Japan charts we track today.
Not on the Philippines charts we track today.
Not on the South Africa charts we track today.
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Ranking history · United States
Latest daily rankings: Oct 27. New rankings will appear after the next update.
Position on the Government combined chart over the last 14 days. Toggle platforms to compare their positions. Lower rank numbers are better.
Episode releases
View as table
| Date | Combined Rank | Apple Podcasts |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 27 | #154 | #155 |
| Oct 26 | #193 | #195 |
| Oct 25 | #142 | #144 |
| Oct 24 | #180 | #182 |
| Oct 23 | #102 | #100 |
| Oct 22 | #87 | #85 |
| Oct 20 | #190 | #191 |
| Oct 17 | #130 | #129 |
| Oct 16 | #147 | #148 |
| Oct 15 | #177 | #180 |
| Oct 14 | #129 | #129 |
Latest episodes
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The Diplomat, with Rena Bitter
October 21, 2026 · 1 hr 11 minEvery day, all around the world, 13,000 U.S. Foreign Service Officers are responsible for a potentially life-changing decision: Should the person in front of me get a visa to the United States? Rena Bitter oversaw this global operation as…
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From Suing the Man to Serving the Man, with Lucas Guttentag
October 5, 2026 · 1 hr 18 minWhat happens when you spend decades suing the government, and then help run the government? Back in the 1980s, Lucas Guttentag started the Immigrant Rights Project at the ACLU. He and his team argued hugely consequential cases across the…
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News Dive: The Great De-Legalization, H-1B Follies, and Midterm Predictions
September 10, 2026 · 1 hr 1 minWe plunge beneath the latest immigration headlines to make sense of the senseless. What is the human cost of revoking deportation protections from over a million people? Why is the newly proposed H-1B fee precisely $103,265? Why are your…
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Asylum Is Not a Loophole, with Colleen Zengotitabengoa
September 4, 2026 · 1 hr 17 minWhat is asylum? Simply put, the United States must not return someone to a country where they have a well-founded fear of persecution. Following the atrocities of World War II, Congress created a U.S. asylum system under international…
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Confessions of an Immigration Bureaucrat, with Michael Valverde
August 13, 2026 · 1 hr 5 minEvery year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes millions of highly consequential decisions that affect individual people’s lives. Applications for green cards, work permits, asylum and refugee status, even U.S…
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Three Big Lies About Immigrants and Fraud, with Sonya Schwartz
July 22, 2026 · 56 minFrom the first moments of his first campaign for president, Donald Trump has accused immigrants of fraudulently obtaining public benefits, immigration protections, and even votes. Does any of this hold up under scrutiny? We asked Sonya…
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A Winning Message on Immigration, with Beatriz Lopez
June 30, 2026 · 1 hr 3 minIn the 2024 presidential election, Republicans spent nearly $600 million on political advertisements pounding Biden (and then Harris) for botching the border. The Democrats’ uninspiring message in response was: “No we didn’t.” Ever wonder…
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The Reality-Based Economics of Immigration, with Jenny Hunt
June 19, 2026 · 49 minJenny Hunt is a Rutgers University professor, the former Chief Economist at the Department of Labor, and a key contributor to the gold-standard, 600-page consensus report on the economic consequences of immigration. Don’t worry, we’re…
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News Digest: Green Card Chaos, Hunger Strikes, and Stern Dad Energy
June 3, 2026 · 1 hr 8 minWe dive underneath the latest immigration headlines to make sense of the senseless. Why did the Trump administration threaten to shut down U.S. green card processing? Why did the press believe that Markwayne Mullin would be a kinder…
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The Truth About ICE, with Jason Houser
May 26, 2026 · 1 hr 2 minFrom calls to abolish ICE to deeply held misconceptions about immigration and criminality, few agencies generate more heat and less light than Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In this episode, we dig into the reality of how ICE…
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Who’s Afraid of the H-1B?
March 17, 2026 · 1 hr 14 minThe H-1B is a white-collar work visa, essentially unchanged by Congress since 1990 – before the birth of the first text message, the first website, and 40% of our population. Is the H-1B program an essential step on the far-too-difficult…
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DACA and the Dreamer Movement, with Felicia Escobar Carrillo
March 9, 2026 · 1 hr 36 minYou may know about the plight of Dreamers – over 3 million undocumented individuals who were brought here as children and are Americans in every way but immigration status. And you may know about DACA, the Obama-era policy that has allowed…
About the show
The Melting Pod brings you stories of our dysfunctional immigration system, and where we go from here.
Hosted by three friends who’ve served inside the federal government for two decades and four presidents of both parties, The Melting Pod will give you a deeper understanding of the immigration headlines, without jargon or shallow punditry.
Amanda Baran, Doug Rand, and Claire Trickler-McNulty will also bring you extraordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell – about how we got here and where we're going.