Learning to Talk Again

Learning to Talk Again

From Firewall with Bradley Tusk by Firewall

April 16, 2026 · 1h 0m

About this episode

Bradley Tusk discusses the importance of tolerating disagreement in American democracy with Ed Manzi, founder of Unmuted.

American democracy is doomed if people can't tolerate disagreement. Bradley sits down with Ed Manzi, founder of Unmuted, who is building something genuinely countercultural: in-person forums for politically curious New Yorkers to listen to each other. They get into mobile voting, why Congress has become a tweet farm, and whether the lesson politicians should take from Trump is the terrifying one. Learn more about UNMUTED: https://www.unmuted.fyi/ On May 14, UNMUTED will be hosting a debate between candidates for Congress in New York's 12th district, at Hungarian House in Upper East Side. More details: https://luma.com/syqniv23 Firewall nominated for a Webby! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show -for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance: https://bit.ly/firewallwebby This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio. Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: info@firewall.media . Subscribe to Bradley's weekly newsletter…

People in this episode

Guest: Ed Manzi

Topics covered

  • politics
  • democracy
  • disagreement
  • community engagement
  • voting

Keywords

  • in-person forums
  • politically curious
  • mobile voting
  • Congress
  • Trump

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Unmuted

Books & works: Webby

Places: New York's, Upper East Side, New York City’s

More episodes of Firewall with Bradley Tusk

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Firewall with Bradley Tusk podcast page.