The Capitol Forum

Democrats swept the House and Senate on Tuesday in what pollster G. Elliott Morris calls the biggest rebuke of an incumbent party since Watergate. Morris had warned for months that the polls might understate how well Democrats would do.
In this episode of Second Request, Executive Editor Teddy Downey, senior podcast producer Arjun Singh and reporter Paul McLeod sit down with Morris, a data journalist and pollster who writes the Substack Strength in Numbers. They dig into what the polls got right and wrong, why his own poll was among the most accurate of the cycle, which voters shaped the results and whether Tuesday was a rejection of the status quo.

When a private credit fund tells you what its loans are worth, how much should you believe it?
Today on Private Credit Crisis, Executive Editor Teddy Downey talks with Drexel University finance professor Chuck Fang, whose research finds that funds that lock investors’ money in inflate their loan values the most. The funds that do let investors out, the kind Wall Street is now pitching for retirement accounts, face a different risk: something that looks a lot like a bank run.

Trade talks between the U.S. and Canada are stalled, and Canadians are more united and more willing to take the economic hit than almost anyone in Washington expected. 
On this week’s TCF Investigates election special, Arjun Singh and Paul McLeod talk with Capitol Forum Senior Advisor Beth Baltzan about whether there’s any logic behind Trump’s approach and what it could mean in border states like Michigan. Paul also sits down with Lisa Raitt, a former Conservative cabinet minister in Canada, to hear how the fight looks from up north and how long that resolve can last.

Today, we’re re-airing our award-winning episode of TCF Investigates, “Zynex Fought the Capitol Forum and Ended Up Bankrupt,” which won a Signal Award for Best Individual Episode in the business category.
In this episode, Arjun Singh sits down with reporter Michael Williams to discuss Williams’ multi-year investigation into how the medical device company Zynex defrauded the government. They also hear from one of the men hired by Zynex’s former CEO to harass and intimidate The Capitol Forum’s reporters.
Update: Since this episode first aired, Zynex’s former CEO, Thomas Sandgaard, has been indicted on federal charges including health care fraud and securities fraud. Prosecutors allege the scheme brought in more than $873 million for the company.

If your insurer goes under, there’s no FDIC waiting to make you whole. 
Today on Private Credit Crisis, Executive Editor Teddy Downey talks with retirement industry veteran Peter Gould about why the safety net behind annuities is far weaker than most retirees think, and why the regulators meant to watch these companies keep looking the other way.