Advertise on podcast: DMZ America with Ted Rall & Scott Stantis

Ted sits down with editorial cartoonist Steve Breen to discuss politics and political cartooning. Steve Breen, 56, was born in Los Angeles and raised in Orange County as the second oldest of eight children. He earned a political science degree from the University of California, Riverside, in 1992. He began drawing cartoons for the campus paper, The Highlander, and in 1991 won the Charles M. Schulz and the John Locher Awards. He was nearly a high school history teacher when the Asbury Park Press hired him in 1994; he became its editorial cartoonist in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1998. In 1999 he launched the syndicated strip Grand Avenue. He joined The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2001, won a second Pulitzer in 2009, and left in 2023 after drawing more than 5,500 cartoons. His work remains nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate. Steve has also written and illustrated children’s books, including Stick and Violet the Pilot, and created the animated series Powerbirds. Scott is off today. 00:00:11 - Steve Breen Joins DMZ America 00:02:19 - How Print Cartooning Collapsed 00:06:05 - Newsrooms, Conventions, and Cliche Corner 00:10:53 - Staff Jobs versus Syndicate Freedom 00:15:53. - Why Newspapers Feared Controversy 00:25:39 - The Times Drops Cartoons and the Reprint Chase 00:33:07 - Landing Asbury Park and Almost Birmingham 00:43:32 - Can Political Cartooning Survive Online? Live Fridays at 11 am Eastern/10 am Central. Streaming after on YouTube and the usual podcast apps. X: @tedrall and @scottstantis Web: rall.com

On DMZ, Ted and Scott sit down with Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Nick Anderson, co-founder of Counterpoint Media. Anderson drew for the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Houston Chronicle, where he was the last staff editorial cartoonist in Texas when the paper cut him in 2017. His work has run in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and USA Today. After the job disappeared, he and a partner built Counterpoint: a website and newsletter pairing left, right, and in-between cartoonists, then a syndicate that picked up artists when The Washington Post Writers Group wound down its cartoon business. The craft still lands. The business that used to pay for it mostly does not. Full-time newspaper cartoonist jobs have collapsed from hundreds to fewer than a dozen. Counterpoint was an attempt to keep the form alive outside the newsroom, with subscribers, licensing, and a roster that included Clay Bennett, Jack Ohman, and Pedro X. Molina. Ted and Scott ask what actually worked, what did not, and what Anderson learned from trying to float an old art form on a new model. Live Fridays at 11 am Eastern/10 am Central. Streaming after on YouTube and the usual podcast apps. X: @tedrall and @scottstantis Web: rall.com

Can editorial cartooning be saved—or is the ink already dry? On the DMZ America Podcast, editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) confront their dying craft—a profession they revered and to which they dedicated their lives. No newspaper or website employs an editorial cartoonist under 50. The ranks have collapsed from hundreds of working professionals to roughly a dozen. Photos from the most recent AAEC convention look less like a professional gathering and more like a reunion of retirees: gray hair, canes, and a profession that has aged out in plain sight. They ask the uncomfortable questions: Did the industry kill itself with self-censorship and shrinking newsrooms? Did social media finish the job? Is there any path back for a form that once punched above its weight in American political life, and that caused presidents to quake in fear? Or is this simply the last generation drawing the last frames? Sharp, unsparing, and personal. Live Fridays at 11 am Eastern/10 am Central. Streaming after on YouTube and the usual podcast apps. X: @tedrall and @scottstantis Web: rall.com

Ted’s latest column drops today — and this DMZ America is built around it. Left-leaning cartoonist Ted Rall and right-leaning Chicago Tribune cartoonist Scott Stantis will take apart Ted’s argument that beating Trump is not the same as erasing him. Will America ever be able to move past Trump? In the column, Ted says politics is war: if the statues, appointees, agencies, place names, and wars stay standing, the last president still wins. He wants the next Democratic nominee to promise a full teardown — White House ballroom and Rose Garden included — plus an exit from the Iran war, a break with Israel’s current war policy, rehiring DOGE casualties, and reversing the ratchet that lets Republican “radical stuff” survive Democratic “moderate stuff.” Scott and Ted will ask: is this revenge theater dressed up as strategy? Can you annul an entire presidency by press release? 2028 voters may hate Trump without wanting Democrats to campaign as a demolition crew. Expect the usual DMZ mix — history, cartoons, and two friends from opposite sides of the aisle going at the question the column actually poses: if you won’t scrap what he built, why should anyone believe you beat him? Live Fridays at 11 am Eastern/10 am Central. Streaming after on YouTube and the usual podcast apps. X: @tedrall and @scottstantis Web: rall.com

DMZ Co-hosts Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) take aim at a new threat that may destroy editorial cartooning once and for all. A year after The Baltimore Sun fired Pulitzer Prize-winning staff cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, the paper published an editorial cartoon created by unidentified staffers using generative AI tools, with a credit line that read “Produced using artificial intelligence tools by The Baltimore Sun editorial staff.” Ted Rall wrote a column calling the episode a watershed moment in the decline of the profession. Guest Rick McKee, longtime Augusta Chronicle cartoonist and creator of the syndicated panel Pluggers, joins to discuss what the Sun’s experiment means on the ground: how AI slop undercuts rates, how it floods the market with uncredited pastiches of living artists’ styles, and whether any newspaper that replaces a human cartoonist with a language model still has a claim to an opinion page. The three cartoonists debate whether this is inevitable cost-cutting, a unique threat to visual journalism, or both, and what—if anything—working cartoonists can do about it besides draw faster than the machines. X: @tedrall and @scottstantis Web: rall.com

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) take aim at a profession they know too well: newspaper and magazine editors. In an industry already bleeding staff, shrinking pages, and outsourcing judgment to lawyers, metrics, and social-media panic, the last people standing between a sharp cartoon and the reader are often the ones who sand it down, spike it, or rewrite the caption until it means nothing. Ted and Scott swap war stories from the newsroom: the editor who “doesn’t get it,” the one who is terrified of letters from subscribers, the one who treats satire like a liability memo, and the rare good one who actually fights for the work. They ask the questions cartoonists mutter after deadline: When did “edit” start meaning “neuter”? Are editors protecting the paper—or protecting themselves? How much of the crisis in political cartooning is the cartoonists, and how much is the people who approve (or kill) the drawings? And if newspapers keep hiring editors who don’t understand visual satire, why keep running cartoons at all? The DMZ America Podcast is recorded by political cartoonists Ted Rall and Scott Stantis. X: @tedrall and @scottstantis Web: rall.com

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) are joined by legal expert Ricardo Aparicio to ask the question: What the heck is going on at the US Supreme Court? The nation’s highest court, once presumed to be nonpartisan, has become brazenly political. In Trump v. United States (July 1, 2024), the Court created absolute immunity for “core” constitutional powers by former presidents (pardons, vetoes, commanding the military, directing the Justice Department), and presumptive immunity for other official acts inside the “outer perimeter” of the job. Prosecutors can try to rebut that presumption, but they cannot use official-act evidence or the president’s motives to prove a crime. In 2026 the Court let the president fire independent-agency heads at will, wiping out a 1935 limit that Congress wrote into statutes. Dissenters said that hands the president a power “unknown even to the English Crown” and collapses the separation of powers. On the emergency docket it has also paused lower-court findings on mail-in voting and immigration raids, which critics say treats facts as optional. Might SCOTUS enable the cancellation or nullification of the midterm elections? Ricardo Aparicio, PhD, directs the Employee Engagement & Experience Council at The Conference Board. A former General Mills organization-effectiveness leader, he ran global engagement surveys covering more than 175,000 employees and helped the company post record scores. Earlier he marketed national brands at General Mills and Colgate-Palmolive. Born in Caracas, he lives in Minnesota and holds degrees from Cornell, Stanford, and the University of Minnesota.

Everywhere you look, people are getting told to STFU by censors afraid that truth-tellers might expose or offend them. At Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon has fired editor Erik Slavin, publisher Max Lederer and Middle East reporter Lara Korte have been fired by the Pentagon. Not for anything they actually published or wanted to publish. Slavin told an interviewer he would fight “hypothetical censorship.” The DOD called that theoretical stance “insubordination.” A song by Elizaveta Gyrdymova has been purged from the Russian version of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” because she’s a Russian who fled to Ukraine and criticizes Russia. Not to be outdone, Ukraine also purged the song—because she’s Russian. Zelensky has officially sanctioned the popular Russian cartoon ‘Masha and the Bear’ in a step to ban the children’s show, accusing the producers of spreading “pro-Russian narratives” and threatening Ukrainian national security. If your censorship victim dies, however, you might face blowback. Neutrogena broke its silence following the death of Hayden Panettiere and mounting backlash over the skincare brand's treatment of the actress, acknowledging that it made her "feel unsupported during a very difficult time." They fired her for talking about postpartum depression. Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) ask the question: Why don’t we censor the censors?

In a surprise turn, Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty to the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione admitted he stalked and shot Thompson in 2024 outside a Hilton hotel in Manhattan. He potentially faces life in prison. The 28-year-old is also still facing state murder charges for Thompson’s death in New York. He expressed no contrition, no remorse. A 2025 poll of college students found that half view Luigi extremely or somewhat favorably, and nearly half believe the killing was justified. 81% viewed the victim unfavorably. One out of four Americans in general support Luigi. Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) grapple with the question: Why haven’t there been more Luigis?

How has the upset victory of progressive Abdul El-Sayed over a DNC/AIPAC-backed corporatist in Michigan transformed the Democratic Party? Drawing on historical precedent, editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) break it down on today’s DMZ America Podcast. The Democratic Party is locked in a fierce internal civil war as progressive and Democratic Socialist insurgents surge against the centrist establishment. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated AIPAC-backed Rep. Haley Stevens in the Senate primary despite over $60 million in dark money, framing the race as a referendum on foreign influence and corporate power. Similar upsets in New York, where Mamdani-backed candidates toppled incumbents, and victories in Colorado, Maine, and elsewhere have alarmed moderates. Groups like Third Way are mobilizing millions to attack the Left within their own party, with strategists warning of a “schism” and labeling progressives “bomb-throwers.” The clash pits economic populism, antiwar stances, and young voters against the old guard’s focus on control and Israel. Establishment figures fear losing their grip on the DNC, while progressives argue the party’s corporate tilt caused recent losses and demand a bold new direction.

Get up to speed on a fascinating legal challenge to Big Tech by an independent web cartoonist. Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) break it down on today’s DMZ America Podcast. Who will win—cartoonists and creators, or Big Tech? Filipino cartoonist Elmer Saflor, who goes by pen name Superelmer, has filed a complaint against Memes App, LLC, the operator of Memes.ai and Memes AI Studio, for copyright infringement when they began selling a commercial template subscription plan that includes his viral cartoon “Running Away Balloon.” The complaint asks the court to stop the defendants use of his comic and compel discovery to see how many ads used his work. If instances are found, Memes App could face statutory damages upwards of $150,000 per “willful infringement.” By taking on the meme generator, Saflor may hit a wall if the court finds that his arguments apply to any meme generator and a finding in his favor could risk undercutting the entire meme ecosystem, Goldman said.

How has the upset victory of progressive Abdul El-Sayed over a DNC/AIPAC-backed corporatist in Michigan transformed the Democratic Party? Drawing on historical precedent, editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) break it down on today’s DMZ America Podcast. The Democratic Party is locked in a fierce internal civil war as progressive and Democratic Socialist insurgents surge against the centrist establishment. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated AIPAC-backed Rep. Haley Stevens in the Senate primary despite over $60 million in dark money, framing the race as a referendum on foreign influence and corporate power. Similar upsets in New York, where Mamdani-backed candidates toppled incumbents, and victories in Colorado, Maine, and elsewhere have alarmed moderates. Groups like Third Way are mobilizing millions to attack the Left within their own party, with strategists warning of a “schism” and labeling progressives “bomb-throwers.” The clash pits economic populism, antiwar stances, and young voters against the old guard’s focus on control and Israel. Establishment figures fear losing their grip on the DNC, while progressives argue the party’s corporate tilt caused recent losses and demand a bold new direction.

How will AI affect (or afflict) cartooning? Artificial Intelligence is reshaping cartooning, hitting political cartooning especially hard while transforming the broader industry. In political cartooning, AI tools now generate satirical images in seconds, flooding social media with viral memes and caricatures that mimic editorial styles. This undercuts traditional artists who rely on sharp timing, cultural insight, and hand-drawn originality for publications.  In general cartooning and illustration, generative AI has commoditized routine work. Studies show a surge in AI-generated images on platforms, driving human artists out and reducing commissions for illustrators and comic creators. San Diego Comic-Con banned AI art from its 2026 show, while animation faces massive job disruption—over 100,000 roles at risk.  Artists adapt by using AI for rapid prototyping and backgrounds, focusing on human storytelling, emotion, and unique vision that machines still struggle to replicate. However, style theft, copyright battles, and market saturation remain major threats, forcing many to rethink careers.  Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) explore the Brave New World of cartooning in the age of AI. Support the show The DMZ America Podcast is recorded weekly by political cartoonists Ted Rall and Scott Stantis.  Twitter/X: @scottstantis and @tedrall Web: Rall.com

Pat Oliphant, one of the most influential political cartoonists of the 20th and 21st centuries, has died. Considering his legacy on DMZ are editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left), Scott Stantis (from the Right) and Mike Thompson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American editorial cartoonist known for his sharp wit and bold, expressive style. Born in 1964, he is widely syndicated. Thompson’s work frequently appears in USA Today and other major outlets.  Born Patrick Bruce Oliphant on July 24, 1935, in Adelaide, Australia, he began his career as a news illustrator for The Adelaide Advertiser before moving to the United States in 1964. Hired by The Denver Post, Oliphant quickly gained national attention for his bold, fluid line work and savage wit. In 1974 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. His cartoons appeared in over 500 newspapers through universal syndication, making him a daily fixture in American political discourse for more than five decades. Oliphant’s signature creation was “Punk,” a small, irreverent, tufted bird who often appeared in the corner of panels delivering a final dry or biting comment. His style blended elegant draftsmanship with ferocious satire, skewering presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama with equal glee. He famously said he drew “not to change minds, but to make people angry enough to think.” Later in life he expanded into sculpture and fine-art painting while continuing to produce cartoons. Oliphant’s work is held in major collections including the Library of Congress. He died in 2026 at age 90, leaving behind a legacy as a defining voice of modern American editorial cartooning. Support the show The DMZ America Podcast is recorded weekly by political cartoonists Ted Rall and Scott Stantis.  Twitter/X: @scottstantis and @tedrall Web: Rall.com

Why is American editorial cartooning in crisis? Sure, journalism is melting down. But the cartoonists might be guilty too.  Joining cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) to discuss is DC-based cartoonist Alexandra Bowman. Alexandra Bowman is a versatile American political cartoonist, illustrator, satirist, journalist, and fine artist based in Washington, D.C. Born in March 2000 in Sierra Vista, Arizona, she graduated early from Georgetown University with a BA and MA in English while double-majoring in Art.  Bowman served as editorial political cartoonist for The Hoya (Georgetown’s student newspaper) and has created work for The Lincoln Project, Our Daily Planet, World War Zero (John Kerry’s climate initiative), Voice of America, BBC Books, and the National Wildlife Federation. She is known for live political cartooning at events like the MSNBC Climate Forum and her role as Director of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Her syndicated work appears via Cagle Cartoons.  A multi-medium artist skilled in traditional pen-and-ink, digital tools, murals, and fine art painting, Bowman also illustrates children’s books, designs costumes, and hosts The Hilltop Show, a student political comedy series. Her sharp, witty style blends cultural commentary, environmental advocacy, and satire, establishing her as a rising voice in editorial cartooning. Support the show The DMZ America Podcast is recorded weekly by political cartoonists Ted Rall and Scott Stantis.  Twitter/X: @scottstantis and @tedrall Web: Rall.com