Tangle - Some closing thoughts on the year.

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Dear listeners,First and foremost, a programming note: The Tangle team will be off Wednesday through Friday, but we’ll be back in your inbox on Sunday and for a few days next week before the new year. I hope you all have a merry Christmas and happy holidays, and you get to enjoy some time off from the news (we’ll update you on everything you missed when we’re back, so feel free to take a break).Second, as we head into this period of winter vacation, I wanted to thank you all for an incredible year. We’re still a bit short of our end-of-year subscription goal (so if you haven’t yet, please go subscribe or gift a subscription!), but on the whole, it’s been another fantastic year for Tangle. A few brief highlights, if you’ll indulge me:Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!Need a last-minute gift?The holiday season is here, which is a good time to remind you: You can give the gift of Tangle to friends and family! There are two great options: Gift a Tangle subscription. Whether it’s an earnest present to a friend or family member who would love our work, or a passive-aggressive gift for your favorite relative who doesn’t share your politics, a Tangle subscription is a great way to find some common ground and keep your loved ones informed. It takes thirty seconds! Hit the merch shop. We have hoodies, shirts, mugs, stickers, hats, and even onesies for the little ones. Snag something fresh with our new logo or grab a vintage Tangle brain on any garment you’d like. You will want to hop on these quickly to make sure they arrive before the holidays!Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to the final Tangle podcast before Christmas. It is Tuesday, December 23rd. There's some news, not a ton of news. So you're not missing much today without us breaking it down for you. I'll say I'm keeping my eye on some of the fallout from the Epstein file stuff. We got some more docs last night. U.S. economic growth surged in the third quarter of 2025.

We got a new labor economic report today. There's a big controversy at CBS right now. with Barry Weiss and her killing a story about Seacot, which I read the details, the memo of why she killed it, seems totally reasonable to me. I'm not at all convinced that she's, like, in the tank for the Trump administration. I mean, maybe it has something to do with this merger, but, you know, these are their stories kind of percolating,

but we're not covering any of them today. This is a little end-of-the-year rap podcast. So first and foremost, I'm here with a programming note, which is that we will be off Wednesday through Friday this week. We'll be back in your inbox on Sunday with a Sunday edition newsletter. And then we'll have a podcast for a few days next week before the new year. And then during the new year break, we're going to be releasing a couple interviews we have in the bank that have been completed but not yet release.

So I'm here mostly to say, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. and happy holidays or whatever you celebrate, good New Year. Hope you get to enjoy some time off from the news. We'll update you on everything you miss next week on Monday when we're back. So if you want to take a little news break and then just tune in to next week's podcast, you can do that. And I encourage you to do that. It's a good thing. It's healthy for your brain if you're a big news consumer.

Second, I'm here because as we head into this period of winter vacation, I just want to thank all you guys for an incredible year. We're still a little bit short of our end-of-year subscription goal a little bit. We're a lot short. My CLO, Magdalena Bikovo, was like, 3,500 paid subs is a lot. Maybe we should do like 1,000 or 2,500. I was like, no, let's send it. But we've got over 1,000 new paid subs, which is awesome,

but we need 2,500 more to hit our goal. We have about 2448 hours left. So if you haven't subscribed yet, please go to retangle.com forward slash membership, you can subscribe. There should be a link in the episode description or just go to our website. Make Magdalena feel stupid and make me feel cool and smart. That'd be awesome. Or if you're already a subscriber, which I know many of you are, you can gift this subscription. So if you're looking for a last second stocking stuffer or a gift that requires zero shipping, you can go to readtangle.com slash gift dash subscription. There will be a link for that in the episode

description two. Other than the subscription drive, which we are a little bit short on, it has really truly been another fantastic year for Tangle. So just a quick few highlights, if you'll indulge me. Our mailing list went from 290,000 people to 460,000. We brought in over $4 million in annual revenue last year. Our full-time team grew from five people to 12. We launched a texting SMS service, our behind-the-scene newsletter press pass, our weekly podcast suspension of the rules, and to subreddit. We hosted our third live event with our highest turnout to date. Our podcast, this show, now averages over 500,000 downloads a month. Our YouTube channel continues to grow and just surpass 25,000 subscribers. Our primary social channel, Instagram,

grew 92%. We obviously introduced more voices this year to the podcast of the newsletter. We've had featured posts from guest authors and have them come on the show and read their piece. We have more and different authors of the My Take section who come on the podcast for that. And we've even introduced the staff dissent feature, which was a huge hit.

I showed this slide to our staff last week about the year. We've also had a huge impact on the media side. We were in TED, we were in the free press, Columbia Journalism Review, Media ite, the Gist,

United America, Slate, a media operator, forward, medium, I mean, all over last year, which was awesome. And we've had a huge impact with our audience. We have a slide in our newsletter today of a bunch of testimonials. I think, you know, a couple examples that stuck out to me. A 15-year-old from Singapore wrote in said, I just want to let you know that even outside the U.S., your work has a big impact. Julian from Ann Arbor, Michigan said,

you've helped me temper my anxieties about the world and I've become a regular part and have become a regular part of my day. I appreciate all you do. Susan from Los Angeles said Tangles really helping me see another way and encouraging me to be more courageous in my questions, both the ones I ask myself and the ones I ask others. It's just a lot of stuff like this. So thank you.

Now, as we head into Christmas break, our team has a lot to be grateful for. And our audience, that's you, continues to be a part of something generally. genuinely special. I mean this. You are helping fund and support a profitable, independent media company, which is pretty rare these days. We don't have investors. We're not backed or owned by some larger entity. You're supporting independent thinking and free speech along the way. We're not just feeding you partisan red meat. You get exposed to views you don't like every day. By reading and listening to a tangle, you are participating in an exercise that I truly believe. I know it's corny, But I really believe this.

It is foundational to the functioning of our society. The good faith exchange of ideas, diverse perspectives in a way that can actually allow us to listen to others and even change our minds on occasion. Looking ahead to 2026, we have some awesome stuff in the works. We are building out a list of contributing voices to bring on regularly to this podcast and into our newsletter. We're planning to do more original reporting on our YouTube channel and to begin recruiting more high-profile guests. to our podcasts. We're also exploring ways to bring Tangle to new mediums, including broadcast radio and social channels like TikTok. And along the way, we're hoping to develop more scientific polling and surveying in ways where we can illuminate original insights into America through the Tangle

audience. Lots of fun stuff. So thank you for being here, for supporting us, for making all this possible. Again, readtangle.com forward slash membership. If you don't have one yet, happy holidays that's it for me today we're going to see you guys next week don't forget you can take a break we'll be back we'll help you get through it and we'll see you soon have a good one peace our executive editor and founder is me Isaac saw and our executive producer is john lull today's episode was edited and engineered by dewey thomas our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors Hunter Asperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saw, Lindsay Canuth, and Kendall White.

Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.