This week on All Ears Abby talks about good government and the American Dream with Julián Castro, whose own journey in public service began in San Antonio, first as city councilman at age 26 and then as mayor at 35. In 2014, President Obama put him in charge of HUD: the sprawling federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last year, he spent most of his time away from home and family as he ran in the Democratic presidential primary. Since dropping out, he’s started a podcast and begun ...
Dec 10, 2020•33 min•Season 2Ep. 8
This week on All Ears, Abby takes a trip through the underworld of internet culture with YouTuber Natalie Wynn, also known as ContraPoints. An ex-philosopher with a penchant for elaborate sets and costumes, Natalie got her start making response videos to right-wing YouTubers after finding herself alarmed at the increase in hate speech online. Her wildly popular YouTube videos are highly stylized essays, full of sharp, incisive commentary on topics ranging from gender pronouns to capitalism. Nata...
Dec 03, 2020•32 min•Season 2Ep. 7
This week on All Ears Abby invites us all to take a break from ongoing election shenanigans and enjoy a lively interview with musician David Byrne, whose eccentric musical stylings as the former Talking Heads frontman catapulted him into a multi-faceted career as an artist across many modes of expression. He’s written books, designed art installations, created journalism projects, and last year adapted his acclaimed concert tour, American Utopia , for Broadway. He and Abby look back at his remar...
Nov 20, 2020•27 min•Season 2Ep. 6
On the heels of historic voter turnout in Georgia, Abby revisits her interview with Stacey Abrams back in July. In that conversation, Stacey outlined her bold strategy to fight voter suppression and educate communities about voting. And her work bore fruit, with Georgia flipping blue for the first time in a presidential race since 1992. Recounting her upbringing in Mississippi, the former Georgia House of Representatives minority leader describes the powerful example of citizenship and activism ...
Nov 12, 2020•36 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Join us this week for an All Ears rapid response to Election Day 2020! Awash in uncertainty the morning after election day, Abby talks with Anand Giridharadas, the journalist whose unsparing criticisms of the liberal establishment have themselves made headlines. Abby and Anand consider Trump’s popularity with voters and why it’s such a bitter pill for liberals to swallow. They talk about how neoliberalism has put mainstream Democratic leaders at risk of losing blue collar workers. Anand says Joe...
Nov 05, 2020•33 min•Season 2Ep. 4
This week we have a very special episode of All Ears. Breaking from our usual format, we’re reacting in real time to the late night swearing in of the latest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett. Abby’s guest this week is Reverend Robert Schenck, an evangelical minister and former prominent anti-abortion activist, who for decades was at the center of the conservative efforts to criminalize abortion and strike down Roe v. Wade. To his regret, those efforts came closer to fruition this week wi...
Oct 29, 2020•39 min•Season 2Ep. 3
This week on All Ears, Abby is joined by Emmy and Peabody-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, whose work on issues that affect the Latinx community has brought her both acclaim and scrutiny. As an intrepid reporter at places like CNN and PBS, as well as the first Latina correspondent at NPR, Hinojosa has long challenged what she sees as the typically inequitable race, gender, and cultural narratives told by these venerable but monolithic institutions. And yet her spirit is unbroken! Hinojosa is a...
Oct 22, 2020•38 min•Season 2Ep. 2
All Ears is kicking off Season 2 with comedian Samantha Bee. As the host of Full Frontal on TBS since 2016, and as a correspondent on The Daily Show for 12 years prior, Sam has been skewering politicians, culture, and society’s sacred cows for the better part of two decades. And she’s really good at it! Abby talks to Sam about growing up in Canada with a Wiccan mom, an atheist dad, and a serious schoolgirl crush on Jesus. Sam describes her journey from pre-law student to comedian, and how the pl...
Oct 15, 2020•34 min•Season 2Ep. 1
“ALL EARS with Abigail Disney” is back for Season 2! With the 2020 election season and lame duck session - whatever it may bring - as our backdrop, Abby is excited to talk to people she considers "troublemakers". These are the folks whose work as writers, artists, politicians and activists push back with imagination and courage against the status quo. We'll be intertwining big ideas and personal stories about gender, class, and race, and how we can take action to make changes in our cultural and...
Oct 08, 2020•3 min
This week All Ears brings you a special bonus episode: Abby couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to author Mary Trump about her new book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man”. As like-minded mavericks, Abby and Mary discuss what it’s like to stand up to a wealthy American family empire from the inside, and the friction and drama that results. Mary brings a gimlet eye to the Trump family mythology, and deconstructs the brutal dynamics that destroye...
Aug 06, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 13
This week on All Ears Abby welcomes Professor Rebecca Henderson, who teaches about innovation, corporate culture change, and ethics at Harvard Business School. Her class, “Reimagining Capitalism”, is one of HBS’s most popular classes, and she says that the majority of her students tend to believe that capitalism is broken. But Professor Henderson tells Abby that capitalism is a fundamentally moral enterprise, albeit one that needs to be held in delicate balance with a strong society and a democr...
Jul 23, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 12
This week on All Ears Abby talks to author and commentator Heather McGhee. Heather is a distinguished senior fellow at the progressive think tank Demos, where she also served as president for four years. Heather argues that the economic, intellectual, and societal costs of racism affect not only its victims but also its perpetrators. She tells Abby that America’s White middle class grew after WW2, with help from Federal housing subsidies, education grants and other benefits that were largely den...
Jul 16, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 11
In this week’s episode, Abby talks to one of Joe Biden’s shortlisted VP candidates, Stacey Abrams. Recounting her upbringing in Mississippi, the former Georgia House of Representatives minority leader describes the powerful example her parents set for their children as activists and citizens, even as they had struggled their whole lives for fair access to education, employment opportunities, and the voting booth. “Every election they would take us with them [to vote],” Abrams tells Abby. “And th...
Jul 09, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 10
This week is a deep dive into how we can shed ingrained ideologies, question our identities, and form our intellectual selves. Abby is joined by UCLA and Columbia Law School professor Kimberlé Crenshaw for a lively conversation about critical race theory, the pitfalls of meritocracy, and how Kimberlé’s created the theoretical framework we call intersectionality. Having grown up in the same era, Abby and Kimberlé talk about how they internalized the same political touchstones, processed similar c...
Jun 25, 2020•52 min•Season 1Ep. 9
This week on All Ears Abby welcomes CNN host and New York Times’ best-selling author Van Jones. Van talks about being a young civil rights lawyer in Oakland at the time of the Rodney King trial, and how it directly influenced his progressive activism of the last 30 years. Van says that having children made him come around to the belief that fixing the system is more productive than tearing it down, and that finding common ground is the key to systemic change. Van and Abby also discuss white frag...
Jun 18, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Continuing our focus on activism around the murder of George Floyd by police on May 25th, Abby welcomes Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, Co-Chair of The Poor People’s Campaign, and President of Repairers of the Breach. Both organizations focus on organizing and uplifting communities across the country using a moral framework of public concerns such as how society treats the poor, women, LGBTQ people, children, workers, immigrants, communities of color, and the sick. Abby, who calls herself a “...
Jun 11, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 7
All Ears is stepping back this week from our COVID-19 focus to turn our attention to the national anguish resulting from the murder of George Floyd by police on May 25th. At the forefront of Abby’s mind is sharing her platform with movement leaders, both as an opportunity to listen and learn. This week Abby talks to Rajasvini Bhansali, the Executive Director of Solidaire Network (a community of donors mobilizing resources to social justice movements), about why it’s hard to fund social movements...
Jun 04, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 6
This week on All Ears Abby is joined by Supermajority co-founder and former President of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards. Cecile and Abby discuss their shared experiences of having a famous parent, and how being middle school activists landed them in the principal’s office. Cecile also talks to Abby about why she’s never run for political office, how Planned Parent animated the Christian Right, the need right now for a women’s stimulus package, and how to organize a diverse coalition of wome...
May 28, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 5
This week on All Ears, Abby talks to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren about the loss of her eldest brother to COVID-19, one of over 93,000 loved ones lost to the pandemic in this country (as of this episode’s release). As they dig deeper into the origins of the political divide raging between blue and red states, Senator Warren talks about her conservative upbringing and how to maintain relationships even as political viewpoints within families diverge. Both speaking from their own life experiences...
May 20, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Join Abby and Ford Foundation President Darren Walker (@darrenwalker), as they discuss modern philanthropy: how it has evolved, how its success is measured, and who it benefits, on both sides of the ledger. Links from this episode's conversation: Darren Walker’s book, From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel Of Wealth The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie The Highlander Folk School Monticello Is Done Avoiding Jefferson’s Relationship With Sally Hemings (New York Times) NAACP Legal Defense Fund...
May 14, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 3
On our new episode of All Ears, Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price joins Abby from Seattle to talk about his experience as a small business owner in Seattle. Five years ago, Dan made a radical decision to make the base salary $70,000 for every employee at his company, and took a pay cut to do it. It’s been a roller coaster ever since. Also, Dan and Abby discuss their conservative upbringings, how that influenced their work around inequality, and why caring for the well-being of low-wage workers is c...
May 07, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 2
In the inaugural episode of All Ears, Abby is joined by Columbia University professor and human rights lawyer Terry McGovern to discuss how gender discrimination undermines job security, equal pay, and healthcare for women during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the startling parallels to the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. EPISODE LINKS: Terry on Twitter: @TerryMMcGovern Fork Films on Twitter: @ForkFilms Link to Women and Girls Rising , co-edited by Terry Link to Pray the Devil Back to Hell , pr...
Apr 30, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Each week on "ALL EARS" filmmaker Abigail Disney will call a bold thinker from the front lines of America’s inequality crisis to debate and explore the problems, perils and maybe even opportunities made possible by the global Covid 19 pandemic. She’ll look to some of the most dynamic and analytical minds to ask: What have we learned? What haven’t we seen yet? What’s around the corner, and how do we seize this moment to come together as a nation and reset economic opportunity for the 99%?
Apr 23, 2020•3 min
