To replace coal and oil, do we need nuclear power? Is switching from coal powered electric plants to natural gas a step in the right direction? And what lessons can we draw from the recent victories—and setbacks--for the climate movement in California? Bill McKibben comments--and talks how to get to a Green New Deal. Bill’s new book, “Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?”, will be published on April 16. Plus: The House Judiciary Committee is moving toward impeachment proceedings,...
Mar 06, 2019•41 min
Trump’s presidency is not the end of Democracy, as some of our friends have suggested. Instead we are seeing the end of a political cycle, the one that began in 1980 with Reagan. And now, it’s time for something new—and that could be a Green New Deal. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg comments. Also: For years Elizabeth Warren has been talking about how the political system is rigged by the rich and powerful. But suddenly her position seems almost mainstream among Democrats--almost ever...
Feb 27, 2019•41 min
Naomi Klein says the Green New Deal needs to follow the example of the New Deal of the 1930s, when nothing would have happened without “massive pressure from social movements” that “changed the calculus of what was possible.” Naomi is a contributing editor at The Nation and author of several number one bestsellers, including “This Changes Everything.” Plus Dahlia Lithwick talks about the national challenge to Trump’s “national emergency”—the constitutional issues, the political issues, and the d...
Feb 20, 2019•40 min
Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage – and how about adding Child care for all to the Progressive agenda? That’s Katha Pollitt’s proposal—she argues it will help huge numbers of people. Also: Bernie’s foreign policy: in 2016 he ran on domestic issues almost exclusively. This time around, if he runs—and it looks like he will--he’s going to say more about foreign policy—a lot more. David Klion explains; he’s profiled Bernie’s foreign policy advisor, Matt Dus...
Feb 13, 2019•38 min
John Nichols says Trump’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night was "cynical and crude." Also: Temporary Protected Status – “TPS” - has allowed immigrants and refugees from half a dozen countries with terrible problems to stay in the US for decades – but now Trump is trying to get rid of all of them. Sasha Abramsky reports on the human toll of this cruel policy. Plus: Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker on Trump, climate change and species extinction – she says “we need courage, not hope.” Her...
Feb 06, 2019•35 min
The battle between Democrats and Trump over a border wall was a disagreement about symbolism, not policy, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian argues; the borders of the future won’t be as easy to spot as the wall that Trump is proposing. And the new borders going up around us—digital ones—are already taking away our freedom. Also: how the progressives in the House will fight Trump: Joan Walsh reports on the Congressional Progressive Caucus and its co-chair Pramila Jayapal—and their plans for a Green New De...
Jan 30, 2019•35 min
What will 2019 be like for Trump? Will it be like Nixon in 1974—the Watergate year, which ended with his resignation? Or more like Clinton in 1998—the Monica year, which culminated with an impeachment trial in the Senate in 1999? He won that vote easily and came out more popular than before. John Nichols looks at the investigations coming up in the House, leading us to conclude that 2019 will be the worst year of Donald Trump’s life. Also: The LA teachers’ strike is, among other things, a battle...
Jan 23, 2019•41 min
A political movement combining a left-wing economic program with anti-immigrant initiatives: it’s developing right now in Germany and France – could it happen here? David Adler explains: he’s the Policy Coordinator for the European Spring — Europe’s first transnational party, led by Yanis Varoufakis. He writing has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, and Jacobin—and now he has the cover story in the new issue of The Nation. Also: 31,000 teachers are on strike right now...
Jan 16, 2019•38 min
Now that the Democrats are in charge in the House of Representatives, Harold Meyerson says, we can learn a lot about progressive political opportunities by studying “the Republican dogs that didn’t bark in the night” – the political issues Republicans didn’t attack in the recent elections--because they have widespread public support. Harold is executive editor of The American Prospect and a regular contributor to the LA Times op-ed page. Also: Aaron Maté says new studies show that Russian social...
Jan 09, 2019•38 min
Our most popular interviews of the year, starting with Seymour Hersh, one of our heroes; he says “don’t underestimate Trump.” He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his expose of the My Lai massacre—he was a 33-year-old freelancer at the time. Since then, he’s won pretty much every other journalism award. He’s worked as a staff writer for The New York Times and The New Yorker. He’s also written a dozen books, most recently ‘Reporter: A Memoir.’ Also: Barbara Ehrenreich is another hero of ours-- the...
Jan 02, 2019•37 min
For our year-in-review show, we open with a Russiagate update with David Klion – he says it’s basically a corruption scandal whose basic facts have been obvious for a long time—and one that should bring down Trump’s presidency. In a lot of ways, Trump himself was the biggest story in 2018--we ask Amy Wilentz the key question: “is Trump crazy?” She discusses the mental and emotional status of the president, as analyzed by 27 psychiatrists in ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,’ a book edited by ...
Dec 26, 2018•44 min
John Nichols presents the highlights of The Nation’s annual Progressive Honor Roll—our heroes in Congress, in state politics, and in leading protests at the border. Also: is Obamacare unconstitutional? A federal judge ruled last week that all of Obamacare violates the constitution if he’s upheld by the Supreme Court, 20 million people will lose their insurance coverage. The case has the potent name “Texas versus the United States.” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, explai...
Dec 19, 2018•39 min
Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, William Barr, is more qualified to do the job than Matt Whitaker--but so are thousands of others. His record, however, show’s he as bad as Jeff Sessions—if not worse. David Cole, National Legal Director of the ACLU and The Nation’s legal affairs correspondent, explains. Also: a report on The Nation’s investigation of Massive Accounting Fraud at the Pentagon – Dave Lindorff found that $21 million cannot be accounted for. For decades, he says, the Pentagon has...
Dec 12, 2018•43 min
George H. W. Bush paved the way for today’s Republican party with his racist Willy Horton campaign, nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, and pardoned the Iran-Contra conspirator whose trial would have exposed his own abuse of power. Harold Meyerson explains -- he’s executive editor of the American Prospect. Also: Katha Pollitt finds lessons from the midterms about white women who support Trump – she argues that they are unlikely to change their minds, and that we’d do better following...
Dec 05, 2018•37 min
Michelle Obama declares in her new memoir, "I am not a political person, so I'm not going to attempt to offer an analysis" of Trump’s victory. That’s her stance in the rest of the book as well. It seems strange for the person the New York Times called "The most outspoken first lady in modern history." What’s going on here? Amy Wilentz comments. Plus: The Democrats won the midterms by the largest popular vote margin for either party in the history of midterm elections -- larger than the Watergate...
Nov 28, 2018•40 min
Orange County, California, was the political starting point for Nixon, for the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign, and for Reagan—as Republican as any place in America. But starting in January, not a single Republican will represent Orange County in the House. It’s solid blue. Gustavo Arellano will explain how it happened – he’s a weekly columnist for the LA Times, and wrote the legendary column “Ask a Mexican.” Also: mass demonstrations in America, from the 1963 March on Washington to the 20...
Nov 21, 2018•41 min
Frank Rich finds lessons for Democrats in the midterms: seeking “the political center,” as recommended by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff, running on “clean-government themes and promises of incremental improvement to the health care system rather than transformational social change,” is “ridiculous.” Frank writes about politics for New York Magazine and is executive producer of VEEP on HBO. Also: Trump’s appointment of a new acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker: is it legal? He has...
Nov 14, 2018•39 min
Tuesday night was a good night for progressive Democrats, John Nichols argues—and Democratic control of the House will bring an epic change to Washington politics—starting with a return to Constitutional principles and an insistence that the president is subject to the rule of law. Also: women won unprecedented victories in the midterms. Joan Walsh analyzes the feminist insurgency that will bring almost a hundred women to the House of Representatives in January—including the first two Muslim wom...
Nov 07, 2018•37 min
Women voters—and candidates—are mobilized as never before for next week’s midterms: Joan Walsh and Cecile Richards report from across the country at a Nation event introduced by publisher and editor Katrina vanden Heuvel. Joan is the magazine’s National Affairs Correspondent and Cecile recently stepped down as head of Planned Parenthood after leading the organization since 2006\. Also: the Democrats are focusing now on voter mobilization and turnout, while the Republicans are at work on voter su...
Oct 31, 2018•39 min
62 per cent of white men voted for Trump, 31 per cent for Clinton. Kai Wright has our analysis--he’s host of WNYC’s podcast The United States of Anxiety, and he’s also a columnist for The Nation. It’s easy to get confused by the crosscurrents of misogyny and racism and xenophobia, he argues; they are not discrete issues, but rather “the interlocking tools of white men’s minority rule.” Also: Trump’s place in American history: Jill Lepore of the Harvard history department and the New Yorker talks...
Oct 24, 2018•34 min
What lessons have the Democrats learned from the disaster of 2016? Jeff Cohen talks about the progressives’ fight to win the party away from dependence on corporate contributions—and instead to mobilize the grassroots. Jeff is one of the co-authors of “Democratic Autopsy—One Year Later” at TheNation.com. Also: Arizona is a red state, ground zero for Trump’s anti-immigrant politics, but it’s changing. Sasha Abramsky has returned from Tucson, with a report on how and why the Democrats seem likely ...
Oct 17, 2018•43 min
Rebecca Traister sees in the Kavanaugh hearings a typical case where women’s anger was marginalized or made to sound hysterical or infantile or threatening—but men’s anger was taken to be valid and righteous. But that is changing, she argues: women’s anger increasingly is “in the beating heart of many political and social movements.” Her new book is Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger. Also: David Cay Johnston talks about the “Mountain of Tax Cheating” by Donald Trump, as expo...
Oct 10, 2018•44 min
Joan Walsh explains why we lack confidence in the re-opened FBI background check into Kavanaugh’s past, and talks about the activists who are fighting the nomination, and the senators who need to be told “do not vote for this man.” Plus: D.D. Guttenplan talks about some alternatives to those old white Republican men who shouted and pouted at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week–his new book is “The Next Republic: the Rise of a New Radical Majority.” And while the eyes of the nation s...
Oct 03, 2018•42 min
The Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh have been an outrage, even before the recent “allegations of sexual misconduct.” John Nichols comments. Also: Florida will vote in November on restoring voting rights for felons, and polls show the measure is likely to pass. Sasha Abramsky reports on the campaign and its significance. Plus: universal basic income—government payments to help keep people out of poverty: is that a better idea than a government job guarantee? Bryce Co...
Sep 26, 2018•42 min
Michael Moore talks about his new documentary, "Fahrenheit 11/9," opens Friday May 21 across America--It's a passionate argument about how the Democrats helped pave the way to Trump's election, and a call to arms to change our politics and vote on Nov. 9. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Sep 21, 2018•17 min
Katha Pollitt considers the arguments made by Brett Kavanaugh’s defenders in response to the charges that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old when he was 17, and the evidence supporting Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser. Also: On the 10th anniversary of the financial crisis, Harold Meyerson argues that the recovery was a disaster all over again—and that we are still suffering from its political consequences. Harold is Executive Editor of The American Prospect. Plus: 25 years ago, President Bill...
Sep 19, 2018•41 min
As world leaders (except for Trump) gather in San Francisco this week for the Global Climate Action Summit, Bill McKibben comments on California’s new law mandating 100 per cent clean electricity by 2045—and on the next task: keep oil and gas in the ground. Also: Should Democratic strategy focus on winning the votes of moderate Republicans? Steve Phillips points to one key factor: there aren’t that many of them. Steve is the author of the New York Times best seller, 'Brown Is the New White: How ...
Sep 12, 2018•42 min
In Oklahoma and West Virgina and Missouri, teachers have led amazingly successful battles against Republican budget-cutting and tax breaks for the wealthy. Although the Supreme Court’s Janus decision sought to cripple the ability of public sector unions to engage in politics, recent polls show that unions are more popular than ever. Randi Weingarten comments on the big picture of unions and politics – she’s president of the American Federation of Teachers, with 1.7 million members in more than 3...
Sep 05, 2018•42 min
Amy Wilentz takes up the vital question, is Melania Trump a hero of the resistance—or an accomplice of evil? Is she edging “ever closer to open contempt for him,” as New York Times columnist Frank Bruni argues, and finding “increasingly clever ways to show it”? Or is she sticking with her role as wife to a racist tyrant with a clear history of infidelity, and lots of cash? Also: how mothers and pregnant women are discriminated against and punished – here at home, and around the world. Katha Poll...
Aug 29, 2018•37 min
Centrism lost for the Democrats in 2016, and it will lose again in 2018, Gary Younge argues: the party needs not just to oppose Trump, but also to put forward an alternative vision that can earn the support of working-class Americans. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has shown how to do it, running on a program of tuition-free higher education, Medicare for all, and a federal jobs guarantee. Plus: Trump’s 1968 – and ours. In August 1968, 50 years ago this week, young antiwar demonstrators fought the pol...
Aug 22, 2018•45 min
