The big question about impeachment is not the House -- there now seem to be enough votes there to pass at least one article of impeachment--the big question is about the Senate and whether some Republicans will abandon Trump. Former Republican Senator Jeff Flake says that at least 35 Republican senators would vote to remove Trump from office--IF they could vote in private. Joan Walsh comments. Also: Afghanistan held elections on Saturday. Trump had declared a couple of weeks ago that negotiation...
Oct 02, 2019•41 min
Trump finally went too far, even for Nancy Pelosi: he used money appropriated by Congress for foreign aid to pressure the president of Ukraine to come up with dirt on Joe Biden—dirt that Trump could use in the upcoming election. Jeet Heer comments – he’s National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation. Also: historian Eric Foner talks about about voter suppression, about who gets to be a citizen, what rights undocumented immigrants have, and about the roots of mass incarceration--they all relate t...
Sep 25, 2019•39 min
The 2020 election will liberate us from Donald Trump and Republican hegemony. A sweeping Democratic victory will make it possible at last for us to address our most serious problems. That’s what Stan Greenberg says – he’s a longtime pollster and adviser to Democratic presidents from Clinton to Obama. He’s also a bestselling author, with a new book out – it has the wonderful title R.I.P. G.O.P.: how the New America is Dooming the Republicans. Also: Edward Snowden published a memoir this week, cal...
Sep 18, 2019•41 min
Last week Tory rebels in parliament staged a dramatic insurrection against their own Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, blocking his plans for a “no-deal Brexit.” But virtually no Republicans in Congress have resisted Trump. Why is that? D.D. Guttenplan compares and contrasts the two parties and political systems – he’s editor of The Nation, and he’s lived in Britain for the last 25 years. Also: It’s hard to keep track of Trump’s outrages—there are new ones virtually every day. But Nation columnist ...
Sep 11, 2019•39 min
How the Koch brothers transformed an obscure oil company based in Wichita into a $110 billion colossus, and reshaped the Republican Party—but failed to prevent Trump from becoming president: Christopher Leonard on Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America . Also: Indivisible, the big network of local Democratic Party activists that sprang up after Trump’s victory, faces a big challenge: whether to endorse a candidate in the Democratic Primaries. Joan Walsh re...
Sep 04, 2019•41 min
We’re still thinking about the terrorist attack in El Paso, where 22 people were killed at a Walmart and two dozen more were injured. Like almost all of these attacks, the El Paso killings have been treated as an isolated event carried out by a loner. But the attacks in Charleston, Charlottesville, Christchurch, El Paso and elsewhere are connected; they are all part of the White Power movement, with roots going back to the 1970s. That’s what Kathleen Belew says -- she writes for the New York Tim...
Aug 28, 2019•39 min
The latest polls—including the highly respected Fox poll—show Trump in terrible shape at this point: Among registered voters he trails Biden 50-38, Bernie 48-39, Elizabeth Warren 46-39, and even Kamala Harris 45-39. He’s losing crucial segments of his 2016 base. And in many of the states he carried last time, he’s deep into negative territory on the approval polls. Jeet Heer comments—and takes up the question, how does he think he can win? Also: The synergy between politics and popular culture h...
Aug 21, 2019•38 min
If Bernie does NOT get the nomination, the Democratic Socialists of America will not endorse the Democrat who does. “Bernie or Bust” was what they decided at their recent convention – but is that a good idea? Harold Meyerson comments--he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect and a regular contributor to the LA Times op-ed page. Also: Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile and accused sex trafficker - who surrounded himself with an elite network of political leaders, wannabe billionaire ty...
Aug 14, 2019•37 min
After Trump’s tweets about the El Paso killings, Beto’s response was the one of the best: “He’s not tolerating violence, he’s inciting racism and violence in this country.” Joan Walsh, National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation, examines the mainstream media’s failures in covering Trump. Also: Trump gets worse every week. Two years ago we had massive nationwide protest demonstrations--so why don’t more people take it to the streets these days? Nation columnist Katha Pollitt has been thinking ...
Aug 07, 2019•39 min
Are Trump’s recent racist tweets part of a political strategy, or an uncontrollable personal impulse? Harold Meyerson comments – and also proposes ways to end the potentially devastating divide among Democrats over a Green New Deal. Harold is editor-at-large of The American Prospect. Also: Was Al Franken railroaded, when he was forced to resign from the Senate in the face of #MeToo complaints about unwanted sexual touching and kissing? Jane Mayer wrote a long report on the case for The New Yorke...
Jul 31, 2019•41 min
Amy Wilentz comments on the mental and emotional status of the president, as analyzed by 27 psychiatrists in ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,’ a book edited by Bandy X. Lee. The book was number four on the New York Times bestseller list. Also: Would Pence be worse? Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reports—she interviewed more than 60 people in search of answers, including Pence’s mother. Several say he’s wanted to be president at least since high school. Plus: America After Trump: E.J. Dionne of...
Jul 24, 2019•46 min
Democracy is not doing well these days – we have Trump, and Brexit, and a host of other examples. Astra Taylor has been thinking about that: she talks about the paradoxes of rule by the people, the many ways it’s being frustrated, and why it remains at the center of our hopes for the future. Her new book is “Democracy may not exist, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone.” Also: travel to Mars--now there’s a way to get away from Donald Trump! Elon Musk, the billionaire who is co-founder of PayPal and ...
Jul 17, 2019•37 min
Racial anxiety was more important than economic anxiety in motivating Trump’s voters, Joy Reid of MSNBC argues. A key factor in Trump’s victory was nostalgia for a white, Christian America where men were still in charge. And of course Hillary fell short not only with male voters but with voters of color overall. Joy’s new book is The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story. Also: Jared Kushner’s Mideast Peace Plan, announced in Bahrain to an audience of billionaires ...
Jul 10, 2019•35 min
It’s an extraordinary victory: the first round of Democratic debates shows that all the major candidates are working within a progressive framework. Robert Borosage says Bernie gets the credit—and that, although Biden currently is far ahead in the polls of Democratic voters, he has nowhere to go except down, once he is challenged on his record: Iraq, mass incarceration, NAFTA, and Clarence Thomas. Also: 50 years after Stonewall, historian Martin Duberman argues that, despite the obvious and nece...
Jul 03, 2019•35 min
Campaigning in Iowa, Elizabeth Warren has made her story an American story, Joan Walsh says, and thereby found a good way to connect her policy proposals to her own life, and thereby to other people’s lives--and also to refute critics who say she’s an out-of-touch policy wonk. Also: Joe Biden and his friends: he says some of them were segregationist senators – and he thinks that was a good thing, something that made it possible for him to pass important legislation. Jeet Heer says that’s a fanta...
Jun 26, 2019•39 min
Elizabeth Warren may be running third in the Democratic polls, after Biden and Bernie, but she seems to be the clear leader in what we call “the ideas primary.” Katrina vanden Heuvel comments—and suggests that foreign policy, where Warren has said little, should be a focus for the upcoming Democratic candidate debates. Also: Trump declared in his State of the Union speech “America will never become a socialist country.” Of course that only makes it seem like maybe it will. Bernie Sanders gave an...
Jun 19, 2019•39 min
For most Americans, the question “Which is worse: Trump or Brexit?” has an easy answer: of course it’s Trump! But D. D. Guttenplan, The Nation’s new Editor, says it’s more complicated than that: for starters, Americans can get rid of Trump in next November’s elections, but it’s almost impossible now for the Brits to get rid of Brexit. Also: Rashida Tlaib is one of the two the Muslim woman elected to the House. John Nichols spoke with her for the “Next Left” podcast, our sister podcast at The Nat...
Jun 12, 2019•42 min
Joe Biden was the only leading Democratic candidate who did NOT come to the California state Democratic convention last weekend in San Francisco – David Dayen reports on the biggest of the Super Tuesday primaries; he’s the new executive editor of The American Prospect. Also: The British should extradite Julian Assange to Sweden for the investigation of rape charges against him, but neither the Swedes nor the Brits should extradite him to the US – because the new “espionage” charges against him a...
Jun 05, 2019•36 min
The indictment of Julian Assange on espionage charges is an attack on freedom of the press—that’s what Daniel Ellsberg argues. Ellsberg too was indicted under the Espionage Act – and put on trial by the Nixon Administration in 1972, because he leaked a top secret history of American involvement in Viet Nam to the New York Times and other publications. They called it the Pentagon Papers. Also: Medicare for All: Opponents say it would be impossibly expensive. Exactly how are we going to pay for it...
May 29, 2019•39 min
Bernie is back on Page One of the New York Times , but their report last weekend was not about his new plan to save public schools–the most progressive education program in modern American history–or his proposal to end all subsidies for oil and gas companies. Instead, it was about a trip he made to Nicaragua in 1985, more than 30 years ago. They didn’t like it. How do we explain the New York Times’ s coverage of Bernie Sanders? Amy Wilentz comments. Also: John Nichols talks about Justin Amash, ...
May 22, 2019•41 min
Joe Biden has one thing in common with Donald Trump: a campaign promising “restoration” of a lost past, rather than the kind of transformation we need to deal with our current problems-- That’s what Harold Meyerson says. Of course the past Biden wants to restore is not the white man’s 1950s, but rather the pre-Trump America of the Clintons and Obama. Harold is Executive Editor of The American Prospect and a regular contributor to the LA Times op-ed page. Also: during the presidential campaign, D...
May 15, 2019•42 min
For the 2020 election, we’ve been focusing mostly on the candidates who want to challenge Trump – but we also need to consider the voters, and the changes in the electorate since 2016. Especially significant: young people of color. Steve Phillips explains – he’s the author of the best-seller "Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority." Also: climate change and living in the city, where the health effects of hyrdocarbon production and global trade ar...
May 08, 2019•39 min
When Joe Biden finally declared his candidacy, he immediately pulled way out in front in the polls of Democratic candidates. The polls also show him the one most likely to beat Trump. Joan Walsh points to some of the problems with Biden, and considers the alternatives. Also: should the House Democrats open impeachment hearings? The politics may be debatable, but congress’s duty is clear. Joshua Holland says impunity always breeds more lawlessness, and there’s plenty of evidence that Trump plans ...
May 01, 2019•40 min
What can we do to reduce the speed of climate change? Bill McKibben argues that we're at a bleak moment in human history -- and we'll either confront that bleakness, or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Bill was one of the first people to warn of the dangers of global warming, 30 years ago with his book The End of Nature. Then he founded the environmental organization 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change. It offers some possible ways out ...
Apr 24, 2019•37 min
The chair of the House Ways and Means Committee formally requested six years of Trump’s personal & business tax returns earlier this month. Trump has said he won’t do it—and that the law is “100 per cent” on his side. He’s 100 per cent wrong about that. David Cay Johnston explains why the IRS Director is required to hand over the returns—or face 5 years in jail—and also what we’re likely to find in Trump’s tax returns—about his tax cheating and his money laundering for Russian oligarchs. Dav...
Apr 17, 2019•40 min
Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren are the women in the Senate who have announced campaigns for the Democratic nomination—and Gillibrand is running on Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. She started out in Congress as more of a centrist Democrat—how authentic has her transformation been? Joan Walsh reports. Also: ‘Reconstruction: America After The Civil War’—that’s the new show premiering on TV this week. It’s a four-hour PBS documentary produced and hosted...
Apr 10, 2019•41 min
* When Stacey Abrams ran for governor of Georgia last November as the first African-American and the first woman candidate, she got more votes than any Democrat in Georgia history, including Obama and Hillary Clinton. She tripled Latino turnout; she increased the youth turnout by 139 per cent and black turnout by 40 per cent. But because of Republican vote suppression she was not elected. In 2020 she could run for the Senate, or even for president. In our interview, she talks about her campaign ...
Apr 03, 2019•36 min
Nobody should be satisfied with Attorney General William Barr’s account of the Mueller report, says John Nichols. We had assumed that the independent counsel’s investigation into obstruction of justice would conclude one way or the other. Instead we have Barr making exactly the kind of political decision by a Trump appointee that the independent counsel’s office was created to prevent. There’s no substitute for seeing the full Mueller report, Nichols concludes. Also: In the wake of the Barr lett...
Mar 27, 2019•39 min
50 people in six states were accused by the Justice Department last week of taking part in a major college admission scandal. They include Hollywood stars and business leaders, who paid bribes to elite college coaches. But that’s not the way Jared Kushner got in to Harvard—his father paid the university directly. Amy Wilentz comments on the legal, and the illegal, ways wealthy people get their unqualified children into elite schools. Also: In 2017, the Trump administration announced that, for th...
Mar 20, 2019•40 min
The Democrats’ picking Milwaukee for their convention in 2020 indicates how that Wisconsin is a key battleground the party must win in order to recapture the White House. John Nichols talks about what it going to take for the Democrats to carry Wisconsin—and Michigan and Pennsylvania—and about the far-reaching tasks that face the party after four years of Trump. Also: southern Democrats were an all-white party before the voting rights act of 1965; and then, as LBJ predicted, its members all beca...
Mar 13, 2019•41 min
