People protesting against Immigration Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles and President Trump’s crackdown on immigration clashed with the National Guard over the weekend. Ruben Vives, a general assignment reporter with the LA Times, helped us break down what's happening across the city right now. And in headlines, Republicans are still trying to persuade Americans the Big Beautiful Bill is somehow going to save us money, a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador is returned to the U...
Jun 09, 2025•21 min
While President Trump demands his administration investigate the former president's pardons and executive orders, we're left thinking about President Joe Biden again…and where it all went wrong. Alex Thompson, national political correspondent for Axios and co-author of the new book, "Original Sin," joins us to talk about Biden's decline in office and how the people around him covered it up. And in headlines, President Trump and Elon Musk trade attacks on social media over the Big Beautiful Bill,...
Jun 06, 2025•29 min
Some Republican lawmakers are backtracking their support for President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” after realizing it’s …not all that beautiful. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona joins us to talk about what’s actually in the legislation and what his constituents are saying about it. And in headlines: Trump’s fifty percent tariffs on nearly all steel and aluminum imports went into effect and some of Musk’s DOGE volunteers are officially government employees. Show Notes: Subscribe to the ...
Jun 05, 2025•22 min
President Donald Trump has made it his mission to single-handedly reverse basically every accomplishment of the Biden administration. That’s especially true when it comes to the former president’s climate agenda. Trump doesn’t want to just deemphasize the fight against climate change, his policy proposals would give climate change a helping hand. But states are stepping into the void left by the federal government. Longtime climate reporter Bill McKibben tells us how. And in headlines: Elon Musk...
Jun 04, 2025•27 min
In the last few weeks, the Supreme Court has dealt more than half a million migrants a serious blow to their ability to live here in the U.S. legally. In separate orders, the court allowed the Trump administration to lift deportation protections for Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians living here under two programs — humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status. While the court’s orders are only temporary, it’s little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who are now new...
Jun 03, 2025•19 min
Can you believe it’s already June? So much has happened since President Donald Trump returned to the White House four and a half months ago, it’s hard to process. In that short amount of time, Trump has unilaterally thrown the global trading system into chaos and tried to end the constitutional right of birthright citizenship. His administration has stripped billions in federal grants from universities, arrested international students, and put tens of thousands of federal workers out of jobs. Th...
Jun 02, 2025•23 min
This week marked more than 600 days since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In the wake of Hamas' horrific Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, Palestinian health officials say at least 50,000 people – including thousands of women and children – have died from Israeli airstrikes and bombings in the Gaza Strip. As the war drags on, protesters on both sides are speaking out and demanding that their governments do more to end the conflict. Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli academic and host of t...
May 30, 2025•25 min
Before Kash Patel, Dan Bongino and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. were prominent members of the Trump Administration (FBI Director, FBI Deputy Director and Health and Human Services Secretary, respectively), they were conspiracy theorists. But now that these men hold positions of power in the government, the various conspiracies they pushed are coming back to haunt them. Because their longtime supporters want them to act on all the wild claims they made. Will Sommer, a senior writer at The Bulwark and a...
May 29, 2025•21 min
To the average American, the world of cryptocurrencies can be completely inscrutable. Only about 17 percent of U.S. adults say they've ever invested, traded or used crypto, according to an October Gallup poll. But that relative obscurity might be exactly why President Donald Trump and his family have gone all in on crypto. From pay-to-play memecoin dinners to billion-dollar investments in bitcoin, the Trump family now has a huge stake in a growing industry with few regulatory guardrails — and mo...
May 28, 2025•20 min
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has long been a pusher of junk science, especially when it comes to research around vaccines and autism. So it should come as no surprise that he appears open to revisiting the decades-old FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, at least in part based on a report from a conservative think tank that was neither peer-reviewed, nor published in a medical journal. What the report in question conveniently contradicts more than 100 peer-rev...
May 27, 2025•23 min
Today, the What A Day team is off. But we’re excited to bring you a recent episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. In the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, we’ve watched Republicans erode American democracy with alarming speed. While this political moment may feel unprecedented, it isn’t new. America has dealt its share of far-right movements, fascist provocateurs, and anti-democratic threats. But time and again, heroes have risen to meet those moments. In this episode, Stacey...
May 26, 2025•54 min
In one of the most anticipated rulings of the term, the Supreme Court justices deadlocked Thursday in a case over the creation of a religious charter school in Oklahoma. The 4-4 split sets no precedent, meaning the justices could take up a similar case — and the underlying thornier questions around the separation of church and state — in the future. Later in the day, the justices also handed President Donald Trump a major temporary win, allowing him to fire the leaders of two independent federal...
May 23, 2025•23 min
If you're a certain age, Sean' Diddy' Combs was inescapable during some really formative years of your music-listening habits. The entertainment mogul and producer showed up in music videos, hosted a reality show, and had a clothing line. His label Bad Boy Records helped launch the careers of iconic names in Hip-Hop and R&B, like Mary J. Blige, Usher and Notorious B.I.G. Now, he's standing trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges, and faces the possibility of spending the re...
May 22, 2025•23 min
As Congressional Republicans try to pass President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' through the House and Senate, Medicaid is one of the big programs in the party's legislative crosshairs. GOP lawmakers are eyeing upwards of $800 billion in cuts to the safety net health care program over the next decade, in part by imposing new work and eligibility requirements for recipients. But while the president keeps insisting 'no cuts to Medicaid,' the government's calculations suggest the party's pla...
May 21, 2025•25 min
It's make-or-break week in the House for President Donald Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill.' House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he still believes his party can pass the president's legislative agenda by the GOP's self-imposed deadline of Memorial Day. But deep divisions remain within the caucus over cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, state and local tax deductions, and the bill's implications for the national debt. Marianna Sotomayor, who covers the House for The Washington Post, breaks down ...
May 20, 2025•24 min
The New York Times recently published a video op-ed by a group of Yale University professors who say they’re leaving the U.S. for jobs at the University of Toronto in the wake of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. While their decisions are all complex and personal, the three professors — Marci Shore; her husband, Timothy Snyder; and their colleague, Jason Stanley — all study authoritarianism, and all warn the U.S. isn’t immune from the democratic backsliding seen elsewhere and t...
May 19, 2025•24 min
President Donald Trump is expected to wrap up the first major international trip of his second term today when he returns from the Middle East. His four-day trip to the Gulf was less about good, old-fashioned diplomacy, and more about doing deals. Lots of them: a $600 billion investment agreement with Saudi Arabia, the details of which remain extremely vague; a nearly $150 billion defense deal with the Kingdom; a major artificial intelligence deal with the United Arab Emirates. And of course, th...
May 16, 2025•27 min
The Supreme Court hears arguments today in three cases challenging President Donald Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship. Lower courts have blocked the president's order, which he signed on his first day back in office. However, the primary debate in court today will center on something else: the legality of nationwide injunctions, or when a lower-court judge single-handedly puts a government policy on pause nationwide. These rulings have been instrumental in blocking some of the preside...
May 15, 2025•21 min
Is the U.S. economy … good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle? If it feels like you're desperately shaking a Magic 8 Ball for economic tea leaves, and even it's telling you, 'Ask again later.' Well, it might be on to something. While we're all hearing anecdotes about empty cargo ships from China and fewer people eating at McDonald's, the hard data that would point to a possible recession hasn't shown up yet. Case in point: Tuesday's better-than-expected Consumer Price Index numbers, showed inflation ...
May 14, 2025•25 min
India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire Saturday, after days of fighting along their shared border and in the contested region of Kashmir. While the agreement between the two nuclear powers appeared to be holding, both sides blamed the other for violating the deal. The latest conflict was ignited by a terrorist attack last month in the section of Kashmir controlled by India, but the two countries have been fighting over the disputed region for decades, since the end of British rule and the 1947...
May 13, 2025•27 min
It's 2025, and if you're a Millennial or Gen Zer, there's a good chance that you are qualified to manage and lead other people, even run for political office. Yes! Even you, the person who shares "I'm just a baby" memes! But taking that leap into leadership can be super intimidating, especially when it feels like the qualities needed to be a 'good leader' have changed so much in the last 10 to 15 years. Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something and author of the new book 'When...
May 12, 2025•22 min
We have a new pope, and he’s from Chicago! On the second day of the papal conclave Thursday, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Leo XIV. He’s the first American citizen to hold the position, but he also spent two decades serving in Peru, before the late Pope Francis chose him for an influential post at the Vatican. Pope Leo XIV now has a very, very big job leading the world’s 1.36 billion Catholics amid major tensions within the ...
May 09, 2025•26 min
Over the past few months, you might have been wondering to yourself, “Hey! The president of the United States is running roughshod over the rights of millions of Americans! Where the heck is Congress?” From shirking its constitutional power to regulate tariffs to Republican in-fighting over President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ Congress has been a bit M.I.A. In fact, in his first 100 days back in office, Trump signed fewer bills into law than any new president going back to Eisenhower ...
May 08, 2025•27 min
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and, depending on whom you ask, the perceived head of the Department of Government Efficiency, is taking a big step back from his role in the federal government. He’s doing so amid sinking international popularity, both as a political figure and as a businessman. But let’s be real here: Musk is still a billionaire many times over, and the Department of Government Efficiency really did put multiple government agencies — and the careers of tens of thousands of go...
May 07, 2025•23 min
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel was 'on the eve of a forceful entry to Gaza.' His announcement came just hours after his security cabinet approved a plan to seize and occupy the Gaza Strip indefinitely and move hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza's southern region. It also came less than two weeks before President Donald Trump is scheduled to head to the Middle East for talks with Arab leaders. Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Cou...
May 06, 2025•24 min
While President Donald Trump struggles to convince the American public his tariffs are worth sacrificing for by prattling on about how kids these days have too many dolls and pencils, his administration has managed to build a solid track record of executing on some wide-reaching plans. Just not plans that Trump came up with. Of course, we’re talking about Project 2025, the nearly 1,000-page policy blueprint from the far-right think tank The Heritage Foundation. David Graham, staff writer at The ...
May 05, 2025•23 min
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Thursday became the first major ouster of President Donald Trump’s second term… kind of. Rumors of Waltz’s imminent firing swirled in the morning, only for Trump to later announce he plans to nominate Waltz to be the next ambassador to the United Nations. Waltz had reportedly been on thin ice with the White House for weeks now, after he included the editor in chief of The Atlantic in a Signal group chat where imminent military plans were discussed among so...
May 02, 2025•22 min
In his first 100 days in office, President Donald Trump has fundamentally reshaped the federal government’s relationship with many of the nation’s most revered universities. Schools are finding themselves in an unwinnable fight: either capitulate to Trump’s authoritarian-esq demands or lose millions – even billions – in federal funding. Some schools, like Columbia, have already caved. Others, like Harvard, have been more defiant. Either way, the impact is not theoretical, and current students ar...
May 01, 2025•23 min
President Trump cruised to victory in the 2024 election largely because voters said they trusted him more on the economy. But 100 days into his second term, that trust has evaporated. Consumer confidence in April plummeted to levels not seen since around the start of the pandemic. And amid rumors that Amazon would add the cost of tariffs to each item on its website, the White House went into full-court press mode to knock them down. Gee.. we wonder why? Stephanie Ruhle, host of MSNBC's ‘The 11th...
Apr 30, 2025•25 min
We made it, ya’ll. One hundred days of President Donald Trump’s second term down. Only 1,362 to go…. not that we’re counting (we're definitely counting). While the White House is pushing the narrative that Trump’s early days have been an unmitigated success, the American public clearly feels otherwise. A bunch of new polls show the president's approval rating hovering around 40 percent. He's also underwater on every issue respondents were asked about, from the economy to immigration. Jon Favreau...
Apr 29, 2025•24 min
