Ira talks with Zoe Chace about watching Trump’s victory from an ecstatic room in Michigan. Then he checks in with a DC cop who was injured at the Capitol on January 6.
Ira talks to Representative Seth Moulton about what it was like to be among the first members of Congress to call for President Joe Biden to step aside. (18 minutes)
Alex Vindman became the face of the first Trump impeachment after he reported to his superiors that Trump had asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of his political opponent. At the time, Vindman believed that his Congressional testimony would not jeopardize him; now, he and his wife Rachel are having second thoughts.
Host Ira Glass walks through possible next steps with a pro-life activist who worked on the Texas SB8 bill, that set a precedent for enforcement of abortion bans throughout the country.
Vladmir Putin’s approval rating among Russians is always stunningly high. Ira talks to reporter Charles Maynes to find out if that number is real and how it could be that high.
Disinformation and propaganda works differently in Putin’s Russia than it did during the Soviet Union. Instead of tamping down the opposition, the Russian government works to control the opposition.
Ira Glass talks to journalist Jochen Bittner about a political lie from 1920s Germany and the lessons it holds for 2020s America. His op-ed about this ran in the New York Times. Bittner’s one of the people who runs the Opinion section of the German newspaper Die Zeit.
Host Ira Glass speaks to Kevin Sheekey, the man tasked with spending $100m of Mike Bloomberg’s billions on securing a Democrat win in the constant battleground state of Florida. He also speaks to producer Lina Misitzis about what’s going on down on the ground with Democrats in the state.
For the past couple-two-three weeks, producer Ben Calhoun has been calling around to small town municipal clerks in his home state of Wisconsin, asking them how mail-in balloting really works. It can be chaotic, they say, but not in the way the president would have you believe.
Host Ira Glass discusses what it means to peacefully transfer power from one president to the next. He points out one of the weirdest things about it, that the new president has to go and sleep in the same bedroom as the previous president.
Ira and producer Robyn Semien go behind the scenes with some of the Obama staffers to hear what it felt like in the days leading up to the infamous Beer Summit of 2009.
Host Ira Glass follows presidential hopeful Julián Castro as he prepares for the first debate of the Democratic primary. His goal is just to let people know he’s in the race! By, possibly, interrupting somebody onstage.