In 2014, in the wake of losing the previous presidential election, the Republican Party had committed itself to immigration reform as its only path to winning elections in the future. Within two years, Donald Trump would be elected on the exact opposite platform, railing against immigration.

Producer Zoe Chace has been following Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake for the last few months, reporting on the run-up to his re-election bid in 2018.

For years Pat Buchanan ran on many of the same ideas that Donald Trump would later run on. Buchanan lost — three times.

Producer Zoe Chace attends the DeploraBall, a party for trolls and others who say they memed Trump into the presidency.


We’ve all heard reports that voter fraud isn’t real. But how do we know that’s true? David Kestenbaum went on a quest to find out if someone had actually put in the work—and run the numbers—to know for certain.

Host Ira Glass talks to a man driving to Washington, D.C.—with his brother, father and a whole lot of neckties—for his first job on Capitol Hill.

Ira talks to our Senior Producer Brian Reed about a fight that’s been brewing in the remote town of Homer, Alaska over a resolution that states that Homer welcomes immigrants. Which is odd.

Two civil servants who do not like our new President weigh their options. Quit? Stay? Stay and fight? Producer David Kestenbaum reports.

In 2012, the fever broke, and the Albertville city council stopped targeting Latino residents. The mayor says he and the council are taking a cue from the public schools.

Host Ira Glass interviews Congressman Seth Moulton (D., Mass.), who served four tours as a Marine in Iraq. Moulton talks about an Iraqi translator he grew close to, and about a special visa program that allows Iraqi and Afghan translators to come to the U.S.

Border Patrol agents were stoked when immigration became a centerpiece of Trump’s campaign. Producer Stephanie Foo went to find out how they hope their jobs will change.

Vladmir Putin’s approval rating is a seemingly unreal 84%. Ira talks to reporter Charles Maynes to find out if that number is real and how it could be that high.

Suddenly realizing just how many Latinos had moved to town, longtime residents jumped into action, fueled by a wave of national and statewide anti-immigration fever. Then in 2011, Alabama adopted the most extreme anti-immigrant law in the country.

Back in 1999 there was a series of bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and across Russia. 300 people died. It happened just as Vladimir Putin was coming to power.

Ira's good friend Mary Ahearn died this week. She was thirty years older than him...so, decidedly more grown-up than he.

Producer Neil Drumming spends a couple days exploring Detroit, first with a quirky mayoral candidate running an Afrofuturist campaign, and then with a couple of locals.

Nancy returns with a story that explains the origins of the special visa program for interpreters. A decade ago, a young guy named Kirk Johnson inadvertently became the point person for American policy about the Iraqis and Afghans endangered by their work for us.

Ira Glass' friend Lucy used to love listening to the radio psychologist Joy Browne, who she thought always had the best advice. But is it possible for someone's advice to just be too good? Ira Glass talks to Lucy to find out.

Mike Wilson, the editor of the Dallas Morning News, recently got some hate mail from conservative readers. They think that the media—and his paper—are biased.

Back in the late 1960s, a wealthy tobacco heiress saw that integration was happening all around the country—except at prep schools in the South. So she set out to find the best Black students in neighborhood public schools—in hopes of teaching the white prep-school students to be less bigoted. Mosi Secret tells the story of how the first two Black students to integrate Virginia Episcopal School succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations.

Brian Reed continues his story about the town of Homer, Alaska. He talked to all sorts of people involved in the debate over whether the town should welcome immigrants.