When Barack Obama chose Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to give a prayer at his inauguration, gay and lesbian groups cried foul, because of Warren's past remarks about homosexuality and gay marriage. But Rick Warren's constituents—Christian conservatives—also got angry.

Host Ira Glass talks with Yale law professor Jack Balkin about what he calls the Bush Administration's "lawyering style," a tendency to fight as hard as it can, on all fronts, to get what it wants. Ira also plays tape from a news conference with New York Senator Charles Schumer, in which he takes the Justice Department to task for refusing to pay death benefits to the families of two auxiliary policemen who were killed in the line of duty, even though federal law grants those benefits.

Host Ira Glass talks with Bennett Miller and Matt Futterman about a campaign for student government that changed the way student elections were done in Mamaroneck High School back in 1985. Futterman, in the waning days of his campaign, tried a radical tactic: A TV ad.

Senator Jeff Flake breaks from the plan and speaks openly about the bipartisan DACA proposal to the media before the president has a chance to sell the deal himself. Turns out, that’s not what actually kills the deal.

Jerry Nadler and other democrats in the House Judiciary Committee were anticipating their first major public appearance – and show of power – since winning back the house in November. As Nadler and his staff prepared to get some answers from then-acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker about his role and conduct as interim AG, producer Zoe Chace follows them behind the scenes for weeks in the run-up to the hearing, to see if their strategies work, or don’t.

For many years, Israeli citizens learned a sanitized version of what happened during their War of Independence in 1948. They learned that 700,000 Arabs fled the country on their own accord.

The secret games delegates play to amuse themselves, differences between Republican and Democratic convention delegates, and more.

The government shuts down, and Flake tries to get the senate to ignore what the White House wants. Unsuccessfully.

Even people who vehemently disagreed with Heider Garcia wanted him to stay in his job. But then something happened that made staying impossible.

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

Donald Trump has talked about taking revenge on his enemies since the early days of his 2024 presidential campaign.

The story of a band of libertarians with a plan to take over a state. They call it the Free State Project and it goes like this: They pick a state with a low population, 20,000 of them move to it, establish a voting majority, and run it according to libertarian principles.

The man who organized the rally in Charlottesville is named Jason Kessler. He says he’s not to blame for the violence that happened there, including the death of a counter protester.

Jack Hitt has spent the last two years watching the Obama administration lose the news cycle and war of soundbites to Republicans day after day. Watching the Democrats run away from issues like health care reform and middle class tax cuts, Hitt wonders if there is some secret long-term master plan the Democrats are deploying, or if they're just incompetent.

Ira speaks with Professor Glenn Loury. Loury failed to stand up for a light-skinned friend at a black unity rally in the sixties.

Sarah Vowell visits four Presidential libraries on a fact-finding tour for...President Clinton. Not that he asked her.

A Walter Mondale-voting, gay-rights-supporting unrepentant liberal signs up as a Republican party member—and ends up a party functionary—a delegate to the state Republican convention...where he wreaks havoc. Dan Savage tells the story.

More campaign diaries from The New Republic's Michael Lewis.

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.

Doug Deason is a political donor trying to make the biggest decision people like him make every four years – which presidential candidate to back. Producer Zoe Chace follows Deason through the unpredictable primaries of the 2016 election.

Ira Glass tells the story of a little-known treaty dispute with far-reaching ramifications for our understanding of executive power. The dispute is between the President and one of his appointees...to the International Boundary Commission with Canada.

Here in America, here's how we interact with our political candidates: We dispatch middlemen to the scene, they listen to what the candidates say, they research the candidates' backgrounds, and they tell us what they think is most important. Those middlemen, of course, are journalists.

The first part of Josh Seftel and Rich Robinson's documentary about South Africa. Josh meets people who may be distant South African relatives.

A Democratic club at a bar in South Bend, Indiana, melts down over President Trump, and producer Ben Calhoun is there to see who’s still left in the club at the end of the night.