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October 21, 2016

Seriously?

Watching lies become the truth in this year's election. And a few people who try to bridge the gap between the way the two sides see the facts.

Note: The internet version of this episode contains un-beeped curse words. BEEPED VERSION.

Prologue

Ira talks about what’s alarming him about this year’s election: facts seem less meaningful than they ever have, and the gap between the mainstream media and right-wing media’s versions of the world have never seemed further apart. CNN’s Jake Tapper explains what it was like to be on the air live when Donald Trump tried to take a huge, obvious lie and pass it off as the truth. (8 minutes)
Act One

Lies Become the Truth

Ira's quest continues. He calls his Uncle Lenny, who gets his news from Fox and the Wall Street Journal, and lives with an entirely different set of facts, and Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the CATO Institute, who explains that the central issue in Donald Trump’s candidacy is based on something that isn’t true. (11 minutes)
Act Two

Judges with Grudges

In this election year we look at the story of one small ballot initiative, in one state. We heard this referendum would gut Georgia's Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC), an independent organization that investigates ethics complaints about judges. Years ago, the JQC investigated a judge we did a whole episode about, Amanda Williams, and she resigned from the bench. We wondered why in the world someone would want to tamper with an agency that seemed to be doing a good job at a low cost. Producer David Kestenbaum went to Georgia to figure out what was going on. (21 minutes)
Act Three

Aw, Do We NAFTA?

Ira explains that when Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton all seemed to be against free trade agreements, he got genuinely confused. Is free trade good or bad? Was NAFTA good or evil? Are we down with TPP? He asked Jacob Goldstein of NPR’s Planet Money podcast to explain, once and for all, the pros and cons of free trade. (7 minutes)
Act Four

Seriously?

We’ve been wondering about some of the things President Obama thinks about the current election, but can’t say publicly. But since he hasn’t told us his thoughts explicitly, we asked singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles – who did the Broadway musical “Waitress” – to imagine those thoughts for us. One of the stars of Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr., performs the song. Music direction by Nadia DiGiallonardo, strings orchestration by Alex Lacamoire. (4 minutes)


Recorded and mixed by Derik Lee
Emily Grishman, music copyist
Lee Nadel, bass
Jonathan Dinklage, violin
Adele Stein, cello
Todd Low, viola
Antoine Silverman, violin2