Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast (Chris Hayes, MSNBC & NBCNews THINK)

So much has happened in the past few weeks. And we’ve seen a speed game of sorts being played by the Trump administration to try to act as rapidly as possible to rework the administrative state of the government. One example of that is the attempts to end the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The letters have even been taken off of the building. But is any of this even legal and what are the implications of gutting USAID? Jeremy Konyndk is the president at Refugees International. He served as a senior official at USAID in the Obama and Biden administrations.  Konyndk joins WITHpod to discuss progress that has already been undone, diplomatic repercussions, the effects on American soft power and the uncertain future of USAID.

 

You might be feeling that artificial intelligence is starting to seem a bit like magic. Our guest this week points out that AI, once the subject of science fiction, has seen the biggest rise of any consumer technology in history and has outpaced the uptake of TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. As we see AI becoming more of an everyday tool, students are even using chatbots like ChatGPT to write papers. While automating certain tasks can help with productivity, we’re starting to see more examples of the dark side of the technology. How close are we to genuine external intelligence? Kate Crawford is an AI expert, research professor at USC Annenberg, honorary professor at the University of Sydney and senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research Lab in New York City. She’s also author of “Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence.” Crawford joins WITHpod to discuss the social and political implications of AI, exploited labor behind its growth, why she says it’s “neither artificial nor intelligent,” climate change concerns, the need for regulation and more.

We just got back from the first stop on our fall 2023 WITHpod tour. We’re thrilled to share a recording of our live event at the Texas Tribune Festival with Andrew Weissmann and Mary McCord, co-hosts of the MSNBC podcast, “Prosecuting Donald Trump.” Weissmann and McCord, who are both former federal prosecutors, joined in Austin, TX to discuss former president and criminal defendant Trump’s continually growing legal issues as the country prepares for the presidential election in 2024. They also talk about the key point that up until recently, everything that's ever happened to Trump in the past with regards to the law has happened in the regime of civil law, which charges in their view will be the clearest, whether they think he will be convicted before Election Day in 2024 and so much more.

**WITHpod Live Tour Special Announcement**

Join us on the road. We still have a limited number of tickets available for you to join us in Chicago on 10/9. And join us in Philadelphia on 10/16.  Buy your tickets now at msnbc.com/withpodtour.

We’ve seen a wave of campaigns in school districts and municipalities across the country to ban literary works over the past few years.  One instance of this is the subject of MSNBC Films’ "To Be Destroyed," the latest installment of "The Turning Point" documentary series from Executive Producer Trevor Noah. The feature documentary explores a South Dakota community's fight against book banning after five books – including one by best-selling author Dave Eggers – were pulled from the shelves. Eggers joins WITHpod to discuss how he views his role as a writer in this era, the efforts to ban books, why and where they’re happening and the reactionary moment that we’re in.

 

You’ve probably encountered phishing emails or computer viruses. Or maybe one or more of your accounts has been hacked or compromised. How and why do hackers hack and what are they generally seeking? Our guest this week points out that understanding the answers to those questions is essential for making sense of the psychological, economic, political and social effects of cybercrime. Scott Shapiro is Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School. He is the author of a new book called, “Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks.” The book dives into five historical examples, one of which involves its namesake, Fancy Bear, a Russian cyberintelligence unit responsible for hacking the Democratic National Convention. Shapiro joins WITHpod to discuss some of the biggest inflection points in the history of hacking, why the internet is so vulnerable, the role that generative AI may place in future cybercrime and his thoughts on if we should really be concerned about cyberwar.

We're thrilled to share our summer #WITHpod mailbag, which was originally hosted on Instagram Live. Join as Chris and producer Doni Holloway talk about the upcoming #WITHpod tour, go through your questions, discuss feedback you’ve sent and share pod updates. 

**WITHpod Live Tour Special Announcement**

We're taking #WITHpod back on the road. Join us in Chicago on 10/9, Philadelphia on 10/16, and NYC on 11/12. Buy your tickets now at msnbc.com/withpodtour.

Links to some episodes mentioned:

Being “Irrepressible” with Little Rock Nine Member Minnijean Brown-Trickey

The Dire Threat of Global Authoritarianism with Rula Jebreal

AI: “An Exponential Disruption” with Kate Crawford

The Care Economy with Ai-jen Poo

Why Americans Are Dying So Young with Anne Case and Angus Deaton

“A Moral Moment in America” with Sen. Raphael Warnock

#WITHpod & Strict Scrutiny Crossover (2023)




 

The language that is used to talk about immigrants in America is something that really bothers Chris. A common and unproductive trope that’s heard in media is “a flood of immigrants to the border.” At the same time, there is a growing dependance at the foundational level on the labor of immigrants in the U.S. As natural disasters are happening with increasing frequency and intensity, communities are relying more and more on immigrant laborers. Saket Soni is director of Resilience Force, a national initiative that advocates on behalf of disaster recovery workers. He’s also author of the upcoming book, “The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams In America.” The subject of the story starts when Soni, who was 28 years old at the time, received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant who told him about incredibly inhumane worker conditions at a labor camp in Mississippi. The extraordinary journey that follows is told in the fascinating read about how Soni and 500 workers devised a bold plan, after a series of clandestine meetings, to escape and bring attention to their cause in Washington, D.C. He joins WITHpod to discuss writing about one of the largest human trafficking cases in modern American history, his deeply personal story coming to the U.S. from India, the importance of a well-protected skilled resilient workforce, rebuilding social fabrics around this topic and more.

There’s been a marked rise over the last decade of nationalist and authoritarian politics. Global freedom declined for a 17th consecutive year in 2022, according to a Freedom House annual report. The rise of MAGAism in the U.S., neo-fascism in Italy and hard-right politics in Israel are just a few examples of why democracy around globe continues to hang on a knife’s edge. Our guest this week has experienced first-hand the deleterious effects of attacks, perpetrated by opponents of democracy, on civil, political and press freedom. Rula Jebreal is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, foreign policy expert and visiting professor at the University of Miami. She joins WITHpod to discuss the interconnectedness of the global authoritarian movement, the personal attacks she has witnessed, what is at stake, how authoritarian gains could be rolled back and more.

Congressman Jamie Raskin’s life was forever changed on Dec. 31, 2020 when his 25-year-old son Tommy died by suicide. Raskin writes about the loss of his beloved middle child in “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy,” a deeply personal memoir out January 2022. Nearly a week after losing his son, another tragedy occurred: the Jan. 6th insurrection at the Capitol. Shortly after, he writes, Speaker Pelosi “threw [him] a lifeline” when she asked him to lead the second impeachment of former president Donald Trump. Raskin joins to discuss navigating the unimaginable convergence of personal and public trauma, finding the strength to lead following double blows and what’s ahead in the aftermath of modern democracy’s darkest day. Note: This episode contains mentions of suicide. Anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress can contact The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255.

Lots of results continue coming in from the 2022 midterms. Control of the House and the Senate is still undecided and the outcome will come down to a handful of tight races. As we still await results, WITHpod is sharing a bonus behind the scenes episode as Chris Hayes and MSNBC political insiders break down the elections. Note that this special originally streamed on Peacock.

Starting in 2016, U.S. diplomats and spies began reporting a wide range of mysterious and debilitating medical symptoms, first in Cuba and then around the world. Doctors who initially treated patients couldn’t come up with a diagnosis and some just called it “The Thing.” Patients said they felt like they were hit by an invisible, directed pressure while stationed on government property, or sometimes standing in their own homes or hotel rooms. The intense health effects, which some have referred to as potentially psychogenic, included high pitched ringing in ears, vertigo, memory loss and brain zaps. The set of medical conditions became known as Havana Syndrome. Why has investigating this been so difficult? Who or what force could be behind all of this? Although the C.I.A. has maintained that it’s unlikely that the cases were caused by foreign adversaries, many questions and doubts remain about the agency’s findings. Award-winning journalists Jon Lee Anderson and Adam Entous explore some of these questions in a new Vice World News 8-part podcast aptly titled “Havana Syndrome.” Anderson and Entous join WITHpod to discuss the events leading up to the first reported Havana Syndrome cases, the global blame game that followed, what technology could be the culprit and more.

Here in the United States, things are closer to normal than they have been in a long time. Businesses have reopened, gatherings have started to resume, and COVID cases and deaths continue to fall to levels that we have not seen since the very beginning of the pandemic. But even three months ago, it was not clear that this would be the point we are at. So how did the government ramp up its vaccine campaign to get us to a closer normal? This week former White House senior advisor to the COVID response, Andy Slavitt, joins to talk about how the Biden Administration tackled the vaccine distribution problem as well as his new book about the US COVID response, "Preventable". 

It’s been one year since the devastating October 7th attacks by Hamas into Israel. It’s a truly awful anniversary to observe for numerous reasons. In the past year, there’s been immeasurable horror, violence, destruction and death. It is estimated that at least 40,000 people have died in Gaza and there are still over a hundred hostages. Our guest this week survived the attacks on October 7th and the chaos that ensued. Amir Tibon is an Israeli journalist working for Haaretz Newspaper and is the author of a newly published book titled "The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands.” He joins WITHpod to discuss what has transpired over the last year, internal politics in Gaza now, the U.S. response and what he hopes will happen in the future.

This week’s episode is a bit of a crossover. We’re sharing the fourth and final episode of MSNBC’s “The Threat of Project 2025” special series for the How to Win podcast. In this episode, Chris speaks with Grist climate reporter Zoya Teirstein for her take on Project 2025’s impact on climate and the environment, especially in communities already suffering from climate-related catastrophes. Then, Dr. Vernon Morris, a professor of chemistry and atmospheric sciences at Arizona State University, shares his experience working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the important work at stake should NOAA be dismantled by this conservative agenda.

This week, we’re sharing a recording of an event hosted at the Center for Brooklyn History where Chris interviewed author Ari Berman. Berman is the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and has written numerous books including his latest, “Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It,” which is the subject of this conversation. They discuss parallels between founding fathers’ ideologies and contemporary figures, threats to our democracy and the movement to counter regressive efforts. 


Chris is on vacation this week, so we're sharing a favorite recent episode. Please note that this conversation was originally recorded in May of 2022 before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. From the original description: “Forced labor is already unconstitutional and what is forced birth other than forcing a woman to labor against her will?” remarked Elie Mystal, a justice correspondent at The Nation, following the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Mystal is also author of the New York Times bestselling book, “Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution,” in which he points out problems with-and solutions for- reversing systemic issues created by America’s founding document. He joins WITHpod to discuss his objections to conservative interpretations of rights, abortion rights law, changes he’d make to the Constitution, and revisions he’d make to the structure of the Supreme Court and more.

Since the U.S. withdrew its final troop from Afghanistan last summer, U.S. coverage of the country has also precipitously declined, even as the country faces a dire humanitarian emergency. So we thought it was time to do a gut check with one of the most prolific reporters on the topic. Award-winning journalist and author of “No Good Men Among The Living,” Anand Gopal, has covered global conflict and the Middle East for more than a decade. In 2021, his reporting took him to Helmand Province, the epicenter of conflict in the war-torn country. His experience there led him to write “The Other Afghan Women,” one of the most comprehensive reports about the plight of women in the countryside. Gopal’s work has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harpers and in The New Yorker, where he currently covers war, revolution and democracy. He joins to discuss his latest experience on the ground, the Taliban’s rapid rise to power, how and where the war on terror continues to be waged and the long-term prospects for the Afghan people under Taliban rule.

We’re in strange times. In the U.S., we’re finding ourselves in a situation in which the possibility of genuine democratic retrenchment and some version of presidential authoritarian dictatorship is a real possibility. There’s a lot to consider as the liberal democracy we’ve become accustomed to could erode right before our eyes in the near future. Steve Levitsky is a professor of government at Harvard and serves as the director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Levitsky is also a New York Times bestselling author of numerous books including, “How Democracies Die” and “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” which he co-authored with Daniel Ziblatt. He joins WITHpod to discuss entering into a new era, the uncertainty of this moment, the process by which a democracy might backslide into something that's less democratic and resisting the erosion. 

You might think that nothing good happens on the Internet anymore. It's just an algorithmically driven continuous feed of rage, disinformation, and subterfuge. Natalie Wynn, known for her YouTube channel ContraPoints, proves that good things are still happening on the Internet. Part philosopher, part performance artist, and wholly genre-defying, Wynn crafts gorgeous and ethereal video essays on everything from TERFS and J.K Rowling to the rise of incels. There’s no one on the Internet quite like Natalie Wynn, and she joins to tell us how she does it.

 

Over the past few years a broader conversation around speech has intensified in the United States. It is a conversation about speech, taboo, social justice, power and hierarchy, penalty about what things people can or can't say, should or shouldn't say in what environments, and what censure should attach to that kind of speech.  It’s an incredibly thorny conversation to have, filled with exhaustively overused terms like “cancel culture”, but it is not an unimportant one. This week scholar and linguist, John McWhorter, joins to discuss our discourse around speech and debate where we as a society should set our boundaries.

From her experience as a single mom trying to figure out how to pay her bills, to her time as a nurse working tirelessly for her patients, to her dedication as an activist marching for accountability in the streets of Ferguson, Congresswoman Bush can tell you exactly why her district voted for her in 2020. She knows she didn’t take the road well-travelled on her path to Congress, and her defeat of 10-term incumbent Lacy Clay was one of the biggest upsets of the election, but it’s her relatability that sets her apart. It also helps that she’s a natural born storyteller – and if you don’t believe us, then you need only listen to this episode.

How do you win an unprecedented election that could see a criminally indicted ex-president take on the current Commander in Chief? How do you win crucial down-ballot races that will ultimately shape the power dynamics for whoever wins the White House? And how do you win over voters – of any party -- when mistrust in leadership is at an all-time high? Claire McCaskill and Jennifer Palmieri, are two of the most well-respected voices in American politics today and have some ideas. Listen to their new podcast “How to Win 2024” and follow the show: https://link.chtbl.com/htw_fdlw

Our guest this week recently traveled down to the border to confront the so-called “Army of God” as part of a larger project of providing alternative ideologies to Christian nationalism. Doug Pagitt is a pastor, author and the executive director of Vote Common Good, an organization aimed at influencing evangelical Christians. His group has been on a nationwide tour focused on directly engaging evangelicals in key swing states with the hope of swaying a critical percentage of them against former President Donald Trump. Pagitt believes a small portion of these voters are swayable and that if they are engaged, election outcomes can be flipped. He joins WITHpod to discuss the trajectory of evangelical politics, what he’s learned on tour and what’s at stake in this year’s election.

Back in 2019, a panel of health experts declared that of every country in the whole world, the United States was the most prepared for handling a pandemic. So what went wrong? Acclaimed author Michael Lewis is unparalleled in unearthing the most compelling characters to tell an unexpected story – it’s no wonder he’s had multiple books turned into movies (The Blind Side, Moneyball, The Big Short). Now, Lewis has done it again with his latest book, “The Premonition”, following the people who spent years preparing for a pandemic only to be ignored at the most crucial juncture – to devastating results.

 

READ

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis

There’s so much discourse about polling and it seems like there’s a poll for nearly every political issue. At the same time, polls often don’t successfully help us to predict the future, including election outcomes. What contributes to the mismatch between what we expect of them and what they actually deliver? Nate Cohn is the chief political analyst at the New York Times where he created the Times/Siena poll. Cohn points out that, among many things, polling plays a “central role in the way we understand the way campaigns ought to behave.” He joins WITHpod to discuss the complexities of polling, survey methodology, systematic biases and more.

We just wrapped up our fall 2023 national tour. We’ve so enjoyed taking WITHpod on the road and it’s been so good to hear feedback from so many of you. We couldn’t think of a better person to have for our tour culmination than the one and only Rachel Maddow. It was a fascinating conversation all about what we can do to save American democracy, how we got to this particular political moment and her amazing New York Times bestselling book, “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism.” We’re thrilled to share the full recording of the event with you.

Amazon puts just about everything you might need one click away and over the last year, people have been turning to the tech giant more than ever. But all that frictionless efficiency comes at huge social costs. In his new book “Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America”, ProPublica Reporter Alec MacGillis investigates Amazon’s impact on the deepening economic divide in towns and cities across the country. 

Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis

Listen to Amazon's Wish List with Stacy Mitchell

Much of Maui has been decimated following one of the deadliest wildfires in U.S. history, wildfires are still ravaging Canada, ice in the arctic is melting rapidly, sea levels are rising and we’ve had the hottest day measured on our planet this year. There’s a lot happening as it relates to climate change. “It’s not the summer from hell, it’s the summer that sort of is hell,” says our guest this week. Bill McKibben is an environmentalist, educator, author and founder of Third Act, which has a mission to organize people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. He’s also a founder of 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign. His 1989 book, “The End of Nature” is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change. McKibben recently wrote a piece for the New Yorker titled, “To Save the Planet, Should We Really Be Moving Slower?,” which talks about the degrowth movement, which calls on countries to embrace zero or negative G.D.P. growth, making a comeback. He joins WITHpod to discuss the growth debates of the 70s vs. contemporary ones, parallels between protecting the planet and our democracy, why this moment is such an inflection point and more.

The United States hasn’t seen inflation like current levels since the late 1970s. The pandemic prompted unusually high levels of fiscal stimulus, including the rollout of relief through programs like the American Rescue Plan, which some have blamed for inflation. But our guest this week shares that increased economic relief isn’t really the biggest contributing factor leading to inflation. Author Matthew Klein points out that supply chain disruptions created by the COVID crisis, along with the war in Ukraine, actually explain the majority of the changes we’re experiencing. Klein has reported for numerous outlets including Bloomberg, the Financial Times and Barron’s. He joins WITHpod to provide a gut check on the economy and to discuss why he believes the Fed has raised interest rates, the role that supply and demand plays in global financial systems, the impact of monetary policy changes on economic recovery efforts and more.

We’ve never had a situation where the world’s richest man has essentially joined the White House as a co-president of sorts. What might this mean, especially when we consider Elon Musk’s history of unchecked power? Kate Conger is a New York Times reporter based in San Francisco, covering X and other technology companies. She’s also a co-author, along with Ryan Mac, of “Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter” Conger joins WITHpod to discuss what has happened to X under Musk’s stewardship, Musk’s growing political influence, the SEC suing him, why his role is so peculiar and more. We should note that Conger and Mac requested to interview Musk for their book, but mentioned that no response was received. 

Every day in the United States, 10,000 people turn 65, according to the UN Population Division. We are about to have the largest older population ever. At the same time, nearly 4 million babies are born every year, leaving many Americans juggling caring for young children and aging parents. Caregiving is often cast as nonproductive labor, despite the incredible mental, emotional and physical toll it can take. It’s increasingly clear that more resources are urgently needed to support caregivers. How can we rethink our social and economic policies to ensure that more people can age with dignity? Ai-jen Poo is president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and executive director of Caring Across Generations. She is also author of the 2015 book “The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.” She joins WITHpod to discuss her personal experiences that led her to be an activist, the need for more infrastructure to support caring for aging populations, the care economy and more.

Producer Tiffany Champion is back with a post-quarantine vibe check on the WITHpod inbox! In this backstage glimpse of the podcast, hear how Chris Hayes prepares for interviews, which recent episode got the biggest response from listeners, and find out about the exciting changes happening on the show!

The pandemic has transformed the way work is done. For many, gone are the days of dressing up, commuting to an office, and working in-person five days a week. But with the broad availability of vaccines and boosters, as well as relaxed COVID guidelines, employers are increasingly encouraging employees to return to the office. Yet, not everyone wants to go back to the way things were. 87% of workers who have the chance to work flexibly take it, according to the American Opportunity Survey, conducted by McKinsey. Anne Helen Petersen is the author of four books including “Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home,” which she co-wrote with Charlie Warzel. Petersen joins WITHpod to discuss why the future isn’t just about where we will work, but how. She also discusses the history of working from home, people returning to “ghost offices,” why reverting to pre-pandemic workplace norms could be problematic and more.

The amount of overdose deaths in the U.S. is staggering. And while addiction is a disease, there’s no specific medical treatment or cure for it. Our guest this week points out that weight loss drugs and GLP-1s, or glucagon-like peptide-1s, which are used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, can be effective for helping people reduce cravings and consumption of drugs, alcohol and compulsive behaviors like gambling. Nick Reville is the cofounder and executive director of the Center for Addiction Science, Policy, and Research (CASPR). He joins WITHpod to discuss how he found his way into this research area, lessons learned from other health crises, innovations geared towards eliminating addictions at a widescale level and more.

 

There’s a lot to consider about what Trump 2.0 portends for the future of our country, lives and democracy. A lot of questions remain. And perhaps maybe now more than ever, it’s all been keeping Chris up really late at night, like so many of you. Chris and WITHpod producer Doni Holloway unpack post-election thoughts and discuss moving forward. 

More information about Chris' latest book, "The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource" + info about the book tour here. 
 

We’re thrilled to share the second episode in our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. This week, we discuss the candidates’ stances and records on one of the most important and contested topics: tax policy. Kimberly Clausing is the Eric M. Zolt Chair in Tax Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. Before that, she was the deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Clausing also served as the lead economist in the Office of Tax Policy during the first part of the Biden Administration. She joins WITHpod to discuss Trump vs. Biden tax and economic policy, notable changes in IRS funding, who is most affected by recent major tax legislation and more.

Recovery from trauma and its emanations is a defining theme of this moment. Dr. Thomas Fisher has certainly seen his share of the effects of mass disruption as an emergency medical physician. He typically has about three minutes to spend with patients who come into the South Side of Chicago ward where he works. Throughout his storied career, he’s also served as a White House fellow in the Obama administration and as a healthcare executive. He writes about his experiences in “The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER.” Fisher joins us to talk about how our country’s healthcare system often treats the poor as expendable, how the pandemic has exacerbated longstanding- and increasingly fraught- inequities in access to good healthcare and discusses the privilege of serving in the same community that he grew up in. This conversation is presented as part of NBC and MSNBC’s cross-platform “Inspiring America” series, which highlights stories of people who’ve made an extraordinary impact on their communities and industries over the past year. You can follow updates on Twitter by searching for #InspiringAmericaNBC.

Racial hierarchy in America is deeply embedded in big structural institutions. From housing to criminal justice to education, there’s decades of scholarly work and research dissecting the lasting legacies of policies that disproportionately disenfranchise people of color. Now, tax law scholar Dorothy A. Brown has a mind-blowing new book about race and tax, uncovering the ways the tax code is constructed to build white wealth while impoverishing black Americans. In a conversation that is engaging, enlightening, and even laugh out loud funny (seriously), Brown lays out the culmination of her life’s work and explains why now could be the time to fix the system.

The Whiteness Of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans--and How We Can Fix It by Dorothy A. Brown

Roughly 19 million acres of eastern Oklahoma hung in the balance in the summer of 2020. Before the Supreme Court was a case asking a question crucial to Native land rights - does the United States still honor the treaties signed in the 1800s promising that land to indigenous tribes? And in a landmark 5-4 decision penned by conservative justice Neil Gorsuch, the court ruled that yes, that land remains reservation land. It was a huge win - but what does it mean? Joining us this week is Rebecca Nagle, a member of the Cherokee tribe and host of a phenomenal podcast titled "This Land", detailing the long fight leading up to this moment.

Read the McGirt v Oklahoma opinion

Listen to Whose Land

Trolls have basically taken possession of the U.S. government. How have trolls been able to go from being mostly cordoned off in dark parts of the internet to gaining so much influence in American culture and politics? Our guest this week has spent years researching and reporting on-the-ground to learn more about how the battle online between the right and the left has moved into the real world. Elle Reeve is a correspondent at CNN and the author of “Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics.” She joins WITHpod to discuss the politics of “black pilled” and “red pilled” young men, the ways in which online extremism so often translates into political violence and more. 
 

If you’ve been following international news, you’ve noticed the marked rise of protests and conflict in Israel. An unprecedentedly right-wing governing coalition has been elected with Netanyahu at the helm. Hundreds of thousands of people have been taking to the streets in Tel Aviv to protest the right’s moves to get rid of independence and the self-determination of Israeli Jews. Joining us to break it all down is Edo Konrad, editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine, a left-leaning publication that tells the story of people on the ground in Israel and Palestine. Konrad joins WITHpod to discuss the political fight over which hegemonic group may rule Israel, debates over the future of Zionism, why he says there is no going back to a status quo ante and more.

There’s a lot of unprecedented things going on nowadays. And with everything going on, it can be tempting to distort the moment we’re in and to view things as totally new and completely abrupt. Our guest this week has written about the source of historical continuity, particularly in the 1990s, that has brought us to our current moment. John Ganz is the author of “When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.” He joins WITHpod to discuss his thesis on modern conservatism, the placid politics of the 90s, inflection points since then and more.

 

What happens when you raise the minimum wage? The almost decade long push for a federal 15$ minimum wage made new noise in the last few weeks when Democrats tried to include it in the American Relief Act. Although this new push failed, the policy remains incredibly popular even though there are even some Democrats who are opposed. So, what are the real world consequences of a raised minimum wage, and what are its impacts on the market and labor? This week professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Arin Dube, joins to give an economist’s view of the minimum wage and the revolution in the thinking behind it. 

Given the Labor Day holiday, we're republishing one of our favorite episodes. From the original description: Every day in the United States, 10,000 people turn 65, according to the UN Population Division. We are about to have the largest older population ever. At the same time, nearly 4 million babies are born every year, leaving many Americans juggling caring for young children and aging parents. Caregiving is often cast as nonproductive labor, despite the incredible mental, emotional and physical toll it can take. It’s increasingly clear that more resources are urgently needed to support caregivers. How can we rethink our social and economic policies to ensure that more people can age with dignity? Ai-jen Poo is president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and executive director of Caring Across Generations. She is also author of the 2015 book “The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.” She joins WITHpod to discuss her personal experiences that led her to be an activist, the need for more infrastructure to support caring for aging populations, the care economy and more.

**WITHpod Live Tour Special Announcement**

We're taking #WITHpod back on the road for a live three-city tour. Join Chris in Chicago on 10/9, Philadelphia on 10/16, and NYC on 11/12. Buy your tickets now with special code WITHPOD: msnbc.com/withpodtour.

It’s been a little over two years since the tragic murder of George Floyd, and what was arguably the largest civil rights protests in United States history. Since May of 2020, hashtags and icons have been used to commemorate him, but he was so much more than a face on a mural. He was a father, partner, athlete, and friend who constantly strove for a better life, as chronicled in “His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.” The book builds off of a series in The Washington Post in October 2020 called “George Floyd's America.” Robert Samuels, a national enterprise reporter at The Washington Post, co-wrote the book with colleague Toluse Olorunnipa, a political enterprise and investigations reporter. Samuels joins WITHpod for a personal look at how systemic racism impacted Floyd’s life, his family’s social mobility, his legacy and more. Samuels also discusses how even despite all of the seemingly endless challenges Floyd faced, he still held on to his vision for a better world.

Happy holidays! As our team takes some time away for a break, we're re-sharing part of our "Future of" miniseries that originally aired in March 2022. From the original description: The ways we consume media have changed tremendously over the last decade. Shows with live audiences, perhaps more than any other type of program, had to pivot virtually almost overnight when the pandemic started. That certainly was the case with “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” As viewers have more sources for entertainment now than ever before, the show had to find creative ways to keep fans engaged and entertained. Lucky for us, Seth Meyers, the affable host of the show bearing his name, joins to discuss what he thinks about the future of entertainment and comedy, why he felt closer to the audience while hosting from home and more.

State legislatures have significantly advanced a record number of attacks aimed at restricting LGBTQ+ rights this year. Our guest this week points out that “the number one priority, without any ambiguity” of Republicans has been attacking trans people. Nearly half of the country could see health care bans for trans adolescents by May. This tidal wave of anti-trans legislation, which restricts gender affirming and medically necessary care, continues to have wide-ranging and deleterious impacts, especially on adolescents. Chase Strangio, who is transgender, is deputy director for Transgender Justice with the ACLU’s LGBT and HIV Project and a nationally recognized expert on trans rights. Strangio joins WITHpod to discuss how politics has eclipsed healthcare in some cases, anti-transgender legislation being used as a gateway to broader government control and why conversations about trans people is often predicated on fear and confusion. He also talks about the ongoing political and legislative fights to protect bodily autonomy, gender expression and personal freedom.

Happy New Year! As our team returns from break, we're re-sharing another part of our "Future of" miniseries that originally aired in March 2022. From the original description: Time is running out to reverse the damage done by climate change, according to a report released by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2022. Preventing further destruction will be the biggest undertaking in the history of human civilization. Can it be done? Jonah Goldman joined Gates Ventures, Bill Gates’s private office, in September 2014, where he is responsible for the organization’s relationships with policymakers around the world. In 2020, he helped Bill establish Breakthrough Energy (BE). BE is a network of entities and initiatives, including investment funds, nonprofit and philanthropic programs, and policy efforts linked by a common commitment to scale the technologies we need to achieve a path to net zero emissions by 2050. Goldman joins to provide a gut check on where we stand on the timeline for change as it relates to the future of energy.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Spencer Ackerman joins to discuss catalysts for the War on Terror, inflection points, recent developments in Kabul, and the role of U.S. hegemony in continued global combat. Ackerman also talks about his new book, “Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump,” which tells the story of how the weaponized bigotry that fueled the war on terror after 9/11 created the conditions for Trumpism and increased threats to American democracy.

The Democratic national convention was a whole vibe this year. History was made during the electric four-day convention, which culminated with Vice President Harris accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination, the first black woman and person of South Asian decent to do so. Lucky for us, our own Alex Wagner, host of “Alex Wagner Tonight” on MSNBC, joined us fresh off her flight from Chicago to unpack what the “whirlwind” experience was like. Wagner also discusses the people who were there and what they mean for the party, areas of possible trouble or friction ahead that may not have been evident on TV and more. 

It’s been 174 years since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote “The Communist Manifesto.” How is it still relevant today and what makes it such a vital guide to understanding present-day struggles? That’s the subject of China Mieville’s latest work, “A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto.” Miéville, a self-proclaimed Marxist and socialist, is a New York Times-bestselling author of fiction and non-fiction. His most recent book offers an analysis of what arguably remains the modern world’s most influential political document. He joins WITHpod to discuss criticisms of “The Manifesto,” the precipitating factors and peculiar nature of the text, how it still profoundly influences contemporary discourse and more.

Why have attacks on gender become so pervasive, especially within right-wing movements? Our guest this week points out that “the question of gender is fundamentally linked with the future of our democratic world.” Judith Butler is a philosopher, gender theorist and cultural critic. They are also a distinguished professor in the graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley. Butler is the author of numerous books, including their latest, “Who’s Afraid of Gender?” They join WITHpod to discuss their seminal work, thinking beyond gender binaries, the obsession with gender as a tool to further authoritarian movements and more. 

You might also enjoy these WITHpod conversations:
Treating Trans Youth with Dr. Izzy Lowell 
The Fixation on Anti-Trans Legislation with Chase Strangio

How does the human body take in and use energy? It is a simple question, but one that we still do not have a definitive answer to. This week Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology, Herman Pontzer, joins to shed light on these evolutionary mysteries. How did our bodies get to be the way they are? How do we take in and expend energy? And how do we keep ourselves happy and healthy in the modern world we have built?

“Identity politics” polarizes discourse about virtually every aspect of contemporary political life. But what exactly is it, and what role does “elite capture” play in how it has come to be understood? Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is a philosopher, assistant professor at Georgetown University and author of several books, including “Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)” and “Reconsidering Reparations,” both of which were published in 2022. He joins WITHpod to discuss the origins of identity politics, the problems with what he calls deference politics, and how elites have co-opted the language of social justice to their own ends.

Note: Some listeners may find the sensitive content discussed in this episode disturbing. Who is complicit in some of society’s dirtiest work? If you grill a steak, someone somewhere had to butcher the cow under brutal working conditions. Our twenty year war on terror has been fought much the same way, with a relatively small group of our fellow Americans doing difficult, morally fraught work that allows huge majorities of Americans to live in blissful ignorance. In “Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America,” Eyal Press explores the nature of our implicit social contract around dirty work: Who does the work itself and what story does it allow society to tell about itself?

The COVID pandemic has been going on for more than two years. Will it ever end? It’s a question that doesn’t have a straightforward answer, as much as we all desperately want one. Dr. Ellie Murray is an epidemiology assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. She also runs the Murray Causal Decision Lab and co-hosts the “Casual Inference” podcast in partnership with the American Journal of Epidemiology. Murray joins WITHpod to discuss the importance of smart public health messaging, ethical and sociological concerns regarding the determination of “acceptable” virus case numbers and misconceptions of what endemicity means. She also talks about strategies for protecting those most at risk and why it’s possible that COVID could mutate into something much more dangerous if too much complacency continues.

The Supreme Court has long had incredible authority to make decisions that affect millions of Americans. But in recent years, it has increasingly used its power to make stealth emergency decisions without public hearings or explanations. The cases that we often hear about on the high court’s so-called merits docket only represent about one percent of what the court decides. Since the mid-2010s, 99 percent of SCOTUS rulings, including ones increasingly related to consequential issues like abortion, immigration and COVID restrictions, have taken place on what some legal scholars have taken to calling “the shadow docket.” What does this obscure procedure mean for each of us? Steve Vladeck is the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at The University of Texas School of Law. He’s also author of a new book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.” He joins WITHpod to discuss how we got to this moment, what the shadow docket means for the rule of law and strategies for ameliorating inconsistencies in the court’s process.

It can feel like the news industry is in a moment of crisis. Over 500 journalists were laid off from news outlets in January 2024 alone, according to a report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. These layoffs are part of a broader trend of seismic changes within the media industry over the past few decades. As disinformation concerns continue to rise and we prepare for another consequential election, why are newsrooms drastically reducing headcount? Ben Smith is editor in chief and cofounder at Semafor, a recently launched digital news platform. He is author of “Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral,” which unpacks the ups and downs of the digital media business. Smith is also a former New York Times media columnist and the former editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News. He joins WITHpod to discuss how we got to this moment, the impact of evolving news consumption habits, changing revenue models and more.

Last year's Super Bowl featured a who's who of celebrities hawking cryptocurrency and crypto platforms like FTX. In retrospect that looks like the boom before the bust. This year, crypto prices have tumbled and one of the most valued exchanges, FTX, collapsed in a cloud of alleged fraud and federal indictments. So is it all a scam? A pyramid scheme? Will crypto endure? Our guest this week thinks it will, but says accused fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried has shown the world just how risky the market can be for new users. It remains unclear if FTX customers will ever get their money back or if crypto can ever be seen more broadly as a trustworthy store of value. Tonya Evans is a tenured full professor at Penn State Dickinson Law School whose work focuses on the legal, regulatory, policy and economic justice implications of new technologies and innovation. She also hosts a weekly podcast called “Tech Intersect,” all about the intersection of law, business and tech. Evans joins WITHpod to discuss why, in her view, the collapse of FTX isn’t a crypto problem, rather a fraud problem, what the future of regulation in the space could look like and more.

North Carolina is one of the most interesting swing states in this election. Democrats have not won the Tar Heel state at the presidential level since 2008 when Barack Obama won it. It was a close race in 2020 and recent polling has shown Harris and Trump neck and neck in the state. There’s a lot to unpack about what’s going on. Anderson Clayton is the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party.  Elected at 25 years old, she is the youngest chair of a state Democratic Party in the U.S. Clayton joins WITHpod to discuss her political trajectory, the state of North Carolina politics, key issues including gerrymandering, her experience at the DNC and more.

 

Since Chris is on vacation this week, we’re revisiting and providing an update on our episode with Dr. Izzy Lowell, who runs Queer Med, a private clinic that specializes in providing accessible health care to trans patients ranging from kids to adults. From the original description: What is gender-affirming health care? Around the country, there’s a Republican campaign to legislate and regulate the lives of trans youth. The most destructive of these efforts would bar trans youth in certain states from accessing gender-affirming treatment. Lowell’s practice covers 10 states across the South – and half of those have anti-trans health care bills on the docket. If they pass, it would become criminal for her to provide this care to many of her patients. Dr. Lowell joins this week to break down what exactly we mean when we talk about gender-affirming care, how the decision is made for kids and teens ready to transition, and the potentially devastating impact this legislation would have on their lives.

For the third time in 4 months Donald Trump has been indicted, twice at the federal level, but legal experts say this is the most serious one yet. MSNBC host Ali Velshi reads every word of the DOJ’s latest allegations against the former president, charging him with 4 counts in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

One of the most pressing challenges for candidates and campaigns today is how to win in a world where disinformation is so pervasive. Why is the information environment in this election year so hard to parse? Our guest this week has written about the keys to winning campaigns for more than a decade. Sasha Issenberg is a journalist and author of numerous books including his latest, “The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age.” He joins WITHpod to discuss the often insidious nature of disinformation, work to curtail its spread, how we can make sense of a world awash in lies and more.

What more can we say? Rachel Maddow is incredible. Luckily for us, her decision to dial back from the nightly cable news grind has allowed her to create a work in new media. One of her new projects is “Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra,” a podcast all about the history of pre-World-War-two American fascism, and those who worked to stop it. The historical, narrative style pod could hardly be more relevant, as the plot revolves around a sedition trial quite similar to the ongoing Oath Keepers one. As threats to American democracy abound, there’s more that has to be done to save it, said Maddow in our exclusive podcast interview. “I think there needs to be a bigger, broader, anti-fascist movement where people actually have work to do every day in trying to fight fascism and save the country,” she urged. Maddow joins WITHpod to discuss what she’s been up to, how she found the story that’s told in her new podcast, the editorial and creative process that has followed and more.

It’s been over a month since Hamas' rampage in Southern Israel killed over a thousand Israeli men, women and children, and over a month of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza that has claimed 10,000 lives, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. In this episode, we’re focusing on the precipitating factors that led to the conflict and issues that continue to impede a resolution. Sari Bashi, who lives in the West Bank and is married to a Palestinian, has a unique perspective as a Jewish woman with U.S.-Israeli citizenship, living in a household that transcends the conflict. Bashi is the program director at Human Rights Watch, an author and is the co-founder of Gisha Access, an Israeli NGO whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents. She joins WITHpod to discuss what the year before the war looked like, violations of international laws, the devastating impact on civilians, calls for countries to suspend military aid and more. Note: An earlier version of this episode's audio misstated the scale of the civilian death toll in Gaza. This version has been edited to omit this.

Its been four years since the murder of George Floyd at the hands Minneapolis police officers and the unrest that was unleashed in the wake of his death. And now we’re in a moment where another global protest movement is flourishing in denouncement of the Israeli war in Gaza. This week, we’re taking a look at the historical lineage and efficacy of protests, as well as ways we might rethink mobilization. Our guest this week has spent decades researching and writing about the dynamic nature and effectiveness of social movements. Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell distinguished professor of African American studies at Princeton University and is the author of numerous books including his latest, “We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For.” Glaude joins WITHpod to discuss inflection points in historical and contemporary mass movements, reaction to recent protests on college campuses, why he says we must avoid “outsourcing” change and more.

Introducing “Trumpland with Alex Wagner.” 

On “Trumpland,” MSNBC’s Alex Wagner takes a break from the anchor chair to get out into the field and speak with the people on the frontlines of Trump’s policies—and promises.  

Listen to the full first episode here, as Alex travels to DC—but not for the inauguration. 

Hours after President Trump was in sworn into office for the second time, he began issuing a series of presidential pardons for the January 6th insurrection. Listen along as Alex speaks to the inmates, their families, and the police officers who survived one of the most violent attacks on the Capitol in our nation’s history. 

Catch new episodes of “Trumpland with Alex Wagner” on Thursday evenings during Trump’s first 100 days. You can find the show in the “Alex Wagner Tonight” feed.  

Remember to follow the show so you don’t miss a single episode. And sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen without ads.

If you’ve been following the news, you’ve seen that this week the House passed a bill designed to force the sale of TikTok from its Chinese parent company. If you’re confused about the ins and outs of this issue, we did an extensive exploration of it with NBC News technology correspondent Jacob Ward last year. So, we thought it would be good to re-share this TikTok 101. This conversation was originally recorded in April 2023. 

 From the original description: 
TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms in the world, and now has over a billion users worldwide. But its future in the United States remains in limbo. The Biden administration, citing national security concerns, has demanded that the Chinese-owned company be sold, or face a federal ban. Montana lawmakers have already passed legislation banning the platform on personal devices, sending the bill to the governor. A lot of questions remain about the feasibility of statewide and federal bans, and why, exactly, do U.S. policymakers view this platform, that started as a lip syncing app, as such a threat? Jacob Ward is the NBC News technology correspondent and is author of “In The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back.” He joins WITHpod to discuss what’s driven the app’s exponential growth, the company’s lack of transparency in the past, the case for and against it, what could be ahead on the regulatory front and more.

Content warning: This episode discusses the recent federal executions and details the circumstances of some related crimes, including abuse, assault, rape, and murder.

For 17 years, the federal execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, sat dormant. Then, with only six months left in his Presidency, Donald Trump and AG Bill Barr oversaw an unprecedented 13 executions. Of those 13, three took place during his final week in office. So why, with one foot out the door, did the Trump administration take extraordinary measures to rush through a historic slate of executions? This has been the center of Intercept Senior Reporter Liliana Segura’s work for a long time. One of the best people on this beat, Segura spent months traveling to Terre Haute over and over again as the spree unfolded. So when it came to learning more about what just happened, who these people were, and what it means for the death penalty more broadly, we knew who to turn to.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen enormous shifts in the ideological and intellectual foundations of government policy. Trillions of dollars have been allocated through programs including the Infrastructure Bill, the CHIPS Act, and the American Rescue Plan. At the same time, we’re seeing inflation at levels unseen since the late 70s. Have we arrived in a new economic era? For over three decades, the Roosevelt Institute has fought to “develop progressive ideas and bold leadership in the service of restoring America's promise of opportunity for all.” The president and CEO of the think tank, Felicia Wong, joins WITHpod to discuss how we got to this moment, the importance of economic freedom, the need to rethink public investment and more.

Content warning: This episode contains occasional explicit sexual references and depictions of graphic events that some may find disturbing. Madame Restell is a figure you’ve likely never heard of. Our guest this week points out that Restell, an abortionist who became one of the most influential and wealthiest women in NYC during the 19th century, has been “deliberately written out of history.” But learning about Restell’s story provides incredible insight into the longstanding and contemporary battles over abortion access in the U.S. Jennifer Wright is a journalist and author of “Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist.” Wright joins WITHpod to discuss Restell’s rise to prominence, the opposition Restell faced from anti-vice crusaders like Anthony Comstock, why she says the U.S. is “heading back not only 50 years, but 150 years” and more.

We're thrilled to share our holiday WITHpod mailbag, which was originally hosted on Instagram Live. Does Chris have a doppelganger? What did he want to be when he grew up? What's his pitch for President Biden over Trump? Join as Chris Hayes and producer Doni Holloway reflect on the WITHpod national tour, go through your questions and discuss feedback you’ve sent.

Yusef Salaam was just 15 years old in 1989 when he, along with four other Black and Latino teenagers, were wrongly accused of the brutal rape and assault of a 28-year-old white woman who was jogging in Central Park. Salaam was convicted at 16 and was incarcerated for seven years. The group, known as the Central Park Five, maintained their innocence and they were exonerated in 2002 only after a convicted murderer and serial rapist confessed to the crimes. Salaam, who has since become known as one of the Exonerated Central Park Five, has turned his pain into purpose as an activist, criminal justice reform advocate and motivational speaker. He is the author of “Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice” and his story has been told in numerous films and books. Salaam, who is now 49, launched a political campaign earlier this year and recently won the Democratic primary for a New York City Council seat in Harlem. He joins WITHpod to discuss his trajectory, being “run over by the spike wheels of justice,” and why he got involved in politics.

Life expectancy in the U.S. has been on the decline, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than 1 million people in America, 2014-2015 was actually an inflection point for mortality rates. What went wrong and what’s behind the downward trend? Our guests this week point out that drug overdoses, suicides and alcoholism have fueled an increase in what they term ‘deaths of despair.’ Anne Case is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Emeritus at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs. Angus Deaton is a Nobel Prize Winner and Senior Scholar and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department. Together, they published their groundbreaking findings in 2015 and later co-authored “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” in March of 2020. Case and Deaton join WITHpod to discuss what their findings reveal about capitalism and the U.S. healthcare system, education-related disparities in mortality, what might be done to reverse the surge in deaths and more.

What happens in your body after you get a vaccine? The arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines feels like the first positive mile marker in the pandemic but folks have a lot of questions – How were they developed? How do they work? Is there anything we should worry about? Dr. Peter Hotez has been a leading voice over the last year, lending his expertise in global health and vaccine development during some of the most crucial moments of the pandemic. Now, he’s here to address our biggest questions about what he calls “the most powerful technology humankind has ever invented”.

 

READ: 
Preventing The Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy In A Time Of Anti-Science  by Dr. Peter Hotez

We recently returned from Chicago, the second stop on our fall 2023 WITHpod tour, and we’re thrilled to share a recording of the event. Hip-hop, which is being celebrated for 50 years of impact this year, has grown into a global phenomenon. The music genre, born out of a very specific set of cultural and sociological conditions, continues to shape so many facets of international culture. MSNBC correspondent and host of "Into America," Trymaine Lee, New York Times best-selling author Imani Perry and hip-hop artist, actor and activist Vic Mensa joined to discuss the precipitating conditions contributing to hip-hop’s rise, its growth and success, the impact of commercialization on artists and more.

Happy New Year! Given the holiday, we are sharing one of our most memorable conversations. Stay tuned through the end as we also share updates on this topic. 

From the original description:
You’d probably guess that a major factor contributing to homelessness is a lack of money. Yet, very few programs provide unconditional and lump sum cash to unhoused individuals as a solution. There are a number of barriers that have impeded the broad implementation of this type of assistance, which include the lack of policymaker support and public mistrust in homeless people’s ability to manage money. Our guest this week found that direct cash transfers actually result in net societal savings over time. Jiaying Zhao is an associate professor, Canada research chair and a Sauder distinguished scholar at the University of British Columbia. She co-authored “Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness,” which was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Zhao, who has personally experienced housing insecurity in the past, joins WITHpod to discuss the cognitive taxes of poverty, rethinking the homogenous narrative about who homeless people are, the most surprising findings from the study, intended policy changes and more.

Why is the housing market so hot right now? From the pandemic-induced influx of people working remotely to our collective obsession with cruising Zillow (it’s not just us, right?), Bloomberg Opinion columnist Justin Fox discusses why some parts of the country are seeing housing prices sky rocket.

Civil rights attorney and author Alexandra Brodsky has spent her entire career focusing closely on ways institutions can best address sexual harms. Her work is the subject of “Sexual Justice: Supporting Victims, Ensuring Due Process, and Resisting the Conservative Backlash,” a book published in August 2021. She joins to talk about the importance of treating both victims and the accused fairly, the Biden administration’s response to Title IX, and what’s ahead as institutions seek to address sexual misconduct claims more equitably.

Hi #WITHpod listeners! We have a special bonus episode for you. In the “National Day of Racial Healing: An MSNBC Town Hall,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Joy Reid and Trymaine Lee talk with activists, journalists, artists and experts to explore the harm racism has caused in our society, and to consider how we might heal from it. The program initially aired on MSNBC and was streamed on Peacock the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Day. The programming was recorded in New Orleans and was sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Click here to see the video version of this program. 


 

Who were the first people to migrate to the Americas? When did they arrive, and how? For centuries, those questions have been shrouded in mystery. No written records and very little archaeological evidence exists to provide clarity. In recent years, however, the examination of genetic data has revolutionized researchers’ ability to find answers. A recent family trip to the Grand Canyon furthered Chris’ interest in talking with one of the most celebrated scholars in the field. Dr. Jennifer Raff is an anthropological geneticist and associate professor at the University of Kansas. She’s also author of the New York Times best-selling book, “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas.” Raff joins to discuss how the first people migrated to the Americas nearly 20,000 years ago, how genomes showcase the very close relatedness of humans across the globe and the impact of genetic discoveries on narratives.

The Supreme Court currently has a majority of conservative judges, and it’s the most conservative court since the New Deal Era. The Court made more conservative decisions this term than at any time since 1931, according to statistics compiled by professors Lee Epstein of Washington University in St. Louis and Keven Quinn of the University of Michigan. The recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has caused some to speculate that this may be the beginning of a movement to overturn other landmark liberal decisions like Obergfell v. Hodges. Jamal Greene is the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and author of “How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart.” He joins WITHpod to discuss what methodology Supreme Court justices use to arrive at their decisions, whether there is political motivation, and just how strictly they interpret the Constitution.

Public streets play a big role in our day-to-day lives.  And if you’ve visited any large metropolitan city, you’ve seen just how much traffic can fill up roadways. New York City became the first city in America to implement congestion pricing, a program aimed at generating revenue and making streets less crowded. But the initiative hasn’t been immune to opposition, including from the Trump administration, which has ordered the city to end the program. Janno Lieber is the chair and CEO of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. He joins WITHpod to discuss the effects of congestion pricing in NYC, legal fights ahead and more. 

What we call history isn't a fixed thing; it's a narrative, contested and fought over, changing over time. Right now, the United States is in the midst of a massive historical battle over its own narrative, specifically the legacy of slavery and race in America. The backlash to that fight is spilling into public policy as Republican state legislatures push to regulate the way students are taught about the founding of our country. In Clint Smith's new book "How The Word is Passed", Smith studies our understanding of slavery through the stories we tell of it. He travelled to the cemeteries and plantations and prisons home to these stories to see up close how they reckon with - or fail to reckon with - their own relationship to our country's legacy.

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

The information environment is rapidly changing. And with more media sources at our disposal than ever before, we’re constantly navigating between online and IRL, or in real life spaces. How does that affect our understanding of the world around us, particularly in this unprecedented moment? Our guest this week has spent a lot of time thinking and writing about this. Matt Pearce is a journalist and serves as the president of Media Guild of the West, which represents unionized journalists in Southern California, Arizona and Texas. Pearce is also a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and writes own Substack, which you can find at mattdpearce.substack.com. He joins WITHpod to discuss what’s happened to the press, its role post the 2024 election and more. 

 

Since Chris was on vacation last week and given the wave of recent anti-trans legislation, we’re revisiting and providing an update on our episode with Dr. Izzy Lowell, who runs Queer Med, a private clinic that specializes in providing accessible health care to trans patients ranging from kids to adults.

 From the original description: What is gender-affirming health care? Around the country, there’s a Republican campaign to legislate and regulate the lives of trans youth. The most destructive of these efforts would bar trans youth in certain states from accessing gender-affirming treatment. Lowell’s practice covers 10 states across the South — and half of those have anti-trans health care bills on the docket. If they pass, it would become criminal for her to provide this care to many of her patients. Lowell joins this week to break down what exactly we mean when we talk about gender-affirming care, how the decision is made for kids and teens ready to transition and the potentially devastating impact this legislation would have on their lives.

Since 2017, a high-tech form of colonization has been rapidly growing in Xinjiang, China. As many as 1.5 million Muslim Uyghurs have vanished into high-security camps and factories. The Chinese regime describes these sites as “vocational education and training centers” that are utilized to counter terrorism. But what actually goes on inside of these internment camps? That’s the subject of Darren Byler’s new book, “In The Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony.” In it, Byler draws on a decade of research on the region. He joins to discuss his findings and the role of various forms of technology including facial recognition, smartphones and apps like WeChat, in government surveillance.

Seth Rich was a young DNC staffer in Washington, DC who was tragically murdered early one morning in 2016. Our WITHpod guest this week described him as smart, ambitious, telegenic and someone who might run a presidential campaign someday. In the absence of an arrest, questions remain about who killed Rich. Unfounded theories about the motives for his murder continue to circulate on social media, including ones that enmeshed the Clintons and other high-profile figures. The search for answers, and this age of widespread disinformation, is the subject of “A Death on W Street: The Murder of Seth Rich and the Age of Conspiracy,” written by ProPublica reporter Andy Kroll. The true-crime story unravels this saga of murder, deceptions about what happened, and the role of conspiracy mongers in disparaging Rich’s memory. Kroll, who actually knew Rich, joins WITHpod to discuss Rich’s life, death and what happened to his story once it got into the hands of numerous bad actors.

Representative Ilhan Omar was just eight years old when her life turned upside down. After an armed compound attack, her family fled Mogadishu, and ultimately ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya. It was there that she experienced the reality that hundreds of millions of refugees worldwide endure. After an intense vetting and interview process, her family was eventually granted asylum in the U.S. and emigrated to Arlington, Virginia. In 2016, she was elected as a Minnesota House Representative, making her the highest-elected Somali-American public official in the United States and the first Somali-American State legislator. She joins to discuss her new book, “This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman,” how she got into politics, her response to accusations of anti-Semitism and what’s needed to ensure more productivity and less combativeness among members of Congress.

Lawrence Bartley was just 17-years-old when he was charged and sentenced to 27 years to life following a movie theater shoot-out. Gunfire erupted after the group that he was with exchanged insults with another crew of moviegoers. According to the prosecutor, Lawrence’s bullet was the one that hit and killed an innocent 15-year-old boy. Filled with remorse and guilt, Lawrence used his time in prison to reckon with his past, while also finding his place in a rapidly changing society. His incarceration experience ultimately led him to create “News Inside,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning Marshall Project criminal-justice-focused magazine that’s distributed in prisons around the U.S. He joins to discuss how his experience led him to create the publication, changes to the prison system and life as a (now free) suburban dad.

This conversation starts at Grid Talk 101 (what even is an energy grid) and ends at the fragility of modern life. That can only mean one thing – David Roberts is back. An energy and climate journalist, Roberts explains that we have every reason to believe that we’ll see an increase in the freak weather events like the one that wrought havoc on Texas. And as we witnessed firsthand, one failure, one breakdown in a system, can have a deadly domino effect resulting in some truly dystopic conditions in a matter of days. So how can we avoid another Texas-sized meltdown? And what exactly went wrong in the first place? 

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BFF connections have transformed rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. FaceTime calls, Zoom happy hours, voice memos, group chats and virtual game nights, in many cases, have reworked our in-person interactions of the past. What does the future of friendship look like? Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow have been friends for over a decade, twelve years to be exact. Living on opposite coasts for years now, they had a head start on managing a long-distance friendship. Ann, a journalist, essayist and media entrepreneur and Aminatou, a writer, interviewer and cultural commentator, co-wrote “Big Friendship,” a book all about maintaining their close bond. They join for an inspiring conversation about the future of friendship and what it takes to stay connected for the long haul.

Chris is on vacation this week, so WITHpod is sharing a favorite recent episode from our inaugural “Future Of” series. From the original description: The ways we consume media have changed tremendously over the last decade. Shows with live audiences, perhaps more than any other type of program, had to pivot virtually almost overnight when the pandemic started. That certainly was the case with “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” As viewers have more sources for entertainment now than ever before, the show had to find creative ways to keep fans engaged and entertained. Lucky for us, Seth Meyers, the affable host of the show bearing his name, joins to discuss what he thinks about the future of entertainment and comedy, why he felt closer to the audience while hosting from home and more.

We’re happy to share a recording of the second half of our double header WITHpod live program in Philadelphia, which was recorded on October 16th. Our own Joy Reid joined us for the most recent tour stop to discuss her fascinating trajectory, including her years in Florida, which have given her unique insight into the state’s current culture wars. She also talks about her time working on political campaigns, the anti-CRT movement, the peril of this political moment and more. 


We’re sharing another episode in our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. We couldn’t think of a better person than our guest this week to help unpack the two candidates’ stances on antitrust. Timothy Wu is the Julius Silver professor of law, science and technology at Columbia University. He’s known as the "architect" of the Biden administration's competition and antitrust policies. Wu joins WITHpod to discuss Trump and Biden’s different views on corporate power, the current antitrust landscape, major mergers being challenged this year and more.

Debate guru Ron Klain joins Claire McCaskill and Jennifer Palmieri on their new podcast “How to Win 2024” to discuss the winners and losers of the 2nd GOP debate and what it could mean for President Biden’s re-election campaign. Plus, the House Republicans’ impeachment effort that voters want nothing to do with. Listen each week and click here to follow the show.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would’ve addressed racial profiling and use of deadly force, among other things. But the bill, which was crafted in 2020, still hasn’t passed and it’s unclear if it ever will. Progress has often been stymied by conflicting ideas, on all sides of the political spectrum, about the role of police in maintaining law and order. So, what can be done to fix so many of the problems plaguing the profession? Our guest this week points out that when he became a police officer, he had “idealistic intentions, but right away was confronted with a really different set of norms and values.” Neil Gross is a former cop turned sociology professor and is the author of “Walk the Walk: How Three Police Chiefs Defied the Odds and Changed Cop Culture.” The book tells the story of how leaders in three police departments sought to change aggressive police culture and how their efforts could be in instructive for broader reform. Gross joins WITHpod to discuss his experience as a former cop, the us vs. them mentality in some police circles, the need for more officer accountability and more.