Thinking CAP

Like with any good project, it takes a team to get you across the finish line. For two seasons, the Center for American Progress has published this weekly podcast in hopes of encouraging its listeners to think about the world a little differently, and share perspectives that can help foster a more inclusive society. From Sally Tucker and Thinking CAP’s original hosts Michele Jawando and Igor Volsky, to our supervising producer Rachel Rosen and season two producer Kyle Epstein, and our researcher Chris Ford, making this podcast has been an exceptional ride. This week, we bring this part of the journey to a close by revisiting an interview Daniella and Ed recorded with A.F.S.C.M.E. president Lee Saunders about the state of the labor movement in the United States. Be sure to follow Daniella and Ed on Twitter (@dgibber123 and @EdChungDC) for news about what projects they have coming down the pike – we hope you come along for the ride.

It wouldn’t be an international convening if President Trump didn’t make himself the center of the attention. Over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the G7 Summit with leaders from the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Japan, along President Trump, in attendance in Biarritz, France. From skipping a meeting on climate change – the White House described it as a “niche” issue – to advocating for bringing Russia back into what would be the G8, the Trump wasn’t short on causing controversy. Just prior to leaving for the foreign trip, he had spooked the markets once more by tweeting attacks toward Chinese President Xi Jinping, who had announced new tariffs on American goods at the end of the week. Because of the president’s repeated decision to go it alone on the world stage, Ed and Daniella revisit their conversation with former Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who was the lead negotiator for the US with Iran during talks about their nuclear program. Last fall, she shared her insights on America’s moral standing in the world and why coalition building has been a successful strategy for US diplomats for decades.

Halloween may be more than two months away, but something in the air already has the markets spooked. Worries about the end of the bull market and a looming recession has economists and politicos worried about the impact of a sluggish economy. While Daniella is off this week, Ed sits down with CAP Senior Economist Gbenga Ajilore to diagnose the warning signs that could lead to the end of a more than decadelong economic boon. Key among the contributing factors are President Donald Trump’s trade war with China—which has shuttered markets for farmers across the country—and the 2017 tax cut, whose benefits went largely to corporations and earners in top income brackets. An economy, of course, should work for everyone, which is why we also revisited a conversation with Darrick Hamilton from earlier this year about creating an inclusive economy.

For decades, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been among the most challenging global health issues to contain. Enter Dr. Anthony Fauci, immunologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. As one of the foremost experts and advocates against the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Dr. Fauci exuded optimism when talking about the progress being made in both global and domestic containment of the disease. He sat down with Daniella for an interview to discuss his work fighting HIV/AIDS and to share his thoughts on the growing, dangerous anti-vaccination movement.

Once again, the country mourns after a weekend that saw two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, and more than 30 innocents killed. And once again, the blame game—or, rather, the scapegoat game—is dialed up to high, with the disability community caught in the sights of the gun lobby and its allies in Congress, as is too often the case. As the president and his enablers remain eager to avoid any commitment to tackle the growing scourge of white nationalism, others are motivated to pick up the mantle once and for all. This week, Daniella is joined by two CAP colleagues—Chelsea Parsons, vice president for Gun Violence Prevention, and Rebecca Cokley, director of the Disability Justice Initiative—to try and make sense of the all-too-familiar violence, the easy scapegoating of people with mental illness, and the growing tide of white nationalism that is being cheered on from the Oval Office.

President Donald Trump had himself another very bad, no good, extremely racist week, and it seems the rest of the nation is finally taking notice of the trend. With a majority of Americans now believing that the president—the same president who hasn’t backed away from his accusations against the Central Park Five, who propagated the birther conspiracy against President Barack Obama, and who called Mexicans rapists on the first day of his presidential campaign—is indeed a racist, his latest digs against four freshmen congresswomen of color and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) have elicited broad reproach. In fact, last weekend, 149 Black former Obama administration staffers published an op-ed in The Washington Post rebuking Trump’s words and deeds and refusing to sit idly by. This week, Daniella—who signed the op-ed herself—was joined by Khalilah Harris and Clarence Fluker, two former Obama staffers, who reflected on the emotional past weeks and discussed what can be done in the face of the administration’s naked racism moving forward.

Three months after releasing his report investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, former special counsel Robert Mueller appeared before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees for questioning about his findings. Reluctant to appear before Congress, Mueller stuck mostly to what he and his team outlined in their report: The Russians conducted an extensive campaign to interfere in and influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election; the Russians worked to benefit President Donald Trump’s campaign; and the president participated in obstructive acts during the course of the investigation. Ned Price—a director at National Security Action and an NBC national security analyst—joins Ed and Daniella in the studio this week to parse Mueller’s tight-lipped congressional testimony.

As the president continues to manipulate the news cycle on Twitter—lobbing racist tropes at progressives in the U.S. House of Representatives—the world and all of its problems continue to spin. In a normal presidency, the National Security Council (NSC) is tasked with keeping the president focused on the nation’s foreign policy priorities—Iran, North Korea, the Russians, etc. This week, Daniella and Ed are joined by two former NSC staffers—John Gans Jr. and CAP’s own Kelly Magsamen—to take a deep dive into “the engine of foreign policy” in Washington, as well as Gans’ new book about the NSC, “White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War”. Since its inception in 1947, the NSC has seen its fair share of effective and inept characters. Without a coherent vision of his own for how to manage the country’s foreign policy agenda, and with a supporting cast of self-interested actors, President Donald Trump’s NSC may find itself bogged down in the worst of Washington.

The Trump era has changed the way the free press and the White House interact—that much is certain. So where does that leave a network like C-SPAN, the so-called Switzerland of the media, which aims not to imbue its coverage with opinion but rather let the facts speak for themselves? This week, Daniella sat down with Steve Scully, C-SPAN political director and on-air host of the legendary show, “Washington Journal,” to discuss the network’s agenda of having no agenda and how Scully has had to adapt his approach in this new, polarized climate. As the decibel level grows louder, Scully remains as unflappable as ever. So we asked him: How?

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court reached two significant decisions on cases affecting voting rights in the United States. The first dealt a blow to the fate of fair voting maps, where the court found that partisan gerrymandering was an issue “beyond the reach of the federal courts,” thus punting the decision to the states to decide for themselves. The second questioned the reasoning of the Trump administration’s inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 census—a question that has since been struck down and settled by President Donald Trump’s own U.S. Department of Justice, though much remains uncertain. Sound confusing? To parse through the legalese, we spoke with Ari Berman, senior reporter for Mother Jones, about the state of voting rights; the tension between the political and democratic aims of gerrymandering; and what he calls a “new arms race for redistricting.”

Getting to know the supreme leader of the Hermit Kingdom is not a simple undertaking. But Anna Fifield, Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post and author of the new book “The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un,” has come as close as any foreigner to North Korea in achieving that task. This week, Fifield—along with CAP Senior Fellow Mike Fuchs—joins Daniella and Ed to discuss what it was like seeking to paint the most comprehensive portrait of the infamously shadowy dictator in her new book. She also details how she went about gathering information about who Kim is and how he became—and has remained—the leader of North Korea.

Capt. Ersie Joyner never wanted to be a police officer. 30 years after joining the force, he is now a decorated veteran of the Oakland Police Department and heads Oakland’s Ceasefire program, which is responsible for comprehensively addressing serious violence—specifically gun violence—within the community. The program has been a huge success. Captain Joyner sat down with Ed to discuss his reluctant journey into policing and how his police department was forced to innovate in the face of rising violence. With violent crime on the decline in Oakland, and with use of force issues riding the same trend, we asked Capt. Joyner about how a city once plagued with crime and violence navigated such a positive about-face.

Finding political common ground in North Carolina is an art, and Gov. Roy Cooper (D)—now in his third year as the state’s chief executive—is working his brushstrokes. Whether it’s prioritizing Medicaid expansion statewide, changing the way the state is addressing its growing opioid crisis, or blocking repeated attempts at banning abortion, Gov. Cooper is increasingly finding consensus. Perhaps his greatest feat, however, is remaining diplomatic on North Carolina’s many college basketball allegiances; we can’t say the same about Daniella.

As President Donald Trump absconds to the United Kingdom for the pomp and circumstance of a visit with Queen Elizabeth and the royal family, Jesse Lee, senior adviser for Communications at the Center for American Progress and this week's guest, is here to remind us from what Trump may be running away. Whether it’s the question of impeachment heating up in Congress, or his son-in-law, Jared Kushner’s, recent disastrous interview discussing birtherism, or the ongoing drip of corruption stories emanating from the highest rungs of his administration, things are not going great for the Trump team. In this episode, Daniella and Ed break down and weigh the merits of the rising talk of impeachment with Lee, and Ed pontificates on his newest fascination: UFOs.

Hearing President Trump tell it, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the U.S. economy is in a boom like we’ve never before witnessed. But that is not the case, says professor Darrick Hamilton, executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. Professor Hamilton joined the pod this week to give us the real picture on the current state of the economy; the meaning behind the numbers; and why current economic measures are not truly indicative of the inequality that many Americans are feeling. Later, professor Hamilton discusses reparations and what they might actually look like in practice. Note: this episode contains explicit language