Thinking CAP

As Congress attempts to exert its oversight powers over the White House in the wake of the Mueller report, relations between the (co-equal!) legislative and executive branches have grown as tense as they’ve ever been during the Trump administration. To help unpack it all, Ari Melber—chief legal correspondent for MSNBC and host of the network’s popular evening program “The Beat With Ari Melber”—sat down with Daniella and Ed live from the Center for American Progress' annual Ideas Conference. Melber dives into how he’s observed the strained relationship between the branches of government, as well as how the debate about criminal justice reform has changed and reconfigured since Donald Trump became president. The Wu-Tang Clan, importantly, are also discussed.

On the eve of the House of Representatives’ likely passage of the Equality Act—which would explicitly outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity for the first time at the federal level—Daniella and Ed sat down with Charlotte Clymer, press secretary for rapid response at the Human Rights Campaign, and Laura Durso, vice president for the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress, to better understand how we got to this moment, why comprehensive nondiscrimination protections for LGTBQ people is needed, and how this incredible cultural—and legislative—shift even happened.

You may know Ed Zwick from some of his work directing and producing past films, such as “Glory,” “Blood Diamond,” and “Shakespeare in Love”—the latter of which won him an Academy Award. But Zwick’s latest project hits differently. “Trial by Fire,” which arrives in select theaters on May 17, tells the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man executed for the murder by arson of his three children after scientific evidence and expert testimony that supported his claims of innocence were ignored in the courts. Zwick sat down with Daniella and Ed to discuss why he chose to direct this latest film—which he describes as a catalogue of everything broken in the criminal justice system—and how movies and popular culture affect, and often precipitate, change.

Glimpsing the nightly news or scrolling through your Twitter timeline on any given day, it might seem like the U.S. on the cusp of achieving bipartisan, comprehensive criminal justice reform. In reality, however, many of the reforms being proposed or enacted are relatively modest in scope. In this episode, Daniella and Ed are joined by Emily Bazelon, staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, and Rachel Barkow, professor at the New York University School of Law, who have both authored new books exploring system-upending ways to end the cycle of mass incarceration. Bazelon and Barkow consider the role of the prosecutor in these reforms as well as ways to insulate justice reform from political influence or populist whims.

A week has passed since special counsel Robert Mueller issued his redacted 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. After nearly two years—and an additional three weeks of suspense, thanks to U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s stalling efforts—the public finally got a glimpse into Mueller’s investigation, but has largely been left with more questions than answers. Daniella and Ed brought in Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and director of CAP Action Fund's Moscow Project, to discuss the contours of the report. As Bergmann puts it, the report outlines extensive collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russian efforts to elect him to the presidency—and, more importantly, serves as an impeachment referral for Congress. While the Mueller report in no way exonerates the president, it remains to be seen whether or not Congress will act on Mueller’s referral or how the Trump adminstration will continue to fight the facts.

The tides are changing when it comes to how we’re thinking about climate change. Something strange happened in late 2018, when Americans—responding to a series of extreme weather events, a damning government report on global temperature rise, and excitement around the Green New Deal—experienced a surge in awareness, and fear, about climate change. That awareness has ushered in a renewed grassroots energy, led in large part by young Americans concerned about the future of the planet and their own futures within it. This week, Robinson Meyer, a climate reporter for The Atlantic, and Christy Goldfuss, CAP’s senior vice president for Energy and Environment Policy, join the pod to discuss the new politics of climate change and our current era of action.

If you’re a fan of this podcast, you probably recognize this week’s guest. Having just finished his debut book, “Guns Down: How to Defeat the NRA and Build a Safer Future with Fewer Guns,” Igor Volsky, a former Thinking CAP co-host and current executive director of Guns Down America, joined the pod to discuss his new project and lay out his vision to reduce the number of guns in the U.S. by raising the standard of ownership. Volsky, a former journalist, breaks down the current state of the gun violence prevention movement; the National Rifle Association's outsize influence on shaping the national debate; and why the movement to reduce guns and gun deaths is finally picking up momentum in all corners of the country.

While the narratives around the latest developments about the Mueller Report keep spinning in Washington, work across the rest of the country hasn’t stopped. To talk about those daily efforts, Daniella and Ed are joined in the studio this week by two lieutenant governors – Juliana Stratton of Illinois, and Kate Marshall of Nevada. Free from the distractions of inside the Beltway gossip, Stratton and Marshall speak about the challenges and pursuits that drive their busy schedules. The pair of public servants have the unique task of focusing on how to balance and address the needs of constituents living in their state’s dominating urban cores – Chicago and Las Vegas – as well as in the dozens of rural counties that accompany them. In addition to describing some of their biggest responsibilities, like presiding over the Nevada State Senate – as Marshall does – or leading Illinois’s Justice, Equity and Opportunity Initiative – as Stratton does – the lieutenant governors also pitch the best parts of their state. Everyone knows though that few things can beat D.C. during peak cherry blossom bloom.

Special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his final report to Attorney General William Barr last week on his two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and a circus has ensued. As speculation mounts around Barr’s letter to Congress summarizing his “principal conclusions” of the special counsel’s report—which many have read and misread to fit their own biases and suspicions—it is important to remember that neither the public nor Congress has seen the full report. On this week’s pod, Judd Legum, founder of the Popular Information newsletter and former editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress, helps us break down the spectacle that has consumed so much of Washington and beyond.

What does progressive prosecution look like in practice? It’s a label that’s been tossed around a lot lately, but Kim Foxx would rather let her work speak for itself. Foxx, the state’s attorney for Cook County, Illinois, is the first black woman to be elected to that position, presiding over Chicago and its neighboring towns—and she’s already begun shake up business as usual. Her goal? Get to the root causes of violence and crime; bring transparency to the prosecutor’s office; and bridge the gulf of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

It’s 2019, and we still can’t answer a fundamental question: What should our society expect from our police officers and departments? Ed spent the weekend in Austin, Texas, to host a panel at this year’s installment of the famed South by Southwest conference alongside Josie Duffy Rice, Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, and Ron Davis. The panel of four—a former Justice Department prosecutor, a journalist, an academic, and a police chief—offered their personal insights into what policing should and shouldn’t look like in this day and age, and how policing intersects with criminal justice reform and social support systems writ large. This episode is a lightly edited version of their conversation.

“Everything is broken,” laments Vox correspondent Carlos Maza on this week’s pod. Maza has reason to feel jaded: He’s spent hours—days, even—watching Fox News pundits feed on-air talking points straight to the Oval Office, where President Donald Trump gleefully parrots the network’s daily affirmations without a second thought. In this episode, Maza discusses the cozy relationship between Fox News and the Trump White House, and breaks down the growing media trend of appealing to our inherently tribal impulses.

As another Black History Month comes to a dispiriting close, Candice Jones, president and CEO of the Public Welfare Foundation, stopped by the pod to drop some much-needed optimism in our lives. In this episode, Jones reflects on the tumultuous Black History Month we just endured; what it’s like to be a black woman running a major philanthropic foundation; and the merits of pragmatic versus transformational change in criminal justice reform. If February was draining, Jones offers a silver lining with reasons to be hopeful.

It’s a golden age of television, the common refrain goes. But for some traditionally marginalized communities, there’s nothing golden about not seeing yourself reflected in the shows you watch and stories you see. "One Day at a Time," a Netflix reimagining of the hit 1970s show of the same name, is seeking to shift that narrative. Ed and Daniella sat down this week with Gloria Calderón Kellett, Justina Machado, and Isabella Gomez—the showrunner and stars, respectively—at the Eaton Hotel in Washington, D.C., to get their sense of what representation means to them and how their show fits into a broader push for including more diverse voices in Hollywood. In speaking with the three women, it’s striking to hear how the communities they portray on screen—Latinx, LGBT, veterans, and more—have affected them, not just the other way around.

When Jon Lovett left his gig as speechwriter to former President Barack Obama to write for television in Hollywood, he wasn’t entirely sure a career in politics was in his immediate professional future. But clearly, Lovett has found his way back into politics: Crooked, the media company he co-founded with a few White House colleagues, has taken off beyond any of its founders’ expectations. Does he regret it? Hardly. With a full slate of podcasts and projects under the Crooked banner, Lovett joined Daniella and Ed to meditate on the malevolence (or is it incompetence?) of the Trump administration, Jeff Bezos’ stand against blackmail, and the ongoing political crisis in Virginia. *Editor's note: this episode contains explicit language.