The Mother Jones Podcast

It is impossible to tell the story of President Trump's rise to power without understanding his relationship with Fox News. Together they form one of modern America's most defining duos, argues CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter, who documents their symbiotic dance his new book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Through countless interviews with sources at various of levels of power inside Fox, Stelter reveals how the wildly popular cable channel has subordinated its journalistic integrity to Trump's political interests, while setting the daily agenda for his administration. "Every day's a new episode," Stelter told Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery, during a recent livestream event hosted by the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. "Certainly Fox programs his presidency that way." The title of Stelter's book was inspired back-to-back use of the word "hoax" by Trump and Hannity, to describe the emerging coronavirus crisis in the U.S. Both Trump and Fox downplayed the threat at the outset, a deadly error for which they face dual culpability (but zero accountability from Fox brass)—a travesty made all the more apparent following the recent release of Bob Woodward's tapes. This conversation between Brian Stelter and Clara Jeffery is the centerpiece of an episode that explores the toxic feedback loop deepening the crisis in American journalism and democracy.

Mondaire Jones is on the brink of making history. He is in line to become one of the first Black gay men to serve in the US Congress after winning the Democratic primary for New York’s 17th congressional district in June—part of a new class of diverse candidates upending expectations and tapping into a fervour for outspoken progressivism championed by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. His policy positions mark him out as part of an influential insurgent Left—making the New York Congressional candidate a darling among grassroots activists—but along with the Working Families Party, he also scored endorsements from liberal mainstays like former President Barack Obama to the New York Times. He’s pro-Green New Deal. He opposes all new fossil fuel infrastructure. He supports Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage. On today’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, Jones tells host Jamilah King what it was like to campaign during the coronavirus crisis, how growing up poor and Black influenced his progressive policy positions, and why running a historic race can feel surprisingly lonely. Alongside Ritchie Torres, an Afro-Latino gay man who won his primary race in New York’s 15th congressional district, Jones stands ready to join the increasingly diverse members of Congress that represent an insurgent left-wing of the Democratic party on Capitol Hill.

As recently as March, "QAnon" was still a mostly fringe phenomenon. The conspiracy theory, which posits that a vast Democrat-led pedophile racket operates at the heart of the U.S. government, was well known among President Donald Trump's hardcore MAGA base, but too hot for anyone in the mainstream to touch. But this summer, the world's darkest and most outlandish political conspiracy is gaining new adherents and influence among conservatives. That's what Mother Jones's Ali Breland reported this month, after a recent press briefing in which President Donald Trump gave an approving answer that the QAnon community has been eagerly awaiting: "I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much," he said. "I’ve heard these are people who love our country." Trump's not alone. The movement has demonstrated real and growing power. Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Trump’s first national security adviser, boldly aligned himself with the conspiracy theory on July 4th, when he posted a video reciting a common QAnon motto; QAnon enthusiast Marjorie Taylor Greene just won the primary election for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District; several other Republicans running for Congress have shared QAnon hashtags and used its catchphrases. Followers have been able to launch harassment campaigns so big and vitriolic that several high-profile targets—Wayfair, Oprah Winfrey, and Chrissy Teigen—felt the need to publicly respond. Q’s followers have also mobilized to antagonize and harass a state senator in California in a vicious attempt to get him to drop legislation aimed at addressing LGBTQ inequality. QAnon’s damage is too big to ignore, and so we’re replaying a refreshed and updated version of our February 2020 episode featuring reporter Ali Breland, who takes you inside the conspiracy, traces its roots, and assesses its future.

One reason that the nomination of Kamala Harris is so fascinating is that it comes at a time when we’re completely rethinking criminal justice in the United States. And Kamala Harris was a prosecutor. From her time as San Francisco district attorney and as California’s attorney general, critics argue that she locked up parents of truant children, left a potentially innocent man on death row, and didn’t support a measure mandating statewide standards for police body cameras. She caught a lot of flack over her criminal justice record during the Democratic primary, especially from the progressive wing of the party. Even so, Kamala Harris labels herself a “progressive prosecutor.” She’s far from alone. But what does that label even really mean? On today’s show, you’ll meet two women who call themselves progressive prosecutors, and hear what it means to reform the system from the inside, while becoming the face of a different kind of culture war. First: St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who was reelected in a landslide victory during this month’s primary, championing police accountability and diversion programs to incarceration. But her progressive approach has made her a target for the Republican establishment. Missouri’s Republican governor Mike Parson is trying to decrease her power. And now she has been rendered a TV villain by pro-Trump pundits for prosecuting RNC stars Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who went viral after brandishing weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters in June. Next up, you’ll meet Satana Deberry. When she took the oath of office as district attorney of Durham County, North Carolina, in January 2019, it was a momentous occasion—for the city of Durham and for her, as a Black woman elected to an office historically held by white men, whose “tough on crime” policies have devastated communities of color for decades. She ran her campaign being vocal about the over-policing of Black and Brown folks, promising sweeping reform. Now, more than a year into office, she faces the complicated realities of seeking to reform a deeply flawed criminal justice system and support a community ravaged by gun violence. She’s learning that implementing change will be harder than she could have anticipated.

Wednesday night will mark the biggest accomplishment in the already-dazzling career of Senator Kamala Harris, when she takes to the (virtual) stage at the 2020 Democratic National Convention to accept her party’s nomination for vice president. The culmination of many “firsts” accumulated across decades by the 55-year-old Californian, this week, Harris will become the first Black woman and the first woman of Indian decent to run on a major party ticket. But she has always been a barrier-breaker. On this episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, our in-house Harris expert, Jamilah King, traces the senator’s political awakening back to her progressive-minded Indian mother, and charts her formative years as San Francisco District Attorney,  her elections first as Attorney General of California and then as Senator, to this historic moment—on the precipice of a historic run for the White House. This time Jamilah will occupy the interviewee hot seat, while Mother Jones reporter Fernanda Echavarri takes over hosting duties, guiding listeners through a detailed assessment of Harris’s time as a prosecutor (and its potential political baggage), her forceful Senate appearances as inquisitor (and antagonist) of Trump appointees, and what her presence on the ticket means for presidential hopeful Joe Biden—and the country.

Representative Barbara Lee is a big fan of fellow Californian Senator Kamala Harris. Last year, she was the first high-profile politician to endorse Kamala Harris' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Joe Biden clinched the top spot in the Democratic primaries, the former vice president's eventual choice of running mate was obvious, at least for Lee. "Kamala should be president," she said last week in a livestream conversation with Mother Jones Podcast host Jamilah King, just days before Harris got the nod. But Veep is the next best thing. “We know how to lead," Lee said of the power of Black women in the Democratic party, and beyond. "We know how to help regain the soul of America. And we have our unique history in this country to be able to lead out of the White House as president and vice president.” This wide-ranging interview also touches on Rep. Lee's deep history of fighting for justice. She has insisted on a seat at the table at the highest echelons of political power for years. She's served as one of the few Black women in Congress for nearly three decades. She worked on Shirley Chisholm's campaign during Chisholm's historic bid for the White House in 1972—a campaign after which Kamala Harris modeled her own. Now Lee is at work on Capitol Hill trying to get Republicans to deliver much-needed economic relief in a wrecked economy. Listen to this special Friday bonus edition of the Mother Jones Podcast to hear the full conversation, recorded as part of a livestream event on August 6, 2020. The full video is available on Mother Jones’ Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter accounts.

With schools and parents around the country facing tough decisions about safety and education, one author and academic has become something of a hero to parents everywhere for her sane, data-driven approach to surviving parenting during a pandemic. Emily Oster, a Brown University economist, is the pregnancy and early childhood guru for millennial parents. Expecting Better and her 2019 followup, Cribsheet, rethink the pregnancy-and-baby-literature cannon by adding something that’s been lacking: empiricism. Oster separates the good studies from the bad and lays out the best evidence to answer such critical questions as whether it’s safe to eat sushi while pregnant. Now, as the country finds itself in a fraught and deeply partisan fog of confusion about child care and education, Oster decided to apply the same type of analysis to COVID-19 research as she did to pregnancy and parenthood, through her newsletter and a website she co-authors with Harvard medicine professor Galit Alter and a team of researchers, called COVID-Explained. Aaron Wiener, a senior editor in MoJo’s DC bureau, spoke to Oster to see if she could bring together her research on young children and on COVID-19 to answer key questions about returning to school and day care facilities. And as a new dad himself (Cole is now 10-months-old), Aaron asks her for her guidance on what his young family—and all the other parents out there—should be considering as they decide whether it’s advisable to send their kids back to school.

An embattled president. A mass movement. A military used against citizens. We’ve been here before. In Mayday 1971, thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters descended on Washington DC to try to shut down the federal government. By 10:30am, more than 5000 protesters had been arrested, stuffed into overflowing jail cells—eventually police had to commandeer RFK Stadium to accommodate all the arrests. It was America’s largest act of mass civil disobedience and ended in America’s biggest mass arrest: over 12,000 people. The Pulitzer-prize winning editor Larry Roberts joins the podcast this week as we bring to life this incredible moment in history. From President Nixon’s unconstitutional tactics, to dragnet mass arrests, to streets filled with teargas, to some unexpected support for these illegal actions from the future Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Roberts gets into the untold story of Mayday 1971. It is impossible to ignore one more important fact: This historical event carries eerie echoes of the moment we’re living through today. Roberts’ full investigation is detailed in his book, Mayday 1971: A White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold History of America’s Biggest Mass Arrest, which is out now.

Samantha Bee doesn’t think comedy will take Trump down. She calls her craft “impotent beyond belief” in the face of the daily presidential wrecking ball. But then, the creator and star of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee thinks preaching to the choir is absolutely fine—moral, even.“Talking to the people that you agree with is very good,” she tells Washington D.C. bureau chief David Corn, in this wide-ranging conversation recorded onstage at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. “I think it’s important to have as many voices as possible just go, ‘This is wrong. I disagree with this. This is how it should be. We’re not all crazy!” When she started, Bee felt sure that airing just six episodes would result in the whole show being canceled for being too sharply opinionated. Now she thinks of her weekly, Emmy Award-winning (and just re-nominated) program—in its fifth season despite the pandemic—as “my own little historical record of this age.” It’s become a platform from which to educate, commiserate, and shock, with a panoply of facts, jokes, and mini-seminars about how the hell we got here and how to fix it. And she couldn’t care less if her critics call her an activist.“Look, when you have a show, you’ve got to do something with it,” she tells Corn. “To not use it to do something with it in a time of great distress feels like a huge waste to me. Why wouldn’t you?” This interview, taped in February, is part of a limited series co-produced by Mother Jones and the Comedy Cellar, the venerable stand-up venue. Don’t miss Corn’s recent interviews with Debbie Harry and John Leguizamo by subscribing to the podcast.

Debbie Harry is an icon, punk rock star, and self-proclaimed spokesperson for bees. As the frontwoman of Blondie, she came up through the avant-garde art scene in 1970s New York, trading artistic inspiration with Andy Warhol, Basquiat, and Patti Smith. After breaking into the mainstream with its 1979 album Parallel Lines, Harry and the rest of the band have been bending musical genres ever since. In this raw and in-depth interview with Mother Jones DC Bureau Chief David Corn, Debbie Harry opens up about her past and her compulsive creative drive. She shares stories about what it was like breaking into the male-dominated music industry, why she loves David Bowie, and how she came up with her alter-ego Blondie. Plus, she shares how she is using her fame to protect the honeybees. Corn’s interview with Harry is one in a series of several notable guests featured over three episodes of the Mother Jones Podcast. It’s a special summer interview series with a very “2020” origin story: Earlier this year, the coronavirus pandemic stalled work on a new podcast, co-produced by Mother Jones and the Comedy Cellar, but not before three fascinating guests joined Corn for in-depth interviews about art, politics, comedy, and the philosophies that infuse their work. These chats were too good to simply shelve; last week we heard from actor and comedian John Leguizamo, and next week we’ll hear from talk show host Samantha Bee.

Actor, activist, author and educator John Leguizamo loves that his comedy makes people feel angry. In his 2018 one-man Broadway show, Latin History for Morons, the 55-year-old star splices jokes with history about the genocide of Native American people, his experience being racially profiled in the United States, and a welter of statistics about the underrepresentation of Latinx people in American media. Born in Colombia and raised in Queens, New York, Leguizamo grew up seeing negative portrayals of Latinx people in Hollywood and in the pages of the New York Times. This feeling of being an outsider, of not belonging, was a power that he eventually came to value—and harness as fuel for his comedy and acting career. In January, Leguizamo sat down with Mother Jones’s DC Bureau Chief David Corn onstage at the Comedy Cellar, the historic New York City stand-up venue, to talk about his work, ego, process, and his favorite subject⁠: Latinx history. Corn’s interview with Leguizamo is one in a series of several notable guests featured over the next three episodes. It’s a special summer interview series with a very “2020” origin story: Earlier this year, the coronavirus pandemic stalled work on a new podcast, co-produced by Mother Jones and the Comedy Cellar, but not before three fascinating guests joined Corn for in-depth interviews about art, politics, comedy, and the philosophies that infuse their work. These chats were too good to simply shelve; in the coming week’s you’ll also hear from music icon Debbie Harry, and talkshow host Samantha Bee.

Over nearly five decades, Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco has built a reputation as one of the nation's highest-profile rehab centers and prison diversion programs. It's earned a cult-like following among judges, politicians, and celebrities, including Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsom, Jane Fonda, and Clint Eastwood. But Delancey it has been subject to little oversight or scrutiny. On this episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, senior reporter Julia Lurie investigates an eccentric program with a number of long-standing practices that are rarely discussed in public. Participants work long hours with no pay, get not mental health services, are forbid from using psychiatric medications, and undergo rituals that some describe as psychological torture. Many Delancey alums credit the program's tough-love approach with saving their lives. But for others, it led to their unraveling.

You might recognize Diane Guerrero for her roles in big TV shows like Orange is the New Black, Jane the Virgin, and Doom Patrol. Off-screen, Guerrero has used her very public platforms to engage in activism and political causes. On Instagram, on Twitter, and in two books, Guerrero brings her deep knowledge and adept campaigning skills to the fight for immigration, voting rights, and racial justice reform. Mother Jones immigration reporter Fernanda Echavarri recently interviewed Guerrero for a live conversation that was streamed across Mother Jones’ social media platforms. Today’s podcast is an edited version of that conversation. Echavarri and Guerrero dig into their personal experience with racism in the Latinx community, the horrors of ICE detention, the current Black Lives Matter movement, and why the whiteness of the entertainment industry, on-screen and off, is such an urgent problem.

Donald Trump loves to lie. We know that. But as the editor and chief writer of the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” it’s Glenn Kessler’s job to keep count. Donald Trump has earned over 18,000 Pinocchios from the “Fact Checker” team for his many, many falsehoods, exaggerations, and outright lies. On this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, Washington DC Bureau Chief David Corn interviews Kessler about his new book, Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth, which he co-wrote with his “Fact Checker” colleagues Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly. Kessler gets into all of it—lies about the coronavirus, about rallies, about climate change—and assesses what might happen if Trump's lies are allowed to thrive for another four years.

After spending the last decade covering America’s criminal justice system, one thing is clear to activist, journalist and scholar Josie Duffy Rice: a grab-bag approach to policy reform isn’t going to fix all the problems with policing in America. Josie is the president of The Appeal, a non-profit news publication focused on criminal justice, and the co-host of the podcast, "Justice in America". She has been working in the weeds on issues that many Americans are now paying attention to in the wake of George Floyd’s killing—issues like police brutality, bloated police budgets, surveillance, pre-trial detention, cash bail, and the disproportionate police presence in communities of color. On this week’s show, Josie joins Jamilah King for a discussion about the recent police killing of Rayshard Brookes in Atlanta, the deep racist and classist structural issues with policing in America, and why defunding the police is only step one.