• What Trump Lost–and Won–with the Supremes; plus Haitians after TPS
    Jul 1 2026

    Trump biggest losses in the Supreme Court rulings announced this week were on birthright citizenship—widely anticipated—and the voting rights case where the majority ruled states could count ballots mailed but not received by election day. His biggest win was abolishing independent agencies except for the Federal Reserve. David Cole has our analysis—he’s the former legal director of the ACLU.

    Also: The Court ended Temporary Protected Status, TPS, for Haitians (and others), but that does not mean deportations will begin immediately. Instead most of those with TPS will be given an opportunity to contest a deportation order or apply for remaining on a different basis. Amy Wilentz comments on the current responses in New York City, Miami, Springfield, Ohio, and in Congress.



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    45 mins
  • Norm Eisen: Fighting Trump’s Threats to Voting; plus Protest Success Stories
    Jun 24 2026

    Election protection: defending Ohio’s biggest voter registration group, and blocking Trump’s attacks on voting by mail: Norm Eisen, co-counsel on the first Trump impeachment, comments.

    Also: how protest pushed ICE to abandon most of its warehouse detention center plans, and pressured Georgia Republicans to abandon their redistricting plans – John Nichols explains.



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    37 mins
  • Why Harvard Won’t Settle; plus Struggles of Supermarket Workers
    Jun 17 2026

    In his campaign against elite universities as centers of resistance, Trump hasn’t been able to force Harvard to submit. And it seems less likely now that they will settle. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy has our analysis.

    Also: the essential workers at our supermarkets: Ann Larson talks about poverty wages and worker solidarity. Her new book is Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View From Behind the Supermarket Register.



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    42 mins
  • Primary Elections from LA to Maine, plus AI "Poetry"
    Jun 10 2026

    Democratic strength, and Democratic divisions, in primaries from L.A. to Maine—Harold Meyerson has our analysis of the week’s political developments.

    Also: Can AI write poetry? Good poetry? Katha Pollitt decided to find out. She’s an award-winning poet herself, and a columnist for The Nation



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    35 mins
  • The Dems After Tuesday’s Primaries, plus Elmore Leonard’s Bad Guys
    Jun 3 2026

    California’s jungle primary on Tuesday set the stage for the next Democratic governor of the state, and primaries in Iowa, New Jersey and elsewhere tested the strength of progressives in the party. John Nichols has our analysis.

    Also: from the archives: Elmore Leonard, who died in 2013 at age 87, was unpretentious about his massive accomplishments: 45 novels, more than a dozen turned into movies, and a reputation as one of the great writers of dialogue. When we spoke in 2000, he had just published Pagan Babies, and his movies Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and Out of Sight had been hits.



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    45 mins
  • Stopping Trump’s Slush Fund, plus the Transformations of Bill Gates
    May 27 2026

    Trump’s Billion Dollar Ballroom is a familiar kind of corruption, but his slush fund to pay the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name is an unprecedented attack on democracy. Rob Weissman of Public Citizen explains, and also talks about the immense, and immnsely unpopular, proposed Arc d’Trump.

    Also: Bill Gates was once the country’s youngest billionaire and the first billionaire to come from tech. Then he became the most hated man in America; then the biggest philanthropist, and the world’s most admired man. Then we learned of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Ben Tarnoff explains how all happened.



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    43 mins
  • Winning State Legislatures and Winning Midterm Elections
    May 20 2026

    State legislatures have a lot of power in America—the States Project focuses on expanding that. Daniel Squadron explains. His new book is The Fourth Branch: How State Government can Save Our Union.

    Also: this week’s polls and this week’s primaries have nothing but bad news for Trump and his followers. John Nichols has our analysis.



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    38 mins
  • Democrats After the Voting Rights Act, plus Jews Against Zionism
    May 13 2026

    Last week was one of the roughest for Democrats since Trump won the election in 2024 - the Supreme Court ended Black congressional representation in most of the South and opened the door to the creation of several more Republican House seats – and then the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the state’s initiative that created four more Democratic House seats was invalid. Nevertheless Trump is so unpopular that Democrats remain strong favorites to retake the House in November. Harold Meyerson comments.

    Also: During the first part of the 20th century, 100,000 Eastern European Jews joined a socialist organization that opposed Zionism. Their organization we call the Bund, and they believed that Jews should fight for full rights wherever they were, not for a new homeland somewhere else. Their motto was “here, where we live, is our country”--that's the title of a new book by Molly Crabapple. Adam Hochschild comments.



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    40 mins