The Nation Podcasts

Despite Bernie's big losses in Michigan and elsewhere on Tuesday, he's staying in the race to challenge Biden on the issues which Democratic voters support.  John Nichols assesses the situation, and talks about what we need to do now about the coronavirus and the elections. also: What Big Data says about beating Trump: Steve Phillips explains -- he wrote New York Times bestselling book Bro...

John Nichols analyzes the bad night for Bernie--and the tasks that remain if Biden is going to be defeated in the primaries. Plus: Joan Walsh covered the South Carolina primary and saw first-hand the results of Jim Clyburn's endorsement of Joe Biden. And D.D. Guttenplan presents the case for Bernie and his movement--The Nation endorsed them this week. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of...

Bloomberg can’t win the primaries, but he might try to get the nomination if Bernie doesn’t go to the convention with a majority of delegates.  Jeet Heer argues that nominating Bloomberg would destroy the Democratic Party and assure Trump’s reelection. Plus: political pundits are supposed to put forward strong opinions – that’s their job.  The rest of us may be confused and uncertain and anxious,...

Pundits have declared that Elizabeth Warren is finished, but we’re not so sure. Joan Walsh  points out that, while Warren came in third in Iowa and fourth in New Hampshire, only 64 delegates have been selected—there are more than 1,900 delegates still to be picked. The case for Warren at this point remains potent, especially given the success of progressive women in the 2018 midterms. Also: Bernie...

New Hampshire’s primary has reshaped the Democratic race: Progressives are coalescing around Bernie, and moderates are abandoning Biden in favor of Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar.  John Nichols reports. Plus: How the Democrats can win in rural America: Jane Kleeb talks about strategies for winning in red states.  She’s a grassroots organizer based in Hastings, Nebraska, and she put together the coal...

The problem in reporting the results in Iowa isn’t just a delay; it’s a disaster—that’s what John Nichols says—for the Democrats, and especially for Bernie, who so far appears to have won at least the popular vote. And if Biden did as badly as reports suggest, that’s a huge boost not just for Pete Buttigieg but also for Michael Bloomberg. But there is one excellent result: This may very well be th...

Republican Senators in swing states are falling in their approval ratings back home as the Senate impeachment trial unfolds.  In Maine, Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina, 63 percent of voters want the Senate to allow witnesses and subpoenas in the impeachment trial.  Joan Walsh comments on the politics of impeachment, and on the losing arguments Trump’s attorneys have offered in his defense. P...

51 per cent of Americans now think Trump should be removed from office, according to the new CNN poll (and 45 per cent think he shouldn’t).  That, John Nichols argues. shows impeachment has succeeded—and if Republicans in the Senate block Trump’s removal from office, voters can do it in November. Also historian Andrew Bacevitch argues that America has squandered its Cold War victory – and consider...

It’s been ten years since Haiti was devastated by the earthquake that killed more than a hundred thousand people.  Amy Wilentz, who has been reporting on Haiti for three decades, returned to the island and found the country oddly calm, despite deepening poverty, violence, and corruption.  She also found “little sprouts of possibility everywhere.” Also: We have a lot of experts on what to do about...

Trump’s Iran strike continues a long, failed history of American actions based on the idea that the U.S. military can shape the mideast in accord with our wishes.  That’s what Andrew Bacevich argues—his new book is The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered its Cold War Victory. Plus: Henry Louis Gates discovers slave-owners – and also slaves—in the family histories of some surprising people--on...

The 2020 election will liberate us from Donald Trump and Republican hegemony. A sweeping Democratic victory will make it possible at last for us to address our most serious problems—because 2020 will bring the death of the Republican party as we’ve known it. That’s what Stan Greenberg says—he’s a longtime pollster and adviser to presidents from Clinton to Obama. He’s also a bestselling author, wit...

Capitalism is broken – that's why socialism is on the agenda for 2020.  Katrina vanden Heuvel explains - she's publisher and editorial director of The Nation. We also look back at some of the big events of 2019, and some of our favorite interviews, starting with the terrorist attacks by white nationalists,   in El Paso and elsewhere.  Historian Kathleen Belew says they are NOT isolated eve...

The British Labour Party suffered a historic defeat last week—working class people who voted Labour their entire lives have now switched sides.  Centrists in the Democratic Party say this means that the socialist program doesn’t work as an alternative to racism and xenophobia--in other words, it’s bad news for Bernie.  And for us at The Nation.  They say Boris Johnson is a lot like Donald Trump, a...

Some analysts criticize progressives who urge Democrats to focus on turning out their core base—people of color, unmarried women, and younger voters—they say it’s a big mistake to give up on working class whites. And many progressives reply that it would be a disaster for the Democrats to try to “win back” working class white Trump voters by not talking about discriminatory policing, reproductive...

Democrats need to learn the lessons of their historic victory last month, when Virginia became the first Southern state in the post–civil-rights-movement era to entirely flip back to Democratic control.  Virgina Democrats now hold the governorship AND both houses of the state legislature.  How did they do it?  Joan Walsh says one key was that Republican attacks on abortion didn’t send Democrats ru...

Bernie Sanders says it will take a movement to change America: “It can’t all be Bernie.”  John Nichols comments on his interview with the candidate, who is now back in second place in the polls.  And we play clips from the interview, originally broadcast on the Next Left podcast.  Also: deporting the immigrants called “undesirable”--now, under Trump, and a hundred years ago.  Historian Adam Hochsc...

The adventures of older women in America: Ruth Bader Ginsburg for example is 86,and Nancy Pelosi just turned 80. But where are the prominent Republican women in politics today who are older?  Gail Collins has been thinking about that; of course she’s the New York Times op-ed columnist.  Her new book is No Stopping Us Now .  Also: Rick Perlstein says the Nixon impeachment limited the charges agains...

Sherrod Brown, the senior senator from Ohio, was re-elected in 2018. He won by 7 points—in a state Hillary Clinton had lost—by 8 points—just 2 years earlier. What are the lessons for 2020? “You need to talk to workers,” he says, “and you need to fight for workers—all workers.” Now he has a new book out: Desk 88 – Eight progressive senators who changed America. Also: why Joe Biden is the wrong cand...

Where do we stand one year out from the election? The best polls this week show Trump losing the popular vote by around 15 points—but also show that he’s still “highly competitive” in the swing states Democrats must carry in order to defeat him. John Nichols has our analysis. Also: Trump is trying to knock off Joe Biden because he wants to run against Elizabeth Warren—he thinks he can win by campa...

Joe Biden may be the frontrunner, but he’s slipping, and it seems doubtful that he will get better at this.  Big donors are pulling away from him.  But do the “moderates” in the party–-the Wall Street Democrats--have a Plan B? A backup candidate?  A viable alternative?  Jeet Heer evaluates the possibilities—there are a lot of them, but none are very promising. Also: Republicans in the Senate--we w...

We all know Trump got famous on TV with The Apprentice – but how many of us ever watched The Apprentice?  Reality TV was a key force in making Trump president.  Tom Carson talks about “Audience of One” by James Poniewozik.  Tom, a longtime writer on pop culture and politics, won two National Magazine Awards during his time as Esquire‘s “Screen” columnist; now he writes for BookForum. Also: Ilhan O...

Trump’s increasingly reckless efforts at intimidation reveal the increasingly desperate situation he has created for himself, where even Fox News has become an inconsistent and unreliable defender of his actions.  Sasha Abramsky separates Trump’s efforts at distraction from the political reality he now faces. Also: With the Supreme Court back in session, we turn our attention to the most right-win...

The Supreme Court term began its fall term this week--and even though Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed at the start of last year’s court term, this year the Supremes’ decisions will be worse – a lot worse.  Elie Mystal explains why—he’s the executive editor of Above the Law and a contributing writer for The Nation. Also: a new episode of ‘The Children’s Hour’--stories about Ivanka, Jared, Don Junior,...

The big question about impeachment is not the House -- there now seem to be enough votes there to pass at least one article of impeachment--the big question is about the Senate and whether some Republicans will abandon Trump.  Former Republican Senator Jeff Flake says that at least 35 Republican senators would vote to remove Trump from office--IF they could vote in private.  Joan Walsh comments. A...

Trump finally went too far, even for Nancy Pelosi: he used money appropriated by Congress for foreign aid to pressure the president of Ukraine to come up with dirt on Joe Biden—dirt that Trump could use in the upcoming election.  Jeet Heer comments – he’s National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation. Also: historian Eric Foner talks about about voter suppression, about who gets to be a citizen, w...