Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

Something remarkable is happening. While we must be physically isolated, separated from the world and those we love, people are finding creative ways to reach out and foster community. From sewing masks for strangers to singing with your neighbors to organizing virtual family meals, acts of generosity and grace are breaking through what can feel like an insurmountable darkness. Author Rebecca Soln...

There are still more questions than answers about COVID-19. While the impacts of the virus are felt in every corner of human life, there’s a desire to find a neat and clean explanation for how things got to this point. This search for causality creates an environment ripe for the spread of misinformation – conspiracy theories, premature conclusions, incomplete data- and it’s crucial to learn how t...

What did we learn from the last great pandemic? You don’t have to dig deep into the 1918 influenza before finding eerie similarities to today – be it the White House downplaying the severity of the virus or the social distancing measures recommended by public health officials. Author John M. Barry’s meticulously researched account of the 1918 pandemic in his book “The Great Influenza” was so affec...

WARNING: This episode discusses violence in war, suicide, depression and drug use. By the time he was 21-years-old, Thomas Burke Jr. had experienced enough trauma for a lifetime. After enlisting in the Marine Corps straight of high school, his deployments exposed him to horrors that dragged him down into what felt like an inescapable darkness. His journey is filled with pain and grief, struggles w...

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, we know that there are marginalized groups that are exposed. Those migrants seeking asylum at the southern border are one of those exposed groups, and face even more danger in part due to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. These are policies that are intended to close off the country and deter those who are lawfully seeking asylum. This conversati...

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government’s catastrophically inadequate response, and the uncertainty that hangs over us all as a result, Chris decided to do something a little different this week. He wanted to revisit a conversation that feels extremely relevant and prescient right now given the state of the country. Prolific nonfiction author Michael Lewis, the man behind “The Big...

In April of 1986 a nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the then Soviet Union. The fallout from the accident and the Soviet government’s response compounded into one of the worst manmade disasters of the nuclear era. In his masterful work of nonfiction, Midnight In Chernobyl , Adam Higginbotham weaves together the stories of the individuals and systems that contributed...

Enes Kanter is a wanted man in his home country of Turkey. He’s long been a vocal critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and it’s come at a high cost. At 6′ 10″, Kanter also happens to play for the Boston Celtics in the NBA. How he came to sit at this intersection is a riveting story, one that involves an NBA draft at age 19, a failed coup d'état, and a system of retribution by the Turki...

The future of our courts will be decided in the 2020 election. While the Trump administration grabs headlines with scandal after scandal, gaffe after gaffe, behind the scenes they are quietly chipping away at their central agenda of reshaping the courts. It’s a transformation happening at an historic rate, where one in four circuit judges is now a Trump appointee. They’ve already flipped the balan...

"What if you were a man, sort of?" In his new memoir, author Daniel M. Lavery remembers how, in the early days of his transition, he would say it was as if a demon ambushed him in the night, whispered this question into his ear, and then disappeared without another word. It was an immediate and instantaneous revelation, but also exceptionally vague on what was supposed to happen next. "Something T...

Democrats can beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Another four years of a Trump White House is not a foregone conclusion. With nine months to go before the general election, there’s a tremendous amount of fear and uncertainty hanging over many of us about the future of the American republic. Amidst this fear, Democratic voters are deciding which candidate is best suited to run against the Pres...

This is an intimate portrait of what addiction looks like in America. From the board rooms of pharmaceutical companies to the living rooms across America, Beth Macy traces the path of devastation wrought by opioids. Her latest book, “Dopesick” gives life to the urgency of the epidemic, illustrating just how woefully insufficient the national response has been to the scale of the crisis. She lays o...

The title says it all on this one, folks. What is it about the American political system that cultivated this deeply dysfunctional and polarized climate? Last year, we had Ezra Klein on the show to assess how bad things were in the Trump era (conclusion: not great). Now, Klein is back to discuss his new book "Why We're Polarized" which provides a systematic look at the deep structural defects in A...

Professional sports are never more than an inch away from the deepest core of what's happening in America. They are an amazing crucible of politics and culture that manage to reflect the issues we are working through as a country. And because these spaces are so integrated, particularly in football and basketball, racial politics quickly come to the foreground. This is the intersection ESPN writer...

Why do white evangelical Christians support President Trump? They delivered him 81% of their votes on election day and consistently give him higher favorability ratings than any other voting bloc. As former Christianity Today editor-in-chief Mark Galli puts it, white evangelicals elected Trump to be their champion. So these were the exact people Galli hoped were listening when he published a stunn...

In the summer of 2017, a 25-year-old government contractor exposed detailed evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Reality Winner printed out classified US Intelligence documents, hid the papers in her pantyhose as she left work, and then put them in the mail to The Intercept. The report they published was the first piece of concrete evidence shared with the public proving the Unit...

It’s hard not to make comparisons between the political landscapes of the US and the UK. In 2016 when the UK shocked the world with the Brexit vote, a lot of folks saw it as a bellwether for the coming presidential election. If it could happen there, why couldn’t it happen here? And sure enough it did, kicking off three years of political turmoil. Now, as we prepare for the 2020 presidential elect...

It's that time of year, friends! Come sit by the fire as Chris Hayes and producer Tiffany Champion tackle your questions from the WITHpod mailbag. As promised, click here for the sketch that inspired the secret santa gift. Sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads. You'll also get exclusive bonus content from this and other shows. Hosted...

In the final stop of our Fall tour, we invited playwrights Tony Kushner and Jeremy O. Harris to talk about all things spectacle, storytelling, and how they relate to this political moment. They are both artists who use their firm grounding in our own reality to give life to alternate worlds, ones full of drama and conflict and pathos. In this hour, they discuss the ways they hope their art echoes...

Could a wealth tax help reduce the vast income and wealth inequality in the country? It’s an idea that not only has the backing of two Democratic primary frontrunners - Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren - but also enjoys wide public support. So what would it look like to have a wealth tax, who would end up paying, and why is Wall Street freaking out about it? And how did we get to this...

Now might be a good time to get acquainted with impeachment. In fact, we here at #WITHpod believe everyone should listen to an hour-long conversation with a person who is not only familiar with the history of impeachment but who also has granular expertise in that area of law. Heck, how great would it be if that constitutional law scholar once clerked on the Supreme Court and has firsthand experie...

How did Iraqi soldiers wrestle Mosul back from the grip of ISIS fighters? In the summer of 2014, at the height of their expansion, the terror group managed to take one of Iraq's largest cities in a matter of days. Two years later, it took the Iraqi army nine months to win it back. War correspondent James Verini thought his summer assignment to Iraq would be a short one. Instead, he stayed embedded...

In our third stop of the Fall tour, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the architect behind The 1619 Project, and Ibram Kendi, author of “How To Be an Antiracist”, join Chris Hayes to examine the 400 year legacy of slavery in America. Together they examine the sinister discrepancy between the history of this nation as it * was * and the history of this nation as we are taught it, and discuss what that history t...

What came before the #MeToo movement? Acclaimed author Linda Hirshman's new book "Reckoning" traces 50 years of brave women, crucial court battles, and social awakenings that preceded the movement we're witnessing today. This conversation illustrates in vivid detail the decades of struggle to hold those in power accountable, and introduces you to the women who worked tirelessly to make t...

It's our New York City live show announcement! Listen for our special guest reveal and information about presale ticket access! Presale begins 10am Wednesday November 6th and goes until 10pm Thursday November 7th. Click here to get your tickets now! Sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads. You'll also get exclusive bonus content from th...