KQED's Forum

KQED's Forum

Forum tells remarkable and true stories about who we are and where we live. In the first hour, Alexis Madrigal convenes the diverse voices of the Bay Area, before turning to Mina Kim for the second hour to chronicle and center Californians’ experience. In an increasingly divided world, Mina and Alexis host conversations that inform, challenge and unify listeners with big ideas and different viewpoints. Want to call/submit your comments during our live Forum program Mon-Fri, 9am-11am? We'd love to hear from you! Please dial 866.SF.FORUM or (866) 733-6786 or email forum@kqed.org, tweet, or post on Facebook.

Episodes

Love It or Hate It, the Presidential Fitness Test Is Making a Comeback

August 15, 2025 • 55 mins
Remember the flexed arm hang? The mile run? The Presidential Fitness Test – a battery of physical challenges that has prompted both dread and pride in students since the Eisenhower administration – is getting a reboot under the current administration. We’ll look at what California is currently doing to encourage youth fitness and what we’ve learned from more than 50 years of health data collected by school fitness tests, including ...
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Is Your Perfectionism a Problem?

August 15, 2025 • 55 mins
On the surface, being a perfectionist may not seem so bad. What’s wrong with wanting straight A’s or an impeccable home or conflict-free relationships? But, therapists have long warned that not managing perfectionism properly can lead to anxiety, depression and a wide range of other problems. Perfectionism manifests in various ways. Sometimes people expect themselves to be perfect or feel like they will never be good enough for oth...
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UCLA Faces $1 Billion Fine in Trump Administration’s Latest Battle with Higher Education

August 14, 2025 • 55 mins
A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to restore more than $80 million in grants it withheld from UCLA. The ruling comes as the government accuses the university of antisemitism on campus and discrimination in admissions. To resolve the funding freeze, Trump is demanding a $1 billion settlement, which Governor Gavin Newsom characterizes as extortion and UC officials say would “completely devas...
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Trump’s Tariff Policy Raising Prices of Coffee, Clothing and More

August 14, 2025 • 55 mins
For months, economists have predicted that Trump’s tariff policy would crash the economy. While that has not yet happened, leading economic indicators, like inflation and jobs numbers, do indicate that the economy is slowing despite a strong stock market. We’ll talk about how this latest round of tariffs is impacting consumers and businesses, and hear how your spending and savings habits have changed. Guests: Neale Mahoney, pro...
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As Medicaid Cuts Loom, California Health Clinics Face Uncertain Future

August 13, 2025 • 55 mins
The Republican spending bill signed into law by President Trump last month slashes an estimated $150 billion in federal Medicaid funding to California over the next 10 years. Nearly 40% percent of Californians rely on Medi-Cal for health coverage, and now millions are expected to fall off the rolls. That’s leaving medical providers bracing for impacts, especially in places already struggling to serve all who need care. We talk to h...
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AI Reshapes the Economy and Roils Geopolitics, Even as GPT-5 Fizzles

August 13, 2025 • 55 mins
Big Tech’s spending on AI infrastructure, like data centers, is so enormous that it’s reshaping the U.S. economy on a scale likened to the building of the railroads. AI is also now at the center of geopolitical conflicts, as President Trump strikes a deal with Nvidia allowing it to sell its chips to China, upending longstanding national security policy. And yet, the much-hyped launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-5 has left many users underw...
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California Governor’s Race Shifts as Harris, Kounalakis Say They’re Not Running

August 12, 2025 • 55 mins
What’s happened since former Vice President Kamala Harris said she’s not running to replace Gavin Newsom as California’s next governor? Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, who received early funding and an unofficial endorsement from Nancy Pelosi, said on Friday that she’s not running either. The announcement has again scrambled the political calculations of California’s gubernatorial hopefuls. We’ll talk with KQED’s politics tea...
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What Does Donald Trump’s Use of the National Guard Mean for our Democracy?

August 12, 2025 • 55 mins
In the past, a U.S. president deployed the National Guard on domestic soil to enforce laws or quash protests once every few decades in extremely rare circumstances. President Donald Trump has now done so twice in a matter of three months.. The first was in June to tamp down protests against his immigration policies in Los Angeles. A federal trial began Monday over whether Trump had the authority to order that  deployment. Also on M...
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Why We Need Shade in a Warming World

August 11, 2025 • 55 mins
In Los Angeles County — famous for its sunshine — just 20% of urbanized areas are shaded at noon. That’s creating a serious health hazard for people who work outdoors, wait at bus stops or play outside. Environmental journalist Sam Bloch argues that shade should be considered a basic human right, akin to access to clean air and safe drinking water. We speak with Bloch about why modern cities have so little shade and how we can rein...
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Shoshana Walter’s ‘Rehab’ Finds Corruption, Profiteering and Dismal Rates of Recovery In America’s Drug Treatment System

August 11, 2025 • 55 mins
Nearly eight years ago, journalist Shoshana Walter followed a lead on a drug and alcohol rehab program that put patients to work at a chicken plant. What she found was one of many programs that boasted treatment and recovery, but actually profited off the unpaid labor of people struggling with addiction. In her new book, “Rehab: An American Scandal”, Walter continues to interrogate America’s drug treatment system by following four ...
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Why Is Gen Z Having Less Sex?

August 8, 2025 • 55 mins
Gen Z is having less sex, and journalist Carter Sherman has spent the last several years interviewing more than 100 teens and 20-somethings about why. Sherman found it’s not because they’re uninterested or don’t have progressive views about sex. Instead, anxieties about the overturning of Roe v. Wade among other attacks on reproductive freedom, coming of age during an isolating pandemic and poor sex education have led many to absta...
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Fed Up With the Apps, Daters Turn to Old School Set Ups

August 8, 2025 • 55 mins
Dating is going old school. More than a decade after apps like Tinder, Hinge and Bumble transformed dating, many singles are signing off and asking their friends, families and colleagues to set them up. It’s the kind of news that will make grandmothers everywhere rejoice. Being set up might seem quaint, but for most of modern dating, people met their spouses through friends and family. And with the popularity of shows like Netflix’...
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Starvation in Gaza Persists Despite Increased Aid Deliveries

August 7, 2025 • 55 mins
The latest reporting from Gaza describes a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Children are starving; families face impossible choices between food and safety. Hospitals cannot function and medical staff are too weak to help patients. We talk to aid workers and journalists reporting from both sides of Israel’s near-total blockade of supplies going into Gaza about what they’re witnessing and what it will take to save li...
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California Considers More Drilling and Other Concessions to Big Oil as Refineries Plan to Close

August 7, 2025 • 55 mins
California has long gone head-to-head with big oil, leading many of the efforts to curb climate damage caused at the hands of the fossil fuel industry – including spearheading lawsuits against oil companies and pushing fracking bans.  But faced with the closure of two state refineries, and rising gas prices, Governor Gavin Newsom has made some major concessions on oil to not only keep the refineries open, but to draft a bill for mo...
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Is the American Media Caving to Trump?

August 6, 2025 • 55 mins
Is legacy media self-censoring under the Trump Administration? The canceling of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and the multi-million dollar payouts from the parent companies of CBS and ABC to settle defamation lawsuits are all causes for concern, according to media analyst and Guardian US columnist Margaret Sullivan, who worries hard news reporting could become a thing of the past. We talk with Sullivan about how major media ...
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Why Americans Flock to Mexico’s “Molar City” for Dental Care

August 6, 2025 • 55 mins
New Yorker staff writer Burkhard Bilger doesn’t have great teeth. According to Bilger, his “gaptoothed grin” makes him look like he came from a bar fight or a remake of “Deliverance.” Given his lousy dental insurance, a friend recommended that Bilger head to Mexico’s “Molar City,” Los Algodones, a place that has the highest per capita concentration of dentists in the world, to get his teeth fixed. Medical tourism is nothing new, bu...
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California Leaders Eye Special Election to Counter Texas Redistricting Plans

August 5, 2025 • 55 mins
California Democrats have long criticized gerrymandering, the practice of drawing district maps to influence election outcomes. But as Texas Republicans have unveiled district maps intended to favor conservatives in the 2026 midterms, California lawmakers are sketching new plans of their own. Governor Gavin Newsom has announced plans to seek a special election in November, asking California voters to approve new districts that migh...
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Trump EPA Makes Major Moves to Repeal Climate Regulation

August 5, 2025 • 55 mins
In 2008, the Obama administration compiled a massive report with the goal of answering one big question: Is climate change a danger to human health in America? Comprised of some of the most comprehensive scientific findings of all time, the Endangerment Finding concluded that it was, which allowed the  government to regulate climate change—including putting restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. Now, the Trump administration and...
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Democrats Have Lost Diverse Voters. Can They Get Them Back?

August 4, 2025 • 55 mins
Democrats long assumed they could count on voters of color to support their candidates and causes, and for many years they did. But last year’s presidential election was a wake up call for Democrats as Donald Trump gained significant support from Black, Latino and Asian American voters, especially men. In studying the racially and ethnically diverse voter coalition that brought Barack Obama to power, Yale professor Daniel Martinez ...
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Dr. Elias Zerhouni Reminds Us Why 'Disease Knows No Politics'

August 4, 2025 • 55 mins
Dr. Elias Zerhouni’s journey began in Algeria, where he taught himself mathematics as bombs fell outside his window. With two suitcases and a few hundred dollars, his family eventually immigrated to the United States. Driven by an unshakable belief in science and service, Zerhouni rose through the ranks of medical research to become director of the National Institutes of Health under President George W. Bush. In his new memoir, “Di...
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