Left, Right & Center

The first votes of the 2026 midterm elections will soon be cast in Texas, and the Senate primary race is shaping up to be messy for both Democrats and Republicans. The two blue candidates, U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett and state Representative James Talarico are each facing blowback for comments they made about race and identity. There’s also an intraparty fracture between the GOP’s establishment and insurgent wings...

This week, Congress ended a partial government shutdown, approving funding for several federal agencies through September. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees I.C.E and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, was not among those agencies. Democrats say they won’t fund the D.H.S without restrictions on federal immigration agents. In this shifting political landscape, how will congressional Republicans respond?

We’ll ...

Protests and skirmishes between Minnesota residents and federal agents are still ongoing after the second shooting of a US citizen in Minneapolis this month. Thirty-seven year old ICU nurse Alex Pretti was killed by Border Patrol agents while filming immigration operations in the city. Following a weekend of inflammatory comments by DHS secretary Kristy Noem and other members of the Trump administration, the president has ...

President Trump’s contentious relationship with NATO seemed set to reach its peak at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. European leaders formed a united front against his belligerence over American control of Greenland in recent weeks. The floating of a military attack or new tariffs on NATO members who opposed the move appeared to doom the longstanding alliance. However, upon his arrival, the president walked back a...

President Trump is threatening to enact the Insurrection Act and deploy National Guard troops in Minneapolis. The threat comes on the heels of continued protests over the January 7th killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent. The Trump administration claims Good was a “domestic terrorist,” while protestors call for accountability over the shooting. Our panel discusses the motivation for protestors and whether the  accou...

Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. As video of the shooting went viral, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem derided Good as a “domestic terrorist” in a statement to reporters. The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, called the Trump administration’s take B.S., and for ICE to leave the city, while asking potential protestors to remain calm as they take to the street...

2026’s first primary is just two months away. Both parties are trying to get voters to believe in their ability to address the affordability crisis. Republicans are combatting President Trump’s conflicting perspective on the economy. Democrats are hoping to solidify their voice for voters after struggling to find a message that connected with them in 2024. Our panel breaks down which races could help define their identitie...

Foreign policy took center stage in the first year of President Trump’s second term, which may be a surprise after his America First focus in 2024. The president sought to ease tensions with adversaries while bringing an end to existing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Trump promised an isolationist shift after finding resolutions for those wars. Instead, the back half of 2025 saw the United States enter a new military campa...

2025 is set to end without the passage of a new health care bill. 

Congress had been working to hammer out new legislation before the holiday break. Democrats were pushing for an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that lowered the cost of health care premiums for millions of Americans. Those subsidies are set to expire at the end of 2025. 

House Democrats were joined in the fight by moderate Republicans who w...

As peace talks between Russia and Ukraine continue, last week the White House released its National Security Strategy. The strategy, viewed favorably by Moscow, was critical of the European Union and views the suppression of far-right politicians as a threat to peace and democracy in the region, especially in resolving the war in Ukraine. A US-brokered peace plan would see Ukraine cede the Donbass region to Russia, a non-s...

At the end of a cabinet meeting this week, President Trump unleashed controversial comments about Minnesota’s Somali community. The president said he “[didn’t] want them in our country” and referred to Minnesota’s Somali-American congresswoman Ilhan Omar as “garbage”. His diatribe came as reports surfaced of ICE raids in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region targeting Somalis in the area. The Department of Homeland Security said...

President Trump has been a vocal supporter of capital punishment, even before his foray into politics. Now in his second term, he’s instructed the Department of Justice to help states facilitate more executions, and death row executions have reached the highest number in over a decade. Does Trump see  political value in capital punishment? What can we glean about our own values from the push for more executions?

America...

This week we bring you an episode from Question Everything, another KCRW podcast. Host Brian Reed brings together the reporters who know the Jeffrey Epstein case best – along with one of their Trump-supporting producers – for drinks and a candid, no-holds-barred conversation. They compare notes, challenge each other’s assumptions, and reveal what it really takes to separate fact from rumor in a story that has tested the li...

President Trump signed a bill ordering the Department of Justice to release all unclassified material related to Jeffrey Epstein. The bill - signed on November 19th - calls on the DoJ to deliver the files within 30 days. The president initially resisted Congressional efforts to sign the bill before reversing course ahead of a House vote. Democrats rallied around the push to get the files out, but are they picking the wrong...

President Trump put his signature on a bill that will fund the government through the end of January. The bill brought an end to a 43-day shutdown of the federal government. A group of eight Democratic senators negotiated with Senate Majority leader John Thune to get concessions for furloughed and laid off government workers, and the funding of several federal agencies. The deal did not include the extensions for healthcar...

Democrats are celebrating a collection of election wins across the country this week. Messaging around affordability and the cost of living scored big wins for the party in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, as well as mayoral races in several major cities. Will a successful off year help the party smooth over its internal disagreements heading into next year’s midterms?

California passed Proposition 50, a pr...

The federal shutdown is set to extend past the one month mark. The longer the shutdown goes, the more Americans could feel its impact. The Department of Agriculture announced that it would not use emergency funding to keep supplying the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - also known as food stamps - after November 1st. Halting SNAP payments would affect more than 40 million Americans. Many federal workers, i...

Tensions are high after President Trump ordered a military strike on a boat in the Pacific Ocean this week. It’s the latest in a series of attacks on vessels the administration has accused of carrying illicit drugs out of Venezuela. The president says these attacks are intended to stop narcoterrorists, despite Venezuela’s minor role in the drug trade. Could the real driver behind this campaign be the type of regime change ...

Despite President Trump declaring the war in Gaza “over,” the situation on the ground is far from certain. Israel has threatened to block some of the humanitarian aid approved in the deal until Hamas fulfills its promise of returning all the bodies of dead hostages. That hasn’t deterred the president from promoting himself as a peacemaker. What’s motivating his aggressive push to take credit for the deal?

The Middle Eas...