Left, Right & Center

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...

Sharing an episode of On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti. On Point is a rare public space where you hear nuanced explorations of complex topics live and in real time. Host Meghna Chakrabarti leads provocative conversations that help make sense of the world, with urgency, timeliness and depth. In this episode, Meghna talks to Jake Sullivan, who has been working to shape policy for the United States for much of the 21st centur...

Officials from Hamas and Israel have come together on the initial framework of a ceasefire agreement. In the first phase, Israeli and Palestinian hostages will be released next week. Other details, such as disarmament of Hamas, governance of Palestine, and the removal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip remain to be seen. President Trump celebrated the agreement and pronounced “lasting peace” in the Middle East, but is t...

The federal government shut down this week, leaving thousands of federal employees furloughed. Families who depend on WIC and SNAP could also be at risk if the shutdown prolongs. Since President Trump took office, thousands of federal employees have faced layoffs or resigned themselves.  Conversations around a government shutdown brewed in March, but the final straw for Democrats may have been in August. That was when Russ...

Since taking office, President Trump has vowed to seek political vengeance on his opponents. He followed up on this by asking Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff. Senator Ted Cruz expressed concerns that all this could potentially impact the GOP down the line. How has political retribution defined our current er...

After the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, both Republicans and Democrats called for unity and understanding — but polarizing rhetoric has continued to escalate. President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other White House officials have vowed to target the “radical left” for being politically violent. Democratic officials have warned that the White House may try to use the assassination to suppress sp...

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and commentator, was shot and killed while hosting an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. Utah Governor Spencer Cox says it was a political assassination. Kirk, 31, co-founded the conservative youth organization, Turning Point USA, when he was 18. His visit to Utah Valley University was the kick-off for his “American Comeback Tour,” during which he planned to host political d...

The Trump administration announced that it will withhold $5 billion in foreign aid that Congress had already allocated. The “pocket rescission” is Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought’s latest move to give the executive branch control over America’s spending. House Democrats call it an unlawful attack on Congress’ power of the purse. The Trump administration has also imposed tariffs and selected U.S. att...

National Guard troops have been on the streets of Washington D.C. for about two weeks, and in June, they were deployed to Los Angeles during anti-ICE protests. Now, President Trump is threatening to send them  to Chicago, which he calls a “killing field.” Some Americans are embracing Trump’s expanded use of the National Guard, while others call him a dictator. According to the Chicago Police Department, homicides have drop...

President Trump says he wants to end mail-in voting and voting machines. The Constitution outlines that state governments manage their elections, but in a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the states simply serve as agents for the federal government. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do," he wrote. Any change to t...

President Trump promised to address crime in Washington, D.C. following an attack on a former DOGE employee. This week, the president put his plan into action. He ordered the deployment of 800 National Guardsmen to patrol the District. The guardsmen will be joined by members of a number of federal agencies. Is there more to the president’s decision than enforcing law and order?

The president will shift his focus from D.C. t...

President Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Erika McEntarfer, after the organization released its July jobs report. Trump claimed that several reports under  McEntarfer had been manufactured to hurt him and his economic agenda. But will the firestorm around the jobs report hurt the credibility of the next commissioner?

A pair of House members have called out their respective parties in th...