Government & Politics

The protagonist of Sebastian Barry's new novel is conscripted right off the boat as the price of American citizenship. Eventually he finds love and companionship with one of his fellow soldiers.

Author Mary Graham discusses the confidences that presidents keep. When it comes to President Trump, she says: "I think we're seeing that it's not possible to keep policies secret in the digital age."

ProPublica senior reporter Andrew Revkin discusses President Trump's possible cuts to the EPA, as well as the potential impact of pulling out of the Paris climate accord.

Historian Bernard Weissberger. He’s the author of “America Afire,” (William Morrow 2000). The book chronicles the political tumult surrounding the Presidential Election of 1800 between Adams and Jefferson. As in this election, a voting glitch caused confusion. Neither candidate was willing to concede. Weissberger compares the events then, at the birth of the Constitution, to the Gore v. Bush controversy now. He has written more than a dozen books and works on documentaries with Bill Moyers and Ken Burns.

President Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but Sarah Kliff of Vox.com says it's "an overreach" to say that Republicans have a plan for what comes next

Willie Lincoln was only 11 when he died in February 1862 of typhoid fever. The Lincolns' third son was said to be their favorite, and after Willie was interred in a borrowed mausoleum in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, his father, Abraham Lincoln, returned to that cemetery several times. Newspapers reported that the president visited the crypt to open his son's coffin and hold his body. It's that image, of Lincoln cradling the corpse of his beloved son in a Pietà pose, that inspires George Saunders' first novel, called Lincoln in the Bardo.

Mukherjee, who died Saturday in Manhattan, grew up in India, Switzerland and England. Her work explores the thoughts and experiences of immigrants from many countries. Originally broadcast in 2002.

Lancaster, Ohio, the home of the Fortune 500 company Anchor Hocking, was once a bustling center of industry and employment. At its peak following World War II, Lancaster's hometown company was the world's largest maker of glassware and employed more than 5,000 town residents. Though Anchor Hocking remains in Lancaster today, it is a shell of its former self, and the once thriving town is beset by underemployment and drug abuse. Lancaster native Brian Alexander chronicles the rise and fall of his hometown in his new book, Glass House.

Sarah Posner, a reporter with The Nation's Investigative Fund, talks about how the Steve Bannon-Jeff Sessions-Mike Pence nexus is influencing President Trump's policies.

Legal expert Jeffrey Rosen says of the Supreme Court nominee: "If he thought that individual liberty was threatened by presidential or congressional overreaching, then he would step in."

Charlie Wilson is a retired congressman and the subject of the book Charlie Wilson's War. It's about the secret CIA operation arming the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union. Wilson left office in 1996 after 24 years in office. He is now a lobbyist and one of his main clients is Pakistan.

George Crile is a veteran producer for CBS's 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II. He's the author of the new book, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. It's about the CIA's secret war in Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s, and its support of the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union. Ammunitions and weapons were smuggled across the border and at one point over 300,000 fundamentalist Afghan warriors carried weapons provided by the CIA.

Journalist Luke Harding has an insider's understanding of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Harding served as Moscow bureau chief for the British newspaper The Guardian from 2007 until 2011.

Journalist Evan Osnos, who recently wrote about doomsday prep for the super rich for The New Yorker, tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that tech survivalists are stockpiling weapons and food, and, in some cases, preparing luxury underground bunkers.

Journalist Stephen Kinzer's book, True Flag, explains how the Spanish-American War launched an ongoing debate about America's role in the world. Kinzer has also been writing about President Trump.

In the '60s, the CIA began a secret program that aimed to curb Communism by arming and training local fighters in Laos. Author Joshua Kurlantzick calls it "the largest covert operation in US history."

David Brock is the author of the best-selling memoir Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. Brock defected from the Republican Party in the latter half of the 1990s and came to renounce the anti-Clinton movement in which he took part. His new book is The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How it Corrupts Democracy. He now heads a nonprofit media watchdog organization in Washington, D.C.

Two ethics lawyers who worked for President Bush and President Obama, respectively, outline their concerns about a Donald Trump presidency.

Imam Khalid Latif is one of the people profiled in The Secret Life of Muslims, a digital series about Islamophobia. He is also the first Muslim chaplain at New York University.

Author Mat Johnson reflects on how the election of Barack Obama, made him feel like he belonged in America for the first time.