Government & Politics

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the derogative words used to describe many of Donald Trump's supporters - words like hillbilly, white trash, and redneck, and what those words say about class conflict.

Paulson, who has been nominated for an Emmy for her role in the FX series The People v. O.J. Simpson, says she set out to portray Marcia Clark in a "truthful way."Originally broadcast March 10, 2016.

Richard Tanne's new film is a dramatization of Barack and Michelle Obama's first date in 1989. Critic David Edelstein says the movie's mix of politics and romance has a "naive kind of charm."

Seth Freed Wessler reported on substandard medical care in privately-run prisons in the federal corrections system for The Nation, which may have led the Justice Department to phase out their use.

Journalists Michael Kranish and his Washington Post colleague Marc Fisher are the authors of Trump Revealed, a biography about Trump's life and career that is based on the work of more than 20 of the Post's reporters, editors and fact-checkers.

Author Frederick Clarkson wrote the book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy And Democracy, on the growing religious movement to influence government. Clarkson has written articles on the religious right's plans to take over the Republican Party, and how elements of the right encouraged citizen militias.

Political analysts have been dividing the country into red states and blue states for several elections now, but it's only in the last year or two that the distinction has really caught on with the media and the public. As our linguist Geoff Nunberg points out, the odd thing is that the new usage seems to reverse the traditional political meanings of red and blue.

Journalist Rukmini Callimachi on what she's learned about ISIS tactics from her conversations with a German man who joined ISIS and became disillusioned, and from monitoring the organization's own encrypted social media channels.

"The '70s were a toxic, dangerous, scary time in America" says Jeffrey Toobin. His new book puts the kidnapping, crimes and trial of Patty Heart in the context of those times.

Donald Trump's pledge to be the "law and order" candidate revived a slogan that's associated with Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. Many people have heard that phrase as racially coded, then and now. But linguist Geoff Nunber notes, its resonances aren't quite the same as they were back then.

As a reporter for The New York Times, Amy Chozick's beat is Hillary Clinton. But, Chozick says, it's hard to get to know a candidate who "has been so scarred" by her decades in the public eye.

Ailes resigned last week amid allegations of sexual harassment. Biographer Gabriel Sherman joins Fresh Air to discuss the accusations, as well as Ailes' influence on political discourse in America.

Actor Michael K. Williams has played powerful intimidating characters in The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, and in the new show The Night of, but says he's not at all like them.

Eric Adams joined the police department intent on reforming it. "If I was not a voice for change it would bother me," he says. He was on the force for 22 years. Now he is Brooklyn's borough president.

Tom Gibbons had to retire from the police force after being shot three times during a traffic stop in 1970. He then became a reporter and covered the police for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

David Mandel, the Emmy-nominated writer, director and executive producer of the HBO series Veep, discusses the current season of the show, his work on SNL and the 2016 presidential election.

As the wife of a Navy fighter pilot, memoirist Rachel Starnes has had much of her life — including where she lives and how often she gets to live with her husband — determined by his career.

Burger served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1969 until 1986. Linda Greenhouse, author of The Burger Court, says those years helped establish the court's conservative legal foundation.

Robert F. Kennedy is often remembered as a liberal icon who worked to heal racial strife, decrease poverty and end the war in Vietnam. But early in his career, biographer Larry Tye notes, Kennedy was a hard-edged anti-communist who worked for red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy, authorized the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr. and supported American intervention in Vietnam. Tye chronicles Kennedy's transformation.

New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau discusses the FBI's investigation of shooter Omar Mateen prior to the Orlando attack, as well as the bureau's broader efforts to pinpoint suspected terrorists.