Government & Politics

The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Hua Hsu defined himself as a teen by the music he loved. The murder of a close friend when he was in college changed the course of his life. His memoir is Stay True.

New York Times political reporter Robert Draper says the Republican party's embrace of lies and conspiracy theories has opened the door to fringe actors, who have become among the party's most influential leaders. He points to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a prime example of the party's extreme new direction.

New Yorker writer Evan Osnos talks about the path of Guo Wengui, a billionaire who fled China and insinuated himself into the MAGA inner circle. But who is he really working for?

American Resistance author David Rothkopf says veteran government officials served as guardrails, preventing initiatives that were illegal, unworkable, immoral or against the country's interests.

Armageddon Time, which opens in theaters this week, is based on events from James Gray's 1980s childhood in Flushing, Queens, and features performances by Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong and Anthony Hopkins.

New York Times reporter Alexandra Berzon says election deniers are joining the electoral process at the precinct level. Their hope is to remake the machinery of American elections.

Historian MATTHEW F. DELMONT is the author of the new book Half-American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad. It's about the African American experience in World War II, the discrimination Black Americans faced in the military and in civilian defense industries.

New York Times science writer David Wallace-Wells says the cost of solar and wind energy has fallen dramatically. Nevertheless, we're still facing painful, long-lasting changes to the planet.

It's been five years since New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey first wrote about Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual assault allegations and helped ignite the #MeToo movement. Now there's a new movie called "She Said," based on their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation and their subsequent book about their investigation. The movie stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan and opens this week in theaters.

James Gray's new film was inspired by his childhood in Queens in the 1980s. Though his grandparents had fled antisemitism in Ukraine, his family didn't recognize their own biases against Black people.

Journalist Luke Harding began reporting from Ukraine in December 2021 and was in the country's capital of Kyiv on Feb. 23, the night before the Russian invasion began. He's been reporting from the war for the British newspaper The Guardian ever since.

Author Adam Hochschild says Wilson used the first World War as an excuse to spy on Americans, censor the press and plan for the mass deportation of immigrants. His new book is American Midnight.

Maddow's podcast uncovers the widespread anti-Semitic, pro-German sympathies active among major religious and political leaders in the U.S. in the lead-up to U.S. entering WWII.

In 1977, gunmen led by a charismatic Muslim leader stormed three locations in Washington, D.C., taking more than 100 people hostage. Journalist Shahan Mufti examines the incident in a new book.

Reporter Luke Broadwater says the committee hired a former news producer to hit Trump where it hurt: "His whole career was built on television, and they were able to use that very medium against him."

Jonathan Escoffery grew up in Miami, the son of Jamaican immigrants. In a world where identity was linked to race, he says it was often confusing to figure out where he fit in.

Legal historian Mary Ziegler has chronicled the legal, political and cultural battles around abortion, and says the debate is far from over: "We're at a moment of almost unprecedented uncertainty in the United States when it comes to abortion," Zielger says. Her book is Roe: The History of a National Obsession.

New York Times journalist Catie Edmondson says the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives will likely leverage their subpoena power to enact vengeance on the Biden administration.

Historian Matthew Connelly says government records are marked as "classified" three times every second — and many of them will never be declassified. We talk about what that means for the public and how this might change. His new book is The Declassification Engine.

Siddharth Kara talks about how cell phones and electronic vehicles are powered by cobalt mined by workers in slave-like conditions in The Democratic Republic of Congo. Cobalt is an essential component of the rechargeable batteries used in devices and EV's. He has researched modern day slavery and human trafficking for over twenty years.