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Big GOP energy Nov 03, 2021

Show notes

In a major upset for Democrats Tuesday, Republican Glenn Youngkin eked out a victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. Today, we look at the results of that election, and others, to understand the nation one year after the divisive 2020 elections.

On Tuesday, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to be elected governor of Virginia since 2009. For Democrats, the race took on new national significance, with many seeing the results as a reflection of where the country stands nearly a year into Joe Biden’s presidency.

But it wasn’t just Virginians who went to the polls on Tuesday. New Jersey also held a gubernatorial election, and major cities like Boston and Minneapolis held mayoral elections. National politics reporter Sean Sullivan discusses the implications of Virginia’s elections for both Democrats and Republicans, and examines how other local elections give a snapshot into the division among Democrats when it comes to police reform.

If you value the journalism you hear in this podcast, please subscribe to The Washington Post. We have a deal for our listeners — one year of unlimited access to everything the Post publishes online for just $29. To sign up, go to washingtonpost.com/subscribe.

Democracy as a trust exercise Nov 02, 2021

Show notes

On this Election Day, we talk about how the events of Jan. 6 have affected our elections. Plus, what nations participating in COP26 will have to give up to avoid more climate change catastrophes.

For months, journalists at The Washington Post have been trying to understand: How did the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 happen? And what’s happened to the country since then?

As part of a three-part investigative series by The Washington Post, Rosalind S. Helderman has been reporting on how a deep distrust of the voting process has taken root across the country.

“Democracy is in some ways a trust exercise,” she says. “We all go into it together and we make an agreement with each other that we are going to trust each other enough to hold an election, and if we lose, to accept the will of the majority. And if you don’t trust that anymore — if the bonds of that trust erode — you just can’t have a democracy.”

Then we turn to climate reporter Sarah Kaplan for an update on COP26 in Glasgow — the massive climate change summit of almost 200 countries where she says “humanity tries to figure out once again how we are going to tackle climate change.”

If you value the journalism you hear in this podcast, please subscribe to The Washington Post. We have a deal for our listeners: one year of unlimited access to everything The Post publishes for just $29. To sign up, go to washingtonpost.com/subscribe.

How law enforcement failed on Jan. 6 Nov 01, 2021

Show notes

In the days leading up to Jan. 6, mounting red flags tipped law enforcement agencies off to the coming violence. Why did they fail to act?

All year, journalists at The Washington Post have been seeking to understand: How did the insurrection on January 6th happen? Why wasn’t it stopped?

A new three-part investigative series by The Washington Post reveals how law enforcement officials failed to heed warnings of violence on Jan. 6., the bloody consequences of President Donald Trump’s inaction during the siege, and how a deep distrust of the voting process has taken root across the country.

On Post Reports, we’re taking you behind the scenes of this mammoth reporting project, talking to the journalists who worked on it about what they learned and how.

On today’s episode, we look at what law enforcement agencies knew about plans to storm the Capitol and when they knew it. And we try to understand why little was done even after terrorism experts across the country met to discuss the coming riot.

Investigative reporter Aaron Davis takes us inside the failures of law enforcement leading up to the attack on the Capitol.

If you value the journalism you hear in this podcast, please subscribe to The Washington Post. We have a deal for our listeners - one year of unlimited access to everything the Post publishes for just $29. To sign up, go to washingtonpost.com/subscribe.

Instagram, Facebook and this Meta episode Oct 29, 2021

Show notes

Instagram’s CEO steps into the limelight in an unexpected public interview. And, after a firestorm, Facebook’s big attempt to pivot.

In an impromptu interview on Twitter Spaces, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said he still believes building an app for children is “the right thing to do.” The company had paused development of Instagram Kids last month over concerns about privacy, screen time and the mental health of young people.

But Instagram is just one piece in the puzzle that is Facebook — now rebranded as Meta. Tech reporter Will Oremus discusses the fallout from the Facebook Papers and the company’s latest attempt to move on.

The next phase of the pandemic Oct 28, 2021

Show notes

Today on Post Reports, we talk about the latest news on vaccines for young children, booster shots for adults and at-home coronavirus tests for us all. Physician and columnist Leana Wen offers her advice on the next phase of the pandemic.

Leana Wen is an emergency physician and contributing columnist for The Post. Her newsletter, The Checkup, offers the latest research and advice on such questions as which booster shot to get and how to safely gather with family for the holidays. You can find it and subscribe at Wapo.st/checkup.

How did a loaded gun end up on a movie set? Oct 27, 2021

Show notes

As new details emerge about the shooting on the “Rust” movie set that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza, we talk to reporter Sonia Rao about how Hollywood is rethinking firearms on sets.

In the days since Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on the set of the movie “Rust,” killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza, many of us have been asking the question — how could this have happened?

“How was it that this actor was seemingly handed a gun that had the potential to kill someone on a movie set? ” asked pop culture reporter Sonia Rao.

Today on the show, we cover the latest on the investigation, and talk about the conversation this tragedy has started in Hollywood about the safety of real guns on sets.

If you value the journalism you hear in this podcast, please subscribe to The Washington Post. We have a deal for our listeners: one year of unlimited access to everything The Post publishes online for just $29. To sign up, go to washingtonpost.com/subscribe.

The mystery of Manchin’s motivations Oct 26, 2021

Show notes

President Biden’s economic agenda is on hold — thanks, in no small part, to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The families in his home state could pay the price for it.

The constant man in the middle, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), is trying to scale back the president’s Build Back Better economic plan. Part of the White House agenda on Manchin’s chopping block: the permanent expansion of the child tax credit. It’s a recent policy that experts say has been a key part of reducing child poverty in the United States, especially during the pandemic.

Amid reports that Manchin wants to impose caps and include work requirements for families receiving the credit, economics reporter Yeganeh Torbati takes us to the senator’s home state. And she poses the question: What happens when Manchin’s political calculations collide with the realities of West Virginians?

Facebook’s role in the Jan. 6 attack Oct 25, 2021

Show notes

A trove of internal documents turned over to the SEC exposes Facebook’s role in fomenting the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Relief flowed through Facebook in the days after the 2020 presidential election. The company had cracked down on misinformation, foreign interference and hate speech — and employees believed they had largely succeeded in limiting problems that, four years earlier, had brought on perhaps the most serious crisis in Facebook’s scandal-plagued history.

“It was like we could take a victory lap,” said a former employee. “There was a lot of the feeling of high-fiving in the office.”

Many who had worked on the election, exhausted from months of unrelenting toil, took leaves of absence or moved on to other jobs. Facebook rolled back many of the dozens of election-season measures that it had used to suppress hateful, deceptive content. A ban the company had imposed on the original Stop the Steal group stopped short of addressing dozens of look-alikes that popped up in what an internal Facebook after-action report called “coordinated” and “meteoric” growth. Meanwhile, the company’s Civic Integrity team was largely disbanded by a management that had grown weary of the team’s criticisms of the company, according to former employees.

But the high-fives, it soon became clear, were premature.

Elizabeth Dwoskin reports on how this gap in the company’s protective measures paved the way for rioters to organize the Jan. 6 insurrection using their platform.

Issa Rae and the growing pains of being ‘Insecure’ Oct 22, 2021

Show notes

Five years after the debut of “Insecure,” the acclaimed HBO comedy-drama is finally coming to a close. Creator and star Issa Rae discusses the characters’ journeys, personal growth and “betting on herself.”

For a certain generation of Black women, Issa Rae’s volume of work is like the Harry Potter books — stories about characters who grow and mature alongside their fans.

“In shooting this final season, we've been very nostalgic and thinking about where we came from and imagining what our impact would be like,” says Rae, the creator and star of HBO’s “Insecure.” “Maybe people will hold on to this show as part of their lives in that way, and we may go down in history, you know, if we stick the landing. … And that makes me feel really good.”

“Insecure” debuted on HBO in 2016, focusing on the lives of two late-20s best friends in Los Angeles who are trying to navigate messy romances, social lives and professional aspirations. But Rae has been the voice of millennial Black women for more than a decade, all the way back to her hit Web series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.”

“I used to binge-watch this show in my dorm cafeteria on Fridays,” says Martine Powers, “Post Reports” host. “I'd be like, ‘Oh, all my essays are done, getting ready for the weekend. I'm going to watch “Awkward Black Girl.” This is going to be amazing.’”

As Rae reflects on the final season of her show, her characters’ trajectory, and her own personal growth, she says that she’s learned to trust the choices she’s made along the way that have led to greater artistic freedom — and power.

“One of the scariest things to me … is just, like, the fork-in-the-road choice,” Rae says. “There's something so terrifying about knowing that this is a decision that I could make that could change the course of my life. And I just have to make it.”

Vigilante violence on trial Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

Ahmaud Arbery’s killing changed his Georgia community. Now, as the state grapples with a judicial legacy shaped by racism, three White men stand trial for murder.

This week, the trial began for Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan. It hinges in part on Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which helped codify White vigilante violence for 150 years. The law was repealed in May 2021, but its legacy reverberates today.

Margaret Coker, editor of nonprofit investigative outlet The Current, is reporting on the trial for The Washington Post. She shares her insights on the decades-old law that has its roots in the Civil War, and how it might be used as a defense in the murder trial.

If you value the journalism you hear in this podcast, please subscribe to The Post. We have a deal for our listeners: one year of unlimited access to everything The Post publishes for just $29. To sign up, go to washingtonpost.com/subscribe.

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