Government & Politics

Journalist Emily Bazelon says the relationship between Bannon and Sessions predates the 2016 campaign, and that their anti-immigration policies come from fears of a growing minority population.

Author Mohsin Hamid's new novel, Exit West, is about knowing when it's time to flee your country, and what happens when you migrate to a nation that's hostile to immigrants. It's a topic the author himself is personally familiar with.

In 2009, Maj. Mary Jennings Hegar was shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan while co-piloting an Air National Guard medevac helicopter. Though she was wounded in her rifle arm, Hegar managed to return fire while hanging onto a moving helicopter, which saved the lives of her crew and her patients.

Despite ordering an "influence campaign" to help Donald Trump in last year's election, the Kremlin is scrambling to respond to a win it didn't expect, New Yorker editor David Remnick and staff writer Evan Osnos tell Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

Reporter George Anastasia has been covering the Philadelphia mob scene for the Philadelphia Inquirer for 15 years. Hell discuss the recent trial of reputed mob boss Joseph 'Skinny Joey' Merlino and his associates, which just wrapped up last week. The jury acquitted Merlino and his associates of the serious charges of murder, attempted murder, and drug trafficking, but convicted them of racketeering. During the 15 week trial, 90 witnesses took the stand and 943 evidentiary exhibits were introduced.

Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times says that when it comes to national security, President Trump "doesn't trust the civilian national security establishment and they don't trust him."

These days, almost every new movie, TV show, album or book feels so anticipated and pre-packaged that we're already tired of it by the time it's released. This makes it especially thrilling when something dazzling just appears like that alien spaceship in Arrival, startling even those whose business it is be in the know.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as anti-communist sentiment gained ground in the United States, paranoia and persecution swept through Hollywood. The House Un-American Activities (HUAC) began interrogating some of the country's most talented filmmakers and actors, accusing them of being communists or communist sympathizers.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.