Conversations With Jim Zirin

Founded in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union has been the premier defender of the individual rights that are the underpinnings of democracy. In the second Trump administration the ACLU has brought 268 or more legal actions, as a result of Trump policies abridging press freedoms, invading privacy, imprison and deporting people without due process. Today, as we come to the mid-terms, we face another serious civil liberties challenge to insure fair and free elections, and the ACLU is on the case. Anthony Romero, the brilliant executive director of the ACLU, tells Jim all about it.

Kai Bird won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Robert Oppenheimer. The book, was the inspiration for the 2024 Academy Award winning movie. Sticking with biography as his muse, Kai has written a new book filled with spicy anecdotes entitled "American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump." Roy Cohn was a disgraced lawyer who lit up the town. Among his clients, who included almost every Mafia Don you can think of, political figures and celebrities, was Donald Trump whom he served for 13 years as political strategist and guiding spirit. Trump became Cohn's apprentice in waging lawfare, the dark art of using the law to cheat or destroy other people. Journalist Ken Auletta said of Cohn, "I have never interviewed a more revolting character than Roy Cohn. He had no regard for the truth." Kai Bird tells the story.

People are living longer than ever before. This year, the average life expectancy for men is 76.5 years. Author Michael Clinton argues that times have changed, and the average American child born this year has a good chance to live to 100 and remain healthy. Living to 100 or beyond, he says, will become the new normal. He tells Jim of new strategies for longevity and the societal impact of people living longer.

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, the founding director of the documentary film program at the Craig Newmark graduate school of journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY). She tells Jim of her latest project, a blockbuster film called "Free Joan Little," about the first woman in US history to be acquitted of murder on grounds of self-defense to sexual violence.

Patrick Healy heads the New York Times quality control department of standards and trust. He tells Jim how the paper meets its critics from left and right, satisfies itself it has it right, and its coverage fair as it deals with the controversial and searing issues of Trump 2.0 and the Gaza war.