Diane Rehm: On My Mind

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What's Diane Rehm: On My Mind about?

Diane Rehm’s weekly podcast features newsmakers, writers, artists and thinkers on the issues she cares about most: what’s going on in Washington, ideas that inform, and the latest on living well as we live longer.

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What Might A Second Trump P...

12.07.2023

Not long ago, the idea that Donald Trump could return to the White House seemed like a MAGA-fueled fantasy. With his legal troubles piling up, Ron DeSantis surging, and President Biden notching legislative successes, a Trump victory appeared out of ...

Diane Rehm: On My Mind episodes:

12.07.2023 What Might A Second Trump Presidency Look Like? Not long ago, the idea that Donald Trump could return to the White House seemed like a MAGA-fueled fantasy. With his legal troubles piling up, Ron DeSantis surging, and President Biden notching legislative successes, a Trump victory appeared out of ...
11.30.2023 Heat Pumps, Electric Vehicles And The Push Toward Net-Zero Emissions The annual United Nations climate conference, or COP 28, begins in Dubai this week. A big topic on people’s minds: how countries are doing on their pledges to slash production of greenhouse gasses outlined in The Paris Agreement. The consensus ...
11.22.2023 Recipes From The French Kitchen Of "Bruno, Chief Of Police" In 2008 journalist Martin Walker published the first of his Bruno, Chief of Police novels. Fifteen books later, the internationally bestselling series continues to delight readers with murder, mystery -- and delicious food. Walker has called the books a love ...
11.16.2023 Zepbound, Wegovy, And The New Era In Weight Control Last week, the FDA approved a medication said to be the most potent yet in the treatment of chronic obesity, a condition that affects more than 100 million American adults. Developed by Eli Lilly, Zepbound is the latest in a ...
11.09.2023 A Winning Streak For Democrats, Abortion Rights. Will It Continue In 2024? Those in favor of abortion access notched several more victories in Tuesday’s elections. Reproductive rights played a role in wins for Democratic politicians in Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. In Ohio, voters enshrined the right to abortion access in the state’s ...
11.02.2023 What New School Cell Phone Bans Say About The Way We Regulate Tech Earlier this year, Florida lawmakers outlawed the use of cell phones during class time in schools throughout the state. Some Florida school districts went further, barring phones from campus all day due to concerns over student distraction and risk of ...
10.26.2023 Being 80: A Conversation With Former Washington Post Editor Leonard Downie About Older Age About 1.3 million, or one in 25 Americans, are over the age of 80. On My Mind has covered issues regarding our aging population in the past, from the coming crisis in care to whether enough legal protections are in ...
10.19.2023 The Crisis In The Middle East Deepens A horrific bombing at a hospital in Gaza this week left hundreds of Palestinians dead and deepened the crisis in the Middle East. Hamas placed the blame for the devastating loss of life on an Israeli airstrike, but Israel and ...
10.12.2023 Israel-Hamas War: Why, How And What Comes Next Over the past several days the Israeli military has continued a devastating bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with airstrikes flattening entire neighborhoods. Forces also cut off supplies to the area as troops gathered for a likely ground invasion. This is, ...
10.05.2023 A Bumpy Vaccine Rollout And The Ongoing Risks Of Covid Last month the FDA approved a new Covid vaccine. But many people around the country have had trouble getting it. Lena Sun is a national reporter for the Washington Post who has covered Covid since it first emerged in China. ...
09.28.2023 A Push To Improve America's Nursing Homes Earlier this month, the Biden administration proposed new staffing standards for nursing homes to help improve conditions for the 1.3 million Americans living in facilities across the country. Advocates have pushed for this change for decades, but the pandemic highlighted ...
09.21.2023 Could the 14th Amendment Block Trump from the Presidency? Donald Trump holds a 47-point lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. As the probability of his primary victory sinks in, legal scholars who see the former president as unfit for office have put forth another way to ...
09.14.2023 Denyce Graves On Creating A More Diverse, Relevant Opera Mezzo soprano Denyce Graves made her name in the 90s with the roles of Carmen and Delilah. One of only a handful of black opera singers at the time, she toured the most prestigious concert halls around the world. The ...
09.07.2023 The Lingering Effects of the Pandemic on Schools, Students and Learning School is back in session across the country for the third time since the pandemic began. Though the school day looks much like it did before Covid-19 forced officials to shutter classrooms, the lingering effects of school closures, online learning, ...
08.31.2023 How Hot Is Too Hot? Lessons from a Record-breaking Summer This July was the hottest month in recorded history. The warmest eight years on the planet have all occurred since 2015. “The rate of warming is fast,” says journalist Jeff Goodell. He has been writing about climate change for more ...
08.24.2023 A GOP Debate And Another Trump Arrest On Wednesday night eight candidates took the stage to make their appeal to GOP primary voters. But, as the moderators pointed out, the elephant not in the room was Donald Trump. He opted for a one-on-one interview with Tucker Carlson. ...
08.17.2023 The Prospect of a Third-Party Presidential Bid North Carolina became the tenth state to recognize No Labels as a political party this week. The non-profit group behind the effort seems to think there is a moderate majority in America that wants to move away from the two-party ...
08.10.2023 Rep. Jamie Raskin on Trump, Accountability and the Rule of Law Rep. Jamie Raskin has been among the strongest voices in politics calling for accountability for the violence that occurred on January 6th. As a House manager during the second impeachment of Donald Trump, Raskin announced the charge of incitement of ...
08.03.2023 Trying Trump's "Crimes against Democracy" Special counsel Jack Smith announced charges against Donald Trump this week related to the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This is the third time Trump has been indicted in recent months – but many commentators are saying ...
07.27.2023 Is America getting an F in aging? Americans are getting older. Much older. In 1900, we lived an average of 38 years. By 2000, our average lifespan had been extended by nearly four decades. And though recent years have seen a downturn in the trend, the 85 ...
07.20.2023 From the archives: A conversation with legendary book editor Robert Gottlieb Diane wanted to share a special conversation from the archives, an interview with legendary book editor Robert Gottlieb, who died in June at age 92. Gottlieb worked with many of the best-known writers of the 20th century. On the list ...
07.13.2023 Author interview series: Novelist Amy Bloom on the true story of helping her husband die This month, On My Mind will be sharing conversations from the Diane Rehm Book Club and Author Interview Series. Today we bring you a conversation with novelist Amy Bloom. Diane selected Bloom’s memoir “In Love” as her March 2022 read. ...
07.06.2023 Author interview series: David Ignatius on a career as journalist and spy novelist This month, On My Mind will be sharing conversations from the Diane Rehm Book Club and Author Interview Series. Today we bring you a conversation with Washington Post foreign affairs columnist – and novelist -- David Ignatius. Diane selected Ignatius’s ...
06.29.2023 Author interview series: Pachinko novelist Min Jin Lee For the next few weeks, On My Mind will be sharing conversations from the Diane Rehm Book Club and Author Interview series. First up is novelist Min Jin Lee. Diane selected Lee’s novel “Pachinko” as this year’s January read. It ...
06.22.2023 Trump's documents, Clinton's emails and GOP claims of unequal justice On last week’s podcast, Diane talked to The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser about the indictment of Donald Trump. One listener emailed after listening to the episode, asking for a clear explanation as to how the former president’s behavior compared with ...
06.15.2023 A twice-indicted Donald Trump: "How's he going to get out of this one?" Donald Trump was indicted on 37 federal charges related to mishandling of classified documents at an arraignment in Miami this week. A federal indictment is a first for a current or former president of the United States, though Trump was ...
06.09.2023 A very crowded 2024 GOP presidential field The GOP presidential field continues to balloon. The number of candidates for the 2024 Republican nomination jumped by three this week with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum throwing ...
06.01.2023 Ukraine And Russia: Airstrikes, Drones And A Looming Counteroffensive This week saw heightened tensions in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. A wave of drone strikes hit the Russian capital Tuesday morning, bringing the war to Moscow for the first time. This, as Russian bombs continued to fall on Kyiv ...
05.25.2023 America's Collision Course With The Debt Ceiling House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he will send lawmakers home for Memorial Day weekend, despite the fact no deal has been struck to raise the debt limit. This takes the country one step closer to what many describe as going ...
05.18.2023 Revisiting The Decision To Drop The Bomb President Biden travels to Hiroshima this week for a meeting of the G-7. While there, he plans to acknowledge the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city by U.S. forces, but the White House says he does ...
05.11.2023 Understanding This Moment In Artificial Intelligence With the release of ChatGPT late last year, the power of artificial intelligence had been put into the hands of the general public in ways it had never been before. Suddenly it seemed the future had arrived. But along with ...
05.04.2023 NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly On Work, Motherhood, And Almost Having It All It’s a story familiar to any working parent. You get a call. It’s your child’s school saying they are sick and to come get them. And you can’t because you’re at work. Sometimes it’s just a bump on the head, ...
04.28.2023 Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, And The Future Of Cable News Tucker Carlson’s firing Monday by Fox News sent shockwaves through the cable news landscape -- and the conservative media world. One of the network’s best-known hosts, Carlson attracted massive audiences and wielded real political power, with a direct line to ...
04.20.2023 Justice Clarence Thomas And The Ethics Of The Supreme Court A series of recent reports have pulled back the curtains on possible ethics violations by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. It started with an investigation by ProPublica that revealed the depth of a relationship between Thomas and a Republican mega-donor. ...
04.13.2023 One Man's "American Ramble": A Journey On Foot From Washington DC To NYC A 330 mile-walk from Washington, D.C. to New York City. That’s what journalist Neil King decided to embark on in the spring of 2021. The idea started as a whim – but developed into an obsession. Recently recovered from a ...
04.07.2023 Lessons From Wisconsin's Judicial Race, The Year's "Most Important Election" Voters in Wisconsin went to the ballot box Tuesday in what many have called the most important election of the year. The results of the contest flipped the ideological make-up of the state’s supreme court, sending liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz ...
03.30.2023 What We Know About Preventing Gun Violence In The U.S. This week an assailant entered a church school in Nashville and shot and killed six people. This is just one of more than 130 mass shootings recorded in this country so far this year. Meanwhile, the response in Washington has ...
03.23.2023 Donald Trump’s Legal Battles – And Political Future There will be no “perp walk” for Donald Trump this week. All eyes have been on a Manhattan grand jury since Trump signaled on Saturday an indictment was imminent and forecast his own arrest. Republican leaders came to his defense, ...
03.17.2023 From The Archives: A 2008 Conversation With Barbara Walters In honor of Women’s History Month, today’s episode of On My Mind is a conversation from the archives with legendary broadcaster Barbara Walters. She died in December at age 93. Walters joined Diane in the studio in 2008, shortly after ...
03.09.2023 From The Archives: A 1993 Conversation With Jimmy Carter Former President Jimmy Carter joined Diane as a guest on The Diane Rehm Show 12 times over the years. Their first interview took place in January 1993. Bill Clinton was about to take office and Carter had just published his ...
03.02.2023 Ukraine, China And Challenges To American Diplomacy Last week marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. President Biden traveled to Kyiv, rededicating his support for President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. But the Biden administration’s focus on the conflict did not end there. This week, ...
02.23.2023 Why One Doctor Says We Should Focus On Living Well, Not Long Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is someone who understands how medicine can both save lives and improve the quality of it. That’s why it came as a shock to many when he wrote in 2014 that he would decline all medical treatment ...
02.16.2023 Ron DeSantis Versus The College Board Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his state would opt out of the new Advanced Placement class in African American studies. DeSantis claimed the class violated a Florida law that limits what a public school can teach about race ...
02.09.2023 What's Next In The Fight Over Abortion Access In The U.S. Less than nine months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the anti-abortion movement may be on the brink of another major victory. A judge in Texas is set to rule on a case that could ban abortion pills ...
02.02.2023 Tyre Nichols and A New Push for Police Reform Mourners gathered this week in Memphis to remember Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man whose death at the hands of Memphis police officers reignited discussions about race and law enforcement. The Reverend Al Sharpton and Vice President Kamala Harris were ...
01.26.2023 Richard Haass and an American ‘Bill of Obligations’ Richard Haass has spent his career thinking about the United States' place in the world. A diplomat and policymaker, he served under four presidents in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Since 2003, Haass has headed the Council on Foreign Relations, ...
01.20.2023 Untangling The Lies Of Rep. George Santos George Santos remains in the House of Representatives – for now. Questions about the biography of the congressman from Long Island, New York became a national story when the New York Times published a piece in December, exposing lies about ...
01.13.2023 The GOP's Plan To Investigate A "Weaponized" Government House GOP members launched a new committee this week to investigate the “weaponization” of the U.S. government. These lawmakers claim federal law enforcement and national security agencies have targeted and silenced conservatives. The committee headed by far-right congressman Jim Jordan ...
01.05.2023 The Battle For Speaker Of The House An historic stalemate is playing out in the fight over speaker of the House. The last time it took more than one round of voting to fill the top job in the House of Representatives the year was 1923. This ...
12.30.2022 From The Archives: A Conversation With PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff Judy Woodruff will step down as anchor of the PBS NewsHour this week. Her last show will be December 30. The veteran journalist first took on the role in 2013, co-hosting the program with Gwen Ifill. When Ifill died of ...

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