Diane Rehm: On My Mind

By WAMU 88.5

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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Tyre Nichols and A New Push...

02.02.2023

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 ...

Diane Rehm: On My Mind episodes:

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 ...
12.23.2022 From The Archives: Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton on Parenting, Poetry And Lullabies The lengthy resume of legendary singer and actor Julie Andrews includes playing Mary Poppins, Maria von Trapp, and more recently, the narrator of Netflix’s smash hit Bridgerton. But Andrews is also a prolific children’s book author, co-authoring more than 31 ...
12.09.2022 Why America's Mayors Are Pleading For Action On Guns The number of mass shootings in the U.S. has reached more than 600 for the third year in a row. Meanwhile, daily gun violence on streets and in homes across the country remains at near-record levels, with some cities experiencing ...
12.02.2022 How The Drive For Profits Changed Hospice Care In America Hospice in America has become a big business. The hospice movement came to the U.S. from England in the 1960s, promising comfort and compassion at the end of life. Today, half of all Americans die in hospice care. But what ...
11.23.2022 Abraham Lincoln And Lessons For A Divided America As Donald Trump’s presidency deepened social, racial and political divides in the country, people began to look to the Civil War era for lessons on how to move forward. Pulitzer prize–winning author Jon Meacham was one of those people. In ...
11.18.2022 Elon, Twitter And The Decline Of The Social Media Era It has been less than a month since Elon Musk officially took the reins at Twitter. In that short time, there have been mass layoffs, advertisers have pulled back on spending, and some of the platform’s most prominent users have ...
11.11.2022 The Midterms Are (Almost) Over. What Happens Next? As ballot counting continues from Tuesday’s midterm elections, one thing has become crystal clear: this was not the outcome anyone had anticipated. The Republican rout that had been splashed across headlines for months never materialized. Democrats made significant gains in ...
11.04.2022 An Exit Interview With Dr. Fauci Dr. Anthony Fauci is leaving his post as the nation’s top infectious disease doctor after nearly four decades. As director of the The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), he acted as a key advisor to seven presidents. ...
10.28.2022 Lessons For The Media In An Anti-Democratic Age Margaret Sullivan started her career at the Buffalo News, her hometown paper. After 19 years as a reporter, she took over as top editor and ran the newsroom for more than a decade. In 2012, Sullivan became the public editor ...
10.21.2022 Lies About The 2020 Election Hang Over The Midterms A majority of Republican candidates and voters question the results of the 2020 election. What does this mean for the midterms and beyond? In the run up to November’s vote, New York Times political correspondent Nick Corasaniti’s reporting has focused ...
10.14.2022 Tracing America's Long Debate About Reparations For Slavery How can a country built on the backs of enslaved people compensate for past wrongs? That is the question at the heart of Andrew Delbanco’s upcoming Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. Each year the National Endowment for the Humanities selects ...
10.07.2022 The Supreme Court Kicks Off A New Term The Supreme Court is back in session. The fallout from last term’s blockbuster rulings on abortion and gun laws continues to play out on the ground -- and in the courts. Yet, this week saw the kick off of a ...
09.30.2022 What's Next For The January 6 Committee? The clock is ticking on the House Jan. 6 committee. With the midterm elections a little more than a month away and control of the House uncertain, experts are beginning to wonder what the endgame is for the investigation, even ...
09.23.2022 A New History Of Trump's Presidency Reveals Lessons For The Future Susan Glasser and Peter Baker are veteran political journalists who closely covered Donald Trump’s rise years in the oval office. He as the New York Times chief White House correspondent, she as a staff writer for The New Yorker. Yet, ...
09.16.2022 Is Ukraine Winning The War With Russia? Could Ukraine win the war with Russia? For months it looked like Russia was waging – and winning -- a battle of attrition. But last week Ukrainian forces made dramatic gains on the battlefield, retaking vast areas of land, including ...
09.09.2022 Drawing A Line From McCarthyism To January 6th David Corn is a veteran reporter at Mother Jones Magazine who has watched the evolution of politics in Washington for decades. In a new book he argues the extremism that led to January 6th goes back at least 70 years ...
09.02.2022 The Story Of Physician Assisted Death In America Anthropologist Anita Hannig spent the last five years learning everything she could about medically assisted death in the United States. She talked to doctors, patients, caregivers and lawmakers. She stood with families as they said goodbye to their loved ones. ...
08.26.2022 Understanding Monkeypox — And Why The U.S. Failed To Contain It Diane talks to Washington Post health reporter Dan Diamond about the scope of the monkeypox outbreak, just how dangerous the virus is, and the government's botched effort to stop the spread.
08.19.2022 A New, Inclusive Look At The Struggle For Women’s Equality In The US Diane talks to historian Elisabeth Griffith about the fight for women's equality in the U.S., including battles won and lost, and the struggle to create an inclusive path toward fair treatment for all.
08.12.2022 Understanding Today’s Puzzling U.S. Economy Inflation is high. The GDP has shrunk. But the job market has never been better. The Washington Post's Damian Paletta helps make sense of the U.S. economy today.
08.05.2022 How The Housing Crisis Spread, And What Happens Now From high mortgage rates to shortages that have spread coast to coast, New York Times reporter Emily Badger explains the roots -- and consequences of our country's broken housing system.
07.29.2022 The Tuskegee Study, 50 Years Later Fifty years after the Tuskegee study, Diane talks to Harvard's Evelynn Hammonds about the intersection of race and medicine in the United States, and the lessons from history that can help us understand health inequities today.
07.22.2022 What’s Next In The Fight Over Abortion Pills, the right to travel and fetal personhood laws -- Diane talks to Temple University Law School's Rachel Rebouché about what's next in the fight over abortion in the U.S.
07.15.2022 Jan. 6 And The Ongoing Threat Of Right-Wing Extremism What's happened to groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys post-January 6, and the ongoing threat of far-right extremism in this country. Diane talks to Sam Jackson, author of "Oath Keepers: Patriotism and the Edge of Violence in a ...
07.08.2022 Setting The Record Straight On The Female Species For centuries science described male animals as aggressive, promiscuous, and dominant, and females as pretty much the opposite. Author Lucy Cooke says we got it wrong and updates our understanding of the queens of the animal kingdom.
07.01.2022 A Strengthening Case Against Donald Trump Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade digs into the week's explosive testimony at the January 6th committee hearing -- and whether it pushes the Department of Justice closer to an indictment of Donald Trump.
06.24.2022 The Jan. 6 Hearings So Far: Enough To Launch A Criminal Investigation? A look at what we have learned so far from the public hearings of the January 6 Committee. Diane talks to Ryan Goodman, professor at New York University's School of Law. He explains what is next in the investigation, including ...
06.17.2022 “Sitting With The Ugliness Of The Past”: A Conversation With “1619 Project” Contributors To mark Juneteenth, a conversation with three contributors to "The 1619 Project" about what happens when we place slavery and its legacy at the center of the American story. Diane talks to New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, history professor ...
06.10.2022 Novelist Jennifer Haigh On Fictionalizing The Fight Over Abortion Author Jennifer Haigh discusses her latest novel, "Mercy Street." Set at an abortion clinic in Boston, it tells the stories of the patients, employees, and protesters whose lives intersect there.
06.04.2022 Biden Says “We Have To Act” On Guns. Can We? The New Yorker's Susan Glasser looks at the history of Washington's reactions to mass shootings -- and the politics of passing new gun laws today.
06.03.2022 Biden Says “We Have To Act” On Guns. Can We? The New Yorker's Susan Glasser looks at the history of Washington's reactions to mass shootings -- and the politics of passing new gun laws today.
05.28.2022 Untangling The Mystery Of Long Covid The Atlantic's Katherine Wu discusses what we know -- and what we are still struggling to understand -- about long Covid.
05.27.2022 Untangling The Mystery Of Long Covid The Atlantic's Katherine Wu discusses what we know -- and what we are still struggling to understand -- about long Covid.
05.20.2022 Russia, Ukraine And The Global Economic Battlefield As the war in Ukraine grinds on, a look at the economic battlefield and how the conflict might permanently reshape the global economy. Diane talks to Sebastian Mallaby, senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.
05.14.2022 David Gergen On The Need For New American Leadership David Gergen was a White House adviser to four presidents, then founded the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard. In a new book he explains what it takes to become a leader and why fresh leadership is so necessary in ...
05.13.2022 David Gergen On The Need For New American Leadership David Gergen was a White House adviser to four presidents, then founded the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard. In a new book he explains what it takes to become a leader and why fresh leadership is so necessary in ...
05.07.2022 Title IX at 50: An Incomplete Revolution In Women’s Sports Title IX turns 50 in June. Diane talks to Elizabeth Sharrow, expert on the history and consequences of the landmark sex discrimination law, about how it transformed women's sports -- and how much there is left to be done to ...
05.06.2022 Title IX at 50: An Incomplete Revolution In Women’s Sports Title IX turns 50 in June. Diane talks to Elizabeth Sharrow, expert on the history and consequences of the landmark sex discrimination law, about how it transformed women's sports -- and how much there is left to be done to ...
04.30.2022 Russia, Ukraine And A New Nuclear Reality The New Yorker's Robin Wright on Russia's threatened use of nuclear weapons and what it says about the state of global security.
04.29.2022 Russia, Ukraine And A New Nuclear Reality The New Yorker's Robin Wright on Russia's threatened use of nuclear weapons and what it says about the state of global security.
04.23.2022 Book Bans Then And Now Book bans, outlawed curriculum, and the history of culture wars in America's schools. Diane talks to educational historian Adam Laats.
04.22.2022 Book Bans Then And Now Book bans, outlawed curriculum, and the history of culture wars in America's schools. Diane talks to educational historian Adam Laats.
04.21.2022 Book Bans Then And Now Book bans, outlawed curriculum, and the history of culture wars in America's schools. Diane talks to educational historian Adam Laats.
04.16.2022 Prepping For A Post-Roe America Journalist Jessica Bruder on prepping for a post-Roe America. Her new cover story in The Atlantic is titled, "The Abortion Underground."
04.15.2022 Prepping For A Post-Roe America Journalist Jessica Bruder on prepping for a post-Roe America. Her new cover story in The Atlantic is titled, "The Abortion Underground."

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