It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders

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A talk show with a heart. Each week, Sam interviews people in the culture who deserve your attention. Plus weekly wraps of the news with other journalists. Join Sam as he makes sense of the world through conversation.

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01.15.2021

A lot of the pro-Trump extremism behind the attack on the Capitol flourished online. Sam talks to Bobby Allyn and Shannon Bond, who both cover tech for NPR, about social platforms and the actions they've taken since the siege, the ...

It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders episodes:

01.15.2021 What's Next For Social Media After Trump? Plus The Lie Of 'Laziness' A lot of the pro-Trump extremism behind the attack on the Capitol flourished online. Sam talks to Bobby Allyn and Shannon Bond, who both cover tech for NPR, about social platforms and the actions they've taken since the siege, the ...
01.12.2021 We've Had Insurrections Before History has a way of repeating itself. Last week's storming of the U.S. Capitol has parallels to an incident dating back to 1874, when a paramilitary force of ex-Confederates seized control of the Louisiana state house. Their goal? To depose ...
01.08.2021 The Capitol, Mobbed With the pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol this week, at the same time that Congress was set to certify the presidential election results, 2021 is off to a rocky start. Sam checks in with NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis ...
01.05.2021 Why 'Better Things' Pamela Adlon Is Everyone's Mother Sam revisits his conversation from 2020 with actress Pamela Adlon. Adlon is the writer, star, director and co-creator of the acclaimed comedy-drama Better Things on FX. The series follows Adlon's character, Sam, as a divorced actress, raising three kids in ...
01.01.2021 Claudia Rankine On The Uneasy Conversations Between 'Just Us' After a year that offered many moments of reflection—from the coronavirus pandemic, to protests for racial justice, to the long election season—acclaimed poet Claudia Rankine's latest book offers a framework to process it all. That book is called Just Us: ...
12.29.2020 Presenting 'Fresh Air': Aaron Sorkin on 'The Trial of the Chicago 7' Sam sits in the Fresh Air host chair to talk with writer and director Aaron Sorkin. His latest film The Trial of the Chicago 7 covers the events at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago when several prominent anti-war ...
12.25.2020 The Best — And Worst — Of Christmas Culture Sam shares holiday recommendations with Audie Cornish, co-host of All Things Considered and Consider This, and Bob Mondello, NPR's film critic. They discuss not only their holiday favorites, but also the holiday things they hate. And yes, they'll discuss Love ...
12.22.2020 The Best Things That Happened to You This year has been hard for pretty much everyone, but that still hasn't stopped people from getting married, having babies, starting new jobs, and telling us all about those milestones and celebrations in voice memos on our show. So in ...
12.18.2020 The Year in Celebrity Culture with 'Who? Weekly' Without movies or TV shows to shoot or music to record, celebrities were restless in 2020 and eager to connect with a public that, at least for a while, couldn't care less about them. Sam wraps up the year in ...
12.15.2020 'I Can't Wait To Hate Tour Again': Phoebe Bridgers On Her Breakout Year Songwriter Phoebe Bridgers has had a big year, but it's also been bittersweet. With four Grammy nominations for work on her acclaimed 2020 album Punisher, Bridgers, like most touring musicians, has been stuck at home. She talks to Sam about ...
12.11.2020 The Internet Culture Of Quarantine, Plus Selena's Legacy Coronavirus has transformed pop culture and placed its creation in the hands of anyone who has social media. Sam chats with E. Alex Jung, a writer at New York Magazine, about pop culture's shift this year to the internet. Then, ...
12.08.2020 Pod Fatigue: How Coronavirus Lockdown Has Tested Friendships Are you sick of the friends and family you've been stuck with? Sam teams up with Anna Sale, host of the WNYC podcast Death, Sex & Money, to explore how our pandemic 'pods' are being tested by the coronavirus. In ...
12.04.2020 Life in the Time of Coronavirus "What has this pandemic been like for you?" When we put that question to people, the answers we got depended a lot on where they were in life — if they were in school, if they had a job, if ...
12.01.2020 Cathy Park Hong's Asian American Reckoning Cathy Park Hong talks with Sam about her book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. She discusses how watching comedian Richard Pryor influenced her to write honestly about Asian American identity, and how her Korean parents' experience of immigration has ...
11.27.2020 James McBride On Hope, Community And 'A Place Of Miracles' For the holiday, Sam revisits his conversation with award-winning author James McBride. McBride's latest book Deacon King Kong tells the story of how one man's decision brings together the different racial communities of 1960s Brooklyn to solve a larger issue. ...
11.24.2020 Presenting Life Kit: How To Have Better Conversations With the holidays coming, we're all trying to figure out how to celebrate with loved ones from a distance. When all we have to connect this year are phone calls and video chats, how do we make the most out ...
11.20.2020 Georgia's Senate Runoffs, Plus W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu Talk Politics Georgia's Senate runoffs have become national races as control of the Senate depends on who wins. Sam asks Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, if Georgia voters are looking at the runoffs the way the rest of the ...
11.17.2020 Why Donald Trump Is The Houdini Of Bad Business What's next for President Trump once he leaves the White House? And what's next for his business? And what's he being investigated for again? And by whom? We take a step back and break it all down with Andrea Bernstein, ...
11.16.2020 Louder Than A Riot: 'The Badder, The Better: Bobby Shmurda (Pt 1)' The rapper Bobby Shmurda had a big viral hit in 2014, and it looked like he was going to be a star. But just months later, Bobby and his friends were arrested and charged in connection with a murder and ...
11.13.2020 Biden's Coronavirus Response, Plus Comedian Matt Rogers What could a new president mean for the coronavirus pandemic? Sam talks to Ed Yong, staff writer at The Atlantic, about President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus task force and how much the federal government can do to change the course of ...
11.10.2020 White Supremacy And Its Online Reach Talia Lavin went undercover in white supremacist online communities, creating fake personas that would gain her access to the dark reaches of the internet normally off-limits to her, a Jewish woman. That research laid the groundwork for her book, Culture ...
11.06.2020 What's Next For Biden And Democrats? Joe Biden appears to be inching closer to a victory, but there wasn't a blowout for Democrats this election. Sam talks to New York Times national political reporter Astead Herndon about what we know, what we thought we knew, and ...
11.04.2020 What's Next For Trump And Republicans? With the election still too close to call, The Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins joins Sam with the latest on what we know about the results, what they mean for President Trump, and how much Trumpism will live on in the ...
11.03.2020 How To Take Care Of Yourself This Election Season It's Election Day, but instead of the latest politics news, we're giving you some therapy. Sam shares listener questions around mental health issues with psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb. In addition to her clinical practice, Gottlieb is the New York Times best-selling ...
10.30.2020 "Everything's Fine" With Sarah Cooper With 2020 progressing the way it has, comedian Sarah Cooper wants you to know that Everything's Fine in her new comedy special. Sam talks to Sarah Cooper about her journey from going viral on TikTok lip-syncing to President Donald Trump, ...
10.27.2020 Election Night(mare): Bush v. Gore and Why It Matters in 2020 Election Night 2020 is a week away. It's hard to know whether we'll have results that night, in a week or maybe even a month. But that's exactly what happened 20 years ago — between candidates Vice President Al Gore ...
10.26.2020 Presenting 'Rough Translation': Dream Boy And The Poison Fans On this bonus drop, we feature an episode from the NPR podcast Rough Translation. A Chinese idol had millions of fans who adored him for his kindness and good looks. Then, this February, one group of fans accused another of ...
10.23.2020 Getting Gamers To The Polls, Plus The Pandemic Economy Voter outreach took on an unconventional form Tuesday night when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez streamed her gameplay of the hit game "Among Us" on Twitch. While she played the game with friends, her stream became one of the 20 most watched ...
10.20.2020 'They've Dismissed Us': How Latino Voter Outreach Still Falls Short Latinos are the second largest group of eligible voters by race or ethnicity in the United States, but they continue to be misunderstood and underappreciated by political campaigns of all parties. Sam talks to Lisa García Bedolla, a scholar of ...
10.16.2020 Voting In Texas, Plus John Paul Brammer Gives Advice From fights over early voting applications to ballot drop-off sites, voting in Texas has drawn national attention. Sam talks to Texas reporters Ashley Lopez of member station KUT and Jessica Huseman of ProPublica to unpack what's happening and what it ...
10.13.2020 Presenting Throughline: 'James Baldwin's Fire' Writer and thinker James Baldwin used the power of his words to confront in order to connect, something that feels especially relatable in a year when the United States has been forced to reckon with racial inequality. This week we ...
10.09.2020 Joel Kim Booster On Religion, Identity, and Coming Out In honor of Coming Out Day this weekend, Sam talks to comedian and actor Joel Kim Booster about his experience coming out to his evangelical Christian family. As Kim Booster grew up in this religious household, he struggled to come ...
10.06.2020 'Radio Ambulante' Host Daniel Alarcón On The Immigrant Experience Sam revisits his 2017 chat with author and Radio Ambulante host, Daniel Alarcón. They discuss Alarcón's book of short stories, The King Is Always Above The People, which holds a mirror to the immigrant experience in today's political climate. Alarcón ...
10.02.2020 The Dangers of White Supremacy, Plus Demi Adejuyigbe Brings Joy When President Trump told white supremacists to "stand back and stand by," the country responded with heavy criticism. Sam talks with Kathleen Belew, assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago, about what we get wrong when we talk ...
09.29.2020 Bowen Yang on 'SNL,' Diversity, and Culture Sam chats with comedian Bowen Yang about becoming the first Chinese American cast member on Saturday Night Live, what it was like to do the show during a pandemic, and why Adele Dazeem is the number one moment in the ...
09.25.2020 Supreme Court Misconceptions When the biggest news stories happen all at once, it's easy to miss what each of them really means. Since Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last week, there have been questions about who will replace her and what ...
09.24.2020 The Life And Legacy Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away last week at the age of 87. The conversation has quickly moved to the politics around her replacement, but what kind of legacy did she leave? In the award-winning documentary RBG, filmmakers ...
09.22.2020 Coronavirus And Teachers This school year is proving to be unlike any other. Teaching might be a nightmare in schools doing hybrid learning, a success for those doing virtual learning, or vice versa. It all depends on which school district you're in and ...
09.18.2020 Movie Industry Adapts, Plus LeVar Burton Reads The movie industry is hurting. Most theaters in the U.S. are still shut down, and who knows when—or if—audiences will pack into theaters again. Adam B. Vary and Angelique Jackson of Variety talk about the state of the movie industry ...
09.15.2020 Larry Wilmore's Return to Late Night Larry Wilmore has a resume that could rival pretty much anyone's in Hollywood. Name a show and he probably had his hands in it. He created The Bernie Mac Show, co-created Insecure, wrote for shows like In Living Color, The ...
09.11.2020 West Coast On Fire, Plus Comedian Sam Jay The smoke, the flames, the creepy orange and red skies. It's fire season out west and it's already one for the books. Sam talks a resident of Napa County, CA, who had to flee her home because of the fires. ...
09.08.2020 Poet Claudia Rankine And 'Just Us' Poet Claudia Rankine is back with a new book called Just Us: An American Conversation. Much like her acclaimed 2014 book of poetry, Citizen: An American Lyric, her new volume offers an unflinching examination of race and racism in the ...
09.04.2020 Pandemic Childcare; Plus Mukbang Meets True Crime Guest host Elise Hu looks at how the pandemic has exacerbated existing problems when it comes to the care of small children. A Massachusetts childcare center owner shares her story about reopening, while a public policy professor talks about the ...
09.01.2020 How Bill Nye Became the 'Science Guy' Sam revisits his 2017 chat with Bill Nye the Science Guy. They discuss climate change (and climate change deniers), how Nye got his start in TV, and whether fame has changed him, for better or worse.
08.31.2020 Bonus Episode: 'Truth Be Told' A special bonus feed drop from the KQED podcast Truth Be Told, hosted by Tonya Mosley. A conversation about parenting during the pandemic — there's no right way to do it. Tonya and two Wise Ones, Nancy Redd, author and ...
08.28.2020 Protests, Yesterday And Today This week we're talking protests, both old and new. On Wednesday, Milwaukee Bucks players refused to play their NBA playoff game in protest of racial injustice. Other pro athletes in the NBA, WNBA and more also walked off the job. ...
08.25.2020 'Pose' Star Billy Porter: 'Love Always Wins' Billy Porter is a force to be reckoned with. A Tony Award-winning Broadway performer. A fashion icon with unforgettable red carpet looks. An Emmy Award-winning actor (with another nomination under his belt this year). Currently, Porter stars in the acclaimed ...
08.21.2020 Another Wrench In The (Voting) Works, Plus Robin Thede On 'A Black Lady Sketch Show' Everyone's talking about obstacles to voting this year, from the post office to the pandemic. Sam talks with NPR's Miles Parks about how everything's supposed to work with the election in November. Then, Sam calls up historian Martha S. Jones, ...
08.18.2020 All About That Base: Trump And Biden Voters In 2020 We're in the homestretch of the 2020 presidential election campaign. Joe Biden announced Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, Democrats have their national convention this week, Republicans next week, and each party's candidate is hoping to energize their voter ...
08.14.2020 The Good, Bad And Ugly Of The Pandemic Housing Market, Plus TikTok Under Fire Home sales are up, but the number of people facing evictions is also up. Sam talks to The Indicator's Stacey Vanek Smith and Cardiff Garcia about the good and bad news of the housing market in a pandemic. Then, TikTok ...

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