Joan Esposito (Featured Interviews)

Filling in for Joan Esposito, Derrick Blakley is joined by Alec Nevala-Lee, author of “Collisions: A Physicist’s Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs,” the first biography of the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Luis W. Alvarez. He’ll be at the 2025 Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago.

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filling in for Joan Esposito, Derrick Blakley is joined by Ray Suarez, broadcast journalist and author of “We Are Home: Becoming American in the 21st Century” (2024). 

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filling in for Joan Esposito, Derrick Blakley is joined by Bill Kurtis, retired news anchor and author of “Whirlwind: My Life Reporting the News”; he’ll be at the 2025 Printers Row Lit Fest this Saturday at 3:00 p.m. talking about his new book, “Whirlwind: My Life Reporting the News.”

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filling in for Joan Esposito, William Muck is joined by Kevin Schultz, professor of history at UIC and author of “Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History.

Muck and Schultz discussed the Trump administration's attacks on democratic institutions like the press, universities, and museums, particularly the Smithsonian. Schultz expressed frustration over the administration's attempt to "restore truth and sanity to American history," characterizing it a "deliberate trolling" of historians and academics. He highlighted the erosion of civil discourse due to polarized narratives and the amplification of extreme views on social media. Schultz also explored attacks on liberalism in the historical context, as laid out in his book. 

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filling in for Joan Esposito, William Muck is joined by Xavier Becerra, Democratic candidate for California governor and former secretary of the Health and Human Services.

Becerra discussed the resignations of senior leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) due to political interference in public health policymaking.

"It's unfortunate that we see CDC on this nosedive to oblivion, where the agency that's supposed to be our red alert, our first warning, or the canary in the coal mine that tells us when we're about to be hit by some really bad, deadly disease is now being shrunk in ways that will endanger the lives and health of so many Americans. This is all a man-made disaster. This is the result of Trump budget cuts. And what we're seeing is that our ability to be prepared for things like a COVID pandemic, our ability to face forward and be foresighted in how we deal with something like avian flu, these are all being undermined by the actions of this administration and this HHS secretary," Becerra said, referring to his successor at Health & Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  

Becerra emphasized the importance of scientific expertise in public health and warned of long-term consequences from the loss of experienced professionals. He also highlighted the negative impact of recent Medicaid cuts, which could affect millions of Americans, particularly vulnerable populations like newborns and nursing home residents. 

In his bid to be California's next governor, Becerra emphasized his track record of fighting for public health and affordable health care.

"I'm in this race because I believe it's time to once again reward work hard work," Becerra told WCPT. "If you work hard, you should know you're going to be able to have the health insurance your family needs. If you work hard, you're going to have that roof over your head. You're not going to become homeless. If you work hard, you will be able to send your kids to at least a public university. And if you work hard, you'll be able to store up enough that you'll be able to retire in dignity. That's my fight as governor, and what I tell folks is, we do need fighters, but it's not just someone who says, for the first time I'm gonna fight. You need someone who knows how to fight and win."

Catch "Chew's Views with Richard Chew” weekdays from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/chews-views).

And find the "Chew's Views" Full Episodes podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, YouTube, Amazon and TuneIn.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Retired Army Major General Randy Manner, former acting vice chair of the National Guard Bureau and member of National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A).

Manner criticized the Trump administration's use of the National Guard on the streets of American cities, emphasizing that National Guard deployments should be for legitimate emergencies, not political theater.

"This administration is not just running between the guardrails, they are running over and destroying the guardrails that past administrations have, quite frankly, respected," Manner told WCPT.

"Step one: The governor controls the National Guard in peacetime, and that means that the governor uses the National Guard predominantly, by the way, to help save citizens, meaning that, for example, it might be with earthquakes or forest fires, or it might be with a tornado or a hurricane. In other words, it's all about helping to keep their citizens safe within the community. A very distant and last type of use of the National Guard by the governor is to back up the state and local police when asked for by a mayor or other individual within his or her state. That is rarely used through history, and I mean rarely used. 

"Now, the president has the ability to call out any National Guard that he wants and make them part of the active duty military for the period that they are there. So calling them National Guard, yes, they are National Guardsmen, but they are serving as active duty military reporting to a dual status commander. It's called Title 10. They are full-time military reporting indirectly but, eventually, to the president.

"For Chicago there's a couple of issues here. One is, is it appropriate? Of course it's absolutely not appropriate, whatsoever. These are made-up emergencies. The one in D.C. is made up. The one in Los Angeles was made up. This is a misuse of this resource that is very scarce. It is diminishing readiness, because every day that these soldiers are not back at their regular civilian jobs in their communities, they're not available to their governor, and they are not training on combat missions like they should be, back in their home state, for overseas deployment. So it it's inappropriate to have U.S. military on the streets of America. There is no way ever this should be viewed as normal, and there should be an absolute black and white that unless those soldiers are there at the governor's request to help save lives, we don't need them watching our population. They're not trained for it. It is not their mission. They should absolutely, positively not be doing this kind of a role."

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joan Esposito is joined by Bill Adair, award-winning journalist and educator, and author of “Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy.”

Adair will be at the 2025 Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago Saturday, September 6 at 1:00 p.m., participating in a panel called "Democracy at Stake: Lies, Disinformation, and the Fight for Truth," along with legal analyst and author Barbara McQuade.

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joan Esposito is joined by Sandra Cisneros, poet, short story writer, novelist, and essayist. She is the keynote speaker and headliner at the 2025 Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago.

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joan Esposito is joined by Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner. Her new book is "Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion, and Tech." Dowd will be at the 2025 Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago Saturday, September 6 at 1:00 p.m.

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joan Esposito is joined by Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL).

Quigley, who serves as co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, discussed Russia's war on Ukraine, criticizing President Donald Trump's August 15th meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. 

"I have no idea why anybody might have imagined that something positive would come out of the Alaska summit," he told WCPT.

"First, you don't even allow Ukraine to participate, and, of course, you welcome with red carpet treatment a bloody tyrant war criminal, who is, during all these discussions, maintaining an escalating war effort and also maintaining the maximalist demands that he has for this. 

"So the concern we have is that Putin can treat his people like cannon fodder. About 40 percent of his economy is going to the war effort. So he knows that he wins a war of attrition. So, in effect, what Trump is doing is helping him drag this along, because [Putin] has a six-to-one manpower advantage over Ukraine, and they're making slow progress in moving the borders the wrong way.

"So it's extraordinarily concerning the fact that the president has never picked sides in the conflict. He won't help where it might give some help to the Ukrainians. And in fact, he's he's helping Putin in every way imaginable."

Quigley also addressed Trump's threat to deploy troops to Chicago, dismissing the president's premise that federal action needs to be taken to fight crime.

"The frustration is, if he really cared about this from a making-the-street-safe point of view, there's a way to help us do that. We could always use more money for the interrupters, the violence prevention groups like CRED and our friend Arne Duncan and many others, because the amount of money they spent in L.A. as a deployment, they could have hired thousands of police officers." 

Quigley discussed the challenges of funding the government when the Republican-controlled Congress can vote to rescind previously approved spending on a simple majority basis. In July Republicans canceled almost $9 billion in funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting at Trump's request. 

"Why would I vote for a spending bill, even if I negotiated a great deal, if I knew that they could just . . . take back what they don't like?" Quigley asked. "It allows them to have complete control over spending, even when we do have leverage. 

"So can we pass something that has guarantees that they can't do that? I'm not sure. So I just want folks to be on the lookout for the very real possibility that this government gets shut down by the Republicans sometime this fall and further chaos ensues."

Catch "Joan Esposito: Live, Local and Progressive" weekdays from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive).

And find the Joan Esposito (Full Episodes) podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.