Joan Esposito (Featured Interviews)

Joan Esposito is joined by John Fugelsang, actor, comedian, podcaster and radio host, TV pundit, and author of the forthcoming book “Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.”

The book addresses the misuse of religion to justify cruelty and support for Donald Trump and aims to help readers expose the hypocrisy in fundamentalist Christianity on issues like feminism, abortion, LGBTQ rights, and immigration. Fugelsang shared personal anecdotes, including the religious backgrounds of his parents, and highlighted the need for a coalition of believers and non-believers to combat toxic Christian influences. He also mentioned plans for a comedic tour, including a potential stop 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 Army Maj. Gen. Randy Manner (Ret.), former acting vice chair of the National Guard Bureau, and member of National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A).

Manner discussed the political and ethical implications of recent military personnel changes, highlighting the removal of high-ranking women and people of color. He criticized the administration's actions as legal but morally inappropriate, emphasizing the importance of diversity in the military. Manner also addressed the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles, calling it "a total waste of taxpayer money and an unnecessary burden on those guardsmen that were pulled away from their primary missions of preparing for overseas deployments or for training within their states."

Additionally, he discussed his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on immigration, where he faced verbal attacks from Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA).

Finally, Manner criticized the Trump administration's support for deep-sea mining, warning of environmental damage and geopolitical risks.

"The concept of deep-sea mining," he explained, "is that there are exceptionally high-quality nodules on the ocean floor that contain cobalt and other strategic materials. As you can imagine, they are, of course, in demand in the world. The problem is, in this particular case, there are some American firms that are ignoring many of the United Nation protocols for mining, and Trump is supporting this."

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 Alison Gash, professor of political science at the University of Oregon, author of “Below the Radar: How Silence Can Save Civil Rights,” and contributor to Washington Monthly. She is also the president of OurSchool, “a nurturing and creative anti-racist digital space for LGBTQIA+ young people and their communities to learn, celebrate, and thrive.”

Gash offered insights on recent Supreme Court decisions, focusing in particular on Mahmoud v. Taylor, which said that parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, have the right to opt their children out of specific LGBTQ+-inclusive lessons in public schools. Gash criticized Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion, citing his misrepresentation of a children's book titled "Uncle Bobby’s Wedding." 

Additionally, she addressed the negative implications of the shadow docket, where the court issues decisions without full deliberation. "It matters for the individual outcomes, but it also matters a great deal in terms of whether the public perceives the court as legitimate," Gash told WCPT. "And the more that it does this work, and particularly the more that it does this work around high-conflict questions, in secret, the less legitimate the court is going to be, the less that we can trust the outcomes, and the less likely people are going to be to comply with its decisions. So it's a real problem." 

Gash also touched on the historical context of the separation of church and state and evolving interpretations of the Constitution.

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 Dave Levitan, science journalist, author of “Not A Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science,” and deputy editor of Splinter.

Levitan discussed the deteriorating situation at the Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Lee Zeldin. Zeldin's actions include reorganizing the Office of Research and Development and retaliating against employees who signed a public declaration of dissent, placing over 140 on leave. Levitan highlighted Zeldin's deregulation agenda, including exemptions for coal-fired power plants, which could worsen air quality and affect vulnerable communities. Additionally, Levitan noted ideological changes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is reshaping advisory committees to align with his views, potentially undermining public health efforts, including vaccination schedules.

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 Sarah Pridgen, research manager at Rush University Medical Center, and Justin Schmitt, president of the USAA Foundation, which is a founding member organization of Face the Fight.

Launched in 2023 by founding partners USAA, Reach Resilience, and the Humana Foundation, Face the Fight has made strides by bringing together a like-minded coalition of organizations to help reduce veteran suicide through a multi-pronged approach that includes charitable giving, public education, and awareness. Face the Fight is committed to supporting every veteran, regardless of their unique needs and challenges, and aspires to dramatically reduce veteran suicide. www.wefacethefight.org

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 talks to Michael Kirk, PBS “Frontline” documentary filmmaker. His new film is “Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law.” 

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 Yasmeen Bankole, candidate for Congress in the 8th Congressional District of Illinois. 

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

And find the "Driving It Home (Full Episodes)" podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

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Joan Esposito is joined by Kendall Scudder, new chair of the Texas Democratic Party.

Scudder discussed the aftermath of the Kerr County floods, criticizing Republicans for their lack of action and accountability. 

"Here's the thing," he said. "There have been years and years and years of Republicans in Texas, particularly, who are fighting to tear down governmental systems that were designed to help people, and people don't realize how much and how badly they need them until they need them. And this was a situation where they needed them, but the county government had been returning infrastructure funds because they didn't want money from Joe Biden. The state had been failing to pass the flood warning bills that were going in front of the legislature, HB 13 that didn't even get a hearing in [Lieutenant Governor] Dan Patrick's Senate this cycle, and Republican President Donald Trump has been defunding the weather service so that there were not people whose job it was was to warn people when these were happening. So it's a failure of Republican government, from the bottom to the top, from county commissioner all the way up to the White House. And it's very sad that elections have consequences, and this is one of those. I hope that we use it to learn. But if the Republicans have taught me one thing, it's that that's not what they do in times like this. They try to do self-preservation, pass the buck, do anything they can to not have to take accountability for their actions." 

Scudder addressed the 2026 U.S. Senate election, predicting Ken Paxton will defeat incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary, which he says will give Democrats the "best opportunity we've had in my lifetime" to flip a U.S. Senate seat in Texas. 

"There are a lot of Democrats who are lining up to be the nominee," Scudder told WCPT, noting that former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred has declared his candidacy. "But I've heard five, six other folks who have also expressed interest there, all of them really high-quality candidates. So we'll actually probably be having a heavily contested primary for U.S. Senate here in Texas, which I think will serve us well, allow us to spend money outreaching to Democrats, reintroducing ourselves, defining what it means to be a Texas Democrat, and then sprinting forward to the general election in November [2026], where we can knock out a Republican stronghold."

Scudder also touched on the redistricting fight that is developing in the state, explaining:

"There are a lot of Democrats who live in Texas, and as a result, we make up a very large chunk of the Democratic delegation to Congress, because we have five major metros, each of them are heavily Democratic. They have to draw minority protection districts. Those are largely centered in those major metro areas, and it's just really hard for them to draw maps with people that does not give Democrats lots of seats in Texas. Now, we still don't have a proportionate number of seats. They are still bad maps as they exist. However, they, right now, at least exist in a legal fashion. 

"What Donald Trump has done is ask his attorneys at the Justice Department to send a letter to [Governor] Greg Abbott questioning the legality of minority districts. So they've called into question a Hispanic district, two Black districts and a coalition district that is his majority Hispanic and African American combined. And what they're going to try to do is declare minority districts unconstitutional, even though they are clearly protected within the Voting Rights Act. And if they do that, it'll be the first shot across the bow where they're going to start going into every single state in the union trying to take away minority representation in the legislature. And the Congress could end up being as white as it was before Reconstruction. And so we're on the front lines of that fight right now to make sure that we're we're beating back any efforts to strip local citizens from the opportunity to have the representation that they want." 

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 State Rep. Ann Williams (D-IL), who discussed the state legislature's spring session. Key actions included allocating over $160 million to the budget stabilization fund and creating a bridge reserve fund for short-term emergencies. Williams also addressed the potential impact of federal spending cuts. "The numbers that I last saw were over 330,000 Illinoisans would be cut in terms of their health coverage. That's 3 million people additionally relying on Medicaid and 2 million on SNAP benefits. We don't know how it's going to come down. We're trying to shore up where we can, but the state only can do so much on the programs we fund. But we have historically relied on a responsible federal government, no matter what party was in power, and that's something, unfortunately, we're not seeing these days."

Williams also spoke about the "fiscal cliff" connected to transit funding and the intense interest her constituents have expressed in seeing the issue resolved. "I think we got close to 1,500 unique emails just on the transit issue in May alone, which is really just not common. So everyone's thinking about transit. Everyone's talking about transit. It's such a big issue in my area, on the North Side of Chicago, that I have a dedicated staff person focused on transit issues. In terms of governance reforms, there's a lot of comments on things we can do to consolidate. That being said, the suburbs want to have a seat at the table and deserve a seat at the table. And I know my friends in DuPage County, Kane, Lake, McHenry also have an important role to play. Even though I represent only the city of Chicago -- very CTA-focused -- I understand we have to look at this holistically. So I think we're going to continue having conversations."  Williams said she is other North Side legislators are planning a transit-oriented town hall.    

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 David Atkins, Washington Monthly contributing writer. His latest piece is "The GOP’s Cruel Budget and the Authoritarianism Behind the ‘Big Beautiful Bill.'"

Atkins, who is also an elected Democratic National Committee member from California, highlighted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's disproportionate benefits to the wealthy and its severe cuts to social services, including Medicaid. He noted a growing dissent among Trump supporters, particularly young male podcasters, over broken promises. 

"What is happening," Atkins said, "is Donald Trump is removing the scales from their eyes, slowly but surely. Now, they still have a very large cult, no question, but, piece by piece, people who believed that he was just going to deport violent criminals -- no, that's not happening. He is deporting gardeners and nannies and stuff, and they can see that. People who believed he was going to deal with [Jeffrey] Epstein -- obviously, nope, not that. 

"Is it possible that Congress could, as they take up the next piece of the budget say, you know what, Donald Trump doesn't have the juice that he used to; I'm going to be independent? Possibly. But the problem is, he still has enough hold on the base that right now, still, we're seeing that if Trump threatens them, they resign and say they won't run for re-elect. I am not confident, but I think you might, in fact, see a crackup of the base if this continues."

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.