It’s been nearly a year since Kash Patel took the helm of the FBI, a period New York Times reporter Emily Bazelon says has been “marred by vendettas, mismanagement and meltdowns.” The New York Times spoke to 45 current and former FBI officials, who describe a traditionally independent agency now captured and weaponized by the White House. The officials say the FBI’s new emphasis on immigration, over counterterrorism and cybersecurity, is making America less safe. We’ll talk to a former Los Angeles field officer and to Bazelon, whose new piece is “A Year Inside Kash Patel’s F.B.I.”

Guests:

Emily Bazelon, staff writer, The New York Times Magazine; Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law, Yale Law School; co-host, Slate's “Political Gabfest”

Jill Fields, former supervisory intelligence analyst for violent crime in the Los Angeles field office, FBI

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Calling out ICE and the National Guard to police Los Angeles, Portland and Minneapolis. DOGE and the evisceration of government institutions. Invading Venezuela. The insults, the rambling, the grift. The Epstein files. It’s hard to keep up with how Trump 2.0 is impacting our country. But in her popular newsletter,  “Letters from an American” political historian Heather Cox Richardson helps readers keep their eyes on what matters. 

Guests:

Heather Cox Richardson, author of "Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America", Richardson is professor of political history at Boston College. Her previous books include "How the South Won the Civil War." Her newsletter, “Letters from an American” reaches over 5 million readers on Substack and Facebook. 

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Have you ever achieved a high GPA, crushed your Duolingo streak, or seen a surge of likes on social media… only to feel weirdly empty? Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen attributes that joylessness to what he calls “value capture,” where rankings and metrics can replace our own values and start dictating goals for us. We talk to Nguyen about the difference between playful score keeping… and soul-sucking metrics. And we want to hear from you: Have you ever found yourself playing a game you didn’t choose?

Guests:

C. Thi Nguyen, philosopher; author, “The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game”

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San Francisco-based, Ethiopian-born singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero and her band join us live in the studio to play from her new album, “A Piece of Infinity.” The album reimagines folk songs from across Ethiopia, blending her signature Ethio-jazz style with R&B, synth and other genres. We’ll talk about the stories the album tells and bask in her rich, expressive vocals.

Guests:

Meklit Hadero, Ethio-Jazz singer and composer

Sam Bevan, upright bass

Colin Douglas, drums

Howard Wiley, tenor saxophone

Kibrom Berhane, keyboard and krar

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Russia’s war in Ukraine has orphaned some 2000 Ukrainian children, leaving them with physical and psychological wounds and adult responsibilities beyond their years. Journalist Anna Nemtsova interviewed orphaned children across Ukraine, many of whom witnessed a parent being killed by Russian forces. She also looked at the impacts felt by Russian youth growing up surrounded by violence. We talk to Nemtsova about the harms she says could last a generation. We also talk about the trajectory of the nearly four-year war with former Ukraine ambassador Steve Pifer, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Trump prepare to meet Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Guests:

Anna Nemtsova, Eastern Europe correspondent, The Daily Beast; contributing writer, The Atlantic; her new piece for KQED is “A Generation Orphaned by War: Ukrainian Children Grow Up Amid Loss and Recovery"

Steven Pifer, affiliate, Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; former ambassador to Ukraine and senior director at the National Security Council in the Clinton administration

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Donald Trump has made clear that he wants Greenland, and is willing to upset allies to get it. After escalating threats, on Tuesday, Trump said  on Truth Social that he and the head of NATO now have a “framework” on a future Greenland deal and Trump said he would no longer impose punitive  tariffs, but offered no other specifics. Why is the acquisition of this self-governing and autonomous territory of Denmark the focus of Trump’s expansionist appetites?  We talk about Trump’s attempt to acquire Greenland and the repercussions of his latest foreign policy pivot.

Guests:

Eliot Cohen, Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies; contributing writer, The Atlantic; professor emeritus, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

Susan Glasser, staff writer, The New Yorker; co-author, "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021"

Jeffrey Gettleman, global international correspondent, The New York Times

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A California health care union is campaigning for a ballot measure that would impose a one-time “wealth tax” on the state’s roughly estimated 200 billionaires. The proposal is meant to shore up
funding for health programs facing severe cuts because of federal funding reductions. But it’s stirring opposition from Governor Gavin Newsom, who says the tax could harm the state’s economy. We talk about how the tax would work and what the risks and benefits might come from a new levy on the state’s wealthiest residents.

Guests:

Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent, KQED; co-host, KQED's Political Breakdown

Ryan Mac, tech reporter based in Los Angeles, The New York Times; co-author, “Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter”

Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff, SEIU United Healthcare Workers West

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California College of the Arts’ announcement last week that it would close by the end of the next academic year stunned many in the Bay Area arts community. Nashville-based Vanderbilt University plans to open a satellite location in CCA’s San Francisco campus and also bought a shuttered site in Oakland. We dig into the deal and talk about what the demise of the 120 year-old CCA and expansion of a new university means for the Bay Area,  arts in our region, and higher education overall.

Guests:

Laura Waxmann, reporter, San Francisco Chronicle

Sarah Hotchkiss, senior associate editor, KQED Arts and Culture

Jeff Selingo, author, "Who Gets In & Why: A Year Inside College Admissions," "There is Life After College" and "College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students"

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Gambling has crept into the news, with prediction markets offering betting odds on everything from Taylor Swift’s wedding date to the U.S. acquisition of Greenland. Political reporters now cite betting odds alongside traditional polls, and media companies like CNN and Yahoo have inked deals with popular betting platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. So what does it mean to put cold hard cash on the outcome of current events? Danny Funt has written about sports betting for The Washington Post and The New Yorker. He joins us to talk about how online gambling is reshaping the news, and his new book: “Everybody Loses.”

Guests:

Danny Funt, journalist covering sports betting and online gambling, The Washington Post and The New Yorker; author, "Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling"

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In her new book “When Trees Testify,” plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery examines the ways trees are intertwined with Black American history as well as her own life story. For example, the pecan tree was domesticated by an enslaved African and sycamores were both havens and signposts for those fleeing slavery. We talk to Montgomery and hear from you: What’s a tree with special significance to your history?

Guests:

Beronda L. Montgomery, author, "When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America's Black Botanical Legacy"

Marian Johnson, former resident, Russell City, Alameda County

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