KQED's Forum

How have you been affected by Trump’s first 100 days in office? Whether you rushed to buy a car before the tariffs set in, changed your travel plans or cut out caffeine, we want to hear how the Trump administration has affected your daily life. Have your community, job or finances been impacted? Tell us how, as well as how you’re managing — and how you’re thinking about your approach to the next 3.5 years.

Guests:

Michelle Singletary, personal finance columnist, The Washington Post; she writes the nationally syndicated personal finance column "The Color of Money"

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

Dr. Jocelyn Sze, psychologist and clinical professor at UC Berkeley

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Autism spectrum disorder can be found in 2.2% of the population, but for women and girls, as well as many adults, autism is a diagnosis that is often missed. We look into who is underdiagnosed and why — and how our conceptions of autism and neurodivergence are changing. As Trump’s health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. portrays autism as a “tragedy,” we’ll talk about ways in which many people with autism are living and thriving.

Guests:

Mary HK Choi, author and editor, she recently wrote The Cut article "I Was Diagnosed With Autism in My 40s. It Gave Me a Lot of Answers."

Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief, Science family of journals; Thorp is the former provost of Washington University and prior to that was chancellor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His recent guest essay in the New York Times is titled "I Was Diagnosed with Autism at 53. I Know Why Rates Are Rising."

Christine Wu Nordahl, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UC Davis; Nordahl is the Director of the Autism Phenome Project and the Beneto Foundation Endowed Chair at the MIND Institute

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Kathy Ryan was the longtime director of photography at the New York Times Magazine. For nearly four decades, Ryan shaped the way we witnessed history: January 6th, wars abroad and the impacts of COVID-19 and 9/11 We’ll talk with Ryan about storytelling through images. And we’ll discuss what makes a good photograph when we’re inundated by them, now that so many of us carry a camera in our pockets. We want to hear from you: What’s a photograph that stands out in your mind?

Guests:

Kathy Ryan, former director of photography, The New York Times Magazine; keynote speaker and co-curator of the 2025 Catchlight Visual Storytelling Summit

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In an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” President Trump targeted the Smithsonian, demanding that “improper ideology” be removed from exhibits. Under the order,  exhibits that “divide” Americans will be defunded, including  portrayals of race and its history at the National Museum of  African American History and Culture. We talk to Clint Smith, Atlantic staff writer and author of “How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America,” about the battle over how American history is told.

Guests:

Clint Smith, poet; author; staff writer, The Atlantic. His books are "Above Ground" and "How the Word is Passed."

Key Jo Lee, chief of curatorial affairs and public program, Museum of the African Diaspora

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Funeral rites are underway for Pope Francis, who died this week at age 88 after leading the Roman Catholic Church for 12 years. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world are expected to attend the papal funeral in Vatican City on Saturday, including cardinals from around the world. Many of these cardinals will then begin the process of electing the next pope. Before the white smoke is released, we’ll look at the conclave process and examine who might succeed Pope Francis — and whether he’ll continue Francis’s legacy of environmentalism, openness and compassion.

Guests:

Father Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam, chair of philosophy of science and director, the Institute of Social and Political Sciences at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome; former coordinator of Ecology and Creation at the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development

Jeffrey Guhin, associate professor of sociology, UCLA

Bry Jensen, Host of the long-running Pontifacts podcast

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Caregiving is the most universal of human acts. But also one of the most invisible. While caring for a child, parent or loved one can be meaningful, and life defining, it can also be exhausting and life breaking. Drawing on her groundbreaking research on baby’s brains, UC Berkeley psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik is leading a multidisciplinary project to better understand the social science of caregiving with hopes of translating those insights into practical policies. Gopnik and policymaker Anne-Marie Slaughter join us to talk about how rethinking our approach to caregiving and how we support care providers, could lead to a better, more functional society.

Guests:

Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy, UC Berkeley; author, "The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children"

Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America, a non-profit think tank; author of "Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family"

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Is the United States in the talked-about and feared constitutional crisis? President Trump and his administration are increasingly ignoring federal court rulings on issues like immigration and funding. Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer calls the president’s defiance “a new step into presidential lawlessness.” We talk with Serwer and Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern about what this means for the balance of power in Washington and for democracy.

Guests:

Adam Serwer, staff writer, The Atlantic

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, president, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; previously a justice on the California Supreme Court

Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer, Slate Magazine

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Ellis Island might have been a welcoming place for many immigrants to the United States, but Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay tells a more troubling history of immigrant detention. Starting next month, the Oakland Ballet will premiere “Angel Island Project,” a dance production highlighting the stories of immigrants, primarily from China, who were detained there in the early 20th century. As part of KQED’s annual Youth Takeover, high school students Nico and Maite bring together choreographers and a local historian to talk about the project and the lessons that histories of immigration can teach us today.

Guests:

Graham Lustig, artistic director, Angel Island Project and Oakland Ballet Company

Phil Chan, choreographer, Angel Island Project - co-founder, Final Bow for Yellowface

Ye Feng, dancer and choreographer, Angel Island Project

Ed Tepporn, executive director, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Nico Fischer, Youth Advisory Board member; senior, Santa Clara High School

Maite del Real, Youth Advisory Board member; junior, Ruth Asawa SF School of the Arts

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Overturning Roe v. Wade was never the end goal of the anti-abortion movement, says UC Davis law professor and leading abortion historian Mary Ziegler. It was always to establish personhood for a fertilized egg, subject to equal protection under the Constitution. Should the “fetal personhood” movement succeed, then providing, assisting and even obtaining an abortion could be criminal acts. Ziegler joins us to break down the fetal personhood movement’s legal strategy — and what it could mean for abortion access, contraception and in vitro fertilization. Ziegler’s new book is “Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction.”

Guests:

Mary Ziegler, professor of law, UC Davis School of Law

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More than a thousand international college students – scores of them in California – have had their visas terminated without explanation under new Trump administration policies. We’ll talk about what the administration’s targeting of international students and threatened withdrawals of federal funding mean for California students and schools, and how Universities and colleges are responding.

Guests:

Molly Gibbs, Bay Area News Group education reporter, East Bay Times

Doug Belkins, higher education and national news reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Aarya Mukherjee, deputy news editor, The Daily Californian

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