KQED's Forum

A Tufts University PhD student from Turkey remains in detention in Louisiana after masked, plainclothes ICE officers arrested her last week, as she was walking on the street. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that the State Department has revoked at least 300 foreign students’ visas, in an effort that appears to be targeting students who have criticized Israel’s war in Gaza. That’s after the Trump administration sent 261 Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison, an action that’s being challenged in federal court. “Trump has enlisted nearly every federal law-enforcement agency to help with his mass-deportation campaign, a mobilization akin to a wartime effort,” writes Atlantic immigration reporter Nick Miroff. We’ll talk with Miroff about the latest legal battles and immigration news.

Guests:

Nick Miroff, staff writer covering immigration, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S.-Mexico border, The Atlantic

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Since taking office, President Trump has taken aim at the constitutional order. By conducting mass firings of civil servants, investigating and prosecuting rivals and critics and pardoning insurrectionists, Trump has plunged the country into what political scientist Steven Levitsky argues is an authoritarianism that, unlike a full dictatorship, allows for opposition but deploys “the machinery of government to punish, harass, co-opt, or sideline their opponents—disadvantaging them in every contest, and, in so doing, entrenching themselves in power.” And this playbook has been used in countries like Hungary, El Salvador, India, Turkey and others. We talk to Levitsky and historian Anne Applebaum about the lessons other countries can teach us about recognizing authoritarianism at home.

Guests:

Anne Applebaum, author, "Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World"; staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute.

Steven Levitsky, professor of government, Harvard; co-author of "Why Democracies Die" and "Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point."

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The Department of Justice announced Thursday it will investigate “illegal DEI” in admissions at UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford and UC Irvine. Meantime, the UC system is implementing a hiring freeze in response to President Trump’s threats to slash federal funding, while international students who participated in campus protests report heightened fears of deportation. We talk about the Trump administration’s threats against California universities and the impacts on faculty and students.

Guests:

Jaweed Kaleem, education reporter, Los Angeles Times

Michael Chwe, professor of political science, UCLA; member, UCLA Faculty Association

Aditi Hariharan, president, UC Student Association; official representative of all UC undergraduate students

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In a special election on April 15, Oakland voters will choose a candidate to finish the term of recalled mayor Sheng Thao. In the second of our interviews with the two frontrunners in the race, longtime East Bay Congresswoman Barbara Lee joins us to share her vision for the city and take your questions. Lee says she’s the only candidate in the Oakland Mayor’s race with the relationships and track record to unite the city and solve its toughest challenges.

Guests:

Barbara Lee, candidate for mayor of Oakland; U.S. congressmember representing California's 13th district from 1998-2024

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Joan Didion famously chronicled California’s culture and mythology in works like “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and “The White Album.” And it’s Didion’s relationship with Hollywood in particular that New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson explores in “We Tell Ourselves Stories,” her new analysis of the California writer. “The movies,” Wilkinson writes, “shaped us — shaped her — to believe life would follow a genre and an arc, with rising action, climax and resolution. It would make narrative sense. The reality is quite different.” We talk to Wilkinson about how Didion saw an American political landscape that was molding itself after the movies — and came to value story over substance.

Guest:

Alissa Wilkinson, movie critic, New York Times

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Cooking is a basic survival skill and yet many kids reach adulthood without knowing how to prepare even a simple meal. Meanwhile, other Bay Area kids are producing professional-level dishes on shows like “Kids Baking Championship” and “Chopped Junior.” So how can children get started in the kitchen? Seasoned instructors suggest kicking off with essential skills such as chopping – and, yes kids can use knives without injuring themselves – and learning to read recipes. We’ll talk with culinary teachers, young chefs and you about the best ways to teach kids to cook.

Guests:

Neelam Patil, chef, educator and CEO, Bliss Belly Kitchen; science teacher at Berkeley Unified School District and founder of Green Pocket Forests

founder and CEO, Culinary Artistas

Aria Karayil, sixth grader at Diablo Vista Middle School and recent contestant on "Kids Baking Championship"

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We take a deep look at the fallout from what national security experts are calling one of the most extraordinary intelligence lapses in U.S. history. On Monday Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he’d been mistakenly included on an unsecured group chat with senior national security officials as they disclosed plans to attack Yemen. The Atlantic published more of the exchange on Wednesday, while the Trump administration downplayed the blunder and top intelligence officials testified before the House lawmakers. We discuss the national security implications with reporters Eric Schmitt and Garrett Graff.

Guests:

Eric Schmitt, senior national security correspondent, New York Times

Garrett Graff, journalist and historian

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In a special election on April 15, Oakland voters will choose a candidate to finish the term of recalled mayor Sheng Thao. In the first of our interviews with the two frontrunners in the race, former Oakland councilmember Loren Taylor joins us to share his vision for the city and take your questions. He says he’s the only candidate in the race with the local government expertise needed to turn the city’s economic and crime problems around. But he’s facing a tough challenger in former Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Guests:

Loren Taylor, mayoral candidate, Oakland; served on Oakland City Council from 2019-2023

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How did MAGA come to control Congress? It’s the story New York Times reporters Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater chart in a new book exposing what they call the unparalleled dysfunction of the 118th congress, where Republicans ground federal legislation to a standstill and pushed moderates out, to the point that “the moments Congress worked felt like brief interruptions of a long fall down a rabbit hole.” We talk to Karni and Broadwater about how MAGA extremism became mainstream in Congress, along with the latest political news. Their book is “Mad House: How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress.”

Guests:

Annie Karni, congressional correspondent, New York Times; co-author, "Mad House"

Luke Broadwater, White House reporter, New York Times; previous congressional correspondent, The Times; co author,"Mad House"

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We’ve heard the Thomas Edison quote over and over: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” But how often does the American ideal that we can achieve anything with hard work, actually pan out? In his new book, “99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life” journalist Adam Chandler challenges our myths of meritocracy and self-reliance. As Americans put in grueling work and punishing hours, we’re also experiencing rising levels of income inequality and wages that don’t keep up with cost of living. Chandler joins us to talk about how the nature of work in America is deteriorating and where we can go from here.

Guests:

Adam Chandler, author, his books include "99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life" out now, and "Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom"; journalist; former staff writer, The Atlantic; recurring guest, The History Channel’s "The Food That Built America."

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