Left, Right & Center

Californians and New Yorkers and people in many other jurisdictions are being ordered to stay at home, and it’s advised across the whole country. Is this going to work to stop the coronavirus outbreak? And are our hospitals ready for the surge of patients they are sure to see over the coming weeks? Dr.Kavita Patel will join us to discuss hospital preparedness, the shortage of coronavirus tests, and the prognosis for our fight against the epidemic.Conor Dougherty (economics reporter for the New York Times) will join us to discuss the crushing impact that epidemic-fighting measures are having on the economy and on workers. What can the federal government do, and whatmustit do to address that aspect of the crisis?

And what does a stay-at-home order mean if you don’t have a home? The coronavirus crisis creates new urgency for California to address its homelessness crisis. Will these extraordinary circumstances help the state muster solutions to a very complicated issue?

The public health crisis response to the coronavirus pandemic is finally happening in the United States, but it’s not enough and it’s too late. President Trump has politicized the crisis. He’s minimized it, called out the “fake” media, worried about the wrong things, and not said the right things to prepare the public. Will Americans do what they’ve done in the face of a crisis before: fumble at the beginning but ultimately muster the response and resources needed? Samuel Brannen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies joins the panel to talk about a pandemic simulation he took part in just a few months ago. He shares the lessons learned, what’s playing out differently in real life, and what’s still in our control.

House Democrats have been negotiating with the White House on a coronavirus aid package. What’s in it? Is this a big opportunity for the left to go for traditionally left objectives like paid sick leave? And do they run the risk of politicizing the pandemic too?

Then: Joe Biden had another strong week. It seems like the central question of the primary race has been whether voters want massive change or for things to go back to normal, and there also seems to be a clear answer.

The coronavirus outbreak in the US is intensifying with hundreds of known cases and 14 deaths as of Friday afternoon. The stats on cases in China are a little better than a few weeks ago, but can we believe them? And beyond the $8.3 billion emergency spending package President Trump signed Friday, is our government taking the preparations that it needs to? Donald McNeil of the New York Times joins the panel.

Then: Joe Biden came back in a huge way on Super Tuesday after a strong victory in the South Carolina primary. He’s in position to lock up the Democratic nomination. Voters turned out to support him — wasn’t that supposed to be the story for Bernie Sanders? Ezra Klein joins to talk about Biden’s big week, why Elizabeth Warren dropped out, and why we’re polarized, which is the topic of his new book. Ezra explains his argument and what it would mean to nominate Joe Biden, who has explicitly pushed back on polarization. Will he have any luck if elected?

The coronavirus is bearing down on the United States. Is President Trump saying the right things? He tapped Vice President Pence to lead coronavirus task force. What of then-Indiana Governor Pence’s record during an HIV outbreak there? And as stocks nose-dived as the coronavirus news got worse, fears of economic tumult became more real.

Meanwhile, Super Tuesday is mere days away. Where do the candidates stand after the Nevada caucuses and a chaotic South Carolina debate? What makes a good debate anyways? Then, lawyer and legal scholar Linda Hirshman talks with Keli Goff about the Harvey Weinstein verdict and what it represents for the #MeToo movement.

Plus: Bernie Sanders’ universal childcare proposal, Alaska’s governor faces a recall campaign, and lynching may become a federal hate crime.

Now that’s what we call a debate. The candidates stopped being polite and started getting real, and all it took was getting Mike Bloomberg on the debate stage. Though, with all the fighting and several direct hits from Elizabeth Warren on his company’s nondisclosure agreements, he didn’t really fight back that much. Is the Bloomberg bubble about to pop? Can anyone dislodge Bernie from the lead? Are we headed to a contested Democratic convention?

The panel breaks down the Democratic debate: fights over stop and frisk, sexual harassment, health care, and the name of Mexico’s president. Should President Trump be eager to face Bernie Sanders? And Trump says he’s the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Weren’t Republicans supposed to be against that sort of thing?

President Trump is on a revenge tour, firing administration officials who cooperated with the impeachment probe, using Twitter to rail against the prosecutions of his allies, and demanding to know why the Justice Department doesn't prosecute more of his enemies. Attorney General William Barr says he wants the president to back off and stop tweeting, but Barr has also been taking extraordinary interventions in criminal cases of interest to the president.

Then: Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary but with the smallest vote share ever for a New Hampshire winner. Will the Democratic field ever winnow? Is there a real possibility of a contested convention? Is it Mike Bloomberg's fault? Are all the candidates being too nice to each other? Speaking of Bloomberg, he's soaring in the national polls on the back of an enormous television campaign, and speaking of being too nice, should we be seeing more attack ads? Erika Franklin Fowler of the Wesleyan Media Project talks about the power of those ads and whether they make a difference for voters.

It was a full week. On Monday, the Iowa caucuses were a bit of a meltdown for Democrats, but did the mess sort of, maybe help some of the candidates? Kind of. What happened to Joe Biden? And what happens when you’re a reporter covering a caucus and you see things obviously going wrong? **Tim Carney **and Olivia Nuzzi talk about what they witnessed in Iowa and how the campaigns are taking it as they head to New Hampshire. Election law expert Rick Hasen lays out the damage done in Iowa and what he’s concerned about as the primary season continues.

President Trump gave his state of the union address on Tuesday and it was a three-in-one kind of speech with all the reality show trimmings we’ve come to expect. The panel discusses that and analyzes the Democrats’ messaging about the economy in Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s response.

And on Wednesday, the Senate acquitted President Trump in the impeachment inquiry. Mitt Romney was the only Republican — this time and in history — who voted to convict and remove the president on one of the articles.

As the impeachment trial of President Trump draws to a close, has this been a useful exercise? What did we learn? Who were the friends we made along the way? And will the result of the trial matter for future presidencies, or for the November election?

Susan Hennessey of the Lawfare blog will tell us what may (or may not) be stopping John Bolton from talking, with the Senate declining to seek his testimony. Paul Krugman will join us to talk about his new book Arguing With Zombies where the zombies are ideas like “tax cuts pay for themselves” and “budget deficits are hurting the economy.” And Juliette Kayyem gives her analysis of the US response so far to the Wuhan coronavirus.

All that plus a look ahead to the Iowa caucuses — hello, that’s on Monday — is in this episode.

Forty-eight hours of presentations for the prosecution and the defense, and senators are watching it all silently, with only water and milk to drink. But will the trial change any minds, inside the senate chamber or in the country as a whole?

The Left, Right & Center panel discusses eerily stable public opinion: on impeachment, on Donald Trump, and on the Democratic primary candidates. Why doesn’t anybody change their mind anymore?

But: when people do change their minds, lately it’s been toward Bernie Sanders or Mike Bloomberg. Is Joe Biden’s perpetual poll lead as stable as it looks? Ariel Edwards-Levy talks polling with the panel.

Plus: is the primary too nice? Where are the attack ads? Is it just civil, or does it deny voters the contrasting information about the candidates they deserve?

The Senate impeachment trial has officially begun, and yet...new information is still coming out and senators are still divided about witness testimony. Do the Lev Parnas documents released this week change anything? What about the Government Accountability Office determination that the Trump administration broke the law in withholding the Ukraine aid? If some Republican senators mount a campaign for witness testimony, what might that fight look like? Even so, don’t we already know how this is going to end?

This week, in a moment of bipartisan cooperation, the Senate approved the USMCA trade agreement. It’s a victory for President Trump. And then there’s the phase one trade deal with China. President Trump signed it this week. Is it also a victory? Or is a bit weak? There was a debate this week in Iowa ahead of the caucuses. The candidates talked trade, foreign policy, and then there was that moment between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Felicia Wong talks about a new project from the Roosevelt Institute on the failures of neoliberalism and what comes after for progressives.