Midday

In the Presidential Election, there was no shortage of polls, and no shortage of outrage after the election from both sides of the political spectrum when much of the data appeared to have been unreliable.

It’s a complicated and somewhat risky proposition to suggest that we can know the outcome of the horse race before the race Is over, but the obsession with the horse race, from any election cycles earliest moments, is at the heart of the problem. There are other things we can and should glean from polls that are ultimately more revelatory and enlightening than who’s up and who’s down.

Dr. Mileah Kromer is the Director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College

Ariel Edwards Levy is a senior reporter and polling editor at HuffPost, where she oversees collaboration with the website YouGov.

Dr. Natalie Jackson is the Director of Research at the Public Religion Research Institute.

Tom's next guest is D. Watkins, an editor-at-large for Salon and a lecturer at the University of Baltimore’s Klein Family School of Communication Design.

D. is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America, and The Cookup: A Crack Memoir. His latest book is called We Speak for Ourselves: How Woke Culture Prohibits Progress, which has been named the 2020 One Book Baltimore selection.

One Book Baltimore is a collaboration among several local organizations, including the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Baltimore City Public Schools, to provide opportunities for the city's 7th and 8th graders, their families, and community members to connect with each other by reading the same book. Discussions and programming are being held across the city to spark conversations designed to inspire young people, and promote positive change in the community.

There will be a special One Book Baltimore virtual event on January 15, from 10-11:30am, featuring D. and two past participating authors, Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds. They will be in conversation with WYPR’s Future Cities host Wes Moore. To register for this free online event, click here.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

One of the most disturbing but necessary measures of Baltimore's status -- as a place to live and work -- is its annual homicide count, which this year is on track to nearly match 2019’s record 348 killings. Most of the homicide victims in Baltimore are young Black men, and most are shot to death. The city’s persistently high body count reflects one obvious fact of crime in Baltimore: the seemingly limitless supply of illegal guns...

Later this hour on Midday, Tom will talk with James "JT" Timpson, the director of Community Partnerships and Safety for Roca Baltimore, a community-centered anti-violence group. Timpson previously worked as an outreach coordinator for Safe Streets, the city's street-violence interruption program.

But our first guest is Ron Cassie, a senior editor at Baltimore Magazine. His article in the December issue is entitled “Iron Pipeline,” and examines the underground network of gun traffickers from out-of-state whose deadly merchandise fuels the seemingly intractable level of violence on the streets of Baltimore.

Ron Cassie and JT Timpson join us on Zoom…How The "Iron Pipeline" Fuels Baltimore's Gun Violence

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today on Midday, remembering former Maryland Senator Paul Spyros Sarbanes, who passed away last night at the age of 87.

A long-time friend and colleague of Paul Sarbanes, former Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski -- now a professor of public policy at The Johns Hopkins University -- joins us with a personal reflection.

Born in Salisbury, Maryland on February 3, 1933, Paul Sarbanes was a graduate of Princeton University, Balliol College, Oxford, and Harvard Law School. He first won election to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1966, where he served two terms. In 1970, he won a seat in the United States House of Representatives, representing Maryland's 4th and later Maryland's 3rd congressional districts from 1971 to 1977.

He won election to the US Senate in 1976, and was re-elected four times until his retirement in 2007. Paul Sarbanes was the longest-serving senator in Maryland history until he was surpassed by Sen. Barbara Mikulski by a single day when her term ended on January 3, 2017.

During an hour-long remembrance of Sen. Sarbanes on this Wednesday's Midday program, family members, friends, and former colleagues will discuss the wide-ranging impact of Paul Sarbanes' life and work on Maryland and the nation.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

(Originally broadcast November 12, 2020)

On this archive edition of Midday, Tom talks with Evan Osnos, a staff writer for The New Yorker, about his latest book, Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now.

Tom spoke with Mr. Osnos about a week and a half after the election, on the day that several media sources had added Arizona to the win column for President-elect Joe Biden. Later that day, the state of Georgia was also called for Mr. Biden, as a hand count in that state got underway. By the following day, most media outlets had declared Mr. Biden the president-elect.

Ever since he burst onto the scene with an upset Senate victory in 1972, Joe Biden has been a power player in Washington and on the world stage, and it's widely agreed that he will bring an unparalleled depth of executive and legislative experience to the job of president.

In his nearly fifty-year career in public service, Joe Biden has played influential leadership roles in the US Senate and served eight years as vice-president in Barack Obama's White House. Along the way, he has also endured deep personal losses and high-profile political missteps and disappointments, events that have given Mr. Biden a humility and an empathy for others in hardship uncommon in career politicians.

On this archive edition of Midday, veteran journalist Evan Osnos -- a winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and a fellow at The Brookings Institution -- joins Tom for the hour to talk about what kind of president Joe Biden will be.

He joined us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest today is Robert B. Reich. He’s a busy and distinguished guy. He served in three administrations, including as Labor Secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency. He’s a professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, a columnist for Newsweek and The Guardian, an award-winning filmmaker, the founder of the non-profit educational enterprise called Inequality Media, and a frequent presence on television and in the blogosphere.

He’s also the author of 18 books, the latest of which is called The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It. It's a kind of open letter to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank on Wall Street, JP Morgan Chase.

Reich asserts that Dimon and his fellow members of the Business Roundtable should use their outsized influence to create a society in which no group of people or corporation is as rich and powerful as they currently are.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

(Originally broadcast Oct. 1, 2020) Today, we revisit a conversation Tom had in October with Brian Stelter, the chief media correspondent for CNN, about his latest book, which explores the unholy alliance between President Donald Trump and Fox News. It’s called Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. That alliance has frayed after the election. Tom's conversation with Brian Stelter took place four weeks before the election, two days after the first, chaotic debate between the President and then former Vice President Joe Biden. Reaction to that debate fell along party lines to some extent, but as NPR’s Mara Liasson had noted when she was a guest on Midday the day before Tom spoke with Brian Stelter, some leading Republicans did criticize the president for not condemning white supremacy and for his impolite and crass behavior. This was considered, at the time, progress...<--break-> Chris Wallace, the debate moderator, came under criticism for his inability to enforce the rules of the debate that had been agreed to by both campaigns. Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, is a highly respected journalist. But as Brian Stelter reports in his book, Wallace’s affiliation with Fox News has caused him more than a little discomfort because his network also carries opinion shows with Fox stars Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro and Laura Ingraham, all of whom have made their reputation, and a lot of money, as cheerleaders for Donald Trump. The connection between the President and Fox News was hidden in plain sight. Anytime the network failed to program content that pleases Mr. Trump, he is quick to criticize it, and even quicker to reward the hosts who remain loyal with Twitter praise and exclusive interviews. Since the election, the President has had some harsh words for some at Fox News, and it may be that their mutual affection has unraveled. But it’s also true that the opinion hosts led the charge for Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud. As President-elect Biden prepares to assume power next month, today, we’ll explore the particular role Fox plays in American politics. Brian Stelter is the host of Reliable Sources on CNN. On this archive edition of Midday, he joined us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

(Originally aired 10/22/20) For the thousands of inmates released from prison every year, the transition out of jail and into society is often a transition to homelessness and unemployment.

Ex-offender status presents perpetual obstacles for returning citizens, who often lack access to critical resources and opportunities.

A new organization called Return Home Baltimore is trying to make it all easier. It has created a website that provides access to information and critical resources.

GUESTS:

Dawna Cobb is the co-founder of Return Home Baltimore which helps people with re-entry.

Ed Rogers is a returning citizen who serves on the Return Home Advisory Board.

Joe Jones is the founder of the Center For Urban Families.

Emily Thompson is the executive director of PIVOT, an organization that works with women returning citizens.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

(Originally broadcast October 21, 2020)

Today, on this archive edition of Midday, a conversation Tom had two weeks before the November election with Gerald Seib, a journalist who's covered politics for The Wall Street Journal for morte than forty years, and now serves as the paper's Executive Washington Editor.

The election results showed us that the divisions in our country and within the Republican and Democratic parties themselves have never been this pronounced in modern times.

Gerald Seib’s fascinating new book, We Should Have Seen it Coming: From Reagan to Trump-A Front Row Seat to a Political Revolution, chronicles the transformation of the Republican party from the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 to the shocking elevation of Donald Trump to the highest office in the land in 2016.

Seib observes that for 20 of the 36 years after Ronald Reagan was elected, “someone pledging loyalty to his precepts occupied the Oval Office.”

In Reagan’s first term, Republicans controlled 14 state legislatures. By the Clinton years, that number had increased to 25. By the time Donald Trump was inaugurated, it had grown to 30. But Trump’s brand of conservatism bears little resemblance to that of Reagan’s.

It is that evolution of the Republican Party that Gerald Seib calls “the most important political story of the new millennium.”

Gerald Seib joined us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Rebroadcast: this program originally aired on Oct. 30, 2020.

African American participation in COVID-19 vaccine trials is critically low despite the pandemic's disproportionate impact on Black communities.

From the Tuskegee Study to Henrietta Lacks, centuries of anti-black racism and discrimination in American healthcare have led to chronic distrust of medical research among African Americans.

Tom’s guest is Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, president of University of Maryland Baltimore County, and a longtime civil rights activist. He and his wife, Jacqueline, have enrolled in a Phase 3 COVID 19 clinical trial at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and they are vocal proponents of more African American participation in the research process.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.