Radio Times

Guests: Anne Applebaum, Andy Wright, Renato Mariotti

Collusion. It’s the word that’s been swirling around the investigation of the Trump team’s relationship with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign. The latest revelation has been a series of emails in which Donald Trump Jr. accepted a meeting with a Russian attorney who was offering opposition research that came from the Russian government. The emails also reveal that Trump Jr. knew full-well that Russian government was, in fact, working to get his father elected.  While it’s unknown if the meeting actually yielded anything of interest for the Trump campaign, is the fact that Trump accepted the invitation a criminal act, or just of questionable morality? We’ll discuss some of the legal questions surrounding Trump Jr.’s behavior with former associate counsel to President Obama ANDY WRIGHT who is founding editor of JustSecurity, and with former federal prosecutor RENATO MARIOTTI. But first, we’ll talk about the potential motivations for the Russian government’s interest in getting President Trump elected. Foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post, ANNE APPLEBAUM, joins us with her thoughts.

Guests: Chris Bolden-Newsome, Jenny Greenberg, Eric Ellestad

Rows of cabbage, eggplant, and sweet potatoes are growing at the Farm at Bartram’s Garden, a hidden gem in Southwest Philadelphia. CHRIS BOLDEN-NEWSOME, farm co-director at the garden, employs youth, plants cultural produce and feeds communities living in food deserts. In this hour, Mary Cummings-Jordan talks with Newsome about the success and challenges of urban farming in Philadelphia. JENNY GREENBERG, executive director of the Neighborhood Gardens Trust, discusses how her group preserves community gardens which often feel pressures from developers wanting to take over the land. Then, ERIC ELLESTAD — chief executive of Local Roots Farm, an indoor farming company, discusses his innovative ways of using technology and 40-foot shipping containers to plant produce in urban environments.

Guests: Katie Meyer, Sarah Karlin-Smith, Robert Field

For the second year in a row, Governor Tom Wolf allowed an unbalanced budget to become law without his signature. Lawmakers failed to agree on a plan on how to cover a nearly $2 billion deficit. In this hour, Mary Cummings-Jordan talks with KATIE MEYER, state capitol bureau chief for Pennsylvania public radio stations, about what this means for Pennsylvania. Then, we’ll get an update on the GOP effort to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. SARAH KARLIN-SMITH, health care reporter for POLITICO and ROBERT FIELD, Drexel University law professor and health policy expert discuss what this means for American healthcare.

Guests: Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, Silvana Mazzella, Carol Rostucher, Mike Newall

The cleanup of the heroin encampment along the Conrail tracks in Philadelphia has been postponed.  The section of railroad tracks in the Fairhill and Kensington neighborhoods is home to hundreds of addicts and is littered with thousands of used syringes and trash. It’s become a potent symbol of the opioid crisis in the city.  Last year, 906 people died of overdoses in the city, and this year, the number of overdose victims is expected to be even higher. We’ll take a look at the state of the opioid crisis in the Philadelphia region, as well as city and community efforts to combat it with SILVANA MAZZELLA, associate executive director of  Prevention Point Philadelphia, CAROL ROSTUCHER, president of Angels in Motion, MIKE NEWALL, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and MARIA QUIÑONES-SANCHEZ, City Councilwoman representing the 7th District.

Guests: Tim Arango, Steven Cook, Imani Perry

Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul this week, driving out the last ISIS fighters. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory against the jihadists after the nine month battle to retake the city.  But in the process thousands of civilians were killed, 920,000 people displaced and much of the city left in ruins.  We start this hour looking at the battle for Mosul, what was accomplished, and what’s next for Iraq.  We’ll also discuss what this loss means for the Islamic State. TIM ARANGO, Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times joins us along with STEVEN COOK, senior fellow for Middle East and African studies for the Council on Foreign Relations. Then, we’ll talk about the recent spate of racist vandalism, specifically, the use of nooses to intimidate black Americans, including a recent incident at the Mint in Philadelphia. We’ll talk with IMANI PERRY, professor of African American studies at Princeton University.

Guests: Brooke Gladstone

On the Media’s BROOKE GLADSTONE comes to the WHYY auditorium to talk with Marty in front of an audience in this special edition of Radio Times. She recently published a prescient book called The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time. It is a bipartisan look at media consumption, the ‘war on truth,’ and President Trump’s mastery of misinformation. Marty and Brooke will discuss the state of journalism, punditry, objectivity, and modern political discourse.

This week, President Donald Trump is in Germany for his first G20 summit. Trump faces challenging foreign policy tests in Europe and Asia. Yesterday, Trump met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time today. Many of the world’s leaders are at odds with Trump’s foreign policy positions on climate change, trade, refugees and relationships with Russia and North Korea. In this hour, Marty talks about the expectation and possible agreements at the G20 dealing with some of the world crises.  Our guests are CLINT WATTS, Robert A Fox fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and YUVAL WEBER, Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University and Assistant Professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia. Then, President Trump’s voter fraud commission requested individual voter information from states, including birth dates, driver’s license numbers, email addresses, and Social Security numbers. Almost every state has refused to comply with at least part of that request.  RICK HASEN, professor of law and political science at UC Irvine, discusses the commission’s request, its purpose, and Trump’s  unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud in the 2016 election.

Guests: Ruth Abaya, Scott Charles, Ralph Demicco, Marty Vriniotis

The statistics around guns and children are startling according to a recent report.  Every year 1300 children are killed by someone with a firearm and 5790 children are injured. They disproportionately affect boys and minorities. And while African American children are more likely to be victims of homicide, white and American Indian kids are at greater risk of suicide by firearms.  We start this hour looking at the toll guns take on young lives and how to prevent it.  Marty talks with RUTH ABAYA, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and SCOTT CHARLES, Temple University Hospital’s trauma outreach coordinator.  Then we look at a public health campaign that’s enlisting gun shop owners in suicide prevention.  Our guests are RALPH DEMICCO, a former gun shop owner and co-director of the New Hampshire Firearm Safety Coalition, and MARY VRINIOTIS, research specialist with Harvard Injury Control Research Center’s Means Matter Campaign

Guest: Ed Luce

Financial Times columnist ED LUCE believes that Western liberal democracy is destroying itself. In his new book The Retreat of Western Liberalism, Luce points to Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, rising nationalism, and a declining labor market that have all coalesced to create the biggest threat to world stability since World War II.  He joins Marty today to talk about the remarkable moment we’re in, how we got here, what problems he sees ahead for the world order, and if there are any ways to mitigate the damage. Then, New Jersey state government opened again on Tuesday after a three day shutdown.  We look at the politics behind the shutdown and any fallout with JOE HERNANDEZ, South Jersey reporter for WHYY and BRENT JOHNSON, who covers politics for NJ Advance Media.

Photo credit: Grace Villamil

Guests: Jill Lapore, Sarah Vowell, Nathaniel Philbrick

For this 4th of July, we’re devoting today’s show to stories about the Revolutionary War. We’ll hear about Ben Franklin’s overlooked sister, Jane. She was a close confidant to her prominent brother, and the two carried on an extensive correspondence through the founding of our country. We learned about her, and the role of women in the days of the Revolutionary War when we were joined by Harvard history professor JILL LEPORE. We’ll also hear my conversation with author and humorist SARAH VOWELL, who detailed the role of teenage Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette in shaping the Revolution. And, we’ll revisit my conversation with author and historian NATHANIEL PHILBRICK, who joined us a couple of years ago to discuss his book Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution, which examined the early days of the American Revolution.