Times are tough. There’s no question about it. A $400 emergency expense could set a family back for months, an economic reality for many Americans.

Some saw Donald Trump’s message in 2024 and decided to take a chance, thinking things would be better. But they’re learning the hard way that this strongman’s message was lies and his own policies are setting them back.

And in this persistent pain, progressive candidates are breaking through with a message, calling out the continued status quo with a plan for something better.

Neera Tanden, President of the Center For American Progress and former advisor to President Joe Biden, joined Steven Beschloss for this edition of Six Questions to explore the idea of moments like this can inspire bold change for the future.

And they discuss what it will take to fix what Trump has done.

There are nearly 400 million guns circulating in America — more than one for every man, woman, and child — and 263 mass shootings already in 2026. Yet the carnage has all but vanished from the news. Steven asks Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action the day after Sandy Hook, what it will take to break through.

Watts rejects the idea that Americans have gone numb. "No parent would accept that," she says — but the media "has run out of ways to tell the story." She traces how the gun lobby won legal immunity no other industry enjoys, why the NRA's collapse hasn't ended the fight, and how a plea to 75 Facebook friends became an 11-million-supporter movement that has passed more than 500 gun bills and blocked 90% of the gun lobby's agenda for a decade.

The election meddling Trump keeps talking about is coming from inside the White House. Indeed, the meddling has already begun, but how far will he and his accomplices go to subvert the will of the people this November?

Steven Beschloss welcomes Miles Taylor, a man who has seen the inner workings of a Trump administration from the inside.

Taylor served as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration and authored the anonymous 2018 New York Times op-ed 'I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.' He is a bestselling author of books including 'A Warning' and 'Blowback' and currently runs initiatives opposing Trump policies while working as a security expert and commentator.

He joins to set the stakes for November and beyond, and explain what we we need to do about it before it's too late.

The nomination of Todd Blanche is the next low point in the deterioration of our justice system. Glenn Kirschner joins Steven to talk about accountability, the destruction of the Justice Department, and how we might start to put it all back together.

Steven Beschloss sits down with Alexander Vindman, the retired Army lieutenant colonel who blew the whistle on Donald Trump's Ukraine call, now running for the U.S. Senate in Florida.

In six questions, they talk about why he's stepping back into the arena, what duty cost him the first time, his journey from refugee to the White House, and the responsibilities of citizenship in America's 250th year. Plus a lightning round on what makes him angriest — and what still gives him hope.

Intelligence and counterterrorism veteran Malcolm Nance joins Steven Beschloss for Six Questions and doesn't mince words: America, he warns, is in "mortal, mortal danger." Nance lays out why Trump has accelerated the dismantling of the CIA, FBI, and DNI — installing loyalists like Bill Pulte to turn the intelligence community into a tool for hunting political enemies — and argues that the real motive isn't Putin or ideology but Trump's own ego and self-enrichment. He calls the war on Iran a historic strategic blunder that exposed America's weaknesses and handed Tehran an asymmetric victory, reads the Declaration of Independence as an indictment of "King Donald the Last," and explains what genuine repair would demand: accountability for MAGA enablers and an "FDJFK"-scale leader to rebuild trust at home and abroad. From the 2026 midterms and the threat of a "color revolution" to a lightning round on what makes him happy, angry, and hopeful, it's an urgent, unflinching conversation about the survival of American democracy.

This week, Steven welcomed Andrew Weissmann to Six Questions to talk about lying. His new book, Liar’s Kingdom: How to Stop Trump’s Deceit and Save America, is a bestseller for a reason.

The lying that our president and politicians have been engaged in is becoming foundational to their project. Lying is no longer the edge case. It is the norm.

Weissman, a veteran federal prosecutor and MSNOW legal analyst, has written a playbook for stopping politicians like Trump from holding office in the future—and for saving our democracy.

Steven’s six questions drive a conversation about what’s at stake and how we go forward.

Eddie Glaude Jr.'s new book, 'America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries,' is a clear-eyed and beautifully written discussion not only of race in America, but of race right now in America.

This summer, America's 250th, we have a unique chance to reckon with our past and imagine a better way forward.

Steven welcomed Glaude with Six Questions, including, are Trump's victories just a backlash to confronting race?'

George Conway is an American attorney, political commentator, and infamous anti-Trump conservative-turned-Democrat who is now running for Congress in New York on a platform of accountability. While other Dems hedge on the need for investigations, Conway says that the base layer of our Democracy is our ability to hold the powerful and corrupt responsible for their actions.

Steven has questions (six of them).

In the premiere of Six Questions with Steven Beschloss, journalist and America, America author Steven Beschloss sits down with Mary Trump — clinical psychologist, bestselling author of Too Much and Never Enough, and Donald Trump's niece — for an urgent diagnostic conversation about the president's mental capacity and what his unraveling means for the country.

Is Donald Trump's cognitive decline accelerating? Mary Trump doesn't hedge. Drawing on her clinical training and a lifetime inside the family, she lays out what she sees as a "perfect storm" — worsening cognitive decline, decades of untreated psychiatric disorders, and a man finally cornered in a way he can't bluff his way out of. "There is no worst," she warns. "He will always get worse."

Across six probing questions, Beschloss and Trump move past the daily headlines to the deeper "why": the signs of narcissistic collapse, how his cruelty has "infected" the country, whether sociopathic leadership is now the Republican model, the national trauma we're not even naming, and how long it will take to repair the damage once he's gone.

The six questions:

Plus a rapid-fire lightning round on what makes Mary Trump angriest, who she most admires, and what — even now — gives her hope.

Memorable moments:

Six Questions with Steven Beschloss is a weekly pro-democracy interview series from Lincoln Square Media, going beneath the noise to ask the questions that actually matter.

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Guest: Mary Trump (@MaryLTrump). Host: Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss). A Lincoln Square Media production.