Stress Test, from Mother Jones

On the 18th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a new book recasts one of America's darkest days in strikingly personal terms by weaving together survival stories in minute-by-minute detail. National security and politics reporter Garrett Graff joins Mother Jones D.C. Bureau Chief David Corn to talk about his new work of oral history, “The Only Plane in the Sky: The Oral History of 9/11”, which unearths untold stories of those who experienced the attack first-hand, and paints the events of that world-shifting day in new and vibrant ways. "9/11 was the hinge upon which our modern world turned," Graff tells Corn. "It's unfathomable to me how you understand America in 2019 without understanding that Tuesday morning in September, 18 years ago."

Late last year, Senator Jeff Merkley was one of the first national politicians to blow the whistle on the Trump administration's detention of unaccompanied migrant children on the southern border. The Democratic senator sat down with Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery at the Commonwealth Club last week, where he spoke in no uncertain terms about the administration's pattern of targeting of immigrants, the trauma caused by incarceration, and why the future of the United States hinges on kicking Trump out of office.

Grammy-nominated rapper Rapsody joins host Jamilah King to discuss art, politics, and what keeps her going in these turbulent political times. Her new album, Eve, pays homage to a diverse number of black women and the mark they’ve made across generations of music and culture—from Sojourner Truth, to Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama.

Science journalist Ziya Tong joins Mother Jones D.C. Bureau Chief David Corn to explain how, despite the many wonders of the human brain, we suffer from "scale blindness", a dangerous state that hardwires us to melt in the face of vast global problems. Her new book, "The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World," is about our many in-built inabilities to combat complex issues like climate change—and what we can do to bust out of the powerful systems we take for granted. “I want to start from scratch," Tong tells Corn. "I want to start thinking about things in a way that is a little bit more focused and clear-headed—once you're able to see through the reality bubble, that is.”

Just hours after financier Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent death by suicide, President Donald Trump retweeted a conspiracy theory alleging the Clinton family’s involvement in killing the accused sex trafficker. So what better time to bring you this in-depth conversation with writer Anna Merlan, whose book "Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power" has only become more and more relevant as the conspiracist in chief amplifies yet another sinister lie. Merlan has spent years diving deep into the world of conspiracy theories. The result is a meticulously researched firecracker of a book, documenting incidents as early as the burning of ancient Rome, and as recently as the many conspiracy theories that bedeviled the 2016 election. Our assistant news editor Becca Andrews talked to Merlan to understand the roots of this increasingly powerful phenomenon, and discuss how inequality and racism beget conspiracy—and why empathy is important when writing about true believers. 

In the wake of twin shooting tragedies that killed 31 people last weekend, Mother Jones takes you to El Paso, Texas. Host Jamilah King speaks to MoJo immigration reporter Fernanda Echavarri, who spent time at a makeshift memorial outside the Walmart where chaos erupted on Saturday at the hands of an anti-immigrant killer, to hear from a community reeling from its worst nightmare come true. Also in this episode, Jamilah speaks to MoJo disinformation reporter Ali Breland about the inspiration mass shooters derive from uncensored message boards in the darkest corners of the web, and what can be done to stem the flow of white nationalist hate.

Longtime US diplomat Richard Holbrooke was many things: Ambassador to Germany, Assistant Secretary of State, the man who resolved the intractable war in Yugoslavia, and, to many… a womanizing, social-climbing jerk. While the storied career statesman saw “power the way an artist sees color,” as one former military leader put it in 2009—the year before Holbrooke died at 69—another former colleague described him as the “diplomatic equivalent of a hydrogen bomb,” leaving few survivors after being deployed. On this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery sits down with award-winning journalist George Packer from the Atlantic, whose new book, "Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century," chronicles the life of this American foreign policy giant, whose career and trajectory extended from Vietnam to Afghanistan. His story is particularly timely, just as Trump’s GOP pulls the country ever-further into isolationism and nativism, alienating allies and praising dictators. In a narrative that manages to toggle between being deeply learned and a beach-book page-turner Holbrooke is revealed as an undeniable icon of America’s global influence, but also as a flawed operator who often let his ego get in the way amid bouts of “dick-swinging diplomacy.” This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience at City Arts and Lectures in San Francisco in May, and is featured here as part of the Mother Jones Podcast’s summer series of fascinating conversations with journalists, artists, and activists about how their work interacts with some of the biggest debates of the day.

On today's show, Shannon Watts discusses her meteoric rise from stay-at-home mom to the NRA's worst nightmare, with Mother Jones’ editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery, during a taped live event at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in June. After the Sandy Hook massacre, Watts created a Facebook page and was soon inundated by others from all over the country who wanted to get involved. In the six years since, the grassroots organization, Moms Demand Action, has grown into one of the most effective gun reform groups in the country. Legions of dedicated mothers show up in red shirts to lobby members of Congress, state legislatures, and companies into supporting gun reform. So far, they’ve pushed 20 states into passing gun-safety legislation and have successfully persuaded Starbucks, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and other businesses into banning to ban firearms from their stores. Now, with her new book, "Fight Like a Mother"—part-memoir, part-guide for activists—Watts hopes to continue to empower more people ahead of the all-important 2020 election season.

On today’s show, we interview one of our favorite writers and thinkers, Emily Nussbaum, the Pulitzer prize-winning TV critic for the New Yorker. Nussbaum is the author of a new collection of essays called “I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution”, released last month. The book is full of language she thinks we’re lacking in this so-called Quality Television era: language about unabashedly loving the TV shows you love, without being shamed into calling them “guilty pleasures” by snooty cultural gatekeepers. Nussbaum talks to Mother Jones assistant news editor, Becca Andrews, about being Jane the Virgin mega-fans, and the messy task of critics who need to wrestle with certain male artists as the MeToo era forces painful new assessments of their work.

Coming of age inside America's immigration nightmare: As a 17-year-old, Carlos fled Honduras with hopes of seeking asylum in the United States. He did so on his own, as an unaccompanied minor, without a parent or guardian looking out for him—and that’s how it’s been for most of his life. When Carlos was four, his father was killed and, soon after, his mother left him by a dumpster, abandoning him to a life on the streets. Carlos grew up homeless in a city where a teenage boy is expected to work with gangs or be killed by them. So last fall, he joined the migrant caravan and made the trek north. But once he reached the US border he was forced to wait for months, and with his 18th birthday fast approaching, he grew anxious at the possibility of not being able to ask for asylum as a minor. Carlos is one of more than 56,000 unaccompanied children and teens US Customs and Border Protection encountered along the border with Mexico since October. We bring you his story of survival and how he turned to Facebook to make a family of his own.