The Bottom Line

“There are some people who are the adversaries of poor and low-wealth people and Black people moving forward in this country," says American minister and political activist Reverend William Barber II in this episode of The Bottom Line.

In his victory speech last month, President-elect Joe Biden said, “This is the time to heal in America.”

If Biden is serious about healing, Barber said his incoming administration should double the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour), expand healthcare, reform the police and deal with systemic racism in the United States.

But in such a divided country, is it possible to adopt a progressive agenda?

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Veteran US diplomat Robert Zoellick speaks with host Steven Clemons about how lame-duck President Donald Trump was “delighted to disrupt the international system that the US helped create 70 years ago”.

But between the coronavirus pandemic and a full plate of raging political, social and economic fires at home, how high will foreign policy rank in the incoming Joe Biden White House?

Zoellick, who was deputy secretary of state under former President George W Bush, and former president of the World Bank, gives his advice on the great power rivalry (read: China), global warming and rebuilding US alliances.

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Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a vocal opponent of what he calls the “crazy socialist agenda” of some members of his party, talks with host Steve Clemons about the results of the US election.

Before election day, many Democrats believed their victory would be a landslide across the country. But despite winning the presidency, they lost several seats in the House of Representatives, and the Senate is still up for grabs.

The big question is whether the more leftist ideas in the Democratic Party appeal to more Americans – or turn them off.

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In the United States, Chicago’s Black and Latino residents are far more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. It is a pattern seen across the country.

In this deeply segregated city, the virus’s uneven effects mirror existing racial and economic divisions.

Before the pandemic, the life expectancy gap between majority white and predominantly Black neighbourhoods was as wide as 17 years. One of the reasons for that is unequal access to resources — from quality housing to healthcare and fresh food.

Fault Lines meets the communities fighting to bring resources to their neighbourhoods and stop structural racism decades in the making.

In The Great Divide, we ask how these racial inequities allowed COVID-19 to spread and learn about the lives lost in the process.

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Former Secretary of Defense and Republican Senator Chuck Hagel talks about the future of his party and its biggest star, Donald Trump.

Trump took over the party’s agenda over the past five years with his mix of populism and rejection of elites. He tapped into the fears of white Americans as US demographics shift towards more diversity, and convinced millions of middle-class Americans his party was fighting for them.

In this episode, see why Hagel – who endorsed Democratic candidate Joe Biden – tells host Steve Clemons that the Republican Party “has some real soul searching to do”.

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As the Democrats take back the White House, what does the 2020 presidential election say about the future of US politics?

Despite Joe Biden’s win, tens of millions of Americans chose Donald Trump for a second term. How the Republican party relates to this bloc of voters - along with the ideology Trump represents - is now central to its strategic direction.

For the Democrats, an old guard embodied by Joe Biden and a new generation of progressives are in a contest for influence over the party’s vision.

In The End of a Presidency: Trump’s Loss in a Divided America, Fault Lines explores how Trump changed the presidency, and where the two parties will go next.

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Host Steve Clemons talks to veteran pollster Frank Luntz about why most American media and pollsters are still not able to paint an accurate picture of the US electorate, even after the lessons learned from Trump’s surprise win in 2016.

For 2020, most establishment media and pollsters gave Biden a 10-point lead, predicted that the Democrats would widen their majority in the House, and likely flip the Senate from its Republican majority.

None of these happened on Election Day.

Watch Luntz explain why most media simply cannot get a full understanding of the mind of American conservatives.

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When the coronavirus pandemic hit the US, nursing homes became ground zero for the coronavirus.

By November, more than 60,000 nursing home residents had died of COVID-19, accounting for roughly a quarter of all fatalities nationwide.

Yet the nursing home industry had already struggled with chronic problems before the pandemic.

From allegations of systematic understaffing to toothless government oversight, Fault Lines examines what made residents and workers so vulnerable.

In When COVID Hit: America’s Nursing Home Nightmare, we report from California, one of the states hit hardest by the coronavirus.

Fault Lines meets relatives who accuse nursing homes of neglect - and asks if some facilities put profit before patients.

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Host Steve Clemons talks to Rick Bright, a government scientist who was forced out of his job for pushing back against the White House, and filmmaker Alex Gibney, who new documentary - Totally Under Control - traces the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Were science and common sense sacrificed for political gain in the Trump administration? Why were other countries able to ramp up testing and containment procedures much faster than the United States? Why were masks turned into a political statement?

We take a deep dive into the White House’s response to the world's biggest public health challenge.

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Earlier this year, California officials brought busloads of imprisoned men from a coronavirus hotspot to the overcrowded San Quentin prison.

They had not tested some of the transferred men for COVID-19 for a month.

The bungled transfer sparked one of the country’s worst outbreaks. More than half the men imprisoned at San Quentin have been infected, and 28 have died.

The pandemic put a spotlight on prison overcrowding, and in October, a court ordered San Quentin to drastically reduce its population.

We investigate how a prison system endangered jailed people and staff, and meet loved ones on the outside grappling with loss.

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