After Year One of a presidency that could be described in several ways,  “uneventful” not among them, there was no shortage of material for  President Trump to select from for his first State of the Union address.  But although the President’s speech was promoted as an attempt to bring  the fiercely divided political parties together, what he chose to include—from a veiled negative reference to professional athletes protesting police killing of unarmed black people to his announcement that he had just signed an executive order to keep the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba open—was divisive rhetoric to put it mildly. On this week’s TrumpWatch, Jesse examines the meaning behind the President’s remarks with  White House correspondent for Reuters Ayesha Rascoe.

It was the image of a pink pussy hat on the head of a Harriet Tubman statue in Harlem that set Taylyn Washington-Harmon off. Seeing the civil  rights icon’s image coopted for a specific brand of modern feminism was something she found wrong on so many levels that it inspired her to  write the Self magazine op-ed “Not My Pussy Hat: Why I Didn't  Participate in the Women's March This Year.” In a special one-hour episode of TrumpWatch, Jesse asks Taylyn whether the 2018 Women’s March marginalized women of color and what event organizers could do to send a more inclusive message to the masses. We also take your calls on the ways that white women can be allies for black women on issues like pay inequality and systemic racism.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration has been making aggressive moves to do eliminate President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, with Justice Department officials recently asking the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overrule a federal court decision protecting the program. So, what does this all mean for DACA enrollees (the "dreamers") as they watch this legal fight play out in real time? On this week’s TrumpWatch, Jesse talks to Camille Mackler, director of immigration legal policy for the New York Immigrant Coalition (NYIC) about what the legal fight over DACA will mean for those enrolled in the program and their families.

President Trump is constantly making headlines about the latest Obama-era program he’s eliminating, the international agreements he is doing away with or whichever historical norms he’s choosing to ignore on a given day. But what is the action in this constant flurry of activity that he will be best remembered for? On this week’s TrumpWatch, Jesse looks at which of the President’s actions will be the most transformative with Michael Grunwald, senior staff writer for Politico Magazine and the author of the article “Donald Trump Is a Consequential President. Just Not in the Ways You Think.” He’s also the creator of the publication’s Did-It-Matter-Meter, assessing both the immediate and far-reaching consequences of the President's actions.

What happened in 2017? Depending on whom you talk to, President Donald Trump’s first year in office was an unprecedented success or a historic failure. But in what quantifiable ways has he changed life in the United States and beyond? As the smoke clears from this unprecedented shift in American politics, Jesse talks to New York Magazine reporter Nick Tabor. His article “55 Ways Donald Trump Structurally Changed America in 2017” aims to catalog the changes to the way the country is run that have taken effect in the last year.

For the last TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent of 2017, we decided to revisit one of our favorite interviews--Jesse’s conversation with Kurt Andersen, the host of the Peabody Award-winning public radio program “Studio 360” and co-author (with Alec Baldwin) of the Trump parody novel “You Can't Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of My Fantastic First Year as President Donald J. Trump (A So-Called Parody).” This portion of the interview was originally cut for time.

On Thursday, the FCC voted to approve Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to eliminate the so-called net neutrality rules preventing Internet service providers from speeding up access to some websites while slowing down or blocking others. On a straight party-line vote of 3 to 2, the five FCC commissioners didn’t just do away with net neutrality regulations passed under the Obama administration, but went a step further, voiding the original document supporting a free and open online experience. In this week’s TrumpWatch, host Jesse Lent speaks to Washington Post reporter Brian Fung about what happens now that net neutrality has become a thing of the past in the US. 

Earlier this month, the New Jersey chapter of the immigrant advocacy nonprofit Make The Road released a study entitled “ICE in the New Jersey  Courts." The study found that since Donald Trump has become President, 78 percent of survey respondents have had clients that say they are too scared to attend criminal court due to fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the courts. As for the concrete effect on the judicial system, more than half of those surveyed reported having clients who have skipped an appearance in municipal or criminal court due to fear of ICE. In this episode of TrumpWatch on WBAI New York 99.5FM, host Jesse Lent speaks to Lauren Herman, a staff attorney for Make The Road New Jersey who co-authored the study, about what ICE’s courthouse arrests will mean for the justice system.

Last Saturday in the early morning hours, Senate Republicans passed a bill containing the most substantial changes to the US tax code in several decades with a 51-49 vote almost entirely along party lines. The 479-page tax bill, the final version of which included what Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana described as “hand-scribbled policy  changes on it that can’t be read” was dropped on the Senate only a few hours before they were asked to vote on it. Though the bill now goes to conference with both the Senate and the House of Representatives to resolve differences  between the versions approved by the two Congressional bodies before it is sent to the President’s desk, most Washington DC insiders see little  chance of the Republican tax reform plan failing to be ratified in a version close to what the Senate just approved. So what does that mean or the rest of us? In celebration of the 50th episode of TrumpWatch  with Jesse Lent, we welcome back one of our favorite guests, David Cay Johnston, the author of “The Making of Donald Trump” and founder of the nonprofit news site DCReport.org, to break down the major changes afoot in America's tax code.

Last week, Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai submitted a proposal to dismantle the net neutrality rules put in place by the  Obama administration. In her Nov. 22 article “F.C.C. Plan to Roll Back  Net Neutrality Worries Small Businesses,” New York Times reporter Tiffany Hsu examines the effect that rolling back net neutrality regulations could have on smaller online retailers that depend on a fair and open Internet. This week on TrumpWatch, Jesse talks to Tiffany about some of the less obvious ways the fight at the FCC could effect our daily lives.