TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent

(9/11/19) On December 7, 2016, “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” debuted on WBAI. Through 127 episodes, we did our best to go beyond the bluster coming from the White House to help you figure out the concrete ways that our country has changed in the Donald Trump era. For our final show, we take your calls on how the peace movement has changed in the wake of the resistance and Jesse shares some exciting news about his new series covering the 2020 election, slated to premiere on WBAI in November.

(9/4/19) Of all the consequences of climate change that we know about, one that rarely gets mentioned is its affect on the affordable housing crisis in America. Back in June, President Trump, who has denied the existence of global warming throughout his presidency, signed an executive order aimed at “tearing down red tape in order to build more affordable housing.” But as reported in Teresa Wiltz’s article for The Pew Charitable Trusts Statewide blog, “Climate Change Is Making the Affordable Housing Crunch Worse” the administration’s refusal to engage in efforts to reduce carbon emissions is creating larger issues than government red tape to contend with when addressing the homeless crisis. On this week’s TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent on WBAI, Teresa Wiltz talks about why climate change is making low-cost housing so hard to find.

(8/28/19)On Monday, attorneys general for 19 states and the District of Columbia announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration in the hopes of blocking a sweeping new rule that would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to indefinitely hold migrant families in detention. But will it work? On this week’s TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent on WBAI, immigration reporter for Reuters Mica Rosenberg unpacks this blue state attempt to block President Trump’s border policy in the courts.

(8/21/19) Veterans of the US Armed Forces will have a harder time receiving green cards than currently active service members, according to a new report from Yeganeh Torbati, Isaac Arnsdorf and Dara Lind of ProPublica “‘No Comment’: Emails Show the VA Took No Action to Spare Veterans From a Harsh Trump Immigration Policy.” According to this exclusive report, since Veterans Affairs (VA) officials declined to step in to exempt veterans from a Trump administration policy denying green cards to a larger number of low-income immigrants, vets will not be entitled to any of the exemptions open to currently enlisted military personnel. In this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Yeganeh Torbati considers what the reporting of her and her ProPublica colleagues tells us about the way the VA is being run in the Trump administration.

(8/14/19) On Aug. 12, the Trump administration announced plans to change how it how it enforces the Endangered Species Act, the landmark 1974 law believed to have rescued the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the American alligator from extinction. In this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Ben Lefebvre, author of the POLITICO article “Trump administration eases endangered species rules,” helps break down what this new interpretation will mean for the effort to save threatened animals from being wiped off the planet.

(7/24/19) With all eyes trained on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress, we take a look at the status of the issue that got us here—Russian interference in the 2016 election. According to Adam Piore, author of the July 23 Newsweek article “Russia Is Using Cold War Strategy to Undermine the Faith of Americans in the 2020 Election—Will It Work?” the strategy being deployed ahead of the 2020 presidential election has disturbing echoes of 2016. While a July 18 Brennan Center for Justice report entitled “Federal Funding Needs for State Election Security” highlights dangerous vulnerabilities in the voting systems of six states. Join us for a conversation on the state of US elections today with Adam Piore of Newsweek and Christopher R. Deluzio, a co-author of the Brennan Center study, in this episode of “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI.

(5/8/19) Late last month, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether to allow a question on the 2020 census that asks whether the person filling out the form is a US citizen. As observed by the New York Times’s Adam Lipak and others, the five conservative Supreme Court justices appear to be leaning towards allowing the controversial move, reportedly the brainchild of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. In this installment of “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Wennie Chin and Paul Westrick of the New York Immigration Coalition, one of the original plaintiffs in the case before the Supreme Court, talk about what a citizenship question would mean for the census and the country.