Now that Republicans have done immense damage to working class and poor people, the Democrats are mobilizing to win the House next year and possibly also the Senate - Harold Meyerson comments.

Plus: The surprise victory of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayor primary over a well-funded establishment candidate shows that progressive politics, when pursued with discipline, vision and vigor, can win broad support. Bhaskar Sukara, President of The Nation and author of The Socialist Manifesto, has our analysis.

Also: After going to court to challenge Trump’s cut of $2 billion in federal grants, Harvard is now in negotiations with the administration, seeking “common ground” – raising fears that even the most established and wealthy university will submit to his demands. E.J. Dionne argues that authoritarians everywhere target universities, which everywhere are centers of resistance and defenders of democratic freedoms.

The Supreme Court has issued a major victory for Trump, ending the ability of judges to issue nationwide injunctions – Harold Meyerson comments.

Also: Donald Trump, found guilty of sexual assault and defamation, owes E. Jean Carroll $88 million. She explains how she beat him in court, twice, proving that he attacked her in a Bergdorf dressing room and then lied about it. Her new book is Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President.

Plus: The leading autopsies on the 2024 defeat of Democrats are missing two big things, Steve Phillips argues: the centrality of racial hostility and of gender resentment as central organizing forces in American politics.

Trump's deportation plans have always faced a contradiction: he couldn't deport millions of immigrants without crippling essential industries and Republican business whose owners supported him. So Trump started granting exceptions; but that was before Saturday, the biggest one-day political protest in American history, protesting against him. On that same day, nobody came to his birthday parade, and in the middle of that night, Trump made an announcement on Truth Social, targeting blue cities – Harold Meyerson explains.

Also: Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ protests, with 5 million people at 2100 events, was the largest single day of protest in American history. Leah Greenberg of Indivisible will talk about how the event was organized, and what comes next.

Plus: The Medicaid cuts provide a lifetime opportunity for us to reach the 70 million people who did not vote and the 60 per cent of Trump voters who are not MAGA -- that's what Ai-jen Poo says. She's director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and President of Care in Action, and a key labor organizer and strategist

With tanks rolling down the street in DC on Saturday and troops being deployed to LA, it’s never been more important to come together in nonviolent action to exercise our First Amendment right to peaceful protest. That’s what the organization Indivisible says about Saturday’s National Day of Defiance – the nationwide “No Kings” protests – go to nokings.org to find one near you. Ezra Levin will explain; he’s co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible.

Also: Who, exactly, is being arrested by ICE agents in Los Angeles? Why is the National Guard downtown LA? And What are the 700 marines Trump sent to LA supposed to do? Harold Meyerson will comment - he’s editor at large of The American Prospect.

Plus: Trump is not the worst president when it comes to constitutional rights and civil liberties; Woodrow Wilson was worse. Adam Hochschild explains why – starting with jailing thousands of people whose only crime was speaking out against the president. Adam’s most recent book is 'American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis.' (First recorded April 23, 2025.)

The Musk Report: The world's richest man and donor of the largest amount of money in the history of the world ever spent by one person on a US presidency. What will the Trump-Musk feud mean for Congress and the future of the GOP? Harold Meyerson comments.

Also: Forget the midterms next year, at least for now. The fight against Trump runs through the elections this November—starting with Virginia and New Jersey. The Nation's national affairs correspondent John Nichols explains.

Plus: J. Hoberman, the long-time film critic for The Village Voice, talks about the happenings, the underground movies, and the radical art and music— from Bob Dylan to Andy Warhol to Yoko Ono. His new book is Everything is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde.

Trump claimed that he could bypass Congress to impose tariffs under IEEPA due to a trade deficit emergency over the last 40 years; but, a federal panel blocked him from imposing those tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada and 50 other countries. Now it's on its way to the Supreme Court – Harold Meyerson comments.

Also: Rural America is Trump country. Last November Trump carried 93 percent of rural counties.. How can Democrats change that? Anthony Flaccavento and Erica Etelson, co-founders of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, have a strategy to accomplish that.

Plus: After serving 18 years in the Senate, and losing last November, Sherrod Brown analyzes what it will take for Democrats to recover from the defeats of 2024, and comments on his own political future – he could run for senator or for governor in 2026. (Originally recorded May 7, 2025)

Harold Meyerson comments on the GOP's "grotesquely cruel" budget – starting with the impossible work requirements for Medicaid, and then Trump's broken campaign promise NOT to cut Medicare.

Also: “A rally a day keeps the fascists away” – that’s what Jamie Raskin says. He’s the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and he talks about Trump’s “world historical grift,” and why we shouldn’t be pessimistic about defeating his efforts.

Plus: 20 minutes without Trump: 1925 is being celebrated this year as the centenary of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- but we’re interested in some of the other books published that year. So we turn to Tom Lutz – his new book is titled “1925: A Literary Encyclopedia.” It’s 800 pages long, and only 7 are on “Gatsby."

What obligations do colleges and universities have to protect students from anti-Semitism and Islamophobia? What obligations do they have to let students speak freely about issues they care about? David Cole just testified before Congress about that—he’s the former National Legal Director of the ACLU, and The Nation’s legal affairs correspondent.​

Also: Trump’s partnership in Washington with his biggest donor, Elon Musk, is coming to an end. The richest man in the world, who made the biggest campaign contribution in history, is going home the clear loser in this affair. Historian David Nasaw comments.

Next: In 1948, Alger Hiss, a prominent New Deal Democrat, was convicted of perjury for testifying that he had not been a Soviet spy. The conventional wisdom is that he was probably guilty. Now, Jeff Kisseloff says it’s not hard to show that Hiss was innocent; the hard part is figuring out who framed him. Jeff’s new book is “Rewriting Hisstory: A Fifty-Year Journey to Uncover the Truth About Alger Hiss” (originally recorded April 30, 2025).

Plus: Your Minnesota Moment: In St. Francis, a small town north of Minneapolis, a high school got hit with a book banning policy. The Minnesota ACLU and the Teachers' Union both filed lawsuits; inspiring author Dave Eggers to host an event there. Students sat outside of the school and read from some of the banned books that included "The Kite Runner" by Afghan-American Khaled Hosseini – small town high school kids stand up to book burners.