Diane Rehm: On My Mind

Four years ago, Donald Trump spread the lie that Democrats stole the election.  He filed lawsuits, led protests and spearheaded misinformation campaigns in an attempt to overturn the result.  Since then, Trump and his allies have been laying the groundwork to question this year’s contest if the numbers don’t go his way. In other words, a Stop the Steal 2.0.  “I’m nervous,” says Rick Hasen, a leading expert on election law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA. “But I’m not as nervous as I was in 2020.”  Hasen says the chaos created by Trump’s Big Lie taught the country’s lawmakers and election officials valuable lessons about how to secure the vote. He joins Diane to explain why he feels this year’s election will, indeed, be free and fair.

Does Kamala Harris have a Black voter problem?  For nearly four decades Black voters have been among the most consistent voting bloc for Democrats. Yet recent polling suggests that support may not be quite as reliable as it was in the past, particularly among Black men.  This week Harris made a push to stop the bleeding, talking to Black radio hosts and announcing policy proposals directly targeting the Black community. “The path to victory for the Harris campaign has always been boosting turnout among base voters,” says Maya King, politics reporter with the New York Times. And because the race for president is so close, she adds, “if she’s underperforming with any corner of that bloc it is sort of an emergency situation.”  Maya King joins Diane to talk about Harris’s current focus on Black voters and whether it will work.

It’s been thirty years since Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act. This set of laws revolutionized the way we think about – and deal with – abuse between intimate partners.  While advocates celebrate progress made, they worry we might be starting to head in the wrong direction. A recent study showed reduced access to reproductive care can increase risk for women in abusive relationships. Meanwhile, conservatives like vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance have spoken out against no-fault divorce, a proven tool for women to leave potentially dangerous marriages.  Rachel Louise Snyderis a journalist who has covered the issue of domestic violence for years. Her 2019 book “No Visible Bruises” looked at the question of when abuse becomes not just dangerous, but deadly.  Snyder joins Diane to take stock of progress made over the last three decades to address intimate partner violence, and the work left to do.

Dr. Francis Collins has dedicated his life to easing human suffering – and has often succeeded. He made his mark as the man who led the team that mapped the human genome, unlocking a new world of possibilities in medicine. He went on to head the National Institutes of Health under three different presidents.  Collins says he was always guided by an optimism based in his belief in science and his evangelical Christian faith. But that optimistic view of society was shaken during the Covid-19 crisis as he saw people reject a lifesaving vaccine based on profound mistrust.  Since then, Collins has embarked on a journey to understand how our divisions became so deep – and how we can bridge them. His new book is titled The Road To Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, And Trust.

The Louisiana gubernatorial election of 1872 might not take up prime real estate in most U.S. history books, but it holds the title as the deadliest the country has ever seen.  In the late 1860s, a new South was emerging from the wreckage of the Civil War. The passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments promised an era of multiracial equality in the region. As the 1870s began, white Southern resistance was on the rise and the nation’s political parties became deeply divided. Then came the election of 1872.  Though tensions flared throughout the South, in Louisiana chaos ensued – two governors claimed office, warfare broke out in the streets of New Orleans, and hundreds were killed in political violence.  Dana Bash, CNN anchor and chief political commentator, says these events changed the course of politics in our country -- and provide a cautionary tale for today. She and her co-writer David Fisher tell the story in a new book titled “America’s Deadliest Election.”

In poll after poll voters say economic issues top their concerns when it comes to this year’s vote. They worry about inflation, the price of housing, whether their family can afford the bill at the grocery store.  “Americans are going to want to know how each candidate will help them in their personal situations,” says Damian Paletta. He leads The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of Washington and says that the economy is strong, but on shaky ground, which has complicated Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's messaging around the economy and issues like inflation and taxes.  Paletta joins Diane to look at the economic proposals of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and break down what they would mean for our country – and your pocketbook.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris met on stage for their first, and likely only, debate of the campaign Tuesday night, just a week before early voting kicks off in Pennsylvania, one of the most critical battleground states of the election. Over an hour and a half Harris needled Trump on everything from crowd sizes to getting “fired” by the American people. With each jab the former president seemed to become more enraged, his anger distracting him from his own talking points and allowing Harris to set the agenda. Headlines across the country declared a clear victory for Harris and Trump now says that he will not debate her again.  But how much will all this matter at the polls? The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser joins Diane to help answer that question.

Donald Trump began his political career with demands to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate, based on the false claim that the he had been born outside of the United States. In other words, a lie.  The former president concluded his term in office with an even bigger lie, namely that the 2020 election was rigged.  In between, Trump fibbed thousands of times about things big and small. And keeping track of these mistruths and exaggerations were political fact-checkers, journalists whose job it is to call out not only Donald Trump’s lies – but the lies all politicians tell.  Glenn Kessler has been the chief writer and editor of the Fact Checker column for The Washington Post since 2011. In it he examines the “truth behind the rhetoric.” Kessler joined Diane to talk about how his job has changed since Donald Trump entered politics and the challenges of covering the 2024 presidential election.

If you’re a reader of the New York Times – or a lover of books – you might know about the paper’s project this summer counting down the top hundred books of the century so far.  Number one on the list? “My Brilliant Friend” by Elena Ferrante. It is the first of four novels that tell the story of the friendship between Lila and Elena, two working class girls growing up in post-World War II Naples. In 2018 HBO adapted the series for television.  Diane hosted a discussion of “My Brilliant Friend” as part of her Readers Review series back in 2015 on The Diane Rehm Show. She and her guests dug into the characters, the setting, and the mystery surrounding the author’s identity.  Diane's guests included Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, and The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University; Louis Bayard Author, "Roosevelt's Beast." His other books include "The Pale Blue Eye," "The School of Night" and "Mr. Timothy," a New York Times Notable Book. He teaches fiction writing at The George Washington University; and Professor of contemporary Italian culture, Georgetown University; author of "The Tigress in the Snow: Motherhood and Literature in Twentieth-Century Italy" and of the novel "Un Paese Di Carta."