Diane Rehm: On My Mind

Donald Trump has tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s an appointment that has many public health experts more than a little concerned.  For years Kennedy has spread misinformation about vaccines, calling into question their safety and efficacy. He has promoted controversial or debunked medical treatments. He has falsely linked antidepressants to school shootings. And he has accused the federal agencies he will oversee as having an interest in “mass poisoning the American public.”  Dr. Céline Gounder is an infectious disease specialist, epidemiologist and currently the editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News. She joins Diane to separate the facts from falsehoods and outline just how much power Kennedy might have over our healthcare system.

Promises of mass deportations were a centerpiece of Donald Trump’s campaign. His fiery – and false -- rhetoric painted undocumented immigrants as murders, rapists and violent criminals. He vowed to throw them out of the country by the millions starting on day one.  Last week’s appointment of Tom Homan as “border czar” and Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy send a clear signal that Trump hopes to follow through on those promises.  “I think we can expect that something dramatic is likely coming,” says Nick Miroff. He covers immigration enforcement and the department of homeland security for The Washington Post.  Miroff joins Diane to explain whether Trump can put his words into action and just how much his policies could transform the nation’s immigration system.

During the run up to the election, Donald Trump made big promises about immigration, about the economy, about remaking the bureaucracy of the United States government.  And now it seems he will get a chance to follow through on those promises.  “This is a much broader rejection than a rejection of Biden and by extension Harris,” says Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “It is a rejection of a larger sense of who has been running the country, all the elites.” Few know the workings of the U.S. government as well as Ornstein and though he says “the elites” (himself included) have much to learn from the extent of Trump’s victory, he warns that people might not understand what they have gotten themselves into.  “For a lot of Americans who think that you can get rid of the bureaucracy, get rid of government and all will be fine," he say Ornstein, "they’re going to discover what it does in terms of disruption to their daily lives.”  Ornstein joins Diane to make sense of what we saw on Tuesday – and what a Trump second term will look like.

The term “fascist” has been lobbed at Donald Trump since he entered the race for president in 2015 with talk of Mexican rapists and drug dealers.  Now the label has become central to the argument against Trump in the closing days of this year’s election.  It’s been used to describe him by his former chief of staff John Kelly, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley and Vice President Kamala Harris.  Jason Stanley is a philosophy professor at Yale University. He’s the author of the 2018 book How Fascism Works. His latest is Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. He joins Diane to talk about what fascism is and why voters should care.

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.”