Eye on Congress:The Big Story

President Joe Biden will soon sign legislation that will give easier access to health and disability benefits to more than 3.5 million veterans who were exposed to toxic substances on overseas deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and more. It wasn’t easy to get through Congress. The Senate passed that bill after weeks of delay, and not before high-profile advocacy from comedian Jon Stewart and others. But underneath those bigger headlines, folded into the bill, is a provision allowing families poisoned for decades at the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune to get compensation from the federal government. Todd Ruger, legal affairs editor at CQ Roll Call discusses this story with Mike Magner, an editor at CQ Roll Call who has followed the stories of families from Camp Lejeune. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are at a pause in the congressional primary season, with several major states having selected their nominees for November’s general election, including Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. In August, things ramp back up, with more than a dozen states holding primaries and in battlegrounds like Arizona, Michigan and Florida. So what have we learned so far from the elections that have taken place? And what might we expect as the general election match-ups become clearer? CQ Roll Call Politics Editor Herb Jackson joins Political Theater to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new documentary from filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” comes out amid a nationwide debate about gun safety, the animating crusade of the former congresswoman, and as her husband, Sen. Mark Kelly, runs for re-election in a race that will be key in this year's midterms. It also tells a good story and has a rockin' soundtrack. West and Cohen talk about their film on the latest Political Theater podcast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Supreme Court justices have it made: Not only do they get to remake American society with a few opinions, they get to take three months off afterward! Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has joked that ”only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren are expected to and do take the entire summer off.” So what do they do during that quarter-year break, and is it changing now that the high court has stepped into a more prominent political role? CQ Roll Call Legal Affairs Editor Todd Ruger joins the Political Theater podcast to talk about the life jurisprudence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The walls sure are thin in the West Wing. That is just one takeaway from the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. CQ Roll Call Editor at Large John T. Bennett covered the presidency of Donald Trump in sometimes very close quarters at the executive mansion. He joins Political Theater to discuss things you can overhear and see first hand at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Washington's professional football team has a long history of controversy, and Congress and local governments spend a lot of time picking apart its foibles. Would this happen in Jacksonville, though? With us to discuss in Brandon Wetherbee, managing editor of District Fray. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week marks the 50th Anniversary of the Watergate break-in, a scandal that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. This is one of history's great dramas, and we're still telling and hearing great stories about it. Case in point: "The Martha Mitchell Effect," a new Netflix documentary about one Watergate's most colorful, and tragic, characters. Directors Anne Alvergue and Debra McClutchy discuss their project in all its colorful and poignant archival glory.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Top Gun: Maverick," the legacy sequel to the 1986 movie "Top Gun," has soared at the box office since its Memorial Day weekend opening, making more than 550 million dollars and counting. People might just be going to see Tom Cruise in action, but there might be something more going on here. The first "Top Gun" is an iconic piece of pop culture, a product of its times: a hot movie that came out at the coldest point of the Cold War. This "Top Gun?" It’s also a product of its times, a weirder, more asymmetrical one for geopolitics. With us to discuss in CQ Roll Call Editor at Large John T. Bennett. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "The G Word with Adam Conover,” his new series on Netflix, the titular host explores government, how it works, what it does, and also how it fails. Among the topics he explores: food safety, weather prediction and disaster response, GPS, public health, the money supply, and more. On the latest Political Theater, Conover discusses the show, from its fun and enlightening moments to disheartening realizations and his interactions with one of its producers: a certain former president now in show biz, Barack Obama. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tuesday’s primary races in states — be they Idaho, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Oregon — were good news for the establishment of both political parties. Or bad news. It kind of depends on how you define the establishment. Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Election joins the podcast to walk us through all the mixed messaging. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the November midterm elections continue to come into focus, several Senate and House incumbents are vulnerable in their bids for re-election. Some are Democrats in danger of getting caught up in a GOP wave. Some are Republicans facing tough primary challenges. And some are just plain unique. The CQ Roll Call political team breaks it down for the episode of Political Theater.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reps. Derek Kilmer and Williams Timmons are under no illusion about the challenges to make Congress a more modern and efficient institution. But as the leaders of the House Selection Committee on the Modernization of Congress, the two are walking the walk: pursuing a bipartisan approach and setting an example for how to work together for the public interest. “Congress has been described as an 18th century institution using 20th century technology to solve 21st century problems,” Kilmer likes to say. But he and Timmons and their colleagues on the panel are making measurable progress in a way that the rest of the legislative branch could learn from. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time since 2019, the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner is back, stepping gingerly into the COVID-19 era, awkward jokes and all. CQ Roll Call Chief Correspondent Niels Lesniewski stops by to talk about what to expect.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the year of our Midterm Election, 2022, and Q1 fundraising numbers are in. What's a million dollars get you these days? How are incumbent members running against other incumbents doing? How much are members targeted by former President Donald Trump doing in the money game? We run through all this and more on the latest Political Theater podcast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're going to hear a lot about the congressional generic ballot as we get deeper into the 2022 midterm campaign. But, as Edwin Starr might ask, "What is it good for?" How much can we use it to make sense of the political path we are on? Nathan L. Gonzales, publisher of Inside Elections and Roll Call's elections analyst, joins the podcast to discuss.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Major League Baseball is back — and it's got some cryptocurrency-sportsbook-anti-competitive-business-practice baggage. District Fray's Brandon Wetherbee joins Political Theater to discuss our new baseball order, weird public art, tobacco and booze advertising and whether the National Baseball Hall of Fame should just start over.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to really geeking out about politics and campaigns, nothing beats redistricting. Jason Dick and Michael Macagnone break down how the pandemic-altered Census crashed into the decennial reapportionment of congressional seats, which sent the already typically crazy redistricting of House seats into a fine tizzy of gamesmanship, hard feelings, lawsuits and an out-and-out weird race against the 2022 midterm election clock.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christina Bellantoni, a former Roll Call editor who is now professor of professional practice at the University of Southern California, is training the next generation of journalists. Part of that is showing them how to report stories from out in the field, including congressional races in Texas and Virginia. Bellantoni discusses that and more, including the value of diverse backgrounds and sourcing and how politics have helped shape her students' worldviews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The stakes for Supreme Court nominations have always been high. But starting in 2016, when Senate Republicans refused to consider the nomination of Merrick B. Garland, the high court confirmation process has been defined by deep partisan rifts, accusations of unfairness and hypocrisy and hard feelings. With that kind of background, what might Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson expect in her upcoming confirmation hearing? CQ Roll Call Senior Writer Todd Ruger discusses the topic with Political Theater host Jason Dick.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the remaining prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility, “time becomes elastic,” in the words of filmmaker Alex Gibney. One long-time detainee, for instance, Abu Zubaydah, just had his petition to get information from the CIA about his torture and treatment denied by the Supreme Court. But Gibney, in his most recent documentary, “The Forever Prisoner,” does interview key figures in the saga. Political Theater recently discussed with Gibney his techniques and motivations for that project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices