Eye on Congress:The Big Story

The Supreme Court begins its new term on Oct. 4, and the stakes are sky high for the justices, who will hear cases that could usher in sweeping changes on abortion and gun rights, all amid a time of intense political pressure and scrutiny for the high court. CQ Roll Call senior writer and legal affairs correspondent Todd Ruger joins the Political Theater podcast to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Circus is back in town. At least Showtime’s political documentary series "The Circus" is back, resuming its sixth season this past Sunday. And the show has no shortage of topics to explore. Just in the coming weeks Congress is staring at a possible government shutdown, a debt limit breach, the fate of President Joe Biden’s agenda, fighting the COVID-19 Delta variant. And more! Two of the show’s hosts, Mark McKinnon and Jennifer Palmieri join the Political Theater podcast to discuss what they’ll be up to amid these crazy times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congress is deeply split, but not when it comes to the Olympics. Former U.S. women's national gymnastics’ team doctor Larry Nassar’s serial sexual abuse of female gymnasts provoked bipartisan action to toughen oversight of the Olympics organizing committee and amateur athletics. But there are still unanswered questions about Nassar and how this happened. CQ Roll Call Chief Correspondent Niels Lesniewski discusses what happened in Congress to address the situation and what lawmakers and the Justice Department could still do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmaker Greg Barker’s new documentary, “Detainee 001” comes at a turning point in U.S history and its timing could not be more ideal. The story of John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban” makes for a poignant narrative as the United States stands on the cusp of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and has ended its war in Afghanistan. Barker discusses the Taliban, Afghanistan and the bizarre story of John Walker Lindh on this week’s episode of the Political Theater podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Joe Biden this week declared that the longest war in U.S. history was over, and that after evacuating thousands of Americans and Afghan allies, there was no vital national security interest that justified staying in Afghanistan. But after 20 years, the withdrawal of troops and civilians this summer was messy, and deadly. CQ Roll Call Senior Defense Writer John Donnelly, joins us to discuss how much of it was standard operating procedure and a lack of good options for the U.S. mission there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Health inequities between different racial and ethnic groups existed well before COVID-19, but the pandemic has revealed just how stark the disparities are. Throw in the politicization of science, and the United States has a big mountain to climb to conquer the virus. Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former health commissioner of Baltimore sits down with guest host Sandhya Raman to unpack where we are and what can be done. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A little known public-health directive, Title 42, allows border agents to swiftly “expel” migrants who cross the border —without considering their asylum claims. It was implemented in March 2020 as COVID-19 cases spread across the U.S. This expulsion policy was criticized by presidential candidate Joe Biden, but President Biden has embraced it. At least for now. Special host Suzanne Monyak unpacks the politics of this thorny immigration policy with Cris Ramón, an independent immigration consultant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special elections to the House this year have offered more evidence that local and state contests have been nationalized, even down to the intra-party primary contests for safe seats. CQ Roll Call Politics Editor Herb Jackson and Inside Elections Reporter and Analyst Jacob Rubashkin join Political Theater to discuss what we can learn from special election results so far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The HBO documentary series “Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union,” arrives at a tumultuous time in American politics. It explores the formative years and presidency of Barack Obama, an era that seems both faraway and contemporary, with race relations continuing to define the public sphere. The three-part series premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Aug. 3, just in time for Obama's 60th birthday this week on Aug. 4. As part of the American Film Institute's AFI Docs 2021 documentary film festival, Political Theater host Jason Dick moderated a post-screening discussion with Peter Kunhardt, the director and producer of the series, and Jelani Cobb, staff writer for the New Yorker, also a producer and contributor to the series, as well as one of the country's prominent journalists covering race, culture and politics. Interview contents: AFI DOCS copyright 2021, courtesy of American Film Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the White House celebrated the 31st anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, touted as a bipartisan success that has delivered for Americans, and hinted it could be used to help secure voting rights. CQ Roll Call Chief Correspondent Niels Lesniewski joins the Political Theater podcast to talk about the law, and the challenges remaining. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Initially conceived as a temporary solution for vulnerable immigrants, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has become an intractable political battlefield as Congress continues to punt, year after year, a comprehensive overhaul of the country's immigration program. The latest chapter has underscored the fragility of even a government policy that has been around for almost 10 years: A district court judge in Texas last week struck it down, blocking new applications but allowing the more than 600,000 current recipients to stay in the program. More court cases will work their way through the system, but the onus is now also on a Congress that has tried, and failed, for years to address the topic. CQ Roll Call Staff Writer Suzanne Monyak joins us on the Political Theater Podcast to talk about why even a popular program supported by both sides of the aisle continues to be such a political football, as well as what's next.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Midterm elections have patterns, but the political calculus we use sometimes needs a little adjusting. A delayed redistricting cycle, former President Donald Trump’s influence over key Senate and House races and changes to several states’ voter access laws make the 2022 campaign particularly hard to gauge. Nathan Gonzales, elections analyst for CQ Roll Call and the publisher of Inside Elections, joins the Political Theater podcast to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Supreme Court justices like to portray themselves as legal actors, not political ones, but the high court has never been able to stay out of the public arena. That was certainly the case for the term that just ended, and it will certainly be the case for the term to come. CQ Roll Call senior writer Todd Ruger discusses the court’s recent decisions, its upcoming ones and the effect that Congress and the president have on the institution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just before the Independence Day recess, the House is moving anew to remove statues of people in the Capitol who were part of the Confederacy or were otherwise white supremacists. Host Jason Dick and CQ Roll Call staff writer Chris Marquette discuss the long debate over such figures, why they are so divisive and what happens next to replace them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why does something that seems pretty common sense and has wide bipartisan support get stalled in the Senate? A case study is the current debate over how to address military sexual assault, an issue the Pentagon has grappled with for years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the House and Senate were both in session for the first time since before Memorial Day, and it feels like Spring Fever, with pandemic precautions mostly being cast aside. CQ Roll Call Staff Writer Jim Saksa has been there for the most moribund times of the pandemic, and now, a kind of Great Reopening. He gathered sound, wrote a couple of stories, caught up with folks from the Before Times and talks about it with host Jason Dick on this edition of Political Theater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For a small state, West Virginia has outsize political influence. The Mountain State's two senators, Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Shelley Moore Capito, are in the middle of the biggest debates on the congressional and White House agenda. Andrea Billups, news director at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, explains why these two politicians are so effective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States and Russia have a tense political relationship, which will be on display later this month when President Joe Biden has called Russian leader Vladimir Putin meet for a summit. But the two countries don't have to look to far in the past to see that when genuine relationships on both sides prevail, everyone wins. Director Dominic Cooke discusses this dynamic and how he portrays it in his new movie “The Courier,” a retelling of how two spies helped defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis, and gave politicians a way to avert catastrophe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week marked the one year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers, a year defined by a subsequent international reckoning on racial justice, a debate about overhauling police departments and an election that brought social and cultural issues violently into the foreground. Mary C. Curtis, host of the Equal Time podcast and a Roll Call columnist discusses where we are, where we've been and where we might be headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Few political issues are as polarizing as abortion, and now abortion opponents are on the cusp of a potentially epic win after decades of incremental gains. History professor Jennifer L. Holland discusses the politics of abortion rights, which are in focus after the Supreme Court announced it will hear a challenge to a new Mississippi law that severely restricts the procedure, and will likely be decided shortly before next year's midterm elections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices