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Chris Hayes

MSNBC & NBCNews THINK

Every week Chris Hayes asks the big questions that keep him up at night. How do we make sense of this unprecedented moment in world history? Why is this (all) happening?

This podcast starts to answer these questions. Writers, experts, and thinkers who are also trying to get to the bottom of them join Chris to break it all down and help him get a better night’s rest. “Why is this Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBCNews Think.

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

We’re in strange times. In the U.S., we’re finding ourselves in a situation in which the possibility of genuine democratic retrenchment and some version of presidential authoritarian dictatorship is a real possibility. There’s a lot to consider as the liberal democracy we’ve become accustomed to could erode right before our eyes in the near future. Steve Levitsky is a professor of government at Harvard and serves as the director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Levitsky is also a New York Times bestselling author of numerous books including, “How Democracies Die” and “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” which he co-authored with Daniel Ziblatt. He joins WITHpod to discuss entering into a new era, the uncertainty of this moment, the process by which a democracy might backslide into something that's less democratic and resisting the erosion.

How Democratic Backsliding Happens with Steve Levitsky

The 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi, is one of the most infamous crimes in American history. Yet, decades later, so much of what happened to Till is still widely unknown. Our guest this week points out that this is no accident. Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN and is the author of several books including his latest, “The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi,” which is the subject of this week’s conversation. Thompson’s family farm is 23 miles from the site of Till’s murder, and yet he didn’t learn about some of the most shocking details until becoming an adult. Thompson joins to discuss what he uncovered while writing the book, his familial connection to the story and the reckoning that must happen if we are to heal one of the country’s original sins.

“The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi” with Wright Thompson

What are the effects when you give $1,000 a month in unconditional cash transfers to low-income Americans for three years? Our guests this week studied the behavioral and political outcomes of this in a 3,000-person study. Elizabeth Rhodes is the research director for the Unconditional Cash Study at OpenResearch, a nonprofit research lab founded by OpenAI founder Sam Altman. David Broockman is an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley and worked as the principal investigator supporting the unconditional cash study. Together, they co-authored, along with others, a paper: "The Causal Effects of Income on Political Attitudes and Behavior: A Randomized Field Experiment.” Rhodes and Broockman join WITHpod to discuss some of the most surprising finds, why receiving cash overwhelmingly didn’t change people’s political leanings, how the money changed people’s attitudes about work and more.

What Happens When Americans Get $1,000 a Month Unconditional Cash Transfers? with Elizabeth Rhodes and David Broockman

Happy New Year! Given the holiday, we are sharing one of our most memorable conversations. Stay tuned through the end as we also share updates on this topic. 

From the original description:
You’d probably guess that a major factor contributing to homelessness is a lack of money. Yet, very few programs provide unconditional and lump sum cash to unhoused individuals as a solution. There are a number of barriers that have impeded the broad implementation of this type of assistance, which include the lack of policymaker support and public mistrust in homeless people’s ability to manage money. Our guest this week found that direct cash transfers actually result in net societal savings over time. Jiaying Zhao is an associate professor, Canada research chair and a Sauder distinguished scholar at the University of British Columbia. She co-authored “Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness,” which was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Zhao, who has personally experienced housing insecurity in the past, joins WITHpod to discuss the cognitive taxes of poverty, rethinking the homogenous narrative about who homeless people are, the most surprising findings from the study, intended policy changes and more.

The Case for Unconditional Cash Transfers with Jiaying Zhao

Well, here we are. The second inauguration of Donald Trump is quickly approaching. And there’s no doubt that progressives have a lot of work to do in the months and years ahead. Our guest this week co-founded one of the biggest groups that initially came about in response to Trump 1.0. Leah Greenberg is co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, an organization with a mission to organize thousands of local groups to resist the GOPs agenda, elect local champions and fight for progressive policies. She joins WITHpod to discuss lessons learned from the past, ideas within Indivisible’s “Practical Guide to Democracy on The Brink” and glimmers of hope as ordinary people fight back.

Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

The amount of overdose deaths in the U.S. is staggering. And while addiction is a disease, there’s no specific medical treatment or cure for it. Our guest this week points out that weight loss drugs and GLP-1s, or glucagon-like peptide-1s, which are used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, can be effective for helping people reduce cravings and consumption of drugs, alcohol and compulsive behaviors like gambling. Nick Reville is the cofounder and executive director of the Center for Addiction Science, Policy, and Research (CASPR). He joins WITHpod to discuss how he found his way into this research area, lessons learned from other health crises, innovations geared towards eliminating addictions at a widescale level and more.

Weight Loss Drugs for Curing Addiction? with Nicholas Reville

We’ve never had a situation where the world’s richest man has essentially joined the White House as a co-president of sorts. What might this mean, especially when we consider Elon Musk’s history of unchecked power? Kate Conger is a New York Times reporter based in San Francisco, covering X and other technology companies. She’s also a co-author, along with Ryan Mac, of “Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter” Conger joins WITHpod to discuss what has happened to X under Musk’s stewardship, Musk’s growing political influence, the SEC suing him, why his role is so peculiar and more. We should note that Conger and Mac requested to interview Musk for their book, but mentioned that no response was received.

Musk in the Trump 2.0 Era with Kate Conger

Introducing “Trumpland with Alex Wagner.” 

On “Trumpland,” MSNBC’s Alex Wagner takes a break from the anchor chair to get out into the field and speak with the people on the frontlines of Trump’s policies—and promises. 

Listen to the full first episode here, as Alex travels to DC—but not for the inauguration. 

Hours after President Trump was in sworn into office for the second time, he began issuing a series of presidential pardons for the January 6th insurrection. Listen along as Alex speaks to the inmates, their families, and the police officers who survived one of the most violent attacks on the Capitol in our nation’s history. 

Catch new episodes of “Trumpland with Alex Wagner” on Thursday evenings during Trump’s first 100 days. You can find the show in the “Alex Wagner Tonight” feed. 

Remember to follow the show so you don’t miss a single episode. And sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen without ads.

Listen to “Trumpland with Alex Wagner”

Hi, WITHpod listeners! It’s an exciting day and we have a special treat for you. Today, we’re sharing the first chapter of Chris’ new book, “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource." From the book description:

We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.” Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining transition whose only parallel is what happened to labor in the nineteenth century: attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated. The Sirens’ Call is the big-picture vision we urgently need to offer clarity and guidance.

Audio excerpted courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio from The Sirens’ Call by Chris Hayes, read by Chris Hayes. © 2025 Christopher Hayes, ℗ 2025 Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved.

WITHpod Special: Hear a Chapter of Chris’ New Book: ‘The Siren’s Call’

It’s no surprise that immigration policy is an area that we’ve seen so much focus on recently. The Trump administration has moved with lightning speed to roll out its immigration agenda. With everything that’s going on, we thought it would be good to have a conversation about some of the deep roots and complexities in history that have brought us to this moment. Jonathan Blitzer is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis.” He joins WITHpod to discuss what he has called “misguided” policy, the real-life impacts and more.

The Reality at the Border with Jonathan Blitzer

Why do we summarize things into ‘tweet length versions’? It requires the flattening of nuance and personality and information that we need to talk about complicated things. Whether it’s the 280 characters of a tweet or a clickbait headline, we’re trafficking in hollowed out means of communicating that lack space for depth and complexity. While society is in a crucial moment of trying to figure out how to communicate with folks from different backgrounds about their own identities, we aren’t going to get anywhere talking in ‘tweet length versions’. What we need are ‘thick descriptions’, which Tressie McMillan Cottom is a purveyor of. Whether it be rage, gender, or for profit colleges, McMillan Cottom is able to guide you to the deepest part of any topic and mine for meaning when you get there.

Email us at WITHpod@gmail.com

Tweet using #WITHpod

Read more at nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening

RELATED READING:

Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Lower Ed by Tressie McMillan Cottom

RELATED EPISODES:

The Personal is Political with Brittney Cooper (May 15)

Political Tribalism with Amy Chua (June 12)

Futureface with Alex Wagner (released July 17)

School Segregation in 2018 with Nikole Hannah-Jones (July 31)

Thick Descriptions with Tressie McMillan Cottom

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