President Donald Trump

Almost no one thought Joe Biden could make it back to the White House: not Donald Trump, not the two dozen Democratic rivals who sought to take down a weak front-runner, not the mega-donors and key endorsers who feared he could not beat Bernie Sanders, not even Barack Obama.

The story of Biden’s victory in the 2020 election is the story of a Democratic Party at odds with itself, torn between the single-minded goal of removing Donald Trump and the push for a bold progressive agenda that threatened to alienate as many voters as it drew.

In "Lucky," New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes use their unparalleled access to key players inside the Democratic and Republican campaigns to unfold how Biden’s nail-biting run for the presidency vexed his own party as much as it did Trump.

Jonathan Allen is a senior political analyst with NBC News digital. Amie Parnes is a senior correspondent for The Hill newspaper in Washington, where she covers the Biden White House and national politics.

As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read some 150 volumes claiming to diagnose why Trump was elected and what his presidency reveals about our nation. Many of these, he’s found, are more defensive than incisive, more righteous than right.

In "What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era," Lozada uses these books to tell the story of how we understand ourselves in the Trump era, using as his main characters the political ideas and debates at play in America today. He dissects works on the white working class like "Hillbilly Elegy;" manifestos from the anti-Trump resistance like "On Tyranny" and "No Is Not Enough;" books on race, gender, and identity like "How to Be an Antiracist" and "Good and Mad;" polemics on the future of the conservative movement like "The Corrosion of Conservatism;" and of course plenty of books about Trump himself.

          The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, investigative journalist and UAlbany adjunct professor Rosemary Armao, former Associate Editor of The Times Union Mike Spain, and Bard Center for Civic Engagement Senior Fellow and Dean of the School of Continuing Education at the American University Cairo Jim Ketterer.

  The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Former EPA Regional Administrator, Visiting Professor at Bennington College, President of Beyond Plastics Judith Enck, Communications Faculty member at SUNY New Paltz & R.P.I. and former NYS Senator Terry Gipson, and Siena College Economics Professor Aaron Pacitti.

We are also joined, for a portion of the program, by Dr. James Fagin, MD, an Immunology & Allergy Specialist in New Hyde Park, New York.

    The first debate between the two major candidates in the 2020 presidential election is tonight.

      The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are UAlbany Lecturer in Africana Studies Jennifer Burns, Bard Center for Civic Engagement Senior Fellow and Dean of the School of Continuing Education at the American University Cairo Jim Ketterer, and Vice President for Editorial Development at the New York Press Association Judy Patrick.

For a portion of the show, we are joined by Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author, David Cay Johnston. 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is dismissing as “political” the Justice Department’s move to classify New York City, Seattle and Portland as “anarchy” jurisdictions, and withhold billions of dollars in federal funds.

     The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, investigative journalist and UAlbany adjunct professor Rosemary Armao, political consultant and lobbyist Libby Post, and Bard Center for Civic Engagement Senior Fellow and Dean of the School of Continuing Education at the American University Cairo Jim Ketterer.

"Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump" is the final book in Seth Abramson’s Proof series following "Proof of Collusion" and "Proof of Conspiracy," both national bestsellers.

"Proof of Corruption" looks to connect the dots between worldwide headlines to create a comprehensive history and analysis of the Trump administration. The book is a searing indictment of Trump’s brazen behavior in office and the dire consequences for the world.

Seth Abramson is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches journalism and legal advocacy at the University of New Hampshire. A graduate of Harvard Law School and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he is a political columnist at Newsweek and the author.

John Dean served as White House counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1973. During the Watergate scandal, his Congressional testimony helped lead to Nixon’s resignation.

Dean has written about Watergate in his New York Times bestsellers "Blind Ambition" and "The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It." Among his other books are the national bestsellers "Worse Than Watergate" and "Conservatives Without Conscience." He is a regular political and legal commentator on CNN.

John Dean join us to discuss his new book, "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump & His Followers."

Former Vice President Joe Biden will accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for president tonight. But in the age of COVID-19, local delegates are taking part in what has become a mostly virtual Democratic National Convention.

If there's one thing we know about Donald Trump, it's that he lies. But he's by no means the first president to do so.

In "Lying in State," Eric Alterman asks how we ended up with such a pathologically dishonest commander in chief, showing that, from early on, the United States has persistently expanded its power and hegemony on the basis of presidential lies.

In President Trump's campaign against what he calls "Fake News," CNN Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, is public enemy number one. From the moment Mr. Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he has attacked the media, calling journalists "the enemy of the people."

In his book, just out in paperback, "The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America," Acosta presents a damning examination of bureaucratic dysfunction, deception, and the unprecedented threat the rhetoric Mr. Trump is directing has on our democracy.  At Mr. Trump's most hated network, CNN, Acosta offers a never-before-reported account of what it's like to be the President's most hated correspondent. Acosta goes head-to-head with the White House, even after Trump supporters have threatened his life with words as well as physical violence. Acosta will be taking part in an online conversation with Berkshire Eagle Executive Editor Kevin Moran for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Berkshire Community Collegeon Thursday, July 9th at 7pm via Zoom. The program is titled: The Enemy of the People: One Year, One Impeachment and One Pandemic Later.

President Donald Trump delivered the commencement address for the U.S. Military Academy Class of 2020 Saturday morning.

The 2020 election was going to be a stress test for American democracy under the BEST of circumstances. With the pandemic, the election will easily be one of the most chaotic, hotly contested elections in American history.

Professor & Legal Scholar Lawrence Douglas’s new book “Will He Go: Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020,” outlines how Trump is likely to threaten the most important principle of democratic governance: the peaceful succession of power, not by refusing to leave office but by undermining our faith in the tenants of a free and fair election.

Professor Douglas say if Trump rejects his defeat in November, our constitutional and legal systems are exceptionally ill-prepared to manage and resolve that challenge.

Lawrence Douglas is the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College.

David Rohde, two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, is an executive editor of The New Yorker website and a former Reuters, New York Times, and Christian Science Monitor reporter.

Three-quarters of Americans believe that a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate or direct national policy in the United States. President Trump blames the "deep state" for his impeachment. But what is the American "deep state" and does it really exist?

This week, President Trump signed an executive order to temporarily suspend green cards from being issued to migrants attempting to enter the country. WAMC spoke with Berkshire Immigrant Center Executive Director Michelle Lopez, who says the move is an attempt to exploit the pandemic to promote an anti-immigrant agenda.

Jonathan Karl is ABC News' chief Washington correspondent and chief White House correspondent.

In "Front Row at the Trump Show," Karl brings us into the White House in a powerful book unlike any other on the Trump administration. He’s known and covered Donald Trump longer than any other White House reporter. With extraordinary access to Trump during the campaign and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Karl delivers essential new reporting and surprising insights.

David Plouffe served as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's primary and general election victories in 2008. He was the architect of the strategy for both elections. Prior to running the Obama campaign, Plouffe served as a leading Democratic Party media consultant from 2001 to 2007, playing a key role in the election of US senators, governors, mayors, and House members across the country.

His new book is "A Citizen’s Guide to Beating Donald Trump." Plouffe’s message is simple: the only way change happens, especially on scale, is one human being talking to another. He says - it won’t happen magically, it won’t happen because of debates and conventions, it won’t happen because of ads. He believes it will happen because citizens take action.

A group called Berkshire County Mass4Trump is holding a local rally in Pittsfield, Massachusetts this weekend.

Two Washington Post reporters, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker have examined the evolution of Trump’s presidency and leadership style and in "A Very Stable Genius" they take readers behind the scenes to reveal never-before reported details of Trump’s shocking behavior and new evidence of chaos in his administration.

Carol Leonnig is a national investigative reporter at The Washington Post, where she has worked since 2000 and covers Donald Trump's presidency and other subjects. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on security failures and misconduct inside the Secret Service.

Two candidates lead the pack about two months before New York's Democratic presidential primary.

Tonight will be a spectacle in Washington. One day before a final vote on President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, government leaders will gather under one roof for the Republican’s State of the Union address. The speech will be heard live on WAMC at 9 p.m. Before that, New York U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand shared what she hopes to hear tonight.

Some lawmakers have criticized the White House for moving ahead with the killing of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani without consulting Congress.

In today’s Congressional Corner WAMC’s Alan Chartock speaks with Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney of New York’s 18th District.

In today’s Congressional Corner WAMC’s Alan Chartock speaks with Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney of the 18th District of New York about his reaction to recent the United States recent activity in Iran.

James Poniewozik has been the chief television critic of the New York Times since 2015. He was previously the television and media critic for Time magazine and media columnist for Salon.

His book "Audience of One" shows how American media have shaped American society and politics, by interweaving two crucial stories.

The first story follows the evolution of television from the three-network era of the 20th century, which joined millions of Americans in a shared monoculture, into today’s zillion-channel, Internet-atomized universe, which sliced and diced them into fractious, alienated subcultures.

The second story is a cultural critique of Donald Trump, the chameleonic celebrity who courted fame, achieved a mind-meld with the media beast, and rode it to ultimate power.

A majority of New Yorkers are behind Democratic efforts to impeach President Donald Trump.

A new poll shows that although his favorability and job performance ratings have sunk to record lows, a majority of New Yorkers believe Governor Andrew Cuomo has made New York a better place.