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December 22, 2017

Episode 39

Donald Trump’s promise to end what he called the war on coal played a critical role in his presidential campaign. On a “King Coal” edition of  “Truth, Politics and Power,” host Neal Conan asks what Trump has done in his first year in office to redeem his promise to revive the industry. We’ll also go to Appalachia to listen to the men and women whose jobs and way of life are threatened by cheaper, cleaner energy alternatives and mechanization; and we’ll learn about the critical role coal played as America emerged as an industrial and military power. It all started with delivering the mail.

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December 1, 2017

Episode 37

From Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo to the War on Terror, presidents have gathered more and more authority to start and conduct wars on their own. In a “War Powers Edition” of Truth, Politics and Power, Host Neal Conan asks how the commander in chief acquired that authority, why Congress has surrendered its constitutional role and whether there are any checks and balances on President Trump’s ability to launch a nuclear first strike on North Korea.

November 24, 2017

Rebroadcast

Legions of lobbyists and lawyers obscured the facts on tobacco and cancer for decades…even when tobacco companies knew their products caused cancer.  Host Neal Conan talks with writer Alan Schwarz, who found that the football industry followed the same pattern in response to discoveries about the long term effects of concussion, and with Science Historian Naomi Oreskes, who argues that the chorus of climate deniers also follows tobacco’s lead, and that the result, will be global calamity.

November 10, 2017

Episode 36

  With Europe in chaos at the end of WWII, President Harry Truman called on a logistical genius to sort out food delivery to Europe …disgraced former president Herbert Hoover. Hours after he was sworn in, Lyndon Johnson told Dwight Eisenhower, “I need you more than ever.” From political exile, Richard Nixon phoned Ronald Reagan with advice on the Soviet Union, and Reagan took it on himself to teach Bill Clinton how to salute. In the next Truth Politics and Power, Host Neal Conan talks with Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, the authors of “The President’s Club,” about the co-operation, competition and consolation among presidents and their predecessors.

October 27, 2017

Episode 35

 As the White House and Congressional Republicans press for sweeping tax reform, Truth Politics and Power Host Neal Conan explores the economic and political history of the federal tax system. From the tariffs and excise taxes that funded government in the 18th and 19th century to the 16th amendment and a permanent income tax to “Taxes to beat the Axis” in WWII which created the federal tax system as we know it. How both political parties became allergic to tax increases and the hidden tax benefits of the welfare state that subsidize the middle class..

October 20, 2017

Episode 33

Just a decade before the outbreak of World War II, most of the world’s countries agreed to make war illegal. The Kellogg-Briand Pact may have seemed like a failure, but two law professors from Yale argue in their new book, The Internationalists, that the treaty marked a major turning point in world history. In a “New World Order Edition” of Truth Politics and Power, they tell host Neal Conan the agreement to outlaw war made the world conflagration that erupted only a few years later into a war between the Old World Order and the new, and enabled the Allies to try German and Japanese leaders for an unprecedented crime – waging aggressive war. Since then, war between states and territorial conquest have declined dramatically.

October 13, 2017

Episode 32

Host Neal Conan delves into the long history of the debate between gun rights and gun control going back to the Founding Fathers who required every adult white male to own a musket, and bring it to musters where it was inspected and registered. How a  duty for community self defense evolved into an individual right to bear arms and how the laws changed with both weapons technology and the rise of the National Rifle Association. Plus restrictions on research into guns and gun deaths.

September 29, 2017

Episode 30

As people in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico struggle to recover from storms, the Politics of Disaster is the next edition of Truth, Politics and Power. Host Neal Conan with conversations about how federal policy contributes to catastrophe, how an enormous flood in 1927 changed the way Americans think about the size and role of government , and the secret history of FEMA, the agency created to manage the ultimate disaster…nuclear apocalypse.

September 22, 2017

Episode 29

Episode 27

September 8, 2017

Legions of lobbyists and lawyers obscured the facts on tobacco and cancer for decades…even when tobacco companies knew their products caused cancer.  Host Neal Conan talks with writer Alan Schwarz, who found that the football industry followed the same pattern in response to discoveries about the long term effects of concussion, and with Science Historian Naomi Oreskes, who argues that the chorus of climate deniers also follows tobacco’s lead, and that the result, will be global calamity.

Episode 26

September 1, 2017

The tension between the States and the Federal Government animates American History from the Constitutional Convention to Charlottesville. Host Neal Conan traces the political history of States Rights which turns again and again on the issue of race, from the fugitive slave law of 1792 through the Civil War and on into the Twentieth Century, where the term became a code word for Jim Crow racism. Plus a look at how both left and right use the States Rights playbook today, on issues including marijuana, abortion and same sex marriage.

Episode 24

August 18, 2017

After the recent exchange of threats between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, host Neal Conan updates earlier edition of Truth Politics and Power on the crisis in North East Asia. Fresh interviews with Ambassador Chris Hill, a former North Korea negotiator, and Michele Flournoy, a senior official in the Pentagon during the Obama Administration on how the diplomatic snd military situations has changed after north Korea’s tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the unanimous approval of new sanctions by the United Nations. We also hear historian Sheila Miyoshi Jager on the 70 yea struggle between the two Koreas and how the US found itself in a nuclear standoff with an impoverished cold war relic.

Episode 23

August 11, 2017

Candidate Donald Trump described his big, beautiful wall along the Mexican frontier in existential terms; If you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country. Host Neal Conan explores how secure borders became part of the definition of a state, how well walls worked through history and talks with Peter Robinson, the speechwriter who came up withPresident Ronald Reagan’s famous line in Berlin: “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Episode 21

July 28, 2017

With investigations of the President and his campaign staff underway in Washington, Host Neal Conan talks about the procedure for the removal of the Chief Executive.  An “Impeachment Edition” of Truth politics and power explains how and why the Constitutional Convention decided to constrain  the powers of presidents and the meaning of “high crimes or misdemeanors.” Plus in-depth conversations on our two presidential impeachment trials: Nina Totenberg, on William Jefferson Clinton, and David O. Stewart on the dramatic case of Andrew Johnson.