Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast-logo

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

MSNBC

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.

Location:

United States

Description:

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.

Language:

English


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

1/28/2025
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.

Duration:00:56:33

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Listen to “Trumpland with Alex Wagner”

1/23/2025
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.

Duration:00:33:25

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Musk in the Trump 2.0 Era with Kate Conger

1/21/2025
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.

Duration:00:52:14

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Weight Loss Drugs for Curing Addiction? with Nicholas Reville

1/14/2025
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 widescale level and more.

Duration:00:54:58

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Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

1/7/2025
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.

Duration:00:52:34

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The Case for Unconditional Cash Transfers with Jiaying Zhao

12/31/2024
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.

Duration:00:47:07

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

12/24/2024
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.

Duration:00:44:35

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

12/17/2024
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.

Duration:00:51:06

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How Democratic Backsliding Happens with Steve Levitsky

12/10/2024
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.

Duration:00:52:23

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Chris is the guest this week!

12/3/2024
There’s a lot to consider about what Trump 2.0 portends for the future of our country, lives and democracy. A lot of questions remain. And perhaps maybe now more than ever, it’s all been keeping Chris up really late at night, like so many of you. Chris and WITHpod producer Doni Holloway unpack post-election thoughts and discuss moving forward. More information about Chris' latest book, "The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource" + info about the book tour here.

Duration:00:57:06

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Conservatism in the Trump 2.0 Years with McKay Coppins

11/26/2024
It’s a given that any political party is going to have ideological factions around different issues. But what happens when the ostensible leader of a party has no real ideology? It’s a big question to consider in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election. Our guest this week has followed the inherent tensions, fissures and changes within the Republican Party. McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic, an MSNBC contributor, and New York Times bestselling author of “Romney: A Reckoning.” He joins WITHpod to discuss his view of what conservatism is now at an ideological level, the rife contradictions amongst conservatives in this moment and what the Trump 2.0 years could mean for growing party incoherence.

Duration:00:54:41

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The Role of the Press in This Moment with Matt Pearce

11/19/2024
The information environment is rapidly changing. And with more media sources at our disposal than ever before, we’re constantly navigating between online and IRL, or in real life spaces. How does that affect our understanding of the world around us, particularly in this unprecedented moment? Our guest this week has spent a lot of time thinking and writing about this. Matt Pearce is a journalist and serves as the president of Media Guild of the West, which represents unionized journalists in Southern California, Arizona and Texas. Pearce is also a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and writes own Substack, which you can find at mattdpearce.substack.com. He joins WITHpod to discuss what’s happened to the press, its role post the 2024 election and more.

Duration:00:55:38

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Where Do We Go From Here? with Anna Galland

11/12/2024
Whew, the past few days have been a lot. Like you probably, Chris hasn’t slept much this past week. There’s a lot to process given that Donald Trump is now president-elect… again. Our guest this week, who has worked as an organizer throughout numerous political ups and downs, points out that we “must not neglect the work of standing up right now to fight back.” Anna Galland is the former executive director of MoveOn Civic Action from 2012 to 2019. She now works with a range of national pro-democracy organizations, coalitions, and leaders. Galland also teaches about democracy renewal & social movements at Northwestern University. She joins WITHpod to help us take stock of this moment, what the progressive movement can do right now, reasons for hope (we could use it, right?) and more.

Duration:00:59:14

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“Polarized by Degrees” with Matt Grossmann and Dave Hopkins

11/5/2024
A lot of things will really change over the course of this week, no matter the election outcome. And with that, we were thinking it would be good to share a conversation that would be illuminating regardless of what happens. Over the past few decades, American society has experienced seismic changes. One of the trends we have seen is a rightward shift towards the Republican Party among voters without a four-year college degree and a pro democratic center-left shift of voters who have a four-year college degree. There’s a lot to unpack about what has animated these changes. Matt Grossmann is the director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and a professor of political science at Michigan State University. Dave Hopkins is a political scientist at Boston College. Grossmann and Hopkins are the co-authors of “Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics.” They join WITHpod to discuss the origin of these trends, the effects on both major parties and more.

Duration:00:56:18

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Talking Harris, Hawaii and More with Senator Brian Schatz

10/29/2024
Well, we’re in the final stretch of the election. And as we consider so much that is at stake, it’s a great treat to have one of Chris’ favorite people to talk politics. There’s a lot to discuss, including the Senate battlefield for Democrats and why it can be so hard to get things done in the political world. Our guest this week represents one of the most unique states in the union. Senator Brian Schatz is a U.S. Senator from Hawaii and serves the chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He joins WITHpod to discuss Vice President Harris, affordable housing concerns in the Aloha state, effects of climate change in his home state, his favorite part of the job, why he says Trump could be vanquished and more.

Duration:00:48:49

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The Rise of The Latino Far Right with Paola Ramos

10/22/2024
Donald Trump and the Republican Party have made significant inroads among Latino voters. At the same time, vitriolic ads are continually being released that feature racist and demagogic depictions of immigrants, especially Latino ones. And, if you remember, despite Trump’s relentless anti-immigrant rhetoric, he won a higher percentage of the Latino vote in 2020 than he did in 2016. With less than 20 days to go until Election Day, immigration policy continues to be front and center as one of the most polarizing issues this year. What is driving the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos? Paola Ramos is an award-winning journalist and an author. Her latest is titled, “Defectors: Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.” She’s also a contributor for MSNBC and Telemundo. She joins WITHpod to discuss forces spearheading Latino support of far-right politics, the effects of radicalization and more.

Duration:00:54:42

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Harris’ Media Blitz and Strategy with Symone Sanders-Townsend

10/15/2024
With just a few weeks until the election, you’ve probably noticed that Vice President Harris has been doing a lot of media. How does she decide which outlets to give interviews to? What does the process look like behind the scenes? Lucky for us, we have the perfect guest to unpack the ins and outs of campaign press strategy, particularly in an election as consequential as this one. Symone Sanders-Townsend is co-host of “The Weekend” on MSNBC, a democratic strategist, and the author of “No, You Shut Up.” She also served as a former senior advisor to Vice President Harris. She joins WITHpod to discuss how campaign political media strategy is crafted and her experience working closely with VP Harris. And, if you love hearing Symone in conversation as much as we did, you’re in luck. As a bonus for MSNBC Premium subscribers, we’re sharing a bonus episode with Symone this Friday, 10/18, where we talk all about her trajectory, how she became Symone Sanders-Townsend and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium for that bonus and other special offerings from MSNBC Audio.

Duration:00:54:11

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Listen to “Kamala: Next in Line”

10/9/2024
Election Day is around the corner and Vice President Kamala Harris could become the first woman, first Black woman, and first South-Asian to sit in the Oval Office. In light of this moment, we’re resharing our 2020 series “Kamala: Next in Line,” from MSNBC and Wondery. Hosted by Joy Reid, "Next In Line" is an intimate and immersive look into what drives Harris, what her critics say about her, and how she arrived at this historic moment. This is a special program for our MSNBC Premium subscribers. Listen to an excerpt from the first episode here. And to download the full series, sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. You’ll find the series in the How to Win feed. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll get all MSNBC original podcasts ad-free, along with bonus exciting content from Prosecuting Donald Trump, Rachel Maddow, and more. Thanks for listening and subscribing!

Duration:00:10:25

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Reflecting on October 7th with Amir Tibon

10/8/2024
It’s been one year since the devastating October 7th attacks by Hamas into Israel. It’s a truly awful anniversary to observe for numerous reasons. In the past year, there’s been immeasurable horror, violence, destruction and death. It is estimated that at least 40,000 people have died in Gaza and there are still over a hundred hostages. Our guest this week survived the attacks on October 7th and the chaos that ensued. Amir Tibon is an Israeli journalist working for Haaretz Newspaper and is the author of a newly published book titled "The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands.” He joins WITHpod to discuss what has transpired over the last year, internal politics in Gaza now, the U.S. response and what he hopes will happen in the future.

Duration:00:57:37

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Crafting a Bipartisan Miracle with Chris Murphy

10/1/2024
Comprehensive border and immigration reform has eluded policymakers in the U.S. for decades. As global turmoil and conflict grows, questions and concerns still remain about the economic, security, and humanitarian justification and rationale for immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees seeking entry into the U.S. Vitriolic rhetoric, which has largely impeded meaningful progress, has only intensified in the months leading up to one of the most consequential elections in history. In the midst of all of this, somewhat of a miracle has materialized: bipartisan collaboration. Our guest this week served as the chief negotiator of a border bill that was negotiated between Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is the junior U.S. Senator for Connecticut and is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. He joins WITHpod to discuss what has historically hindered a significant revamp of American immigration policy, how he was able to help broker conservative partnership, his concerns about “unaccountable elites, the fall of American neoliberalism and more.

Duration:00:55:56