Ira and producer Robyn Semien go behind the scenes with some of the Obama staffers to hear what it felt like in the days leading up to the infamous Beer Summit of 2009.

Host Ira Glass follows presidential hopeful Julián Castro as he prepares for the first debate of the Democratic primary. His goal is just to let people know he’s in the race! By, possibly, interrupting somebody onstage.

All the little and not-so-little ways the Trump administration is tightening its scrutiny of immigrants.

Host Ira Glass talks to Congressman Mark Pocan and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal about a bold bill they sponsored last week.

Vice News producer Reid Cherlin tells Ira about a party he attended in Washington in 2014. At the time he thought everyone there was on the fringe of the right wing, largely irrelevant.

Vladmir Putin’s approval rating is a seemingly unreal 84%. Ira talks to reporter Charles Maynes to find out if that number is real and how it couldbe that high.

The Department of Homeland Security’s new policies on deportation have sown fear and confusion among undocumented immigrants. Ira Glass and Lilly Sullivan go to Chicago and meet a family trying to navigate the situation.

Ira talks to a Muslim woman who tweeted on election night that she was worried she would no longer feel safe wearing a hijab.

There’s a political parable about Hillary Clinton that’s made the rounds this year. Host Ira Glass interviews contributor Jack Hitt, who says that in this parable you can see almost every version of Hillary that exists in the popular imagination: the A student, the opportunist, the mastermind, the rat fink, the pragmatist, the truth-twister.

There’s a seismic, historic change going on in the Republican party this year. Producer Zoe Chace tells Ira about a place you can eavesdrop on a group of Republican friends as they fret and argue about that change week after week: a podcast called Ricochet.

Ira talks to Tom, who regrets his vote on Brexit this week. And Zoe Chace talks to Harry Enten, a senior analyst at the website FiveThirtyEight, about Donald Trump.

A year ago, we did a story about a study that found that a simple 20-minute conversation could change someone’s mind about controversial issues like gay marriage and abortion. But a few weeks after we aired the story, the study was discredited.

On September 29th a medical researcher in Philadelphia fired off a simple, well-meaning tweet, and then barely thought twice about it. Little did she know that by doing that, she was perpetrating covert propaganda on behalf of the U.S. government.

Host Ira Glass plays a voicemail containing something very common but veryrare to hear: an elected official directly asking a lobbyist for money.

Perhaps the biggest proponent of smaller government in the United States is lobbyist and activist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. He envisions a government reduced in size by half, and has compelled scores of conservative politicians take pledges to never raise taxes.

Host Ira Glass speaks with Columbia University professor Peter Coleman, who shares some surprising details about the battle surrounding the abortion debate in Boston during the 1990s. We learn what secret meetings between the warring groups could accomplish, and what they couldn't.

Marian Fontana, whose husband was a firefighter who died on 9/11, originally appeared on our show in 2005. Ira talks with Marian today, about what has changed for her over the last 10 years.

Host Ira Glass tells the stories of two professors, each making a calculation that no one had made before. One gets acclaim.

In this act: judge wannabes working with the old boys network.

Host Ira Glass talks to Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri on a press conference he held to announce the creation of just one job.

Host Ira Glass speaks with Jim McManus, whose book Positively Fifth Street inspired Ira to start playing poker. Jim talks about holding and folding, why a poker novice is sometimes the toughest player to beat...and the Cuban Missile Crisis.