Politics Weekly America

Kathleen McLaughlin has a rare chronic illness and needs regular treatments using people’s blood plasma. She started researching the US blood plasma industry a decade ago and has written a book, Blood Money, about what it says about class, race and inequality. This week, she speaks to Joan E Greve about what she’s learned about the for-profit blood plasma industry • How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

Lauren Gambino is joined by Becca Andrews in Nashville to discuss why the ousting of two Democratic lawmakers from the state Capitol in Nashville last week sparked outrage across the US

Next week, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton will arrive in Northern Ireland to join commemorations of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Clinton is now celebrated as one of the key players behind the agreement, but he didn’t do it alone. It took years of background efforts – of secret meetings, discreet lobbying and high-risk shadow diplomacy, by people whose names we’ve never known – to convince the United States to get involved. This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to one of those people, Niall O’Dowd, who tells the extraordinary story of how he built a secret channel between Clinton and the Irish republican movement

On Tuesday, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records for alleged hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential election. Joan E Greve speaks to the New York editor for Politico, Julia Marsh, amid a busy week for Manhattan

Voters in the swing state Wisconsin will head to the polls on 4 April to determine who will replace Justice Patience Roggensack on the state supreme court. It is down to the final two – a liberal and a conservative – and the outcome will determine majority control of the court for at least the next two years, including during the presidential election in 2024. It is expected to be the most expensive election of its kind in history. Joan E Greve speaks to Alice Herman and Sam Levine about what is at stake

Last weekend, Donald Trump predicted he would be arrested. This has yet to happen. So why did he bring attention to a hush money case that could put him in handcuffs soon? Jonathan Freedland and Hugo Lowell discuss why Donald Trump might still face criminal charges next week, and why it might actually benefit his campaign

Twenty years ago, as George Bush and Tony Blair advocated the need to invade Iraq, Jonathan Freedland and Peter Beinart were on opposite sides of the argument. This week, Peter tells Jonathan why he now regrets supporting the war

Reports suggest Joe Biden will announce his intention to run for a second term in the White House in 2024. Jonathan Freedland and Robert Reich discuss whether or not he is the best candidate the Democrats can put forward

Jonathan Freedland and Tara Setmayer discuss why some high profile Republicans – and even Fox News – are avoiding this year’s gathering at the Conservative Political Action Conference

This week marks one year since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and for the first time since the war began, Joe Biden landed in Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, in what some are calling one of the most important trips by a US president since the end of the cold war. This week, Joan E Greve speaks to Susan Glasser of the New Yorker about the significance of Biden’s trip to Europe and why Republicans at home are criticising him for it