Next Question with Katie Couric

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. And, after watching the slow tidal wave of infections, deaths, and fear consume most of Asia and Europe, Americans finally felt COVID’s impact at home. This totally unknown, novel virus took root, upending our lives. On this week’s episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, we recognize this sobering anniversary of a full year with the pandemic. Three Americans intimately involved with COVID-19 — an ER doctor, an epidemiologist, and a patient — share their experiences in those early, panic-stricken days and months of the spring 2020 to find out just how far we’ve come from and just how much we’ve learned about COVID-19, our healthcare system, science, and maybe even ourselves. Learn more about this week’s guests:Fiona Lowenstein, independent journalist and co-founder of the Body Politic Covid-19 support group. Dr. Jeremy Faust, emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard medical school faculty and editor in chief of Brief19.Dr. Keri Althoff, associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.Related links:Sign up for the Body Politic Covid-19 Support Group here.Body Politic Support Group shop.A guide to assessing the risks of re-opening activities amid the pandemic. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey,” is the title of the very funny, if completely horrifying, new book by comedian and late-night host Amber Ruffin. The book, which Amber co-wrote with her sister Lacey Lamar, is a collection of essays about all the racist sh*t Lacey has to put up with as a Black woman living and working in Omaha, Nebraska. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie talks with the sisters about growing up in Omaha, their different trajectories and experiences with racism and how humor can be used to expose and talk about the hard stuff. Katie also explores Amber’s career, her new show (The Amber Ruffin Show, on Peacock) and her incredible ability to skewer the kind of everyday racism she and her siblings have always put up with. And if you haven’t seen it already, go watch Amber make the case for a White History Month. Click here for more about the book, “You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism,” from Grand Central Publishing. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the first episode of the new season of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie sits down with actor, director, activist Robin Wright who stars in and directs the new movie, Land. Robin plays Edee, a woman experiencing tremendous grief who decides to leave her life in the city to live in a cabin in the wilderness. “It’s about the existence you once knew, that you once lived in will never exist in the same way again,” she says, “and I just thought, wow, that’s something to explore.” And with 2021 already proving to be a standout year for women in film — with more women premiering at Sundance and more female directors nominated for Golden Globes — Robin addresses Hollywood’s glass ceiling and whether the cracks are finally making an impact on the industry. ‘Land’ is playing in select theaters now and will be available on PVOD March 5. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this bonus episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie shares a timely and important conversation with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. As a Republican leader in a predominantly blue state, Governor Hogan offers a valuable perspective on how to effectively bridge the partisan divide in our increasingly polarized country. In this wide-ranging interview, he talks with Katie about this unprecedented moment in our nation’s history, what it means to be a “common sense conservative,” and why he thinks we’re just at the beginning of a “long and difficult battle for the soul of the Republican party.” Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Question with Katie Couric is back with its third season! After taking some podcasting detours to help make sense of an unprecedented 12 months — from the outbreak of COVID-19, to America’s racial reckoning, to the presidential election — Katie returns to her intimate interview podcast with some new questions. Like, how do you create art when the world is burning? How can we heal through this trauma together? And how can we find and share joy. Join Katie as she sits down (virtually, of course) with actors, activists, scholars, and authors — people who will impress you, move you, and maybe even make you laugh … wouldn’t it be nice to laugh? It’s a whole new season: new guests, new topics, same curious Katie. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Question with Katie Couric is gearing up for its third season, launching Feb. 25, 2021. In the meantime, Katie shares a really important and fascinating conversation she had this week. The 92nd Street Y invited Katie to moderate a talk with the founders of the Lincoln Project, the Super PAC started by former Republicans who wanted to defeat Donald Trump as well as hold accountable all those who violate their oath of the constitution regardless of party. Katie was joined remotely by former head of the New Hampshire Republican party Jennifer Horn and political strategists Reed Galen and Steve Schmidt. The conversation was recorded on Tuesday January 26. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This series began in the past, to better understand the origin and history of our ongoing fight for voting rights. And as Turnout comes to a close, we consider its future. Where do we go from here? What lessons can we take with us, and what impact might this election have on our ongoing push for a more inclusive democracy and a more perfect union. In this last episode of Turnout with Katie Couric, we hear from some of our previous guests — including Wendy Weiser, Gilda Daniels, and Tyler Okeke — about the biggest takeaways from the 2020 election and their impact on our democracy. But first, an interview with someone whose job it is to lay a civics foundation for the next generation of voters. Greg Cruey is a middle school social studies teacher in War, West Virginia — a one-time coal mining center that is now one of the poorest areas in the country. Because Mr. Cruey explains our voting system, our elections, and our democracy to his 6th, 7th, and 8th graders each year, we wanted to hear how he might put our 2020 experience into context.Read more about the people and organizations mentioned in this episode:What it’s like to teach children about the election, and its results, in deep-red Trump country, by Hanna Natanson (Washington Post)Wendy Weiser is the Vice President for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law SchoolGilda Daniels is an associate professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, as well as litigation director at Advancement Project national office and author of ‘Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America.’Tyler Okeke is a Vote at 16 Youth Organizer with Power California and a second-year student at the University of Chicago. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the last nine months, as the coronavirus swept across the world, devastating so many lives in its wake, scientists have been working around the clock to develop a safe and effective vaccine in record time. And now the results from all of that hard work are starting to come in and it’s good news. Like, really good news. On this bonus episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie talks with Dr. Stephen Hoge, a doctor, scientist and president of Moderna, one of the biotech firms leading the COVID-19 vaccine race. Moderna is remarkable in that it is, compared to the Pfizer behemoths of the world, a tiny biotech firm. But that hasn’t stopped it from cracking the vaccine code using a novel approach. In this wide-ranging interview, Katie and Dr. Hoge talk about the company, the pandemic, and the logistics of these vaccines — who gets them and when. Let’s call it, vaccines for dummies. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You’ve no doubt heard that the 2020 election welcomed historic turnout. But what do those high numbers of voters mean for our democracy, for future elections, and for the warring political parties as they conduct their post-mortems? On this episode of Turnout with Katie Couric, we hear from a data journalist who is starting to comb through the numbers. Neal Rothschild, director of audience and political data reporter for Axios, shares the four big takeaways that help explain the 2020 election. Then, Katie talks with her friend, the best-selling author Mitch Albom about the state of our divisiveness, the media’s problem, how we can find ways to reconnect and start to move forward as a country together.  More about the episodes and guests featured in this episode:Four demographic trends that explain Biden’s victory (Axios)Read more from Neal Rothschild or find him on TwitterMitch Albom: The election will be meaningless if we don’t change our ways (Detroit Free Press)Find more about Mitch Albom’s books at his website. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All eyes are on Georgia this week as it wraps up its manual recount of nearly 5 million ballots. On Friday, November 13, when the recount began, several news outlets had declared Joe Biden the state’s winner. If that still holds when the recount is complete, Biden will be the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992. If that weren’t enough, control of the Senate now hinges on two critical Georgia runoff elections, which will happen in early January 2021. At the center of this national political storm is Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. On this episode of Turnout with Katie Couric, an interview with the secretary, who gives us a peek behind the recount curtain, and talks about the high-pressure stakes of being the Republican in charge of President Trump’s recount: tweets, calls for resignation, and, yes, even death threats. For Brad Raffensperger, it’s all in a day’s work. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.