Radio Atlantic

Outrage over families separated at the border has reached a fever pitch. Social media is awash with images of undocumented migrants held in cages, sounds of children crying for their parents, and viral videos of a callous administration response. On Wednesday, President Trump caved to immense political pressure and signed an executive order meant to end family separation at the border. But what effect will it actually have?Video producer Jeremy Raff has been in McAllen, Texas, attending "mass trials" of immigrants—many of whom have been separated from their children with no certainty on when, or if, they will be reunited. Raff shares what's happening along the border, then staff writer Priscilla Alvarez joins to discuss what the news in Washington means for separated families.Links- "Purgatory at the Border" (Jeremy Raff, June 19, 2018)- "'So What? Maybe It Is a Concentration Camp'" (Jeremy Raff, February 23, 2018)- "Extinguishing the Beacon of America" (Alex Wagner, June 15, 2018)- "Trump Says He Will End the Family Separations He Imposed" (David A. Graham, June 20, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nationwide, black Americans live three years less than white Americans. In places with a history of segregation, that life-expectancy gap can be as much as twenty years. Staff writer Olga Khazan joins Matt Thompson, Alex Wagner, and Vann Newkirk to share the story of Kiarra Boulware, a young black woman from Baltimore whose struggles shed a light on how people living only a few miles apart have such disparate health prospectsLinks- “Being Black in America Can Be Hazardous to Your Health” (Olga Khazan, July/August 2018 Issue- “The 'Horrifying' Consequence of Lead Poisoning” (Olga Khazan, November 8, 2017)- “The Lead-Poisoned Generation in New Orleans” (Vann R. Newkirk II, May 21, 2017)- “How Income Affects the Brain” (Olga Khazan, May 15, 2018)- “The Obesity Cure Is Out of Reach in the Heaviest States” (Olga Khazan, May 7, 2018)- “Trump's EPA Concludes Environmental Racism Is Real” (Vann R. Newkirk II, February 28, 2018)- “Food Swamps Are the New Food Deserts” (Olga Khazan, December 28, 2017)- “What the 'Crack Baby' Panic Reveals About The Opioid Epidemic” (Vann R. Newkirk II, July 16, 2017)- “The Fight for Health Care Has Always Been About Civil Rights” (Vann R. Newkirk II, June 27, 2017)- “VIDEO: Environmental Racism Is the New Jim Crow” (Vann R. Newkirk II, June 5, 2017)- “When You Can't Afford Sleep” (Olga Khazan, September 15, 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two of the world’s most volatile heads of state—Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump—have moved in the span of a year from trading insults to trading fawning letters. Now, they're days away from the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. Between Kim's nuclear ambitions and Trump's political pressures, the stakes of this exchange couldn’t be higher. Are we headed toward the world’s most unlikely match? Or its worst diplomatic divorce?Links- “The Threat to Kim Jong Un Within North Korea” (Uri Friedman, June 4, 2018)- “So Is the North Korea Summit Back On, or What?” (Uri Friedman, May 31, 2018)- “How South Korea Pulled Trump and Kim Back From the Brink” (Uri Friedman, May 27, 2018)- “South Korea’s President Moon is the man in the (very precarious) middle” (Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Washington Post, May 28, 2018)- “Former South Korean National-Security Adviser: The U.S. May Have to Withdraw Some Troops” (Uri Friedman, May 23, 2018)- “Trumpism: Speak Loudly and Carry a Big Stick" (Uri Friedman, April 6, 2018)- “The Man Behind the North Korea Negotiations” (S. Nathan Park, March 12, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new generation of political activists have grown up more interested in provoking outrage from their fellow citizens than in winning them over. Among the most influential exemplars of the genre is Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser to President Trump. What happens when the trolls run politics? What happens when they run the White House?Links- “Trump’s Right-Hand Troll” (McKay Coppins, May 28, 2018)- “How an Aspiring It-Girl Tricked New York's Party People - and Its Biggest Banks” (Jessica Pressler, New York Magazine, May 28, 2018)- “Review: 'Children of Blood and Bone,' by Tomi Adeyemi” (Vann R. Newkirk II, April 2018 Issue)- “This Is The Daily Stormer’s Playbook” (Ashley Feinberg, Huffington Post, December 13, 2017)- “Watch: Young Stephen Miller jokes “torture is a celebration of life”” (Noah Kulwin, Vice, May 30, 2017)- “The Future of Trumpism Is on Campus” (Elaine Godfrey, January 2, 2018)- “Is Free Speech Really Challenged on Campus?” (Julian E. Zelizer and Morton Keller, September 15, 2017)- “Trolls Are Winning the Internet, Technologists Say” (Adrienne LaFrance, March 29, 2017)- “The First Troll” (James Parker, December 2016 Issue)- “Should We Feed the Trolls?” (Adrienne LaFrance, April 28, 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The decades-old dispute between Israelis and Palestinians seems to be at a new low these days. Two American-born writers – an Israeli author and a Muslim journalist – join editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg and global editor Kathy Gilsinan to grapple with the bleak state of affairs. Yossi Klein Halevi is the author of the new book Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor. Wajahat Ali recently traveled to the West Bank to write “A Muslim Among Israeli Settlers” for the June 2018 issue of The Atlantic. The four discuss how we got here and what paths forward remain.Links- “A Muslim Among Israeli Settlers” (Wajahat Ali, June 2018 Issue)- "Settlers in the 'Most Contentious Place on Earth'" (Wajahat Ali, May 10, 2018)- “The Real Dispute Driving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (Yossi Klein Halevi, May 14, 2018)- Yossi Klein Halevi joined Jeffrey Goldberg on The Atlantic Interview (May 1, 2018)- “Jerusalem’s Ramadan Is Different This Year” (Emma Green, May 18, 2018)- “The Coming Storm in Israel” (Neri Zilber, May 11, 2018)- “Iran vs. Israel: Is a Major War Ahead?” (Avi Issacharoff, May 11, 2018)- “Celebration in Jerusalem, Bloodshed in Gaza” (Emma Green, May 14, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has been the focus of headlines and cable news for a full year now. Despite his seemingly leak-proof team, speculation and anxiety swirl around the inquiry. What do we actually know about the investigation? How much deeper does the iceberg go? And where is it heading next?Links- "The Lingering Mysteries of a Trump-Russia Conspiracy" (Natasha Bertrand, May 16, 2018)- "Trump Finally Fesses Up to Reimbursing Michael Cohen" (David A. Graham, May 16, 2018)- “What Exactly Is Rudy Giuliani's Role?” (David A. Graham, May 7, 2018)- "Trump Goes to War With Mueller" (David A. Graham, May 2, 2018)- "Mueller's Probe Is Even More Expansive Than It Seems" (Natasha Bertrand, May 14, 2018)- "'These Are Very Dangerous Questions for the President'" (Adam Serwer, May 1, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's Radio Atlantic brings you the first episode of our new show Crazy/Genius, hosted by Atlantic staff writer (and past Radio Atlantic guest) Derek Thompson. In this episode, two guests debate whether Facebook is fixable, or whether its business model is designed to sell us lies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some Americans who grew up identifying with Roseanne have found themselves alienated by Roseanne Barr’s outspoken devotion to President Trump. Many of Kanye West’s fans revolted after he tweeted out an image of himself wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. Pop culture will probably always mirror the divides playing out in society. But when social divides are more massive than they’ve been in generations, does all our entertainment become a litmus test for our political beliefs? Links- “Bill Cosby and the Slow Death of Celebrity Impunity” (Megan Garber, April 26, 2018)- "The 'Dragon Energy' of Kanye West and Donald Trump" (Vann Newkirk, April 25, 2018)- "How 'Roseanne' Divides the Left" (Conor Friedersdorf, April 4, 2018)- “Roseanne vs. the 'Nasty Woman'” (Megan Garber, March 23, 2018)- Chika Oranika on Twitter (April 26, 2018)- Teddy Bear scene, “Daisy” (The Golden Girls, September 17, 1987) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“We are a president-obsessed nation, so much so that we undermine the very idea of our constitutional democracy,” writes John Dickerson in his May cover story in The Atlantic. “No one man—or woman—can possibly represent the varied, competing interests of 327 million citizens.” Have we heaped so much upon the president that the job has become impossible? Is Trump testing the office in valuable ways? And if the presidency is broken, how do we fix it?Links- "The Hardest Job in the World" (John Dickerson, May 2018 Issue)- “Scott Pruitt Bypassed the White House to Give Big Raises to Favorite Aides” (Elaina Plott and Robinson Meyer, April 3, 2018)- "Letter to Joseph Hooker from Lincoln, January 26, 1863" (Library of Congress)- Educated (Tara Westover, 2018)- Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It (Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik, 2018)- Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders, 2017)- “There’s Something Funny About Tiffany Haddish” (Caity Weaver, GQ, March 26, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Long the crossroads of civilizations, Syria has now spent seven years as the proxy warzone of great powers. With over half a million dead and millions more displaced, the conflict is  now “arguably the world’s largest humanitarian disaster since World War II,” writes Andrew Tabler in The Atlantic. “The Syrian Civil War now threatens to morph into the Syria War—a regional conflagration which seems likely to burn for a generation. And civilians are cursed to live it, and die in it, every day.” How did we get here? And what comes next?Links- “How Syria Came to This” (Andrew Tabler, April 15, 2018)- “What If There Is No Ethical Way to Act in Syria Now?” (Sigal Samuel, April 13, 2018)- “The Obama Doctrine” (Jeffrey Goldberg, April 2016 Issue)- “The Syrian War Is Actually Many Wars” (Krishnadev Calamur, April 13, 2018)- “Trump's Selective Empathy for Syrian War Victims” (Krishnadev Calamur, April 18, 2018)- The Poems of Max Ehrmann (Max Ehrmann, 1906) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices