DSR's Words Matter

Katie welcomes her friend Nina Totenberg to Words Matter. Nina is NPR's award winning and legendary legal affairs correspondent. Her coverage of the Supreme Court and legal and political affairs has won her widespread recognition. Newsweek calls her "the creme de la creme of NPR" and Vanity Fair calls her "Queen of the Leaks." She's not a lawyer but any lawyer in Washington will tell you she knows more about the law than they do.From more than 30 years, Nina Totenberg has broken some of the biggest stories in some of the most important and consequential events in the history of Supreme Court nominations. Listen to Nina talk with Katie about the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, the Mueller Report and executive privilege and her special friendship with the Terminator -- former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Almanac of American Politics described Daniel Patrick Moynihan as “The nation’s best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson.” Before his election to the US Senate in 1976, Moynihan served in the administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. He was ambassador to India, and U.S. representative to the United Nations, and was four times elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.This week we are honored to add Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary to the Words Matter Audible Library. In this important book, distinguished journalist Steven Weisman compiles a vivid portrait of Moynihan’s life, in the senator’s own words. Moynihan's letters offer an extraordinary window into particular moments in history, from his feelings of loss at JFK’s assassination, to his passionate pleas to Nixon not to make Vietnam a Nixon war, to his frustrations over healthcare and welfare reform during the Clinton era.Check out this title on Audible, because Words Matter.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Linda Brown was in the third grade when her father Oliver tried to enroll her in Sumner Elementary School in Topeka Kansas. Oliver and his daughter Linda were denied admission to the school that day. The year was 1950. Sumner was an all-white school. And Linda attended the school for black children across town. Separate but equal ruled the day in America. The moment Linda was turned away, it started a series of events that toppled the idea of separate but equal and led her all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court of the United States. Linda's father was the named plaintiff in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education.This week, we give education pioneer and civil rights icon Linda Brown, the final word.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the Mueller Investigation over and his report delivered to the Attorney General, the battle moves to Capitol Hill. Katie and guest host Joe Lockhart talk with former state and federal prosecutor Elie Honig. As a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Elie directed major criminal cases against organized crime, street gangs, drug traffickers, corrupt public officials, child predators and white collar criminals. Elie is the executive director of the Rutgers Institute for Secure Communities at Rutgers University. And in his spare time Elie is a CNN legal analyst where he just launched "Cross-Exam" a new weekly column.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we put We Say #NeverAgain into the Words Matter Audible Library. This is a moving journalistic account of shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and the fight for gun control - as told by the student reporters themselves. Read by Melissa Falkowski, Eric Garner, and the Parkland Student Journalists, this important book showcases how the teens told their own story. Listen as students share specific insight into what it has been like being approached by the press and how that has informed the way they interview their own subjects.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week we talked to Former White Press Secretary Joe Lockhart about the news of the day how the Mueller investigation operates differently than the Starr investigation operated and how the White House in crisis battles with a hostile Congress and communicates with the press and the American people.Our listeners wanted to hear more -- so we invited him back.Joe served as the 19th White House Press Secretary under President Bill Clinton from 1998-2000. In 1999, Joe became the only White House Press Secretary in American history to serve during the Senate Impeachment Trial of a US President. Later Joe co-founded the Glover Park Group and went on to serve as Senior Vice President of the National Football League. Joe is currently a CNN political analyst and Vice Chairman of Edelman Public Relations.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The month of March is international women's history month and we recently celebrated International Women's Day. Black history month just ended in February -- and so in honor of both, Katie will be highlighting some outstanding women in this space. This week...Charlayne Hunter-Gault is an Emmy award winning investigative journalist and recipient of 2 Peabody Awards. But before any of that, she was the first black woman to attend the University of Georgia in the segregated South in 1961. Charlayne Hunter-Gault graduated with a degree in journalism in 1963. She went on to work for the New York Times ,The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer and worked as NPR's chief correspondent in Africa for many years. She's also an author. She wrote in my place a memoir about her experiences at the University of Georgia. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is a pioneer and paved the way for many women in journalism and education. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Lockhart served as the 19th White House Press Secretary under President Bill Clinton from 1998-2000. In 1999, Joe became the only White House Press Secretary in American history to serve during the Senate Impeachment Trial of a US President. Later Joe co-founded the Glover Park Group and went on to serve as Senior Vice President of the National Football League. Joe is currently a CNN political analyst and Vice Chairman of Edelman Public Relations.We talk to Joe about his recent CNN appearance with former Independent Counsel Ken Starr and how far he thinks Donald Trump is on the path toward Impeachment.And Katie has a Final Word on legendary journalist and civil rights pioneer Charlayne Hunter-Gault.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we put Power Wars, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Washington correspondent for The New York Times, Charlie Savage into the Words Matter Audible Library.First published in 2015, Power Wars is an investigative history of national-security legal policymaking in the Obama administration. Charlie is also the author of Takeover, published in 2007, which chronicles the Bush-Cheney administration’s efforts to expand presidential power.Charlie has been covering post-9/11 issues — including national security, individual rights and the rule of law — since 2003, when he was a reporter for The Miami Herald. Later that year, he joined the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe; he moved to the Washington bureau of The New York Times in 2008. He has also co-taught a seminar on national security and the Constitution at Georgetown University.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage is a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. He is also the author of “Power Wars,” published in 2015, an investigative history of national-security legal policymaking in the Obama administration, and “Takeover,” published in 2007, which chronicles the Bush-Cheney administration’s efforts to expand presidential power.Charlie has been covering post-9/11 issues — including national security, individual rights and the rule of law — since 2003, when he was a reporter for The Miami Herald. Later that year, he joined the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe; he moved to the Washington bureau of The New York Times in 2008. He has also co-taught a seminar on national security and the Constitution at Georgetown University.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/words-matter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices