KQED's Forum

A group of Silicon Valley billionaires is causing chaos in the federal government by shuttering agencies, firing workers en masse and flouting legal and political norms. According to journalist Gil Duran, the chaos is carefully orchestrated, as figures like Elon Musk, David Sacks and Peter Thiel follow a playbook conceived by far right thinkers on how to take down institutions and seize power. We talk to Duran about what these tech elites – a group he calls “The Nerd Reich” – are reading, thinking and saying. Guests: Gil Duran, journalist, produces a newsletter covering the tech industry, "The Nerd Reich" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist and writer Omar El Akkad has won acclaim for his novels “American War” and “What Strange Paradise,” and he’s now published his first non-fiction book which takes a searing look at the war in Gaza. “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” is a rebuke of Western institutions including governments, universities, and the media for failing to denounce Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. El Akkad, born in Egypt, examines the political systems, beliefs, and prejudices that he says Americans have used to shield themselves from confronting atrocities. Guests: Omar El Akkad, journalist and author, His latest book is, "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This." He is also author of the novels, "American War" and "What Strange Paradise." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Tufts University PhD student from Turkey remains in detention in Louisiana after masked, plainclothes ICE officers arrested her last week, as she was walking on the street. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that the State Department has revoked at least 300 foreign students’ visas, in an effort that appears to be targeting students who have criticized Israel’s war in Gaza. That’s after the Trump administration sent 261 Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison, an action that’s being challenged in federal court. “Trump has enlisted nearly every federal law-enforcement agency to help with his mass-deportation campaign, a mobilization akin to a wartime effort,” writes Atlantic immigration reporter Nick Miroff. We’ll talk with Miroff about the latest legal battles and immigration news. Guests: Nick Miroff, staff writer covering immigration, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S.-Mexico border, The Atlantic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since taking office, President Trump has taken aim at the constitutional order. By conducting mass firings of civil servants, investigating and prosecuting rivals and critics and pardoning insurrectionists, Trump has plunged the country into what political scientist Steven Levitsky argues is an authoritarianism that, unlike a full dictatorship, allows for opposition but deploys “the machinery of government to punish, harass, co-opt, or sideline their opponents—disadvantaging them in every contest, and, in so doing, entrenching themselves in power.” And this playbook has been used in countries like Hungary, El Salvador, India, Turkey and others. We talk to Levitsky and historian Anne Applebaum about the lessons other countries can teach us about recognizing authoritarianism at home. Guests: Anne Applebaum, author, "Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World"; staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute. Steven Levitsky, professor of government, Harvard; co-author of "Why Democracies Die" and "Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Department of Justice announced Thursday it will investigate “illegal DEI” in admissions at UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford and UC Irvine. Meantime, the UC system is implementing a hiring freeze in response to President Trump’s threats to slash federal funding, while international students who participated in campus protests report heightened fears of deportation. We talk about the Trump administration’s threats against California universities and the impacts on faculty and students. Guests: Jaweed Kaleem, education reporter, Los Angeles Times Michael Chwe, professor of political science, UCLA; member, UCLA Faculty Association Aditi Hariharan, president, UC Student Association; official representative of all UC undergraduate students Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a special election on April 15, Oakland voters will choose a candidate to finish the term of recalled mayor Sheng Thao. In the second of our interviews with the two frontrunners in the race, longtime East Bay Congresswoman Barbara Lee joins us to share her vision for the city and take your questions. Lee says she’s the only candidate in the Oakland Mayor’s race with the relationships and track record to unite the city and solve its toughest challenges. Guests: Barbara Lee, candidate for mayor of Oakland; U.S. congressmember representing California's 13th district from 1998-2024 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joan Didion famously chronicled California’s culture and mythology in works like “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and “The White Album.” And it’s Didion’s relationship with Hollywood in particular that New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson explores in “We Tell Ourselves Stories,” her new analysis of the California writer. “The movies,” Wilkinson writes, “shaped us — shaped her — to believe life would follow a genre and an arc, with rising action, climax and resolution. It would make narrative sense. The reality is quite different.” We talk to Wilkinson about how Didion saw an American political landscape that was molding itself after the movies — and came to value story over substance. Guest: Alissa Wilkinson, movie critic, New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cooking is a basic survival skill and yet many kids reach adulthood without knowing how to prepare even a simple meal. Meanwhile, other Bay Area kids are producing professional-level dishes on shows like “Kids Baking Championship” and “Chopped Junior.” So how can children get started in the kitchen? Seasoned instructors suggest kicking off with essential skills such as chopping – and, yes kids can use knives without injuring themselves – and learning to read recipes. We’ll talk with culinary teachers, young chefs and you about the best ways to teach kids to cook. Guests: Neelam Patil, chef, educator and CEO, Bliss Belly Kitchen; science teacher at Berkeley Unified School District and founder of Green Pocket Forests founder and CEO, Culinary Artistas Aria Karayil, sixth grader at Diablo Vista Middle School and recent contestant on "Kids Baking Championship" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We take a deep look at the fallout from what national security experts are calling one of the most extraordinary intelligence lapses in U.S. history. On Monday Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he’d been mistakenly included on an unsecured group chat with senior national security officials as they disclosed plans to attack Yemen. The Atlantic published more of the exchange on Wednesday, while the Trump administration downplayed the blunder and top intelligence officials testified before the House lawmakers. We discuss the national security implications with reporters Eric Schmitt and Garrett Graff. Guests: Eric Schmitt, senior national security correspondent, New York Times Garrett Graff, journalist and historian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a special election on April 15, Oakland voters will choose a candidate to finish the term of recalled mayor Sheng Thao. In the first of our interviews with the two frontrunners in the race, former Oakland councilmember Loren Taylor joins us to share his vision for the city and take your questions. He says he’s the only candidate in the race with the local government expertise needed to turn the city’s economic and crime problems around. But he’s facing a tough challenger in former Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Guests: Loren Taylor, mayoral candidate, Oakland; served on Oakland City Council from 2019-2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did MAGA come to control Congress? It’s the story New York Times reporters Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater chart in a new book exposing what they call the unparalleled dysfunction of the 118th congress, where Republicans ground federal legislation to a standstill and pushed moderates out, to the point that “the moments Congress worked felt like brief interruptions of a long fall down a rabbit hole.” We talk to Karni and Broadwater about how MAGA extremism became mainstream in Congress, along with the latest political news. Their book is “Mad House: How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress.” Guests: Annie Karni, congressional correspondent, New York Times; co-author, "Mad House" Luke Broadwater, White House reporter, New York Times; previous congressional correspondent, The Times; co author,"Mad House" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve heard the Thomas Edison quote over and over: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” But how often does the American ideal that we can achieve anything with hard work, actually pan out? In his new book, “99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life” journalist Adam Chandler challenges our myths of meritocracy and self-reliance. As Americans put in grueling work and punishing hours, we’re also experiencing rising levels of income inequality and wages that don’t keep up with cost of living. Chandler joins us to talk about how the nature of work in America is deteriorating and where we can go from here. Guests: Adam Chandler, author, his books include "99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life" out now, and "Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom"; journalist; former staff writer, The Atlantic; recurring guest, The History Channel’s "The Food That Built America." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

YouTube is the site for step-by-step how-to guides, unboxing and reaction videos, and children’s songs that get stuck in your head. It has also fundamentally changed how we produce and consume online content. As YouTube marks its 20th anniversary, we look at the cultural impact of the platform and how it evolved from a simple video-sharing site to the most visited website after Google’s own homepage. How do you use YouTube? Guests: Victor Xie, video creator, his YouTube channel is "Did You Eat Yet?" Mark Bergen, reporter, Bloomberg News; author of "Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination" Johnny Cole Dickson, video creator and host, his YouTube channel is "No Lab Coat Required" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, “The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyperpersuasion,” Harvard historian of science Rebecca Lemov examines the many ways our minds can be controlled against our wills. Lemov chronicles the use of brainwashing techniques on a range of people from U.S. soldiers who were imprisoned in Korea in the 1950s – some of whom refused to come home after the conflict ended – to members of back-to-land cults that proliferated in the Bay Area in the 1960s. She joins us to talk about how brainwashing is used, the troubling implications, and how anyone can fall victim to mind control, even you. Guests: Rebecca Lemov, professor of the history of science, Harvard University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump’s unprovoked tariffs on Canadian goods, his threats to make the sovereign nation a 51st state, his belittling of Canada’s leaders: it’s all making Canadians just a bit miffed. Or as Vox’s Canada-based correspondent Zack Beauchamp puts it, “out-of-this-world angry about what the United States is doing to them.” We’ll talk about the unraveling of relations with our once closest ally, and how everyday Canadians and their government are responding. Guests: Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent, Vox; author, "The Reactionary Spirit" Vjosa Isai, reporter based in Toronto, New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the pandemic, former Atlantic writer Ed Yong became a trusted source for news about COVID and its impact. In 2021 he won a Pulitzer Prize for that work, which often was about “the massive gulf between what you want the world to be and what you see happening around you.” As part of our series looking at the legacy of the pandemic five years on, we talk to Yong about how COVID changed our relationship with health news, reporting and research. Guests: Ed Yong, science journalist and author, "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us." Yong won the 2021 Pulitzer prize for his writing in the Atlantic about the Covid-19 pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sequoia trees. Ojai tangerines. Jasmine. Ocean spray. Weed. “Our sense of smell is often overlooked, but it’s the one thing that can bring back memories of a place faster than anything else,” writes Los Angeles Times assistant editor and olfactory artist Maxwell Williams. LA Times readers shared with Williams their most memorable L.A. smells, including the La Brea tar pits, In-N-Out fries and —of course— the beach. And we want to hear from you, wherever you are in the state: What smell reminds you of California? We’ll talk about the unique scents that surround us in the Golden State. Guests: Maxwell Williams, assistant editor of West Coast Experiences, Los Angeles Times Aashish Manglik, associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry, UCSF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the Library of Congress’s new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Bay Area children’s author Mac Barnett wants to reframe how we think about picture books. With his platform, “Behold the Picture Book,” he’s championing the vital role picture books play in engaging readers of all ages and why we love them. What’s the picture book you love reading over and over and over? Guests: Mac Barnett, author of the children's books "Circle," "Square" and "Triangle" which have been made into a new animated series "Shape Island" on AppleTV+. Barnett is also the author of the "Mac B. Kid Spy" and the "Jack" series. His books have won Caldecott honors and E.B. White Read Aloud Awards. Aida Salazar, children's book author. Her picture books include "Jovita Wore Pants" and "In the Spirit of a Dream." Laura G. Lee, children's book author and illustrator. Her picture books are "Soy Sauce!" and "Cat Eyes." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Edward Fishman, a former top sanctions official in the U.S. Department of State, says that “the world economy has become a battlefield,” with sanctions, tariffs, and embargoes as the U.S.’s primary tools for engagement. But after years of U.S. sanctions against Russia and a Ukraine truce still out of reach, are they effective? In his new book “Chokepoints,” Fishman examines the history of economic warfare and when it has helped the U.S. achieve its strategic goals and when it has fallen short. He joins us. Guests: Edward Fishman, senior research scholar, the Center on Global Energy Policy; adjunct professor of international and public affairs, Columbia University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How should we raise children in a world that is burning? This is the question that Berkeley poet Rachel Richardson contemplates in her new collection, “Smother.” As wildfires beset California, Richardson worried about the impact it would have on the land, communities and her own family. “The smoke is not cruel, only truthful,” she writes. And throughout the collection, fire, smoke and air flecked with ash become metaphors and characters as Richardson searches for resilience, defiance, and ultimately, hope. Guests: Rachel Richardson, poet, "Copperhead, Hundred-Year Wave," and, most recently, "Smother"; co-founder, Left Margin LIT in Berkeley; recipient of the Stegner and NEA Fellowships. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices