U.S. Presidency

Trump called climate change a hoax. Biden calls it an existential threat. Washington Post journalist Juliet Eilperin talks about how Biden might reverse some of his predecessor's policies.

The U.S. has only four percent of the world's population — and yet it accounts for 20 percent of all COVID deaths. New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright discusses America's pandemic year.

Richard Nixon's first vice president resigned amid charges of bribery and tax evasion. Maddow and Mike Yarvitz revisit Agnew's story in the podcast (and now book) Bag Man. Originally broadcast in '19.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman covered Trump before he was President and during his presidency. She gives us her perspective on his tenure in office, and his behavior now that he has to leave the office.

New York Times journalist Eric Schmitt says the president's threats against Iran and his recent purge at the Pentagon, in which he ousted his secretary of defense, could undermine national security.

In his first interview with Terry Gross, Obama talks about what he misses most about being president and reflects on the turmoil of the Trump White House. Obama's new memoir is 'A Promised Land.'

Trump lost the election, but remains popular among Republican voters. New Yorker writer Nicholas Lemann talks about how the GOP might deal with the changes Trump made to the party's ideology.

Politico's Garrett Graff says Trump is already blocking president-elect Biden's access to classified information. Some worry he might destroy White House records and begin issuing pardons.

Jack Goldsmith, former legal counsel to George W. Bush's White House, says no matter when Trump leaves office, his successor will face tough questions about how to reconstruct the battered presidency.

Atlantic writer Barton Gellman discusses what the election has revealed about our system's weaknesses — and what he's learned about the Trump and Biden legal strategies if the election is contested.

Atlantic writer Mike Giglio profiles the Oath Keepers, a pro-Trump militia group, in a new article. "They believe that there is a very strong likelihood of civil violence in America," he says.

As a young man, Joe Biden was fixated on a singular goal: "On his first date with his future wife, he told her mother that he wanted to grow up to be president," New Yorker writer Evan Osnos says. Osnos writes about the Democratic presidential candidate in his new book, Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now.

"Republicans have been trying to drive a stake into the heart of Obamacare pretty much since it was passed — both through legislation and litigation," New York Times reporter Sarah Kliff says.

Barton Gellman writes about the 2020 presidential election — and how he thinks it could trigger a constitutional crisis — in his latest article for The Atlantic. He notes that typically elections are ended when one candidate concedes to the other. It's a system, he says, that "presumes good behavior and presumes that a rational and well-meaning candidate will accept reality when it comes." But Gellman does not trust a scenario that relies upon good faith from the president.

Since the release of the Mueller report in April 2019, it's been analyzed, praised and criticized — and cited by President Trump as proof that there was no collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

Andrew Weissmann was one of the lead prosecutors on special counsel Robert Mueller's team. In his new book, Where Law Ends, Weissmann looks back on where the Mueller investigation succeeded — and where it fell short.

Politico reporter Dan Diamond describes efforts by Trump loyalists at HHS to interfere with the work of scientists at the health agencies in an effort to promote the president's political agenda.

Forbes magazine investigative journalist Dan Alexander has pored over business records, mortgage documents and government reports — and even staked out some Trump properties — to assemble a detailed picture of the president's business interests. He says the president has broken a number of pledges he made about how he would conduct business while in office.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar centers his new novel on a Muslim man who, like Akhtar, is the son of Pakistani immigrants living in Wisconsin.

In his new book, "Donald Trump v. The United States," New York Times journalist Michael Schmidt focuses on two figures in particular who stood up to the president: Former FBI Director James Comey and former White House counsel Don McGahn.

Author Rick Perlstein chronicles the events that propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980. He says that a certain "viciousness" has always been part of the conservative Republican coalition.