Tanya Mosley

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late-night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late-night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late-night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late-night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors and comedians on late night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors, and comedians on late-night TV shows or YouTube. But what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish, Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else.

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

Are you expecting a recession this year?

Dr. Karen Guzzo is a sociologist and fertility expert serving as the director of the Carolina Population Center and a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And Lisa Hagan is a reporter for NPR who has been covering the pro-natal movement and attended last month's second annual NatalCon conference in Austin. Lisa Hagan and Karen Guzzo, welcome to Fresh Air.

What do the Collins think about IVF? Did Simone Collins actually have her children through IVF? Yeah.

I think what's so interesting about what you all are sharing is that there is like no one main pathway to... Dr. Guzzo, can you talk a little bit about the three segments of the pronatalist movement?

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Have more babies or civilization dies. That's the rallying cry behind a once fringe ideology that has made its way into the mainstream. Pro-natalism has been in the news lately, with Trump policies underway to increase birth rates by giving away a $5,000 baby bonus for parents and a National Medal of Motherhood for moms who have six or more children.

Our guests today are NPR reporter Lisa Hagan and sociologist Dr. Karen Guzzo. We'll continue our conversation about the resurgence of the pro-natalist movement after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Well, I want to start with you, Lisa, and I want you to take us inside of this conference that you attended in Austin. First off, kind of set the scene for us. How big was it and how would you describe this overarching message you heard this year?

When we look at actual demographic data, how significant is immigration in offsetting the birth decline in the U.S. compared to boosting?

You know, I know historically, most people know and understand that particularly when it comes to Black people, descendants of enslaved Americans, we've kind of been absent from this more modern day conversation. We know the history where eugenicists use this pseudoscientific language to justify racial segregation, for instance, but...

You've talked about, Dr. Guzzo, more recent efforts underway like limiting welfare and the whole idea of the welfare mom. Can you talk about that a little bit as it relates to this idea about who should be a part of this pro-natalist movement and who's actually not?

Oh, well, that's a question I have for you, Dr. Guzzo. Like, do incentives work? I mean, $5,000 in this economy to have a baby? Yeah.

You mentioned how these types of ideas do not work. But I was just wondering in other places and other countries, because I know that Hungary and Russia, I think even Singapore have introduced these kinds of incentives. They like tax breaks and housing benefits. I think that Hungary even offers free fertility treatments. How effective are those types of measures?

Sweden, I was reading about, has a high female workforce participation rate. rate. They also provide robust childcare and parental leave. They tend to have higher fertility than countries where women have fewer rights. What can we learn from a place like Sweden?

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guests are NPR reporter Lisa Hagen and demographer, sociologist and fertility expert Dr. Karen Guzzo. We're talking about the resurgence of the pro-natalist movement. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

I'm just curious, what was the breakdown of men versus women at NatalCon?

The last time I had an infant was 12 years ago. And the price of affordable child care was so high that really it was a matter for many families on whether to work or not, because many families will spend an entire income or close to it just on child care. It costs as much or more as rent or mortgage.

Elon Musk has been evangelizing. He's been sending these dire warnings that unless the low birth rate changes, civilization will disappear. He's framing it as the biggest threat to civilization. What do you make, Dr. Guzzo, of tech leaders kind of stepping in? I mean, some techno-pronatalists also argue that a bigger population means like more geniuses and innovation.

Elon Musk has a lot of kids, but he definitely is not a traditional family man. That's something that's also been discussed in thinking about traditional family, lots of kids, the nuclear family, and just this need to have more children.

Dr. Guzzo, one of the things I'm trying to reconcile, are the thoughts in the past around pronatalism real? along with today's action. So for instance, during the Cold War, population control was seen as a kind of master key. So American elites actually believed population growth caused poverty and that poverty then turned into communism. How does this square with today's movement?

Lisa, I was just wondering, you mentioned how Vice President J.D. Vance has kind of echoed these worries. The Trump's White House has been asking for suggestions from married couples to boost birth rates. How empowered does the movement feel with perceived allies in government that all of this will turn into concrete policies? Did they talk about this at all during the conference?

What kinds of policies or incentives were seriously being discussed at NATO-Con? Now that there is a real understanding and almost a wind in this movement's sails by the Trump administration's priorities with pro-natalism.

Lisa Hagen and Dr. Karen Guzzo, thank you so much. Thanks for having us.

Dr. Karen Guzzo is a demographer, sociologist, and fertility expert. And Lisa Hagen is a reporter for NPR. Coming up, guest critic Martin Johnson reviews a new jazz album from Wilco guitarist Nels Klein. This is Fresh Air.

Guitarist Nels Klein is one of the most versatile players on the music scene today. He's a heavyweight among indie rockers and well-known in both mainstream and avant-garde jazz circles, but he's probably best known as a member of Wilco. He joined that band 20 years ago, and he's continued to add muscular grit and keening depth to the band's sound.

Klein's new recording is named after his new group, Concentric Quartet. But in many ways, the new album sounds like a retrospective of Klein's diverse musical activities. Guest critic Martin Johnson has this review.

Guest jazz critic Martin Johnson writes about jazz for the Wall Street Journal and Downbeat. He reviewed the new album by Nils Klein called Concentric Quartet. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, Terry Gross pays tribute to her late husband, Grammy award-winning jazz critic Francis Davis, who died on April 14th.

Terry is going to talk about him, read excerpts of his award-winning writing, and play some of the music he wrote about. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.

Our senior producer today is Teresa Madden. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

Okay, we're going to delve into some of those more granular details in a moment. But before we get to that, I want to go to you, Dr. Guzzo, to talk about the legitimacy of the problem that they're trying to solve. You're a demographer who studies when and why people have children.

Remind us of some of the reasons, particularly here in our country, that we are actually seeing a decline in birth rates.

Pronatalists warn of an apocalyptic future, that if birth rates in the U.S. keep falling, we might be headed towards economic collapse, even extinction. They're pushing ideas like genetic engineering, limiting access to contraceptives, and the Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory, which believes that there is a plot to replace white populations with non-white immigrants.

Yeah, I was reading how now more women over 40 are having children up against the steep decline in teen pregnancies. But there's also an economic part to this, right, Dr. Guzzo? Like about 20 years ago, especially with the economic collapse around 2008, 2009, that we started to see a decline in having babies. And that was very much tied to the way of life, people's ability to care for children.

Lisa, in your reporting, you featured a popular couple that has kind of been like rock stars in this movement, the Collins. They describe themselves as techno-Puritans. Who are they and how many children do they have and kind of what's their overarching messaging?

She dresses like a Puritan. She dresses like from another era, another time.

One of the more well-known faces of the movement is Elon Musk, who reportedly has at least 14 biological children with several different women, and has called the world's population decline the greatest threat to humanity. But critics argue that this movement isn't solely about increasing birth rates. It's about who gets to reproduce, under what terms, and at what cost.

It's really interesting where they sit politically. You mentioned that they don't necessarily consider themselves liberal, but they don't consider themselves on the far right. And they also have told you that they are pushing it back against some of those racist ideologies that historically have been a part of the pro-natalist movement. You all...

talked a little bit about how white nationalists are drawn to their podcast. And you actually talked to Malcolm Collins about this at the Freedom Economy Conference. Let's listen to what he had to say to you about racists and white nationalists who are drawn to the pro-natalist movement and how he's interacted with them.

They argue that this movement ignores the skyrocketing price of child care in our country, our broken parental leave systems, and a woman's autonomy over her own body. Well, today we're joined by two people whose work explores this movement and the motivations behind it.

That was Malcolm Collins, a leader in the pro-natalist movement, talking last year to one of my guests, Lisa Hagan. And Lisa, I want to point out that, I mean, of course, not all pro-natalist arguments are inherently racist, but there is a clear and well-documented overlap between the rhetoric that they used and racist, xenophobic, and nationalist ideologies there.

How much of that did you encounter during your reporting at this conference or more generally as you kind of like sleuth online and look at these worlds?

Dr. Guzzo, I know that you've also been following the different factions of this movement, and you've talked about some of the more religious factions against IVF and abortion. I'm thinking about some of the groups that might make up kind of the religious faction of the pro-natalist movement.

I was thinking about, you know, Many employers are now pushing their employees to come back to work. During the pandemic, folks were working from home. There is also like this tension here because it feels kind of hostile that so many workplaces are demanding that we go back into the office. But is there a tradeoff for that, a benefit to that, to actually be in the office?

What does the data say about productivity, but not just that, maybe lessening the loneliness meter scale for us as individuals?

He's also the author of the books Hitmakers and On Work, Money, Meaning, Identity, and the host of the podcast Plain English. His new book, Abundance, co-authored with Ezra Klein, comes out in March. Derek Thompson, welcome to Fresh Air, and I'm excited to talk with you again.

My guest today is Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson, and we're talking about his February cover story, The Antisocial Century. We'll be right back in just a few. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

Okay, Derek, I think a lot of us would assume that what you saw today when you were out to dinner with your family, is just a holdover of the pandemic. But you actually trace this isolation even further back. What did you find?

OK, so I was reading about how fewer Gen Z adults reported being involved in romantic relationships during their teenage years. What did you find in the research about this?

Did you find other factors aside from technology that might be causing this?

Is this what we call like the third place or the third space?

I mean, is there a through line then to sort of this disenfranchised male? You know, we talk about like the incels and some of those things that like we've really been having discourse about. This kind of delves into also our politics. But is there a through line that you see in the data there?

Thinking back to the little bit we were talking about regarding romantic relationships and young people, there was this article a few weeks ago in the Times about a woman who who was in a full-fledged relationship with chat GPT. And, you know, of course, that made me think about the movie Her from 2013, where Joaquin Phoenix's character was in love with an operating system.

How are these AI companions maybe furthering this trend or stepping in to fill the void for people who are isolated?

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, I'm talking with Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson about his recent article for The Atlantic, The Antisocial Century. We'll continue our conversation after a break. This is Fresh Air.

Okay, Derek, let's talk a little bit about political polarization. I love the subtitle of this section of your piece. It's called, This is Your Politics on Solitude. How has all of this isolation, how has it changed our politics?

You actually say that this kind of helps explain progressive stubborn inability to understand President Donald Trump's appeal. Say more about it.

You know what's so interesting about what you're saying, too, is that I feel like we were having this conversation in 2016 when there was this indictment on elite in mainstream media that like somehow the mainstream media missed this Trump wave. And from 2016 to now 2025, I mean, we're still here with this baffled, like people are baffled by the phenomenon that you're talking about.

How much of a role does media play in this issue as well?

Okay, Derek, when I hear you say this goes back 60 years, I'm just thinking the consequences then must be more profound than we realize. And technology is at the heart of it.

Okay, Derek, short of some sort of apocalyptic ending of the internet that will force us to look up from our phones and at each other, what can we do to combat this?

Derek Thompson, I always really enjoy talking to you. Thank you so much.

Derek Thompson is a staff writer with The Atlantic. His cover story is called The Antisocial Century. Coming up, our TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new documentary Without Arrows. It follows a Lakota family over the course of 13 years. This is Fresh Air.

A new entry in the PBS Independent Lens series of documentary films is called Without Arrows. It's about Delwin Fittler Jr., a Native American member of the Lakota Sioux tribe who returns home after years in Philadelphia to visit his family on their South Dakota reservation. The filmmakers of Without Arrows accompanied Delwin on his journey and kept revisiting him over more than a decade.

Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

David Bianculli is professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed Without Arrows, part of the Independent Lens series, now streaming on PBS. On the next Fresh Air, how Louis Armstrong became the first black pop star and musician who provided the foundational language of improvisation. We talk with Ricky Riccardi, author of Stomp Off, Let's Go! The Early Years of Louis Armstrong.

I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Special thanks to Jose Llanes and Connor Anderson from WDET for additional engineering help.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Annemarie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challoner, Susan Nakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

Your article makes a distinction between solitude and loneliness. And this was probably, for me, the most profound part of your piece because we actually are under this assumption that all of this me time, I think a lot of us, I should say, not everyone, but that this me time is good for us.

It's like a form of self-care because it's like as if the world is so overstimulating that we need all of this time alone.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Recently, my guest, writer Derek Thompson, took his family out to dinner and noticed that while the restaurant was bustling, he and his family were the only people actually sitting down to eat. Every few minutes, a flurry of people would walk in, grab bags of food, and walk out.

That sociologist that you talked to that told you like loneliness is a healthy response and that it is the thing that pushes us off the couch out into the world. That kind of makes it sound like our phones might actually be blocking us from feeling that natural instinct. But yet people feel like they're being very social by being on their phones and being on social media sites and stuff.

You know, I've been thinking about social media videos of people who record themselves dancing or, you know, talking or sometimes people are pouring their hearts out, you know, into, you know, they have videos on TikTok and stuff. And watching them though, like watching people dance, it feels like a party. I'm vibing off of their vibe. They seem happy. They're enjoying themselves.

But then I think about everything that happens after they record themselves. You know, they turn off the camera. The music is off. They're all alone. They're literally standing in their living room. They're alone. And I feel this, especially when someone is pouring their heart out. They're crying into the camera. And then at the end, like they're going through the comments to get validation.

The restaurant's bar counter had become, as he puts it, a silent depot for people to grab food to eat at home in solitude. In February's issue of The Atlantic, Thompson writes about the phenomenon he calls the antisocial century. More people are choosing isolation over hanging out with others, and we can't blame it all on COVID-19. This trend started before the pandemic.

You're working out this theory that, I love how you put it, that we are donating our dopamine to our phones. Can you say more about that?

The problem is that humans by nature are social beings, and the consequences of isolation are stark. Our personalities are changing, as well as our politics and and our relationship to reality. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said, Derek Thompson, is a writer for The Atlantic and the author of the Work in Progress newsletter.

Yeah. You know, I talked with the comedian Roy Wood Jr. a few weeks ago, and he had this joke about the decline in the interaction between the store clerks because they're all automated now.

And I mean, what you're talking about here makes me think about that because that's a little bit of a dopamine hit when you have a fun interaction or a really nice conversation with the store clerk as she or he or, you know, as... is scanning your groceries. Those small interactions, from what I'm getting from you, are also really important things in our lives.

And I think the other thing it cost him, Tanya, was the sense of who he had been. Assimilation is a very painful thing, and it requires a kind of remaking of your psyche in order to be acceptable to a new class. And I think that's true of people from all kinds of backgrounds who are not part of a dominant group, and he was not. And so I think resentment of the group that is requiring him to

to assimilate was part of the psychological toll it took. And that comes into play in a big way later on.

He's just had this huge influence on some key figures in the conservative world, partly because of his money, which is from PayPal and Facebook and Palantir and a lot of very shrewd investments, but also because of his thinking and writing, which is...

extremist, which has a very pessimistic view of latter-day America as a country in decline, stagnant, and overrun with immigrants and losing out to China and essentially giving in to its own weaknesses and in need of some kind of jolt of dynamism from politics or from technology that will restore it to greatness.

And so he's a really smart erudite provocateur who has had a lot of influence on a lot of people, including J.D. Vance.

I don't think he got a whole lot out of his law degree other than skill at networking and climbing through the meritocracy. He doesn't seem to care much about due process. He thinks of it as an expedience that can be dispensed with if it gets in the way of large-scale deportations. He seems to think of the judiciary as serving at the pleasure of the executive.

It's good to be back with you. Thank you, Tonya.

And if they get in the way, well, let them enforce their decision as he – famously, apocryphally quoted Andrew Jackson. So he doesn't seem to think too much of the rule of law. It seems to exist as maybe a safeguard for some people at some time.

But when it gets in the way of what he wants and what his administration wants, there are higher priorities than upholding the Constitution, which he took an oath to do.

I think he'd be very skeptical of him. He would think of him as... Maybe the kind of politician who says what he has to to get power, who uses the working class to justify his own power and some policies that are going to hurt people. Vance is constantly invoking the working class as a justification for lying about Haitian immigrants and for cruel policies toward immigrants, et cetera.

And I think young J.D. Vance would wonder if he isn't being used by this vice president who claims to be speaking for his people.

Yeah, I think it's even more acute than that because his politics at that time – and this is an important part of the story – were basically those of a moderate Republican who wanted the party to become more inclusive and more concerned with the plight of the working class and the poor but who was a conservative and therefore skeptical of – and a big government program.

So he had a kind of nuanced, complex view of what it would take to bring more people like him out of the decline into which they'd fallen in places like his hometown. And so when he published Hillbilly Elegy, which is the story of his upbringing, his childhood, his youth – And it's a remarkable book. But his role became, when Philbilly Elegy came out, it became to explain...

To some degree, it is, yeah. He's gone through some dramatic transformations, even in the way he looks and the way he talks and the way he writes, as if there's no solid core to hold him to who he really is. So Vance immediately, for me, raises a question of who authentically is he? What does he believe? Have his changes been owing to some deep inner rethinking of... his values and his politics?

his world, which was about to become the world of Trump voters, to the elites who came to the Aspen Ideas Festival and the Sun Valley conferences and went out to dinner with CEOs and celebrities. And that was his ticket to fame, but it was a kind of tarnished ticket because what's he doing? He's telling these...

sort of curious, but also rather smug and complacent people, why his people have these pathologies. And these things stuck with Vance while he was on this circuit. And later, I think he used them and maybe even exaggerated them a little bit to justify his turning against this class that he had fought so hard to join.

Yeah. So, Tanya, it came out in the summer of 2016. And at the beginning, like many memoirs by completely unknown writers, it went nowhere. And then through an interview and then maybe another interview, it began to catch on with certain readers. And then on election night— 2016.

Vance is in a studio of Yahoo News, not the prime place to be, but he's already become kind of an informant on the world of Trump voters. And suddenly Trump is winning.

Exactly. The interviewers assume that that the people Vance grew up with are Trump voters. And that's actually a fair assumption. And so they want him. There are not that many people at that point who can be considered what anthropologists call native informants, people who can speak from their own authentic experience about a whole tribe.

And suddenly he's in demand because this tribe seems to have come out of nowhere to elect Donald Trump. And that night, ABC News says, we need J.D. Vance to explain this. So they pull him into their main studio and George Stephanopoulos is sort of almost begging him to explain them. What do they want? Why are they voting for him? And Vance is sort of careful not to say too much.

But so suddenly he is one of the most visible people. Not on behalf of Trump because, interestingly, he himself despised Trump at that point. He wrote in The Atlantic, my magazine, that Trump was cultural heroin, this irresistibly addictive drug. drug that would end up destroying his people, Vance's people.

He thought Trump was despicable, was – his moral values were wretched and he was offering – he was a con man. He was offering a con to the people Vance had grown up with that would end up betraying them.

Well, I think the biggest change was that Trump won the election. And if you are a young, ambitious, would-be politician, which most of the people around him assumed he would become, and you're a Republican, that's a problem. And I think that clip you played from the University of Chicago was crucial because that's very early. It's, I think, February of 2017. Trump has just become president.

Or is he like Mr. Ripley, someone who becomes what other people want him to be to serve his own interests? And I don't think there's a simple answer to that. I don't think he is simply a con man. He's not. I think he's the most interesting figure in the Trump administration. He's more interesting than Trump. Vance has reflection, and that's evident on every page of Hillbilly Elegy.

And Vance is now tacking a bit away from cultural heroin. And instead he's saying, well, look, the really awful stuff that we all hate is 5% of his rallies. And the other 95% is policy. It's about jobs. It's about trade. First of all, that's a wildly wrong calculation. If you sit through a Trump rally or through a video of a Trump rally, it's a far different balance than Vance was claiming.

And it's also the wrong analysis because Trump's policies were inextricable from his vitriol and hatred against When Vance said in that little clip that Trump was talking about what's wrong with your community and I'm going to fix it. Well, what is wrong with your community is them. It's those people and we're going to get rid of them. So the hatred, the demonizing of whole groups –

is absolutely inseparable from the vision Trump is offering to places like Middletown, Ohio. And I think Vance knew that. Vance is way too smart not to have known. But I think at that moment, you begin to sense a certain falseness coming in where his analysis is not as honest and not as deep as it used to be. And why is that? One reason has to be that Trump is now president.

And if Vance is going to have a future in politics, he might need to find a way to make his peace with that fact.

I tried many times. I was in touch with his press secretary. But whenever I asked for an interview, I got no response. And when I sent a list of questions that I thought he would be interested in discussing, mostly about his ideas and where they come from, I got no answer. So to me, that was the answer. They didn't want to talk to me.

He has complexity. He's capable of complex thought. And I also think he may be the future of the MAGA movement and the Republican Party.

He wrote an essay about his conversion that was published around Easter 2020 in a Catholic journal called The Lamp. It's quite an interesting essay. And it's all three of the things you said, Tanya. It is spiritual. There are moments where he opens St. Augustine's City of God to a passage that stirs him and speaks to him. It's also spiritual. The piece is called How I Joined the Resistance.

Now, why would it be called that? Maybe he didn't have control over the headline. But to me, that means I'm not just converting to Catholicism. I'm converting to conservative Catholicism, which is at the moment a rising intellectual movement in revolt against Catholicism.

classical liberalism, against the ideas of the Enlightenment, against the idea of the autonomous individual with rights and freedoms as the key focus of politics. And instead, he's saying, I am embracing a different – A different Catholicism that is communal. And he cites Tolkien. All of these guys love the Lord of the Rings. He cites C.S. Lewis.

And it's a kind of post-liberal Christianity that lots of other – famous and leading conservative politicians and intellectuals seem to be moving to at the same time. So there's a political implication. And strategically, well, what happens around that time? That's 2019, 2020. That's the moment when publicly Vance begins to say essentially Trump is right. And I was wrong about Trump.

He doesn't go quite that far in his public speeches at that moment. He doesn't have to. But he gives a series of speeches in which he says, let's get past this Republican libertarianism, tax cuts, deregulation. That's not helping my people. Free trade. That's not what... working-class America needs. The real problem is the family and immigration.

And what we need is a politics that supports families and that supports native-born Americans. not all these newcomers coming into the country. And he even begins to soften on tariffs, which he had been against before. And suddenly all the policy items of MAGA, of the Trump agenda,

Yeah, I watched that interview. It's just utter nonsense. It is so false. And all you have to do is go back to the clip where Vance said it, which was to Tucker Carlson, and to a speech he gave before that, where he certainly mocked Democrats in the media and in politics for being childless and therefore having no stake in the future of the country.

That was his point, that if you don't have children... Why would you care about the future? And therefore, why should the country give you any power either as a politician or as a journalist to determine the future? That's the point he was making. It had nothing to do with the difficulty of being a parent in America. And so Usha Vance, nice try. She was pretty good.

Thank you very much. Because he begins in southwestern Ohio in a declining industrial town. But he has roots in Appalachia, which has also gone through tremendous impoverishment and decline. And he calls his culture hillbilly culture. And he's one of the guys who gets out. He's really talented. He's really smart. And once he gets into high school and gets away from his abusive –

She was showing that she's learned how to twist the truth on TV in service of her husband's political ambitions. But it doesn't pass the laugh test because Vance had begun, as you suggest, to sound a very different note as soon as he was running for Senate in 2021. Suddenly, there's this kind of snarling, aggressive, mocking, taunting tone that we have not heard from him.

It's as if he's emerged after a kind of four-year hibernation, cocooning, conversion period as this rather... a harsh and taunting politician or would-be politician, not the guy who wrote Hillbilly Elegy or spoke so eloquently about the book and about his own upbringing. And so you have to ask yourself, where did he come from? Who is that?

Yeah, I think at the moment he's loyal to Donald Trump above all. And because he had all these sins to atone for, cultural heroin, even privately comparing him to Hitler at one point in 2016, that's a lot of no-nos that you have to try to atone for. he will not allow any daylight between him and Trump.

And he makes a point whenever he opens his mouth to say, well, as the president said, well, I'm going to praise my boss here. Of course, vice presidents do that. That's part of their job. But Vance is doing it with a kind of assiduousness, a kind of energetic focus that suggests that he's still slightly on probation with MAGA, although he's become extremely popular.

I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Tanya.

an addicted mother to his more caring grandmother, he thrives in high school and joins the Marine Corps. And in the Marines, he learns self-discipline and gains a sense of purpose. He does a lot of reading. He's actually not in combat. He's in public affairs in Iraq. So he's sitting on a giant air base in Anbar province talking to his best friend about Christopher Hitchens and Ayn Rand.

And, you know, the other figures of those early 2000s who fascinated mainly young men, I would say. But he also became disillusioned with a war that he had thought was a war of high purpose. And he came home one of many disillusioned veterans. And then he gets into Ohio State, graduates in two years. He's working incredibly hard.

And he's just found this optimism because he's gotten out of this reality. Right. Right.

Well, his friend in the Marines told me that on their way in, pass through Kuwait where there's a major American base. And there were these guys, these officers on their way out who had just served a tour. I think Marine tours are basically seven months. And the guys coming out were saying, it's ridiculous. We go into a city. We clear out the insurgents. We leave.

And in a few weeks, they're back. And it's just this Sisyphean task that never ends and it never succeeds. So there was a sense already before he got there. There was a futility to the idea that we were bringing democracy and human rights to this country that didn't seem to want us and where the insurgents seemed to have a hold on the population that the Americans didn't have.

I don't think he saw much of that firsthand because he was not in a combat unit. He wasn't doing either civil affairs in Iraqi towns or raids on Iraqi cities. So I think a lot of it was secondhand, but you didn't have to get too close to the fighting to realize that the American strategy was failing. So I think he came home after his seven months quite disillusioned.

He was a conservative diplomat. At that point already, he had been a fan of the Bush administration. And so it had to have been a pretty deep disappointment, maybe even a sense of betrayal to come home and find that this was a war Americans weren't interested in, didn't understand, that very few of us were fighting it, that most of us were simply going on with our lives.

I think from there, Vance's view of America's role in the world was almost fixed, which was to say a cynical view of any pretense to being a force for democracy around the world. And instead, maybe a skepticism that said we should just mind our own affairs and take care of our own people.

He was not only trying to find himself, but he was trying to remake himself as someone who had come out of this small and, as he says in Hillbilly Elegy, rather hopeless world. Which he remained very attached. He didn't cut himself off from Middletown, Ohio or eastern Kentucky. He stayed close to his sister, to his friends, to his grandparents and even on and off to his very troubled mother.

But he was getting away. And he says in one of his essays – and he's left quite a long written trail. He says that at that time, he lost his Christian faith. and became an atheist and a libertarian. And he says those belief systems were convenient for the world he was trying to get into. They were quite acceptable in the elite world of the Ivy League. There were a lot of atheists.

And if you were a conservative, to be a libertarian was sort of like being an acceptable conservative, whereas being maybe a social conservative was a little harder to justify. Yeah.

Well, one thing I heard from several friends of his from Yale was that they were surprised by the degree of trauma and deprivation he described in Hillbilly Elegy. They weren't the poorest of the poor, but they were poor people who few of whom had regular jobs. And his mother had a series of partners who cycled through and none of them seemed to be particularly interested in her young son, J.D.,

And his mother began to take prescription drugs and then finally heroin. So this was a tough background. And his friends in New Haven really didn't quite know how bad it had been. He didn't advertise it. And the other thing was they said, you wouldn't have known that he was in any way disadvantaged by his background. He came into Yale and was immediately popular, charismatic, humorous.

intelligent. As one friend said, not having gone to Harvard or Yale as an undergraduate did not seem to make any difference in his ability to succeed.

Yeah, he called her his Yale spirit guide. Her name was Usha Chilukuri when he met her. She is the daughter of immigrants from India, from southern India, Hindu immigrants, who settled in southern California and rose quickly to become very successful academics. And Usha was one of these...

Daughters of immigrants who are just strivers, who rise, who work hard, who know what they want, who do a lot better in some ways than the kids who've been handed lots of advantages by generations of American citizenship. So she was already... a creature of that world, the Ivy League. She had gone to Yale as an undergraduate. She got a master's degree from Cambridge in England.

And so even though she was the immigrant daughter and he was the son of hundreds of years of Native-born, white Christian Americans. Nonetheless, she was the one who became his guide about how to move in this world.

So basic, Tanya, so basic. For example, he goes to this recruitment dinner at a fancy New Haven restaurant with these white-shoe lawyers. Yeah. And he's just undone by the tableware. There's so many knives and forks and spoons. He doesn't know what they're for. He leaves the room and calls her. And she starts giving him very terse and exact instructions. Move from the outside to the inside.

For the soup course, use the fat spoon. She has plans for him. She has spreadsheets and whiteboard instructions. She gets him to stop reacting with rage when he's cut off in traffic or flipped off in traffic. And at one point, she congratulated him on having successfully, quote, course-corrected his life.

I mean, there's, of course, a love affair and there's a deep relationship and they clearly fell madly in love and that was it. They were on their way to marriage and children. But the fact that because he came out of the Midwest and in some ways out of Appalachia and she came out of this world, the Ivy League, she had to translate it for him. And that tells you something about

about how alien Americans have become to each other when they come from opposite sides of the education line.

That's a great question. He has written about it. And what he's written is that while he was making it, while he was getting the right interviews and the right job offers, he had this growing sense of emptiness of what am I doing it for as if he was working his butt off for a job and a life that meant nothing to him.

And one day when he was still at Yale, he went to hear a talk by Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist and right-wing contrarian, controversialist. And what he said to Vance and the audience was, you are – working like crazy for meaningless jobs. You're competing with each other. It's cutthroat competition. And you'll find that it's all for a kind of taste of ashes in your mouth.

That's my phrase, not his. And why is this happening? Well, it's happening because our society has become stagnant and decadent. And all of our supposed technological breakthroughs, like the smartphone, are actually... very small. They're not revolutionary.

They're not changing things and instead we're becoming a stagnant society with a declining working class and this intensely competitive elite class where people are fighting for jobs that don't really mean very much to them. And all of this just hit Vance hard enough that he later wrote it was the most significant moment in his career at Yale.

And I think even though it didn't change his course completely, it stuck with him.

And he later, when he, and we could get to this, when he converted to Catholicism, he traced part of the motive back to this time when he began to feel that his values had become hollow ones, the values of the meritocracy, of an elite class that simply wanted professional success and moral and other values fell by the wayside. So yeah, it absolutely cost him.

She sits on the board of directors of the Innocence Center, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to freeing innocent people from prison. Yet she grapples with a question that continually follows her. How dare she live when Meredith is dead? Amanda Knox, welcome to Fresh Air.

Our guest today is Amanda Knox. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

Amanda, you wrote your first memoir, Waiting to be Heard, I think it was a year after you were released from prison. And you write that you thought it would be enough to set the record straight. Why hasn't it been enough? Oof.

Amanda, the slander charge that you're currently fighting actually stems from your false accusation during your interrogation against Lumumba that he was somehow involved in it. He was arrested but then released. But your defense has maintained that you were coerced, as you are telling us now. Just this past January, Italy's highest court upheld that slander conviction.

Is this something that you're going to keep fighting?

Amanda, I want to talk a little bit about your time in prison because you talk quite extensively or you write quite extensively about it in great detail, including you're a celebrity in there. I mean, there were women in there. That's a word. I mean, just the reality of it was you were getting letters and gifts and others were not getting those things. You also were educated.

You were a college student. How did you end up using that to survive in prison? But also, I mean, it sounded like you were also making yourself of use there.

Where were they coming from? Were they from nearby countries or the United States or what?

You know, this makes me think about, I mean, when you arrived in Italy, you're 20 years old. You're just coming into your femininity, your sexuality, who you are as a woman, you and Raphael's relationship. You know, you have just gotten together a week prior and And you have all of these labels put on you on who you are as a sexual being.

I thought it was really, really interesting that you talked about how you came fully into your self-awareness of your body and your sexuality in prison. Yes.

Let's take a short break, Amanda. If you're just joining us, my guest is Amanda Knox. She's written a new memoir titled Free, My Search for Meaning. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

You write in the book about your life as a child, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, in the Seattle area, roaming free in the wilderness and being in the woods exploring. You're just kind of like a, it sounds like an outdoor kid, you know, you just like to explore. And the confines of prison, of course, is the opposite of that. What is your relationship to space now outside of prison?

And I'm also thinking about just even... being in your childhood room after four years, you know, many, many years of dealing with something and becoming a whole different person, one of the things you do in the book is you sort of break yourself up into different people.

It's like the Amanda before you arrived in Italy, the woman that I think you call Foxy Noxy, like your doppelganger, not even you. And then the woman that you were post, once you came home, right? Thank you.

You and Merida didn't know each other very well, did you? You all were brought together in Perugia through a study abroad program. What was your friendship like?

Thank you.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today my guest is Amanda Knox.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tomorrow on Fresh Air, Syria may be on the verge of a new era of unity, or it may descend into anarchy, and the outcome will affect the Middle East and the U.S. Syria's transitional president founded the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, but he's now preaching inclusivity. We'll talk with Robert Wirth of The Atlantic about his reporting from Syria. I hope you can join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakunde, Anna Bauman, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

Yeah, I mean, there is that sentiment out there that because Meredith is the one who lost her life, maybe you don't have the right, at least publicly anyway, to mourn your own experience. And I was wondering, have you or do you or did you ever struggle with that feeling yourself?

Dubbing her the angel face with the icy blue eyes. Knox was catapulted into global infamy after being convicted and later acquitted for the 2007 murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kircher. She's become a symbol, though few still to this day can agree on what she represents.

To refresh people's memories, you were a 20-year-old college student studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, when you and your then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, whom you'd known for a week before Meredith Kircher's murder. You both were accused and later tried and convicted, and the both of you all spent four years together. in an Italian prison before being acquitted on appeal in 2011.

And then two years later, both of you were retried and then definitively acquitted in 2015. And right now, you're still fighting a slander case, which we'll get to a little bit later. But you wanted to reach out to the prosecutor in this case. You all became pen pals, more or less, and ultimately met

This man was instrumental in spreading the false narrative about you and was ultimately instrumental in your conviction. How did it come to be and why was it important for you to connect with him, to convince him of your innocence?

To some, she was an innocent woman, unjustly imprisoned, a cautionary tale of a young student who became trapped by Italy's legal system. To others, she was a tabloid fascination, her every expression scrutinized and reinterpreted. In the years since her exoneration and return to the United States, Knox has worked to reclaim her narrative.

Like, I did have that... Amanda, what kinds of things did you write to him to try to show and prove your humanity?

Has he ever said he was sorry?

In her first book, Waiting to be Heard, she focused on the details of her conviction. Her latest memoir, Free, My Search for Meaning, goes beyond the events of her trial and imprisonment and explores the realities of reintegrating into society and rebuilding a life. Wrongful convictions have become part of Knox's life's work.

Amanda, you have learned, as you've been talking about over the years, through your criminal justice reform work, a lot of things about the system, but also just how common your interrogation experience is and was. You spent more than 50 hours in a room, questioned in Italian.

Those who have never experienced interrogation, I mean, will likely never quite understand it, how one can actually say things that they Absolutely. First of all, it was the worst experience of my life, worse than being convicted, was being in that interrogation room.

And was this all in Italian? Were you all speaking? All in Italian. And how good would you describe your Italian at that time?

The Irish became white.

It's so interesting because I think that most of us don't know that history. And so when it shows up in the film, it makes sense when you go back and you read the history, which I did because I didn't know it going into this film. But I had to learn it afterwards. There's also the Chinese-American store owners who, in the film... operate these two grocery stores.

So one is in the black part of town, and then one is in the white zone. And they kind of exist in like this cultural limbo.

Right. I mean, they're never fully kind of accepted in white or black communities, but more so it feels like in black communities. I had a friend who saw the movie and said, like, did this really happen? When did you learn about that history?

That's right.

Our guest today is filmmaker Ryan Coogler. We'll be back right after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

I wouldn't state that hard. Ryan Coogler says Sinners is also a tribute to his late Uncle James, who first introduced him to the blues. When he was a kid, Coogler would soak up his uncle's stories about Mississippi as old Delta Blues records spun in the background.

The technical wow factor to the way the images popped is really striking. Specifically for me, the cotton field driving scenes, were those real cotton fields?

Did you ever have a moment in a cotton field in the making of this?

What was that like?

I'm really struck by what you said that, you know, the blues connected people to their humanity. It reminded them that they were human. And blues serves really as the sound and the soul of this film. Your relationship with the blues, you talk about your Uncle James. What music did he play around you? What was he into?

You being a kid of the 80s and the 90s, what was it like for you to sit at his knee and listen to that music? Did you appreciate it at that young age?

Coogler's debut into the film world happened in 2013 with Fruitvale Station, which chronicled the final hours of Oscar Grant, a young black man killed by police in Oakland. Since then, he's become the highest grossing Black filmmaker in history and the youngest director to helm a billion dollar movie with Black Panther.

How did legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy become part of this project? It was so cool to see him. That was a really cool cameo.

Has he seen the film?

What did he say?

He decided to press pause on making Black Panther 3 to take the risk of making Sinners. Ryan Coogler, welcome to Fresh Air and congrats on this film. I have seen it twice and I enjoyed it very much.

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker Ryan Coogler. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

There is this moment when one of the twins, he says something like, it's better to deal with the devil you know. And he's referring to having lived in Chicago and up north and gone all across the world, but now he's back in Mississippi. And you being a guy who was born and raised on the West Coast in Oakland, your accent gives it away. What did you learn growing up about...

Kind of those myths, like you talk about the shame a little bit, but those myths that somehow the West or the North or the East was better than the South.

You did not grow up with that myth that where you are is better than the South.

So, Ryan, you put Black Panther 3 on hold. That is a billion-dollar franchise, as I mentioned, to make this film in a moment when it seems like Hollywood is kind of playing it safe to sequels and remakes. What made you say, this is the story I have to tell now? And even if it means stepping away from the success of something like a Marvel machine, did that feel like a risk?

You saw Boys in the Hood at four years old?

Five years old in the theater watching Boys in the Hood. Do you remember the scenes that like were seared into your brain that stuck with you? Because that's a real powerful movie for a five-year-old.

You noted in the moment that like, wow, my dad is sitting in that same row. Absolutely, man.

You and Michael B. Jordan, you guys have worked on Fruitvale Station and Creed, Blank Panther and now Sinners. In Sinners, he plays twin brothers. Why twins?

So you saw that intimacy of twins up close.

So I was talking to filmmaker Rommel Ross a few months ago about his basketball career. Oh, yeah, Rommel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He relayed how hard it was for him because, you know, he played basketball from the time he was a kid all the way through college. And then he got an injury. And it took him a long time to, like, sit in this role as filmmaker. And you have a similar story.

You played football in college. You suffered a shoulder injury. What was that process of transition like for you, especially when there's so much of your identity tied to, like, being a ballplayer?

Why did you make that decision?

To be a voice of a generation.

To be a voice of a generation, like one of the voices.

I want to end asking you about legacy because I heard there was a bidding war over Sinners. And part of the deal was that you'd retain Final Cut and you'd get share of the theatrical opening and eventually own the film outright after 25 years, which I felt like... That's such a boss move. Is that all right, first off? And why was it important for you?

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And my guest today is filmmaker Ryan Coogler. You probably know his name as the director of Fruitvale Station, Creed, and both Black Panther films. Well, his new film is called Sinners, and it hit theaters just last week. It delves into horror with a genre-bending thriller set in 1930s Mississippi.

Well, I feel like owning Sinners outright after 25 years, I mean, it is a long play. And I just wonder what you envision for this story over that kind of timeline. But is it something that you imagine expanding or revisiting or building upon in the future?

Ryan Coogler, this has been such a pleasure to be in conversation with you. Thank you so much for this. And thank you for this film.

Ryan Coogler's new film Sinners is now in theaters. After a short break, Carolina Miranda reviews a new novel by Leila Lalami. This is Fresh Air.

In her new novel, The Dream Hotel, author Leila Lalami plunges us into the story of a woman who is imprisoned solely on the basis that she might commit a crime. Lalami, who was born in Morocco and is now based in Los Angeles, won the American Book Award for her 2014 historical novel, The Moors Account. It was also a finalist for Pulitzer Prize.

Contributor Carolina Miranda reviews Lalami's novel and the disquieting ways it speaks to our text-saturated lives.

Tomorrow on Fresh Air, journalist Paul Tuff on the mystery of ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. While millions of Americans have the diagnosis and are treated with stimulants, there is no scientific consensus about the biological roots of the condition and some medical concerns about common treatments. I hope you can join us.

When it comes to a Marvel film, right.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Bea Chaloner, Susan Nakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley. Thank you.

You said this particular film, Sinners, was like it was on your heart to do. And I want you to take us back to when that idea really clicked for you that not only the creation of a story like this, but that the story didn't have to live in one genre or even one reality because you're blending so much here. I mean, you're blending history, historical drama, action, history.

all against the backdrop of 1930s Mississippi. What made you realize that this mix was necessary to fully bring this story to life?

That's so interesting because I really feel it almost with every single character in this film. I want to talk to you in a minute about how you complicate like villains, but the use of vampires in particular to like really articulate the story. One of the vampires says in the film, I want your stories and I want your songs. And that line is very important.

The story follows twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan. After surviving the trenches of World War I and navigating Chicago's criminal underworld, the brothers return home to Mississippi, hoping to start fresh by opening a juke joint. But peace does not last long.

He says something after that.

Yes. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Right. It's important. That's such an important line because it brings into focus that these vampires are like draining more than blood. They're draining culture and identity, but they're also offering something back like in replacement of that. Like, how did you land on using vampires as a metaphor for that kind of extraction?

But I think it's super fascinating, though, that like when I asked you the question about like what drew you to this story and why you had to tell this story, you said immediately like my life experience is the reason why I wanted to tell this story. What drew you to a vampire story?

Instead, they're met by supernatural forces, vampires, who act as metaphors for oppression, exploitation, and systems that feed on Black life, body, and spirit. I only ever heard stories.

Like this crossroads, like the devil, the deal with the devil kind of thing. Yes.

Jack O'Connell, who plays Rimmick, the Irish vampire antagonist, he is relatable kind of in the same way that I'm thinking about Killmonger and Black Panther was relatable. Like in many ways, saying kind of speaking the truth, speaking the truth to systems of oppression. What draws you to creating antagonists who are in many ways right about the things that they know?

It's not such a straight line, good guy, bad guy. Each one is complicated.

It is scarier. Yes, say more about that.

100%.

Yeah, yeah.

It is such a pleasure to have you here.

You mentioned your co-star, Jamie Lee Curtis. She plays an older, former showgirl who now works in the casino as a waitress. And You guys are really good friends. And Jamie actually told you that she took this role because of you. When did you learn that?

Because we should say this woman, the character has like a very, very orange tan.

You know, Pamela, I'm so fascinated by your journey over the last few years because before this role in The Last Showgirl was presented to you, I read that you had all but moved on from Hollywood. You actually looked at this script, though, and you said, I'm the only one that can do this.

Our guest today is Pamela Anderson. We're talking about her new movie, The Last Showgirl. We'll continue after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

You seem to be surprised sometimes that you take up such big space in the public's imagination, that a Jamie Lee Curtis would take a role for a chance to work with you. I've heard you talk about how you're surprised that Beyonce, who paid tribute to you, would even know who you are.

What makes you genuinely surprised by the love that people have for you, knowing and understand the level of your fame?

I'm curious about what you mean when you say that you've been playing characters in your personal life all of your life. What do you mean by that?

Were you able to pinpoint like what was it about five years old that made you say, I'm going to present based on wherever I am and what I'm doing? Like, I'm not going to know who I am until I'm 50. That is an extraordinary thing at five years old to come to.

Pamela, the trauma that you experienced as a young person, you're a sex abuse survivor and you endured abuse during the formative years of your life. And you talk about this in great detail in the documentary. Were you ever hesitant about talking about it for the doc? And what made you decide that it was a very important element of your story to tell?

Did you ever feel, I'm taking us back to the 90s, and, you know, while reading up on you, I'll be honest, Pamela, I was just sick watching credible news interviewers ask you questions about your anatomy during interviews. And you handled it with such grace. How did you do that? Did you go into those interviews with kind of an armor, knowing that those were the kind of questions that were coming?

Because you seemed to be so quick with it and had such an ability to be able to just deflect from the energy that was being presented to you. And I'm just thinking about you as this person who has so many ideas, but that was not something that was afforded to you to talk about in the past.

The favors that your sons were referring to, were those like cameo roles and stuff like that? Because you do have such a sense of humor, like you are in on the joke in many of the roles that you take on. I'm thinking about Borat, which I absolutely love that movie, I'll just say. But your ability to make fun of yourself.

But your your character, Shelley, is part of this Vegas show called La Razzle Dazzle, which actually is based on this real show that was in Vegas for many decades called Jubilee. How would you describe that show?

Broadway, like theater, is a very exhaustive process. Not only just having to perform, but like it's the performance physically too. It's pretty taxing.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Pamela Anderson. She stars in the new film The Last Showgirl, where she plays Shelly, a veteran performer from Las Vegas who learns that her show is shutting down after a 30-year run.

The way you describe stepping out on stage in theater, it just sort of reminds me of how you described also your very first Playboy shoot. Because you've said from the very first snap of that camera, you describe yourself as feeling like you had broken free from something. It seems so counterintuitive to this shy, unsure girl that you also describe yourself as.

Can you say more about that feeling you felt in front of the camera when you first experienced it?

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Pamela Anderson. She stars in the new movie, The Last Showgirl, directed by Gia Coppola. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

When you were a kid growing up in Ladysmith, British Columbia, first off, can you describe Ladysmith for us, for folks who will never have a chance to go there?

Yeah. You're glad you came home, but when you're growing up, you always wanted to leave. You wanted to escape. You wanted to see what the world had in store for you. How did Playboy even discover you?

I know.

I want to talk a little bit more about your parents because in the documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, we also learn a little bit more about their relationship and how it impacted you. In this clip I'm about to play, you're describing them. Let's listen.

That was my guest, Pamela Anderson, in the Netflix documentary about her life describing her parents. How do you think your parents' relationship affected the way you saw love and marriage for yourself?

And they sound so much like you. You know, you mentioned how you've been married several times. I think there's something tremendously optimistic and brave to, number one, end a relationship that's no longer working, but also, number two, feel that it's possible to experience real love again. And so when I meet people who have been married multiple times, that's kind of what I'm thinking about.

Do you still carry that optimism?

You know, the public's fixation on your love and sex life, it really picked up in the 90s with this video of you and your then-husband, rocker Tommy Lee, that was stolen. It was a sex tape, and this was tremendously painful for you.

I want to put this time period in perspective because this was the beginning of the internet, and you sued the video distribution company that posted that video, but then you If I'm correct, you backed off because you were afraid of the stress that it would put on you. You were pregnant at the time. I am really sorry that this happened to you.

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Pamela Anderson. She stars in the new movie, The Last Showgirl, directed by Gia Coppola. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

Do you ever think about all of the scripts that never made their way to you? Because I'm just thinking about that agent who decided right away that you weren't for the last show, girl, you know?

It's not the same thing, but I'm very fascinated with your decision not to wear makeup. How much of that decision was part of this journey that you're on to get closer to who you are outside of the persona?

Yeah. You mentioned you met with those original showgirls. What did they teach you about their experiences? What were some of the stories that they shared with you that really stuck with you as you embodied this character?

Do you think you would have been able to make that decision when you were younger?

Pamela Anderson, this was such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.

Pamela Anderson's new film, The Last Showgirl, is now in theaters. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, Bloomberg reporter Zeke Fox. His book, Number Go Up, is a gripping account of some of the colorful scams and characters in the world of cryptocurrency.

He'll talk about what Donald Trump's new embrace of crypto will mean for financial regulation and the new Trump family crypto business, World Liberty Financial. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

At 57, Shelley must grapple with the sacrifices she's made in her personal life for the benefit of her career, including her relationship with her daughter, played by Billie Lourd. The Last Showgirl was directed by Gia Coppola and also stars Jamie Lee Curtis, who is almost unrecognizable as a former showgirl and Shelley's best friend.

That vision of who these women could become after this show is over is really like at the heart of this story because we're watching as your character really comes to grips with the fact that it's the end. As you said, she's so proud of her work, just like the real women that you met with. She talks about like she makes a point, for instance, that these costumes were designed by Bob Mackie.

What they're doing is really highbrow. And it was like the hot ticket on the Vegas Strip when she performed in front of sold out crowds. Times have changed, though, and I want to play a pivotal scene that really speaks to this.

Your character is having dinner with some of the other dancers when the producer of the show, Eddie, who is played by Dave Bautista, breaks the news that the show is closing and will be replaced by this burlesque circus show. Let's listen.

What is wrong with you? That was from the new movie, The Last Showgirl. That was Jamie Lee Curtis responding to your character, Pamela. And there's the moment where she's forced to think about who she will be after the show is over, after this thing that is defined her life is gone. You mentioned how there are parallels to your life.

Your life is not exact to this character, but the defining of who you really are is something you've had to do because for so long you were enshrined in the 90s, the playboy, the Baywatch Pamela. So much so that this person who was kind of representing you, I guess they were an agent and didn't even bother to show you the script. What's the story behind that?

Pamela Anderson became a pop culture phenomenon in the 1980s and 90s. The blockbuster television series Baywatch made her a household name, and the show itself was at one time the most-watched series in the world with over a billion viewers each week, making Anderson the highest-paid actress on television at the time.

You know, that story you just told me about jumping into the pool for the role and saying like, I'm shedding my past. Was there ever a moment where you were fighting your past, where you were trying to present yourself as new and it wasn't working?

Pamela, I want to talk a little bit more about this role because the director, Gia Coppola, said she knew you were the one for the role after watching you in this documentary about your life for Netflix that your son Brandon produced.

International distributors of the show even enacted a Pamela Claus in their contracts, agreeing to purchase only episodes that she was in.

And we are watching your character grappling with the ramifications of her decision to put her career above everything else, including her relationship with her daughter Hannah, which is played by Billy Lord. Your character in this movie did not raise her daughter full time because the demands of her work was the priority.

As a working mother, I think about my kids all the time in the future, how they will view the decisions that I make now that will impact the relationship that we have when we're adults. And so what is so moving for me about your story, Pamela, is that your son, Brandon, not only made sure that

that we saw this tender and more expansive view of who you were, but he also was instrumental in making certain that you received this script that Gia Coppola had thought you were perfect for. Your son is part of your comeback.

But throughout the 2000s, Anderson struggled to make a name for herself outside of that 90s persona until the opportunity for reinvention came with her Broadway debut in 2022 as Roxy Hart in Chicago and the Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, which is a tender and intimate portrait of her life produced by her son Brandon. Pamela Anderson, welcome to Fresh Air.

how does it feel to know that your children see you they seem to see the totality of who you are it's sort of a testament to you as a mother

The thing about the choices we make as mothers when our kids are growing up, we just don't know what the outcome will be. We just try to do the best that we can. But it must have been really hard for you to both be a mother, but also deal with this level of fame that you were in the 90s. I mean, because you weren't just famous, you were tabloid famous.

So that means that there were lots of stories that were out there about you that were beyond your control. How did you manage that as a mother while also shielding them from this public persona that was you?

You know, it also brings up for me, getting back to grading, we know that sometimes, depending on the subject, it really is subjective. It's the professor, their subjective view of what is being written and whether or not it's creative or not.

Last fall, Hill actually used AI to run her life for a week, choosing what to wear, eat, and do each day to see what the outcome would be. Hill is also the author of Your Face Belongs to Us, a secretive startup's quest to end privacy as we know it. which investigates the rise of facial recognition tech and its disturbing implications for civil liberties. Kashmir Hill, welcome back to Fresh Air.

But I mean, what you're saying could really destabilize or may have already destabilized that measure for grading, because if there is a paper that is grammatically correct and It sounds better, but it is less creative than someone who actually has sat down and written it themselves. There's just an unevenness there that could cause a bigger issue in the future, I'm guessing.

You know, Kashmir, have we been here before? I mean, I'm thinking about how people were once afraid of what introducing calculators and computers would do, how they would basically erode critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Are there parallels to today's debates, or is what we're seeing like nothing we've ever seen before or experienced before?

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we are talking to Kashmir Hill, a tech reporter at The New York Times, about the growing use of artificial intelligence in our daily lives, from the classroom to the workplace to our homes, and the deeper consequences that come with it. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

Your employer, The New York Times, actually has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for using articles to train large language models. The argument is that the paper's articles are one of the biggest sources for copyrighted text that OpenAI used to build ChatGPT. basically siphoning the newspaper's journalism.

And I was wondering, in some respect, would all creators to some degree have some leg to stand on regarding the use of material under copyright?

Hi, Tanya. It's so nice to be here. You know, I was talking with a professor friend recently who said he really is in the middle of an existential crisis over AI. He teaches a writing intensive course called And he actually worries that with these tools, his job might not even exist in a few years.

You know, I know you've seen those memes where people say that chat GPT is their bestie. It's always telling them exactly what they want to hear. It's always on their side. And then there's the element of these chatbots kind of being in concert with selling you things. You give an example.

If you ask how vitamin C helps your skin and then ask about the best facial care routine, they will remember your interest in vitamin C and give you recommendations based on that. That seems kind of harmless, but are there more dangerous and more consequential examples? Like the article you wrote a few months ago about people falling in love with their chatbot.

And so I wanted to know from you, can you give us a sense of just how widespread the use of this generative AI is, how it's become kind of a commonplace on college campuses and schools?

Right. I mean, I would imagine this is something that mental health professionals are really worried about. Have you had a chance to talk with any of them? What have they said about this?

I mean, we're also in the midst of a loneliness epidemic that really has spanned over the last few years. And so I'm also wondering, does it really also translate for the person using it that they have a connection?

Have you kept up with the woman? She was 28 years old. She had fallen in love with Leo, what she named the chat GPT. Have you kept up with her?

Our guest today is Kashmir Hill, a tech reporter for The New York Times. We'll be right back after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Let's get into the experiment that you did on your own life back in November. So you allowed your life for a week to be controlled by generative AI, and you had it decide just about everything, your meals for the day, your schedule, your shopping list, what to wear.

Also, you uploaded your voice for the tool to clone, your likeness to create videos of you. And what was so interesting about this experiment to me, in addition to what you did, is that each of these AI tools you revealed has its own personality, and I'm putting that in air quotes. But how did those personalities show up when you inputted your requests?

I mean, what makes Claude special then? Because if it's saying no to that prompt, but all of the others are saying yes, what makes it stand apart in this field?

That's because there are words and phrases that are used so commonly that then they become part of the generative AI and it's spit back out.

You had it plan out meals. I'll tell you, when I read that, I actually perked up like, oh, wait a minute. You know, because we have to choose what's for dinner every single day, seven days a week till we die. I mean, it's just something we always have to do. How did that feel to let it plan out your meals and grocery lists? And did it do a good job?

Were there any tools that you felt like, oh, I could keep this in my life and it would improve my life?

And it chose what color for you?

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we're talking to Kashmir Hill, a tech reporter for The New York Times, whose work focuses on privacy, surveillance, and the unintended consequences of technology. This is Fresh Air. You've also been writing about the broader concerns about how tech companies collect and use personal data.

I just want to talk for a few moments about this settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and General Motors that bars GM for five years from sharing driver behavior. and location data with consumer reporting agencies. Can you remind us quickly what led to that case?

You know, this isn't surprising to me because people, especially students, always are trying to find a shortcut. Plagiarism has always been an issue in academia. But the stories we are hearing are kind of astounding. Yeah.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. We are living in the age of AI. And for a while now, chatbots have been helping students take notes during class and put together study guides, make outlines, and summarize novels and textbooks.

Yeah, I wondered about that because that sets precedent, but GM isn't the only car manufacturer that provides this kind of technology.

Because it shows that I'm a good driver.

You know, Kashmir, you're deep into this world because of your job. You've done these experiments. You've talked to so many experts.

After that article came out with your experiment back in the fall, you asked yourself, if you want to live in a world where we're using AI to make all of our decisions all the time, it almost feels like that's not even a question really because we are seeing it in real time. But I'm just wondering, what did you come to?

And how it will distort our ability to interact with each other.

Kashmir Hill, thank you so much for your reporting and this conversation. Oh, thank you so much for this conversation. It was wonderful. Kashmir Hill is a tech reporter for The New York Times. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, the face behind some of TV and film's most complex characters, Walton Goggins.

He joins us to reflect on this moment of rising popularity in his long career and how his unconventional childhood and experiences growing up in poverty have shaped his approach to acting, from Justified to The Righteous Gemstones. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Thank you.

With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Moseley.

Your latest piece kind of turns the tables because you took a look at how professors are using generative AI to teach, and what did you find?

But what happens when we start handing over even bigger tasks, like writing entire essays and work assignments, and asking AI to help us figure out what to eat and how to reply to emails? Well, professors say more and more students are using generative AI to write essays and complete homework assignments.

Wow. Where is the learning in this? And I'm just wondering what professors are actually saying. I mean, I guess a big part of it, as you write in this article, seems to be a resource issue. Some professors are overworked. Others have multiple jobs. They might be an adjunct professor. But what are some of the things that they're sharing with you about why they're doing this?

One survey by Pew Research found that about a third of teens say they use it regularly to help with schoolwork. But it's not just students. Professors are also using generative AI to write quizzes, lesson plans, and even soften their feedback. One academic called ChatGPT said, a calculator on steroids. And universities are working to establish guidelines and using software to track AI use.

Okay. I'm just curious. It's just dependent on the subject, I would guess, but is AI good at grading? Yeah.

I actually even noticed that you asked professors in the comments section of this latest article to share what their universities are doing. But did you find any that are putting in effective guidelines, any institutions?

You know, one of the things that I keep hearing about is how hit or miss these detection tools are as a way to combat this. And one of your colleagues at The Times actually just wrote an article about how sometimes these detection tools get it wrong.

There was a student in Houston who received a zero after a plagiarism detection tool identified her work as AI-generated, but she actually could prove that she wrote it herself. I was wondering, how common is this?

I think one of the questions you posed in your piece that kind of hung in the air was whether there is actually going to be a point in the foreseeable future where, say, much of the graduate student teaching assistants' jobs can be done by AI. And I wondered if that is also something that you've been talking with academics about. Yeah.

But some students are now pushing back on that, saying that many of these detection tools are inaccurate. Well, today we're joined by New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill, who has been tracking how AI is reshaping daily life and the ethical gray zones it poses.

Getting back to what it is doing to us as individuals, have there been any changes? studies or research around what it might be doing to our critical thinking and problem-solving skills? Have we been using it long enough to know?

Can I give you an example though? And then I decided to go on TikTok and I typed that question into the TikTok search engine. And there I got a slew of videos explaining exactly what I was asking for. Now, whether it was accurate, I mean, of course, that is another topic. But I think this is an example of why this platform is so attractive to users as a search engine and a place to get news.

but it's also a cultural phenomenon. According to Pew Research, 60% of adults under 30 get their news from TikTok, and millions also use it to generate income by creating content and selling products. Our guest today, Associate Professor Alan Rosenstein, has closely tracked TikTok's legal battles.

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, I'm talking with law professor Alan Rosenstein about the impending ban of the social media app TikTok. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Hi, it's Tanya Mosley.

Before we get back to the show, the end of year is coming up and our Fresh Air team is looking back at all the fantastic interviews and reviews we've been able to bring you in 2024 because of your support. We had so many delightful, introspective, sometimes emotional, sometimes funny, always deeply human conversations with St.

Vincent, Al Pacino, Bridget Everett, Pharrell Williams, Jeremy Strong, Ina Garten, and so many others. People you know well and hopefully new people you learned about for the first time on our show. We're able to do this because of your support to your local station or by joining NPR+.

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He's been thinking about the ramifications of a ban and recently penned an article for The Atlantic asking... What if free speech actually means banning TikTok? Our interview was recorded yesterday. Rosenstein is a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and a senior editor and research director at Lawfare. Alan Rosenstein, welcome to Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today we're talking to Alan Rosenstein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School and a senior editor at Lawfare. Our interview was recorded yesterday. He's been writing for The Atlantic about the threat Congress says TikTok poses to national security and the decision to ban it.

Last April, President Biden signed into law a bill requiring TikTok owned by the Chinese company ByteDance to be sold to a non-Chinese company. This morning, the Supreme Court agreed to take up an appeal from TikTok, and the court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on January 10th.

You know, a big question for many people is what evidence does the government have that the Chinese government might be using our data in nefarious ways? Because we know that all of the tech companies have so much information about us. The difference is that this is a Chinese company. What evidence does our government have or has given?

They seem to have been pretty tight-lipped on what information they have that could be of concern. Right.

So there are so many legal moving parts to this case. Let's start with the Supreme Court. What happens now that TikTok has asked the court to intervene?

Trump makes this point in that interview with Welker from NBC that others have also made, and that's that all of these tech companies also have unfettered access to our data. John Oliver pointed this out on his show last week. Tonight, let's listen.

That was John Oliver on Last Week Tonight saying the thing that most people actually feel, that at this point, if you're on these apps, American-owned or not, they already have your data. And then there is the question of trust. When the government's not really telling us what they know, they're just saying, trust us that this is a threat to you.

It really poses like a real issue for Americans when they're thinking about the potential for this app being banned.

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, I'm talking with law professor Alan Rosenstein about the impending ban of the social media app TikTok. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air, and today we're talking to Alan Rosenstein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School and a senior editor at Lawfare. He's been writing for The Atlantic about the threat Congress says TikTok poses on national security and what a decision to ban it could mean for our First Amendment rights.

For the average American, they may have a hard time understanding when we say that TikTok could be a threat to national security. If you're just a regular old content creator in middle America, or you're someone who just likes to look at TikTok before you go to bed each night, what are some of the concerns that you have?

And you're already on all the apps already, and all the apps already have your information online. What are some of your concerns about what China could do with our data? I know that propaganda has also come up in many instances as far as TikTok scope and influence in our country. But what are some like real ways that they could be a threat?

You mentioned how the concern over propaganda. data privacy is not necessarily with ordinary people's data, but users who have positions in the U.S. government. We've heard of the government banning the use of certain apps before. Why couldn't lawmakers just ban government employees from using TikTok instead of a full-on ban?

Is there any indication that the Supreme Court might look at this case differently than Congress and the lower courts?

You talked about a scenario where TikTok could take... US user data and put them on different servers. And there was this project that they announced some time ago called Project Texas in partnership with Oracle, where they said they would house US user data on US servers. How would that work? I guess the bigger question is, is it even possible for ByteDance to separate American user data?

I'm curious how that would work.

How important is the U.S. in the lifeblood of TikTok? I think it's interesting that TikTok is not even available to people in China. Yeah.

Alan Rosenstein, thank you so much for this conversation.

Alan Rosenstein is an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School and senior editor at Lawfare. Our interview was recorded yesterday and this morning the Supreme Court announced it will take up TikTok's appeal to the law banning it and we'll hear oral arguments on January 10th. This is Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air. Our TV critic David Bianculli says it's almost impossible to summarize the year in television, given how many programs were produced and presented in 2024 by so many different networks and streaming services. But he thinks he's found a way, and here it is.

You know, this is uncharted territory for Americans. I don't think that, you know, on a mass scale we've ever experienced a ban, something that's so popular, the potential for it to be taken away. App stores like Apple have already been put on notice that they could be fined for hosting TikTok after January 19th.

David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, filmmaker and writer Miranda July talks about her novel All Fours, which is on many best-of-the-year book lists. It's about a 45-year-old married woman, her erotic affair, sexual fluidity, beginning perimenopause, and the related fears of losing her libido and getting older. I hope you can join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our senior producer today is Sam Brigger.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the scenarios if the January 19th ban stays in effect. People are just wondering, what does that mean? Does TikTok just go away then?

I want to remind people that President-elect Trump actually got the ball rolling on all of this back in 2020. Can you remind us what he was pushing for back then when he was talking about imposing sanctions on TikTok and banning it back then?

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. TikTok is in a race against time, a last-ditch effort to save itself from being banned in the U.S. on January 19th. The CEO of ByteDance, the company that owns the popular social platform, met with President-elect Donald Trump on Monday, just hours after asking the Supreme Court to take up the case and block the ban temporarily.

As you mentioned, President-elect Trump now is for TikTok. He's been talking quite a bit about how TikTok has been instrumental in him winning the presidential election. I want to actually play a clip from his latest interview with NBC's Kristen Welker, where she references the ruling you mentioned earlier by the federal court last week that upholds the ban.

And she asked Trump where he stands on the issue. Let's listen.

That was President-elect Trump talking with NBC's Kristen Welker. Alan, Trump says several things here that I want to talk through. But I want to also know first, what power does he have at this moment that could determine the fate of TikTok?

This morning, the court agreed to take up the appeal and hear oral arguments on January 10th before deciding whether to put the ban on hold. Now at issue is who owns TikTok. Lawmakers say the platform is a national security risk because it gives China unfettered access to our data and our attention.

So he could direct the attorney general who will run the DOJ not to enforce the law.

You gave three scenarios, but then there's the fourth scenario that I guess is kind of the unlikely scenario is that the president could push for a sale to an American company. But that has already been on the table for quite some time. And I found that interesting that Congress was mandating that because –

Last April, Congress passed a law that mandates TikTok either be sold to a non-Chinese company or be banned. TikTok challenged that law, arguing that a ban infringes on America's First Amendment rights to free speech. Now, each month, about 170 million of us spend time on TikTok. And for those who aren't on it, yes, it's a place to watch silly pranks and dance challenges.

China has a law that blocks Chinese technology from being sold to an American buyer, and the algorithm is the beating heart of TikTok. So how feasible would it ever be that this company without the algorithm is sold to an American company? Would it still have value if that scenario were to happen?

Her book, Dreamtown, Shaker Heights, and the Quest for Racial Equity, is an examination of the ideals and realities of racial integration in her hometown of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Our conversation was recorded yesterday. Laura Meckler, welcome to Fresh Air.

Which was the New York Times, right, by Nicole Hannah-Jones. Exactly.

In fact, it's banned on the state and local level in many places.

Let's start with the backstory behind the letter that was sent this week to the 60 colleges by the Department of Education for alleged violations relating to anti-Semitic harassment. Remind us of what this stems from.

Our guest today is Washington Post national education writer Laura Meckler. On Tuesday, the Education Department announced it was firing more than 1,300 department workers. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

Laura, I want to talk a little bit about some of the actions of DOGE. That's the Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk. We see that dismantling the education department is part of a larger effort by DOGE to streamline the government.

They've terminated something like 89 contracts with the Department of Education, which has had an immediate impact on the Institute of Education Sciences. What have you been following on that front?

Why is Trump doing this? What is his vision for education?

Mm-hmm. Can you remind us, as it pertains to the culture war issues and anything related to DEI, some of the origins of that? I know a few years ago, we were really talking about critical race theory within K-12 education. I've also heard President Trump talk about the mothers, the parents who have really been pushing like sort of this lobby to push against DEI in schools.

What can you tell us about that?

Did this also really ramp up the conversation around school choice? I know that Trump has really talked about that. I know Secretary of Education Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was a big proponent of school choice. Can you tell us a little bit more about Trump's vision as it relates to school choice?

This sounds like it would be a big upset to the public school funding model.

How does a school choice program impact rural areas where private schools are scarce?

Can you talk about the impact of cuts to students with disabilities?

You've actually been reporting on how the Trump administration pulled last week. It's $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia University. And just to remind people, Columbia was sort of the epicenter of the protests last spring. Can you tell us more about the accusations that happened there on that campus as well as the cuts to funding?

Okay, let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we're talking to national education writer Laura Meckler of the Washington Post about what it would mean in practice for the Department of Education to be dismantled. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

One of the interesting things noted in Project 2025 is is to narrow institutional funding to historically black colleges and universities. One of the things President Trump was lauded for during his last presidency was making permanent an annual funding commitment of millions to HBCUs. It's just interesting to be at this point where there seems to be such a culture war over

things that are very specific to people of color or other identities. Have you been watching or following this, and how likely could that commitment go away?

Yeah, it just complicates the conversation because if you're asking an HBCU to be compliant against federal mandates around DEI, for example, and it's tied to funding, it just puts all educational institutions in a really precarious bind as it relates to the curriculum that they're setting forth for their students.

I mean, $400 million sounds like an incredibly large amount and what that actually impacts.

It just opens up a lot of things. I mean, an indigenous history class. I mean, America is, quote unquote, a melting pot of so much and the history is so rich. It just opens up everything.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. The Department of Education is reportedly gutting its workforce. In addition to the more than 1,300 workers who were fired on Tuesday, more than 600 have accepted separation packages or were fired last month during their probationary period.

You know, I'm just curious. I mean, calls for education reform, I mean, they've been happening really since even before the formation of the Department of Education. So this is not necessarily something that feels new or novel. I mean, there is a desire from both sides. It's bipartisan to really look and streamline and provide a better way for educational opportunity in the United States. And

some see some of the roadblocks and the bureaucracy as a block to that.

Laura Meckler, thank you so much for your reporting and your time. Thanks so much for having me. Laura Meckler is a national education writer for The Washington Post. Our conversation was recorded yesterday. Coming up, TV critic David Bianculli reviews A Thousand Blows, the new historical drama series from Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight. This is Fresh Air.

Stephen Knight, creator of the long-running, much-acclaimed British TV series Peaky Blinders, has a new period drama that's come to the United States. It's called A Thousand Blows, and it's about tough yet vulnerable characters trying to survive and thrive in Victorian-era East End London. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed A Thousand Blows, now streaming on Hulu. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we remember South African playwright Athol Fugard, whose plays were about the emotional and psychological consequences of apartheid.

And we remember songwriter and singer Jerry Butler, who sang with Curtis Mayfield in The Impressions before going solo. I hope you can join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

Right, because 60 other universities received a letter just on Monday. I would assume there probably is fear around funding cuts for those universities as well.

So the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Ed sent that letter to the colleges and universities. And that office, which under a larger proposal to dismantle the education department, would fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. Can you share the latest of what we know about this draft executive order to dismantle the department that has been circulating?

Have you seen it?

This leaves the department to roughly half of its workforce, which is responsible for enforcing civil rights laws in schools, supplying student loans and grants, and tracking student achievement. These new layoffs come as President Donald Trump calls to eliminate the department altogether.

Remind us what the US Department of Education is responsible for.

Going back to what you said about how it would take an act of Congress to dismantle, I do want to talk with you about the ways that the administration can change the function without Congress. One of the ways is by taking some of what the Department of Education does and then having other departments handle that. Can you give us some examples of that?

At the heart of Trump's effort is a plan to consolidate what he describes as waste within the government, vowing to cut federal funding for schools and colleges that promote, quote, Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Education also sent letters to 60 colleges and universities.

There was an executive order that Trump put forth in February where he demanded the secretary of education to deliver recommendations to him for eliminating funding for K-12 schools that engage in the indoctrination, as he puts it, over race and gender topics. And schools are typically a reflection of their communities.

And the curriculum is not set by the federal government, but states and the districts themselves. So how would the federal government enforce something like this?

This idea of moving the Office of Civil Rights, which, as you mentioned, enforces Title IX and the individuals with Disabilities Education Act to the Department of Justice, how would being under the DOJ change the function of that office?

Yes, they're two very different things. But ultimately, could the administration get what it wants through that second action?

It says are under investigation for violations relating to alleged anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish students during pro-Palestinian protests on campuses nationwide. Joining us to talk about all of this is Laura Meckler, a national education writer for The Washington Post, who covers news, politics, and the people shaping American schools.

It's pretty interesting that Linda McMahon has taken this role as the head of the Department of Education to dismantle it. Can you kind of give us a sense of is she working herself out of a job? Is she there just for that explicit purpose? What can you tell us about her?

It's also pretty interesting because when Betsy DeVos was sworn in, it was pretty clear – her ideology around education. I mean, she was just such a big proponent of school choice. With McMahon, what did she indicate during her confirmation hearings would be sort of her focus around education, understanding her background?

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. As we head into 2025, housing is still one of the most important issues on the minds of millions of Americans. The dream of owning or even renting a place is in peril. People are paying a million dollars for starter homes, new construction is moving at a snail's pace, and the latest data shows that in 2023, home sales were the slowest in three decades.

What could municipalities and states do to offset that? I mean, I'm just thinking about zoning issues and things like that that could help stave off that increase in people moving into places that are these danger zones.

Our guest today is housing expert Ben Keyes. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. I want to talk a little bit more about some of the challenges with housing. I think that we all have either heard the stories or seen firsthand the increase in homelessness.

One of the interesting things we saw in November is that several states voted on housing affordability measures and many of them passed. For instance, Los Angeles and Denver passed. passed an increase in sales tax to cover affordable housing and to help reduce homelessness. I mean, homelessness in general, it feels like such an intractable issue even before the housing crisis.

And so I'm wondering from you, are these types of measures, of course, they feel like a step in the right direction, but what are your thoughts about them having true impact?

You've mentioned how Minneapolis is a place that has reduced zoning and building barriers and prices have kind of like slowed there. It hasn't risen as fast as other places. And I actually looked it up and found that the vacancy rate there is about 4%, which is the lowest of any major U.S. city. What are they getting right there?

How much does nimbyism, you know, not in my backyard, factor into... the potential changes of zoning in these communities that could build density in this way?

You mentioned Alabama and Minneapolis as a city that are bright spots. Are there other examples of community housing experiments or new approaches that have worked?

Can you delve a little bit deeper into that? Because why 17 years later, if demand is high, people are working, they're looking for places to live, what are some of the factors that continue to keep home builders from just building more housing?

Our guest today is housing expert Ben Keyes. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

You know, there's been lots of reporting lately about what's being called the silver tsunami, that those 55 and older with no children and have these houses with like extra bedrooms could eventually flood the housing market with their homes and help make homes more affordable. What does the data say, though, on that scenario?

making a meaningful impact over the coming years, especially in some of the more expensive markets.

I'm really interested in something you mentioned about the Rust Belt and the situation there. In Detroit in particular, we know like 10, 15, 20 years ago, I can't believe it's been that long, but there were all those stories about, oh, you can buy a home for $10,000, $15,000, $20,000. Even families saying, we'll pass down our homes to you. But as you said, if there aren't jobs there...

that will bring people to those areas that may not have as big of an impact. There were also those stories that like rumors that Chinese investors were coming in and buying blocks and blocks of homes because they were $10,000, $15,000. I'm wondering what's the reality of a place like that today that Detroit has now seen a resurgence. There's growth there.

The cost of housing is now rising and almost at pace with some other areas. What are you seeing in a place like Detroit?

You know, I thought it was really interesting when my producer Monique asked you for bright spots. One of the things you said was the market is very bright for boomers who bought a long time ago and have built tremendous wealth through the market. I mean, that doesn't feel very bright for millennials or really anyone else.

What advice would you give for those who are debating whether they should buy a home right now or just wait and see?

Ben Keyes, thank you so much for this conversation.

Ben Keyes is a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews The Seed of the Sacred Fig, the latest drama from Iranian filmmaker Mohamed Rasoulof, which premiered this year at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. This is Fresh Air.

Earlier this year, Iranian descendant filmmaker Mohammad Rasouloff fled his country to escape an eight-year prison sentence. He made it to the Cannes Film Festival just in time for the premiere of his latest drama, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which was filmed secretly in Iran.

The movie won a special jury prize at the festival and was submitted for the Oscar for Best International Feature by Germany, where Rasulov now resides. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.

You know, President-elect Trump, he's been talking about some of the ways he plans to help remedy this crisis. And one of them is proposing tariffs on imports, which include construction materials. How could that impact housing costs as it relates, I guess, to the price of building materials?

Many homeowners aren't selling or upgrading because the market for getting into another house is just too high. Renters aren't catching a break either. On average, they're spending 30% of their income on housing. And that stat includes people who live in places that had the reputation of being more affordable, like the Midwest and the South.

Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert. They're partners in marriage and in their production company, and she makes regular appearances on his late-night show. They've written a new cookbook together called Does This Taste Funny?

They'll talk about food, coming close to death mid-show, meeting the Pope, and more. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

Ben, one of the more controversial ideas that Trump has spoken about is how he plans to deport 11 million or so undocumented immigrants and how that will free up housing. Is there a link between the undocumented and housing affordability besides it being a numbers game?

One of the other things that President-elect Trump has talked about is opening swaths of federal land for large-scale housing construction. And he's calling these areas freedom cities. The Biden administration was doing sort of an impact or research study on this. And Kamala Harris also talked about this as well in generalities.

changes to our climate are also redrawing real estate maps, impacting where people can live and what they can afford. President-elect Donald Trump says some of his plans to tackle the crisis include regulations on construction, opening up federal land for housing, and mass deportation. How feasible are these ideas? And why is this such a dire moment in the housing crisis?

So I just want to get to the bottom of like, is there some value there in looking at federal land as a potential solution? Maybe not in the way of building new cities on federal land, but is there a way to use that land to help offset some of the challenges that we're seeing?

Well, that's so interesting about the post office, the post office idea.

I know. I now can't unsee it. As you were talking about the post office, I started going through my neighborhood and thinking about all of the other areas where there could be housing.

Is there an example elsewhere in the world where they've been successful in building density? It changes really our perception of the American dream to live in high density areas, you know, that no longer is the big story house with the front yard and the It is what you're talking about sounds like something I might see in Japan, for instance.

Well, our guest today to talk about all of this has been Keyes. He's the Rowan Family Foundation Professor of Real Estate and Finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. And Ben Keyes, welcome to Fresh Air.

I want to talk a little bit more about some of the things that President-elect Trump has said he will do to help offset some of the challenges we're seeing in the housing markets. And one of the things he says he will do is to bring down mortgage rates to make home buying more affordable.

We know the president doesn't set mortgage rates or interest rates, but we do know that his policies can affect the rates. And I'm just wondering from you, what do you think he could do to influence mortgage rates?

I'm just curious because I know that you study the impacts of climate change, how climate change is attributing to the rise in costs for homeowners.

You know, Ben, one of the more frustrating issues right now is that there just isn't enough affordable housing. And from my understanding, like so much of this current housing crisis, this can be traced back to the financial crisis of 2008. It's like a snowball effect.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today, we're discussing the rapid dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, commonly known as DEI, in both public and private sectors nationwide. One side of the political spectrum praises DEI, often referring to it as a major step toward progress. The other uses it as a slur, an example of woke culture gone too far.

One thing that I want to note is we're not only seeing the reversal of DEI in many sectors, but DEIA, which also includes accessibility for disabled people. That has been much less of a headline. But what are you two noticing on that front? Dr. Dobbin?

Our guests today are Professors Frank Dobbin of Harvard University and Ella Washington of Georgetown. Our conversation was recorded on Monday. More after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

You know, we've been talking about all of the ways that diversity, equity, and inclusion can be thought of in the context of work and civic life. And Dr. Dobbin, you and your colleagues actually analyzed three decades worth of data from about 800 companies and interviewed hundreds of managers and executives.

You found that some of the most effective solutions to inclusivity and diversity aren't even designed with diversity in mind. You mentioned earlier, like training programs, but can you give us some other examples of that?

You know, I think that is the big question is if it's not mandated, if it's not under a diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative or mandate, will these things happen?

Can you all remind us of the realities for non-white men in corporate America? I mean, corporate America, education, civic life, before those civil rights protections, which was basically another iteration, the earlier iteration of DEI as we know it. I think we have short memories, and 60 years have passed since that legislation was passed. And

I mean, that's so interesting what you're saying about what Gen Z expects as they enter the workforce, right? Ten years ago, you know, having a lactation room at a place of employment was like a hard-fought win. And many places still don't have them. And you're talking about language services and like

language translation services, though, in the face of what is happening on the national level against uses of other languages. You know, the president declaring that English is the official language, though. It's like all of these things that our expectations are up against, like these real shifts and changes that are happening on the federal level.

And I'm just wondering, how are you looking at those two things in contrast with each other?

Dr. Dobbin, I want to go back to something you talked about. You said earlier around diversity training. I think one of the most controversial and contentious elements of diversity, equity, inclusion today is like the popularity of those types of workshops over the last few years. Why don't diversity and say like implicit bias trainings work?

So the current discussion around DEI has become so muddled. I think it would be good for us to have an understanding before those protections on what the realities were in corporate life for people.

Both of you have talked about some of the pitfalls of outside companies coming into organizations to impart this training, in part because they don't know or understand the culture and some of the ways to really have that kind of conversation using the language and understanding of the components of the organization?

What have you all seen that works? Full disclosure, many years ago, about a decade ago, when I was at Stanford, I worked with social scientists to create this implicit bias curriculum for newsrooms. And it wasn't perfect. We knew it at the time.

but it allowed us to have conversations about things that we hadn't talked about that really did impact our day-to-day work, like homogenous teams working in predominantly Black cities, for instance, or Ivy League graduates covering working-class communities. Has research shown any value in having conversations of any kind like this about systemic racism or implicit bias in the workplace.

Is there space to have that kind of conversation to get to solutions?

There's also with the overarching political landscape with DEI now thought of as a slur. I mean, will companies continue the work in stealth mode and in other ways if there are no longer laws or mandates to require it or there's pressure? to dismantle it for fear of losing potential funding?

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, I'm talking to Professors Frank Dobbin and Ella Washington, both experts in diversity, equity, and inclusion, about the nationwide dismantling of DEI initiatives.

This past weekend, under the Trump administration, the Department of Education launched a new website called NDEI, a federal tip line for reporting instances where initiatives are being implemented or taught in schools. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

I'm just curious for both of you, the toll that these rollbacks have had, because I assume you do this work because you feel like it's the right thing to do. I'll start with you, Dr. Washington.

Is there a difference generationally in how people view DEI? Like, have your students in particular in class, have they said anything about the things that are happening in the moment with President Trump's executive orders?

Frank Dobbin. Ella Washington, thank you all so much for your expertise in this conversation. Thank you for having me.

Ella Washington is an organizational psychologist and professor of practice at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. And Frank Dobbin is a professor of sociology at Harvard University. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, actor Simu Liu. He's best known for his breakout role as Shang-Chi, Marvel's first Asian superhero, and for playing a rival kin in the film Barbie.

Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper.

And it's become a challenge to debate its merits when we can't even agree on what it is. The cascade to dismantle anything called DEI began in January when President Trump issued executive orders to eliminate initiatives within the federal government and institutions that receive funding from the government.

Teresa Madden directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

You know, there is this perception, I mean, much like the argument against affirmative action, that DEI allows for preferential treatment of minority groups. And it has come at a cost, meaning that it has turned into reverse discrimination. I'm just wondering, based on the research that both of you all have done, what groups have benefited most from it?

And is there research or data that show patterns of reverse discrimination?

You mentioned those lawsuits from the 70s, reverse discrimination lawsuits that didn't go anywhere. You have also made a point to say that, I mean, basically white nationalist groups have been fighting against the Civil Rights Act and really diversity, equity and inclusion for the last 60 years. What is different now is that this effort is mainstream.

Since then, states like Florida, Texas, and Utah have banned DEI offices at public universities. And companies like Pepsi and Disney and McDonald's have done away or quietly shifted their focus away from initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

What was the ignition that really set off this effort? Really, it seems like over the last five years or so.

To help us understand the criticism, the developments, and implications, we're joined by two distinguished experts, Frank Dobbin, professor of sociology at Harvard University, and Ella Washington, an organizational psychologist and professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Welcome to you both. Thank you for having me.

I'm really interested in how private companies, many of them are preemptively doing away with their DEI initiatives. And I would guess that some of them receive subsidies from the U.S. government, and that is probably why they're taking these steps. But Dr. Washington, you have often worked directly within the private sector with companies, knowing kind of those internal conversations.

What do you make of some of those preemptive strikes to do away with DEI initiatives?

How effective do you think economic boycotts are? There was one that just happened just this past Friday. We'll learn in the next few days the outcomes of those. But people are trying to show their beliefs through their wallets. Historically, how successful has something like that been?

Well, I think it's good for us to start with some basics because I'm not even sure when I'm in conversation with people about DEI if we're talking about the same things because it's become such a broad term. So I think it's great for all of us to start with how you both define DEI. And I'll start with you, Dr. Washington.

Like what?

Tell us your thoughts about this action taken against birthright citizenship for anybody born in the U.S. after February 19th, 2025. I mean, it's been fought in the court, but it would limit birthright citizenship to at least one parent being a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident to qualify. You've been very critical of this. Talk to me about the ramifications of something like this.

Daniel Canstrom, welcome to Fresh Air.

I'm happy to have your expertise on the show today. And I want to start with the case of Romeza Ozturk. She is the PhD student at Tufts University. She's from Turkey and is here on a student visa. In this video that circulated last week, we see the arrest unfold. We see a man in a black hoodie and a face mask approach her as she leaves her apartment. And that man grabs her hands.

Our guest is legal scholar and immigration expert Daniel Kanstrom. Our interview was recorded yesterday. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

You're advising some people not to leave the country. I've been hearing anecdotally that colleges and universities, those who hire people who come from other countries, also telling them don't leave for spring break, things like that. We're also hearing, though, some U.S.

residents and visa holders are reporting that when they are trying to come back into the country, that they are being stopped by Homeland Security, their phones are being checked, social media is emails upon arrival, being detained for several days. Some have reported being detained for several weeks. Is this something new under the administration? Have these always been tactics?

And I want to play a little bit from that video. What we're about to hear is Ozturk sort of scream a little. It appears she doesn't know for a moment what's happening. Okay. We hear her yelling out and then we see some other people in plain clothes who we later learn are ICE officers. They surround her and one person pulls out a badge and then they cuff her and take her off.

I was thinking about the possible futures for these college students recently detained. Like, how difficult is it to reopen a case once someone is deported, to basically come back?

So if a mistake is made, I mean, the challenge of being able to correct that mistake once you've been deported is very, very low.

Can we talk a little bit about immigration courts in the United States for a moment? I know they operate under the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the DOJ. We've all been hearing for years about the need to reform, if for nothing else but for the sheer backlog. I actually was reading that some immigration judges at this very moment are handling something like 5,000 cases.

That's astounding. It raises questions about whether the system can actually fairly handle all of these immigration and deportation cases and how often mistakes are made.

Something I was thinking about in reading your book, The New Deportation Delirium, you really get into some facts that give us greater context. Like one of the things you write about is the sheer scale of resources that's needed for ICE to carry out their function of arrests. And I was thinking about when I watched the video of Ozturk being arrested in front of her building.

They had to, of course, know where she lived. They also had to know what time she'd be home, know her schedule, go through all of her public records. Lay out for us what goes into this kind of work.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. In recent weeks, immigration agents have descended on college campus towns across the country and carried out waves of arrests of international students. Just last week, a video circulated of six ICE agents in masks and plain clothes surrounding and arresting a 30-year-old Turkish Ph.D. student from Tufts University as she stepped out for dinner during Ramadan.

Professor Canstrom, what was your reaction when you first saw this video?

If you're just joining us, we're talking about the latest immigration arrests on college campuses with Daniel Kanstrom, a legal scholar and professor specializing in immigration law, human rights, and public policy at Boston College. Our interview was recorded yesterday. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

Professor Canstrom, um, As you mentioned earlier, another big headline is the deportations to El Salvador. Just this week, the Trump administration deported 17 people described as violent offenders, and they linked them to gangs. And this follows earlier deportations of hundreds of Venezuelans under similar claims. Now, the Salvadorian government has accepted these deportees in exchange for

financial support from the U.S. And some of the challenges is that some of these detainees have reportedly have no criminal records. Are these expedited deportations in violation of international human rights standards?

You've already touched on this a bit, but what are the legal implications of invoking the Alien Enemies Act to justify these deportations? How does it align with the historical uses of the statute?

I was also wondering about the financial entanglements. Like how should international law potentially address agreements between countries like the U.S. and El Salvador where like these financial incentives might influence acceptance of deportees?

Thank you.

Thank you.

A judge in Massachusetts temporarily barred the deportation of Ozturk, but the Department of Homeland Security said that she was originally detained and her visa terminated because she was in support of the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas. And what they appear to be referencing is an op-ed she wrote that was critical of Israel. Can she be deported for that?

Thank you.

Okay. So just so I'm clear, this question that I think continues to come up as we see more and more arrests, whether students who hold a visa have First Amendment rights, I think what I'm hearing from you is it's both yes and no.

She held a valid F-1 student visa, but was detained because it had been revoked, reportedly without warning. Her case is not an isolated one. Several arrests have taken place at other universities, too, like Columbia, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Alabama, where an Iranian doctoral student was taken into custody after his visa was annulled by the State Department.

Something else I was just curious about, just a side note, but ICE took Ozturk to a detention center in Louisiana before her attorneys could get a judge to block that transfer. This is the same center where they took Mahmoud Khalil. He's the Columbia University graduate student who was arrested in early March. Why Louisiana and why that detention center?

Is it something about that detention center or something by design?

You know, one of the things I want to talk with you about is what you are seeing in your work, because you have, as a professor, as a legal scholar, the ability to see the big picture, but then you also have your ear to the ground as part of this Boston College Immigration and Asylum Clinic, which you founded. Students there provide services for people like advocating for people who are detained.

What are you hearing right now? What are some of the concerns that people are coming into the clinic talking about? What are some of the students seeing that are working with international students and others who may be concerned about their status at this moment?

To help us understand the legal dimensions of these actions, what they mean not only for international students, but for U.S. visa and even green card holders, really anyone who wasn't born in the United States, is Daniel Kanstrom, a professor at Boston College Law School and scholar on immigration and human rights.

What I'm hearing from you as a legal expert, you believe that this focus on these students who are here legally is a scare tactic. But can you get a little bit deeper into this idea? Because Trump has laid out very clearly during his campaign trail and his first few days of office that he wanted to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

But this focus on students who are here legally, what do these arrests tell us about this larger immigration strategy?

He founded the Boston College Immigration and Asylum Clinic, where law students advocate for migrants and directs the Post-Deportation Human Rights Project. which explores the long-term impacts of deportation on families and communities. Canstrom's latest book, The New Deportation Delirium, examines the sprawling system of deportation in our country since 9-11.

Let's talk just a little bit more about some of the things we're seeing in real time. We're hearing stories of students and others preemptively leaving the country, basically self-deporting. Is that also a strategy, basically to get people to leave on their own?

Hey, it's Tanya Mosley. It's almost the end of the year, and this is the season when we here at NPR come to you as a nonprofit news organization and ask for your support. Maybe you're already an NPR Plus supporter, and if so, thank you so much.

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I actually referenced something in my introduction, and that's the sartorial choices of wearing blue throughout history. You reference how Coretta Scott King wore blue on her wedding day to Martin Luther King Jr. Carlotta Lanier was the youngest of nine children to desegregate a high school in 1957, and she wore a blue dress. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in his Dodgers blue. Mm-hmm.

What's the argument for these examples kind of being anything more than a coincidence?

Can I have you read a passage, page 21, last paragraph?

Our guest today is scholar and award-winning author Imani Perry, who has written a new book, Black and Blues, How a Color Tells the Story of My People. We'll be right back in just a bit. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

I was thinking about the retort against Black Lives Matter back in 2020. And for some, it was Blue Lives Matter. Yeah. How are you thinking about the color blue as it relates to authority, to police, the military?

Something you referenced in our conversation is indigo, the colonial export of indigo. And indigo was really instrumental in shaping the destinies of millions of Africans. What did you learn about the creation of indigo blue in the slave trade?

My guest today is scholar and author Imani Perry, and we're talking about her new book, Black in Blues, How a Color Tells the Story of My People. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

Your book really does take us through history using, it's a history book, but in the best way. It's not a dense text, you know, think of like a history textbook. But this revisiting this time period, I mean, I was astounded to learn by 1775, South Carolina was exporting more than a million pounds of indigo annually. So it was like the colony's second most valuable export after rice.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. You know, sometimes there are ideas that make you reconsider the way you look at the world around you. My guest today, scholar Imani Perry, does that with her new book, Black and Blues, How a Color Tells the Story of My People. Perry weaves the gravitational pull of blue in black life, both literally and metaphorically, in sound and in color.

Thank you so much for that, Amani. I also want to say that this book is, I know you don't think of yourself as a poet, but it's very lyrical. It's really poetry. Thank you. How did meditating on the color blue help you come to a deeper understanding about the use of the word black to articulate what we are?

And to your point, like when we learn about that history, the history of that time period, it's typically focused on those other exports like rice and cotton.

You meditate on that thinking about, I think in the book you mentioned cobalt.

You mentioned like what's used to create the technology that we use.

The labor.

One of the more powerful, perhaps also really painful things that you do is reflect on what our ancestors saw looking out into the deep blueness of the sea during the Middle Passage. I think we've heard these fables that speak to this, that many chose to end their lives by jumping overboard, maybe transfixed. These are stories that really change this idea of the

the horde nature of it, like transfixed by the blueness and possibility that the ocean gave, that maybe there was an underworld under the deep blue sea where our ancestors found liberation. What was this process like for you imagining what that deep blue sea offered to those during the Middle Passage?

I want to fast forward to modern times. There was this period in the 80s, which was really like close to two decades after the civil rights movement. I'm thinking like the late 80s when it felt like, as you write, progress had stalled. And you called it a time when art took center stage as a way to make meaning. Can you say more about that?

Let's take a short break. My guest today is scholar and author Imani Perry, and we're talking about her new book, Black and Blues, How a Color Tells the Story of My People. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air.

You know, thinking about this time period that we're in, what is it like to be at this moment a professor of studies on women and gender and sexuality and Black American studies at a time when conservatives are fighting against having most, if not all of those things studied at higher education institutions?

I'd like to, in our conversation on a passage of your book that I feel is so rooted in the present moment, it's page 228, the last paragraph. It starts with an admission.

Thank you for reading that, Imani. I mean, I feel like this book is really, this meditation on the color blue has given me more language to understand by existence. So I want to thank you for that. And I also want to know, what has it done for you to spend this time on the color and the sensibility and the sound of blue?

Imani Perry, as always, thank you so much for this thought-provoking conversation.

Imani Perry's new book is Black and Blues, How a Color Tells the Story of My People. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we've been talking a lot about loneliness. Research shows we're spending more time alone than ever. Atlantic writer Derek Thompson joins us to talk about how all of this me time is having a profound impact on our personalities, our politics, and our relationship to reality.

I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Thanks to Jose Llanes from WDET for additional engineering help. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.

I want to talk a little bit about music. It's kind of the easiest way to get even deeper into this book and this thought. You know, I think the term blue note is so embedded in our understanding as something that relates to jazz music. If you're not a musician, maybe you just know of it, but not really.

At least I didn't know what it meant really until I was reading your book and I understood it to mean the in-between.

I was just really curious how this definition of the in-between works. also allows you to deepen your understanding of how Black people's creation of the art form of jazz itself came to be?

From the creation of dyed indigo cloths and West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century to the American art form of blues music and sartorial choices. Coretta Scott King wore blue on her wedding day. Fannie Lou Hamer wore a blue dress to testify before Congress.

I want to play an early reference that you write about. It's Louis Armstrong's 1951 recording of What did I do to be so black and blue? Let's listen to a little.

That was Louis Armstrong's 1951, What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue? It was really fun to go down memory lane and listen to these old pieces, I'll say. But what did you learn about how Armstrong really turned this song, which was several decades old by the time he sang it, into really a direct commentary for the time?

These examples could be seen as mere coincidences, but in this book, Perry weaves a compelling argument for why they are not. Imani Perry is the Henry A. Morris Jr. and Elizabeth W. Morris Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

You also reference Nina Simone. You talk about her first album, which was in 1957. There is this song called Little Girl Blue. I also want to play that. Let's hear a little bit.

She's also the author of several books and has published numerous articles on law, cultural studies, and African American studies, including Looking for Lorraine, which is a biography of of the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and Breathe, a letter to my sons. Imani Perry, welcome back to Fresh Air, and thank you so much for this fascinating book. Oh, thank you for having me.

That was Nina Simone singing Little Girl Blue. And Imani, as you write about, there was just a lot going on with this album. There's a lot of delays with the recording label. It kind of set her on the path, really her career path decisions from that point on. What did you learn about Simone and the recording of this song that made you want to explore it for the book?

Hi, it's Terry Gross. Before we start our show, I want to take a minute to remind you that it's Almost Giving Tuesday, which is so named because it's become a day of expressing gratitude by giving money or any kind of help to an individual or group or organization that matters to you. We've found a way to turn Giving Tuesday into Giving and Getting Tuesday. Thank you. It's a win-win.

Yeah. And how to navigate. I mean, that is definitely an experience.

Sports is a unifying force, for sure. It also is like really high pressure. And I mean, all jobs are performances, but like sports and the creative space, particularly acting, like a bad sports play or a bad acting performance could make or break a career, right? I mean, both of you seem to thrive. from that pressure, what is it in you, in the both of you, that maybe thrives from that pressure?

the family battle ensues between boy Willie and his sister Bernice, played by Danielle Dedweiler, who wants the family to hold on to the piano, a family heirloom engraved with their ancestors' faces. The production of this film was a family affair.

John David.

How do you make yourself comfortable with rejection?

I want to slow that down a little bit, that resentment that you're talking about. What do you mean when you say that?

The brothers' sister Katia and their father, Oscar-winning Denzel Washington, are producers, and Denzel, who starred and co-produced in Wilson's Fences, has committed to adapting Wilson's plays into 10 films. Their mother, Pauletta Washington, even appears in the movie, starring as Mama Ola.

Our guests today are director Malcolm Washington and actor John David Washington. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today my guests are director Malcolm Washington and actor John David Washington. The brothers collaborated on the late August Wilson's The Piano Lesson for the screen on Netflix.

It's the fourth play in Wilson's American Century Cycle, a series of 10 plays that capture the American experience for Black people through every decade of the 20th century. Malcolm Washington has produced and written several short films. The Piano Lesson is his directorial full-length feature debut. John David portrayed Boy Willie for the first time on Broadway and now plays him in the film.

He also starred in several other films, including Spike Lee's Black Klansman, the mystery comedy thriller Amsterdam, and Christopher Nolan's time travel mind-bender Tenet. John David, you were a pro football player with the St. Louis Rams in the early 2000s. You also spent four years as a running back for the United Football League, Sacramento Mountain Lions.

But when you were playing pro, you got injured. What happened?

Is it true that you showed up with like your cast or boot or something to the HBO Ballers audition?

Well, Ballers, it's great. You were phenomenal in that, for that to be like your first major role. Your character in Ballers had this attachment to his college number 18. And he had all of these attachments, his first championship, his plays, his accomplishments that were like, they were like steps. They were like a process to get, you know, for his identity.

The Piano Lesson is Malcolm Washington's directorial debut for a feature film, and John David portrayed Boy Willie in the Broadway revival of The Piano Lesson. He's also starred in several films, including Spike Lee's Black Klansman and Christopher Nolan's Time Travel Mindbender Tenet. John David and Malcolm Washington, welcome to Fresh Air.

And it's what you're talking about as far as you forging your identity into What was that process of letting that go and turning towards that new thing, that new identity, that identity that you kind of were running from, from your father's identity, but now you were stepping into it as a novice?

Yeah. Yeah. That also happened in Tenet, right? Christopher Nolan's film for Tenet. You did a couple of ad-libs and things that he was really impressed with.

Malcolm, you got to be on the set of Tenet, right? You visited the set.

You laugh. You got to tell the story. It was kind of an emotional experience, right?

Well, I want to get right into our discussion about the film by playing a clip. And the story takes place in 1936. Bernice, played by Danielle Deadweiler, lives in Pittsburgh with the piano and her brother, boy Willie, played by you, John David. is a sharecropper in their hometown of Mississippi, and he's driven up to Pittsburgh in hopes of persuading Bernice to sell.

Our guests today are director Malcolm Washington and actor John David Washington. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and today my guests are director Malcolm Washington and actor John David Washington. Both of you have had experiences of being on set with your parents.

John David, I think you've told stories about being on the set of Glory and also Philadelphia, right?

What do you remember the most about those experiences?

And their uncle, played by Samuel L. Jackson, explains why Bernice won't do it. He speaks first. Let's listen.

Oh.

That's pretty amazing. You were going to mention Philadelphia, too. You were on the set of.

That is a cool story. And I'm wondering how it informs your acting, your process when you are on set with others and like you're building that trust too, you know?

If you're just joining us, my guests today are John David and Malcolm Washington. We're talking about their new film, The Piano Lesson. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and today I'm talking to Malcolm and John David Washington. The brothers have taken on the late playwright August Wilson's play, The Piano Lesson, for the screen on Netflix.

I want to ask you guys about something else. And I want to see if I can formulate it right. But like, how do you deal with the heat of fandom and desire? Because I mean, your dad, for instance, is not only a great actor, you're already laughing, but your dad's already already know, of course, he's a great actor, but he's also like every mom and every auntie's crush. And

Fine in every generation, right. And now you guys are continuing the torch. I actually just picked up an L.A. magazine and John David, you're on the cover looking like a sex symbol, you know?

I'm just curious. What's the question? Period. No. Period, yeah. What did, like, I'm wondering, what did your dad teach you or what lessons did you learn from watching him when it comes to navigating that energy and that heat that like throngs of fans throw towards you? Because, I mean, I can't even imagine what your DMs might be like, you know?

That was my guest today, John David Washington, with Samuel L. Jackson in the Netflix film The Piano Lesson, directed by my other guest, Malcolm Washington. And, you know, this is such a Black American story that endures that yearning to pass down items of value up against this very real society.

They both teach you that, but there's no denying that there's also that other thing. And I just want to know how you navigate it, both of you.

Yeah.

You make such a strong point, and it's beautiful to see. But every chance you get, you remind people that you're the sons of both Denzel and Pauletta. They'd be trying to erase my mom. That's crazy. It's more a reaction, I guess.

Yeah. What's her reaction to you guys making that statement and stating it so clear? Because as a mother, I just always smile. Like, I want my children to be speaking my name out in the world like that.

an often desperate need to sell for practical reasons or, in Boy Willie's case, to gamble towards this American dream of owning land. And I want to start by asking you, Malcolm, what was it about this story that you felt was not only enduring, but an urgent one that needed to be retold now?

Yeah. John David, the older you get, the more and more you sound like your dad. Do you guys get confused at all in listening, like on the phone or no?

Yeah. Do you think you'll adapt any more of August Wilson's plays?

Malcolm Washington and John David Washington, this was such a pleasure to talk with both of you, and thank you so much.

On tomorrow's show, Ira Gershwin wrote some of the best-known lyrics in the American popular songbook, including Love is Here to Stay, Swonderful, Fascinating Rhythm, Embraceable You, and I've Got a Crush on You. We'll talk with Michael Owen, author of Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words, and we'll listen to some great music. I hope you can join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Susan Yakundi directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

You also wanted to bring a modern touch to this. And I mean, August Wilson is one of the greatest playwrights of our time. So, I mean, this material is just right. But I can imagine that's also intimidating, possibly. What was your first step in bringing your director's touch to what is well-established material?

John David, in the scene that we played, you were in character with Samuel L. Jackson, who actually originally played Boy Willie in 1987. And in this film, he plays the uncle to Bernice and Boy Willie. His performance, it's quiet, it's contemplative. He exudes kind of like this wise knowing as he watches you. And for me, it was a little bit emotional.

I'm like going through this moment where I'm looking at all of our actors as we move through time and they age. It was just emotional to watch knowing his history with the character. What was it like for you to watch him watch you both in the Broadway version and in this movie?

He was supportive of you guys talking to you about like the industry and the craft. But like, did he talk to you about this character or did he kind of leave that to you to interpret it?

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I'm really curious, John David, why do you think actors in particular are drawn to Wilson's work kind of as a way to deepen their craft? I'm thinking about all of the actors that are really well known today who have gone through and done these plays, Courtney B. Vance, James Earl Jones, Viola Davis, your father, Denzel, so many others. What is the gravitational pull?

Your names, Malcolm and John David, where do those names come from? I can kind of guess with Malcolm, but I want to be sure.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today my guests are Malcolm and John David Washington. The brothers collaborated on the late August Wilson's The Piano Lesson for the screen on Netflix. It's the fourth play in Wilson's American Century Cycle, a series of 10 plays. that captures the Black American experience through every decade of the 20th century.

Malcolm X, is that who you were named after or not?

All right. Big ups to cousin Malcolm.

I noticed... And John David Crowe, by the way.

That's right. Both cousins. Right. Right. You know, I noticed how in interviews, both of you guys, you kind of say it offhandedly, but you regularly rep Los Angeles as your hometown. And... I want to know what does it mean for the both of you to identify not only as Angelenos, but, you know, you're Black Angelenos. And then you also come from like a very privileged section of that then as well.

I mean, how did growing up here influence your art and your taste?

You know, as a kid growing up in the 90s, your father Denzel, Spike Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, I'll even throw in like Eddie Murphy and just so many people. They played such a big role in the construction of Black Pride for so many, myself included. And I'm just... I really want to know how that felt internally to grow up among it and in it.

Like, was Black history and Black pride also something that your parents instilled in you in the way that like just to the public they were instilling in all of us?

Yeah. John David.

Malcolm serves as the director, and John David stars as the brash, impulsive, and fast-talking boy Willie, who wants to sell the family piano to buy land in Mississippi that his family was enslaved on.

Baldwin Hills is a neighborhood in Los Angeles for those who don't know. Yeah.

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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and I recently had the chance to check out the movie Amelia Perez, the new Spanish-language musical that stars my guest today, Selena Gomez. The film is centered on a lawyer named Rita, played by Zoe Saldana, who is kidnapped and tasked with helping a ruthless Mexican cartel leader secretly undergo gender-affirming surgery to begin a new life as Amelia Perez.