Post Reports
1,462 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 4.7K ratingsPost Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post, for your ears. Martine Powers and Elahe Izadi are your hosts, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Published weekdays around 5 p.m. Eastern time.
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Episodes
Democracy as a trust exercise
November 02, 2021 20:05On this Election Day, we talk about how the events of Jan. 6 have affected our elections. Plus, what nations participating in COP26 will have to give up to avoid more climate change catastrophes. Read more: For months, journalists at The Washington Post have been trying to understand: How did the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 happen? And what’s happened to the country since then? As part of a three-part investigative series by The Washington Post, Rosalind S. Helderman has been ...
How law enforcement failed on Jan. 6
November 01, 2021 21:20In the days leading up to Jan. 6, mounting red flags tipped law enforcement agencies off to the coming violence. Why did they fail to act? Read more: All year, journalists at The Washington Post have been seeking to understand: How did the insurrection on January 6th happen? Why wasn’t it stopped? A new three-part investigative series by The Washington Post reveals how law enforcement officials failed to heed warnings of violence on Jan. 6., the bloody consequences of President Donald Tru...
Instagram, Facebook and this Meta episode
October 29, 2021 23:49Instagram’s CEO steps into the limelight in an unexpected public interview. And, after a firestorm, Facebook’s big attempt to pivot. Read more: In an impromptu interview on Twitter Spaces, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said he still believes building an app for children is “the right thing to do.” The company had paused development of Instagram Kids last month over concerns about privacy, screen time and the mental health of young people. But Instagram is just one piece in the puzzle that...
The next phase of the pandemic
October 28, 2021 18:59Today on Post Reports, we talk about the latest news on vaccines for young children, booster shots for adults and at-home coronavirus tests for us all. Physician and columnist Leana Wen offers her advice on the next phase of the pandemic. Read more: Leana Wen is an emergency physician and contributing columnist for The Post. Her newsletter, The Checkup, offers the latest research and advice on such questions as which booster shot to get and how to safely gather with family for the holidays...
How did a loaded gun end up on a movie set?
October 27, 2021 21:51As new details emerge about the shooting on the “Rust” movie set that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza, we talk to reporter Sonia Rao about how Hollywood is rethinking firearms on sets. Read more: In the days since Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on the set of the movie “Rust,” killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza, many of us have been asking the question — how could this have happened? “How was it that this actor wa...
The mystery of Manchin’s motivations
October 26, 2021 19:09President Biden’s economic agenda is on hold — thanks, in no small part, to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The families in his home state could pay the price for it. Read more: The constant man in the middle, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), is trying to scale back the president’s Build Back Better economic plan. Part of the White House agenda on Manchin’s chopping block: the permanent expansion of the child tax credit. It’s a recent policy that experts say has been a key part of reducing child pove...
Facebook’s role in the Jan. 6 attack
October 25, 2021 20:40A trove of internal documents turned over to the SEC exposes Facebook’s role in fomenting the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Read more: Relief flowed through Facebook in the days after the 2020 presidential election. The company had cracked down on misinformation, foreign interference and hate speech — and employees believed they had largely succeeded in limiting problems that, four years earlier, had brought on perhaps the most serious crisis in Facebook’s scandal-plagued history...
Issa Rae and the growing pains of being ‘Insecure’
October 22, 2021 21:41Five years after the debut of “Insecure,” the acclaimed HBO comedy-drama is finally coming to a close. Creator and star Issa Rae discusses the characters’ journeys, personal growth and “betting on herself.” Read more: For a certain generation of Black women, Issa Rae’s volume of work is like the Harry Potter books — stories about characters who grow and mature alongside their fans. “In shooting this final season, we've been very nostalgic and thinking about where we came from and imagi...
Vigilante violence on trial
October 21, 2021 21:00Ahmaud Arbery’s killing changed his Georgia community. Now, as the state grapples with a judicial legacy shaped by racism, three White men stand trial for murder. Read more: This week, the trial began for Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan. It hinges in part on Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which helped codify White vigilante violence for 150 years. The law was repealed in May 2021, but its legacy reverberates today. Margaret Coker, editor...
Should the U.S. brace for a ‘twindemic’?
October 20, 2021 21:27Health officials are worried about a severe “twindemic” this year, when influenza and coronavirus cases increase at the same time. What parallel surges could mean for an already exhausted health-care system and efforts to end the pandemic. Read more: Last year, similar warnings were made about a potential “twindemic.” Instead, the flu practically vanished. Health officials say this year could be different: Much of the country is up and running again, and 2020’s mild flu season means popula...
America’s broken supply chain
October 19, 2021 22:04The commercial pipeline is clogged. Every year, this supply chain brings $1 trillion worth of toys, clothing, electronics and furniture from Asia to the United States. And right now, no one knows how to unclog it. Read more: For months, consumers have confronted shortages of goods such as clothing, toys, groceries and cars. And those shortages aren’t going away any time soon. Reporter David J. Lynch visited the ports of Southern California— where giant container ships are waiting up to ...
Colin Powell’s complicated legacy
October 18, 2021 22:45The legacy of Colin Powell, the first Black secretary of state, is complicated — by his role in the Iraq war, by the evolution of the Republican Party and by how he lived his life after public office. Read more: Former secretary of state Colin Powell died Monday of complications from covid-19. His long career in the public eye — as a decorated military officer and statesman — was marked by choices he made leading up to the Iraq War. But Powell’s life is also characterized by a shift away f...
The NBA’s Kyrie problem
October 15, 2021 21:01Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving has been benched over his decision not to get vaccinated. Today on Post Reports we discuss what responsibilities famous athletes bear and why this story is resonating beyond the basketball world. Read more: Kyrie Irving has been benched indefinitely because of his refusal to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. His team, the Brooklyn Nets, has been favored to win the NBA title this year, but that is now being thrown into question. Irving has long been a ...
Should defending Taiwan be a red line for the U.S.?
October 14, 2021 21:52In recent days, record numbers of Chinese warplanes have flown into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, signifying a deteriorating relationship between Taiwan and China — and putting the United States in an awkward position. Read more: Last week, China flew nearly 150 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. Taiwan responded by scrambling to engage its fighter jets and missile systems. Meanwhile, the United States is in an increasingly awkward spot. While the United...
A new model for affordable housing
October 13, 2021 21:18In a predominantly Black Chicago neighborhood, how one affordable housing program is addressing inequality by enabling homeownership. Read more: Over the years, rows of two-story stone houses and small buildings have fallen into disrepair in the Chicago neighborhood of North Lawndale. The neighborhood was made famous in 1966, when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — hoping to turn the focus of the civil rights movement on housing inequalities in the North — moved his wife and four children ...
The Black voters disappointed in Biden
October 12, 2021 21:31The “benefit of the doubt” portion of Joe Biden’s presidency is over. His poll numbers are down, especially among Black voters. Today on the show, we return to some of the voters we talked to in Georgia during the state’s runoff election and hear how they’re feeling now. Read more: A little over nine months into Joe Biden’s presidency, the infrastructure bill is languishing in Congress and his poll numbers have fallen, especially among key Democratic constituencies, including Black America...
Why child-care workers are quitting
October 11, 2021 22:08Working in a day care is a demanding job — but the pay is typically around just $12 an hour, and often without benefits. Many child-care workers have quit during the pandemic, leaving parents without options and struggling to return to work themselves. Read more: Hiring and retaining good workers has been tough in the child-care industry for years, but it is escalating into a crisis. Pandemic-fueled staffing challenges threaten to hold back the recovery, as the staffing problems at day car...
What do we do about Facebook?
October 08, 2021 20:58Facebook had a bad week. A whistleblower testified before Congress about the danger the company poses, and an outage took down the site and its products for hours. Now, some are rethinking their relationship with Facebook. But can we live without it? Read more: This week on the hill, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told lawmakers that the company systematically and repeatedly prioritized profits over the safety of its users, painting a detailed picture of an organization where hunger...
Looted treasure and offshore accounts
October 07, 2021 20:57Cambodia wants its religious artifacts returned. Dozens tied to an indicted collector remain in prominent museums. The Pandora Papers expose his reliance on offshore secrecy. Plus, U.S. lawmakers respond to revelations in the Pandora Papers. Read more: Cambodia wants its religious artifacts returned. Dozens tied to an indicted collector remain in the Met and other prominent museums. The Pandora Papers expose his reliance on offshore secrecy, as Peter Whoriskey reports. Although it’s only...
Putin, a shop cleaner and a Monte Carlo mystery
October 06, 2021 21:21Secret money, swanky real estate and a Monte Carlo mystery: Pandora Papers documents tie a woman allegedly in a secret, years-long relationship with Putin to a luxury Monaco apartment. Read more: There’s little about the humble background of Svetlana Krivonogikh to indicate that she had the means to acquire luxury property in Monaco, a playground for the world’s elite. The Russian woman reportedly grew up in a crowded communal apartment in St. Petersburg and held jobs that included clean...
King Abdullah’s secret splurges
October 05, 2021 22:22While billions of dollars in American aid poured into Jordan over the past decade, a secret stream of money was flowing in the opposite direction as the country’s ruler, King Abdullah II, spent millions on extravagant homes in the United States. Read more: In the past decade, King Abdullah II of Jordan used an extensive network of offshore accounts to disguise multimillion-dollar purchases of lavish homes in the United States and Britain. Reporter Greg Miller on how the lavish purchases s...
A tax haven in America’s heartland
October 04, 2021 20:53The United States has long condemned secretive offshore tax havens where the rich and powerful hide their money. But a burgeoning American trust industry now shelters the assets of wealthy foreigners by promising even greater secrecy and protection. That same secrecy has insulated the industry from meaningful oversight and allowed it to gain new footholds in states like South Dakota and Alaska. The Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) gained u...
The anti-vax wellness influencers
October 01, 2021 21:54How wellness influencers are fueling the anti-vaccine movement. Read more: For many people, the term “misinformation” conjures up images of conspiracy-theorist chat rooms and Russian bots. But as Ashley Fetters Maloy reports, an alarming amount of misinformation about the coronavirus is coming from wellness influencers. Today on Post Reports, the social media influencers questioning the wisdom of vaccination –– and how their messaging is increasing the threat of the virus mutating and k...
On the death of species
September 30, 2021 22:03This week, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed taking 23 animals and plants off the endangered-species list — because none can be found in the wild. What this tells us about climate change, and things to come. Read more: The ivory-billed woodpecker is officially extinct, along with 22 other species of plants and animals. “Just having to write those words was quite difficult,” Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Amy Trahan told climate reporter Dino Grandoni, choking up. “It took me a ...
Can military leaders answer for Afghanistan?
September 29, 2021 22:47This week in Congress, top military officials are testifying on what went wrong in the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Will anyone in the government be held accountable? Read more: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie are on Capitol Hill testifying in front of the Senate and House Armed Services committees on the fall of Kabul and the disastrous U.S. exit from Afghanistan. ...
Sex-trafficked — and jailed
September 28, 2021 21:38For years, allegations that R. Kelly was abusing young women and girls swirled. This week, the singer was found guilty of sex trafficking in federal court. But not all child sex-trafficking victims get justice — instead, many of them are arrested. Read more: Jessica Contrera has done a lot of reporting on child sex trafficking in the United States. When she saw the R. Kelly verdict this week, the cases of hundreds of other sex-trafficked children came to mind. “People were finally praisi...
What we know about Havana Syndrome
September 27, 2021 21:45What you need to know about “Havana Syndrome,” the mysterious illness affecting U.S. officials stationed around the world — and whether there’s anything the United States can do about it. Read more: “Havana Syndrome” first popped up in 2016 when a group of people at the U.S. embassy in Cuba reported a wide-ranging set of debilitating symptoms such as headache, nausea, tinnitus and memory loss. Five years later, 200 people are known to have shown symptoms of the mysterious illness. The W...
Gabby Petito, and the victims left out of headlines
September 24, 2021 22:06How Gabby Petito case galvanized sleuths across the Internet. And, how her disappearance and death highlight media failures in covering cases about missing women of color. Read more: Washington Post “Tik Tok Guy” Dave Jorgenson explains the Internet’s fascination with Gabby Petito’s disappearance and how the online attention has magnified the media coverage of her case. Plus, how the groundswell of news coverage has people wondering: What about other people who have gone missing — esp...
Hooked on a ceiling
September 23, 2021 21:27Deadlines are looming large for Congress. If policymakers fail to act, the United States could face unprecedented economic catastrophe. Read more: Time is running out to fund the federal government, which could shutter by Oct. 1. It all has to do with a bigger fight on the debt ceiling — the government’s borrowing limit. Democrats in Congress want to suspend the debt ceiling until next year, but Republicans aren’t playing ball and are threatening a government shutdown in opposition. But ...
An immigration crisis in Del Rio, Tex.
September 22, 2021 21:57Thousands of mostly Haitian migrants are crossing into the U.S. from the southwest border of Texas. When they arrive, they face rough territory: hostile law enforcement, mass airlifts for deportations, and a squalid, overcrowded migrant camp in the U.S. Read more: Crossing the Rio Grande into Texas as a Haitian migrant is a treacherous journey. That became apparent after images came out of U.S. Border Patrol agents using whips and horses to police the border. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has al...
The young and the vaccinated
September 21, 2021 21:29What the latest news from Pfizer means for getting younger kids vaccinated. Plus, who will be able to get a booster shot and when. Read more: On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech said that children ages 5 to 11 had a robust immune response to smaller doses of their coronavirus vaccine. Anita Patel, a critical-care pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital, explains what these results mean for slowing the spread of the coronavirus and what it has been like to take care of severely sick childr...
Who are the Oath Keepers?
September 20, 2021 21:28Members of far-right extremist organizations — such as the Oath Keepers, a self-styled militia movement — are being charged by federal prosecutors for their alleged participation in the Jan. 6 riot. But prosecution may not wipe out their ideologies. Read more: Law enforcement officials in D.C. were prepared for a big rally this weekend — the so-called Justice for J6 rally in support of people charged in connection to the Jan. 6 insurrection. While turnout in D.C. was low, underlying consp...
America’s Song, Part 2
September 18, 2021 16:00With his performance of “God Bless America” during Game 3 of the 2001 World Series, NYPD officer Daniel Rodriguez comforted a nation still grieving in the wake of 9/11. It felt like a timeless moment. Instead, it proved fleeting. Twenty years later, the reasons for that tell a story of the political divisions and embellished patriotism that now polarize American sports. The weight of it all can be felt through the struggles of Rodriguez, who’s still trying to bless people with his voice as A...
America’s Song, Part 1
September 17, 2021 16:00With his performance of “God Bless America” during Game 3 of the 2001 World Series, NYPD officer Daniel Rodriguez comforted a nation still grieving in the wake of 9/11. It felt like a timeless moment. Instead, it proved fleeting. Twenty years later, the reasons for that tell a story of the political divisions and embellished patriotism that now polarize American sports. The weight of it all can be felt through the struggles of Rodriguez, who’s still trying to bless people with his voice as A...
The end of the Merkel era
September 16, 2021 21:21After a decade and a half in office, Germany’s Angela Merkel is stepping down. On today’s show, we take a closer look at the chancellor’s life and legacy, and what this shift in power will mean for Germany and the world. Read more: Angela Merkel grew up the daughter of a pastor in communist East Germany, and political possibilities opened up for her after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. As chancellor she carried Germany and by extension the European Union through crisis after crisis w...
When an OB/GYN is antiabortion
September 15, 2021 19:59When we talk about abortion access in the U.S., we talk a lot about Roe v. Wade, the actions of state lawmakers, the court system. But we don’t talk about doctors — and what they do or don’t say to patients behind closed doors. Read more: After Texas passed the country’s most restrictive abortion law, many abortion rights advocates feared that other states would follow suit — states like West Virginia that have already made moves in the past to restrict access to abortion. But reporter ...
Delta’s stress test on schools
September 14, 2021 15:19The Biden administration has made in-person learning a priority for this school year. Now that most kids are back in school, the question on everyone’s mind is: Will it last? Read more: By now almost all students are back to learning in person. But what some school districts are calling vague guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has led to widely varying coronavirus protocols — only some districts are requiring masks, while others may not be properly notifying pare...
California’s recall fever
September 13, 2021 21:34A recall election in California ends Tuesday night. After pandemic-related shutdowns and mandates, can Gov. Gavin Newsom survive the challenge to his liberal policies? Read more: Forty-six candidates on the recall ballot. One governor with his first term on the line. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is fighting to hold on to his seat, with the recall election that could replace him set to end Tuesday night. Newsom needs more than 50 percent of the vote to maintain his governorship. Seni...
Inside the newsroom on 9/11
September 10, 2021 19:54Watching the chaotic end of America’s longest war, we’ve been thinking a lot about the terrorist attack that set it in motion. We interviewed colleagues who covered 9/11 to try to make sense of how that day changed the country and the world. Read more: “Where were you on September 11th?” Most Americans over a certain age have a 9/11 story — of the moment they heard the news of the terrorist attacks, or of anxiously calling family members to make sure they were okay. In the 20 years since...
The YOLO economy paradox
September 09, 2021 21:23What the mismatch between the number of people employed and the number of jobs available tells us about America’s reassessment of work. Plus, how the pandemic has set women in the workforce back globally. Read more: There is a mystery at the center of the economic recovery in the U.S. — 8 million people are unemployed, but there are 11 million jobs open. Senior economics correspondent Heather Long explains that this is all part of the overall rethinking of American life and labor. There...
The legal limbo for Afghan evacuees
September 08, 2021 20:50For many Afghan evacuees arriving in the United States, escaping the Taliban was just the beginning. Now, they face the uncertainty of a tenuous legal status with little financial support unless Congress acts. Read more: The Biden administration is preparing to screen and resettle tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees in the United States over the coming months, but the majority will arrive without visas as “humanitarian parolees,” not refugees. Reporter Nick Miroff explains what this mean...
The beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade?
September 07, 2021 21:44Life in Texas under the nation’s most restrictive abortion law. Plus, the unusual legal strategy that allowed the law to go into effect and how it could be a blueprint for other states to circumvent Roe v. Wade. Read more: The nation’s most restrictive abortion law is now in effect in Texas after the Supreme Court refused to block it, banning abortions after six weeks. Hours before S.B. 8 went into effect, abortion clinics were packed — and now that abortion providers can be sued, they’re...
What is ISIS-K?
August 27, 2021 20:56What we know about the Thursday bombing near the Kabul airport. Plus, an Afghan journalist who left Kabul just before its collapse tells us why she fears for the family and friends she left behind. Read more: A bombing outside the Kabul airport Thursday left more than a hundred people dead, including civilians and U.S. service members. Military reporter Dan Lamothe says the attack was “a nightmare scenario” for the United States, making the mission to evacuate Afghans and U.S. personnel m...
Who decides who gets evicted?
August 26, 2021 22:00The future of a federal ban on evictions is in the Supreme Court’s hands. But in many cases, whether a person gets evicted is up to a judge’s discretion, as our reporter found in Mississippi. Read more: A federal ban on evictions has been in place in one form or another since the beginning of the pandemic. But after spending a day in an eviction court in Mississippi, reporter Marissa Lang found it’s often left up to individual judges whether to enforce it. “So many of these cases are ju...
The Full Comirnaty
August 25, 2021 21:26What the FDA’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine means. Plus, big business pledged nearly $50 billion for racial justice after George Floyd’s killing. Where did the money go? Read more: Goodbye, “emergency use authorization.” Hello, “full approval.” On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, commercially called Comirnaty. The four-month evaluation process was fast by the FDA’s usual standards, but regula...
The choice to stay in Kabul
August 24, 2021 22:01What the return of the Taliban means for women in Kabul. And, the story behind a secret meeting between the CIA director and the leader of the Taliban. Read more: Mahbouba Seraj, activist and director of the Afghan Women Skills Development Center, weighs the dire stakes for the women in Afghanistan — and explains why she chooses to stay in the country as dangers mount. President Biden said Tuesday he will stick to the Aug. 31 deadline to fully withdraw from Afghanistan. The Taliban has s...
Is this a new Taliban?
August 23, 2021 22:16The Taliban insists it has changed. Afghanistan’s future hinges on whether that’s true. Read more: Frenzied evacuations from Afghanistan continue as the U.S. scrambles to meet its Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw all troops. But it’s still unclear what the country will look like after that. Taliban leaders say they will refrain from retaliatory violence and respect women’s rights. Griff Witte, The Post’s former Kabul bureau chief, evaluates those promises.
The Afghanistan Papers, revisited
August 20, 2021 20:45This week, Americans watched in disbelief as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in a matter of days — and we wondered what Craig Whitlock was thinking. Two years ago he and a team at The Post published a prescient and ground-breaking project called “The Afghanistan Papers,” revealing hundreds of secret interviews with U.S. officials candidly discussing the failures of the war. The interviews with some 400 people were part of a project called “Lessons Learned,” undertaken by the Special Inspect...
Disaster on repeat in Haiti
August 19, 2021 21:57Haitians face devastation after two natural disasters hit the island. And what the tragedies have exposed about the country’s preparedness. Read more: Last weekend, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake caused widespread destruction and death in Haiti. Then, torrential rain from Tropical Storm Grace hit the island. Now, Haitians are recovering from two back-to-back natural disasters while reeling from political turmoil caused by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last month. Caribbean burea...
Keeping kids safe this school year
August 18, 2021 22:05Today, Post Reports answers your questions about kids, schools and covid-19 with physician and columnist Leana Wen and education reporter Hannah Natanson. Plus, the latest news on booster shots. Read more: Subscribe to The Checkup With Dr. Wen to get guidance in your inbox on how to navigate the pandemic and other public health challenges.