Sam talks to writer Anne Helen Petersen about her new book, "Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman." They cover pop culture and the news, President Trump, the nature of celebrity, Kim Kardashian, Nicki Minaj, Serena Williams, Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, how white women can learn to be woke, Anne Hathaway, Melissa McCarthy, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, Hillary Clinton, Ivanka Trump, Bernie Sanders and 'charismatic' politicians, and why Petersen's mother was an unruly woman. Email the show at samsanders@npr.org and follow Sam on Twitter @samsanders.
1h 7min
A special episode from our friends at NPR's history podcast Throughline: Octavia Butler's alternate realities and 'speculative fiction' reveal striking, and often devastating parallels to the world we ...
33min 22sec
Will the vaccine make me sick? Can I see grandma if she's vaccinated but I'm not? And what's the deal with double masking? Listeners had questions about the coronavirus and vaccines, Sam and NPR Short ...
22min 24sec
Sam talks to filmmaker and activist Abigail Disney, daughter of Roy E. Disney, about her views on inequality in the U.S., corporate greed and why, despite her last name, she's become one of the more v ...
37min 44sec
An Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, has become ground zero in a battle that could change Amazon as we know it. Sam chats with a worker about his experience, and labor reporter and organ ...
29min 51sec
Desus Nice and The Kid Mero went from calling up "anyone in their phone book" in the early days of their podcast Bodega Boys, to booking big names in politics like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Preside ...
35min 58sec
What would you do if a truck full of money flung its doors open right in front of you? Our friends at the Snap Judgment podcast tell six stories that will make you question your own conscience.You can ...
24min 20sec
Why does Whitney Houston's 1991 Super Bowl national anthem still resonate 30 years later? Sam chats with author and Black Girl Songbook host Danyel Smith about that moment of Black history and what it ...
36min 56sec
Sam sits in the Fresh Air host chair to chat with actor Angela Bassett. She talks about her most recent film, Disney and Pixar's Soul, what drew her to acting as a young person growing up in Florida, ...
35min 33sec
What does immigration look like under President Biden? Sam talks to Caitlin Dickerson, staff writer at The Atlantic, about the likelihood Biden can push through policies that other administrations fro ...
25min 59sec
Hello, sweatpants. With scaled-down Fashion Weeks, department stores hurting, and more and more people opting for loungewear rather than workplace attire... where does that leave the fashion business ...
34min 32sec
How will the response to far-right extremism compare to the response after 9/11? Sam talks to Hannah Allam, NPR national security correspondent, about the security and civil liberties debate over taki ...
22min 42sec
What will happen to Fox News after President Trump leaves office? Fox News is facing Trump's anger for not being sufficiently "loyal," and it's seeing new competition as viewers head to conservative n ...
35min 54sec
A lot of the pro-Trump extremism behind the attack on the Capitol flourished online. Sam talks to Bobby Allyn and Shannon Bond, who both cover tech for NPR, about social platforms and the actions they ...
22min 56sec
History has a way of repeating itself. Last week's storming of the U.S. Capitol has parallels to an incident dating back to 1874, when a paramilitary force of ex-Confederates seized control of the Lou ...
35min 43sec
With the pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol this week, at the same time that Congress was set to certify the presidential election results, 2021 is off to a rocky start. Sam checks in with NPR ...
27min 32sec
Sam revisits his conversation from 2020 with actress Pamela Adlon. Adlon is the writer, star, director and co-creator of the acclaimed comedy-drama Better Things on FX. The series follows Adlon's char ...
30min 56sec
After a year that offered many moments of reflection—from the coronavirus pandemic, to protests for racial justice, to the long election season—acclaimed poet Claudia Rankine's latest book offers a fr ...
38min 43sec
Sam sits in the Fresh Air host chair to talk with writer and director Aaron Sorkin. His latest film The Trial of the Chicago 7 covers the events at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago w ...
25min 53sec
Sam shares holiday recommendations with Audie Cornish, co-host of All Things Considered and Consider This, and Bob Mondello, NPR's film critic. They discuss not only their holiday favorites, but also ...
27min 24sec
This year has been hard for pretty much everyone, but that still hasn't stopped people from getting married, having babies, starting new jobs, and telling us all about those milestones and celebration ...
31min 11sec
Without movies or TV shows to shoot or music to record, celebrities were restless in 2020 and eager to connect with a public that, at least for a while, couldn't care less about them. Sam wraps up the ...
33min 17sec
Songwriter Phoebe Bridgers has had a big year, but it's also been bittersweet. With four Grammy nominations for work on her acclaimed 2020 album Punisher, Bridgers, like most touring musicians, has be ...
38min 29sec
Coronavirus has transformed pop culture and placed its creation in the hands of anyone who has social media. Sam chats with E. Alex Jung, a writer at New York Magazine, about pop culture's shift this ...
31min 50sec
Are you sick of the friends and family you've been stuck with? Sam teams up with Anna Sale, host of the WNYC podcast Death, Sex & Money, to explore how our pandemic 'pods' are being tested by the coro ...
57min 49sec
"What has this pandemic been like for you?"When we put that question to people, the answers we got depended a lot on where they were in life — if they were in school, if they had a job, if they had lo ...
32min 54sec
Cathy Park Hong talks with Sam about her book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. She discusses how watching comedian Richard Pryor influenced her to write honestly about Asian American ident ...
32min 39sec
For the holiday, Sam revisits his conversation with award-winning author James McBride. McBride's latest book Deacon King Kong tells the story of how one man's decision brings together the different r ...
20min 32sec
With the holidays coming, we're all trying to figure out how to celebrate with loved ones from a distance. When all we have to connect this year are phone calls and video chats, how do we make the mos ...
36min 49sec
Georgia's Senate runoffs have become national races as control of the Senate depends on who wins. Sam asks Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, if Georgia voter ...
29min 0sec
What's next for President Trump once he leaves the White House? And what's next for his business? And what's he being investigated for again? And by whom?We take a step back and break it all down with ...