Republicans have largely acknowledged the scale of their defeat, with some blaming Trump, the Iran war and economic concerns while others defend the administration’s record. The losses have sparked calls for the GOP to reassess its direction and leadership. To discuss, we FEATURE Leah Wright Rigueur. Rigueur is an author, historian, speaker, and SNF Agora Institute associate professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University. She is an expert in race and politics, US political and social history, African American politics and history, and riots and American backlash. Rigueur's book The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (2015) offered a much-needed critical examination of the tense relationship that exists between African Americans and the GOP. Providing a thorough reading of Black voting behavior and opinion over a 60-year period, her book also analyzes the ideas and actions of Black activists, politicians, officials, and intellectuals that worked with and within the Republican Party. She also led Race and American Politics, a multidisciplinary series of seminars and roundtables dedicated to the most pressing political and social issues related to race in the United States, including presidential politics, mass incarceration, immigration, economic justice, and voting rights. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, MSNBC, PBS, NPR.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces eight articles of impeachment introduced by Republican Representative Thomas Massie. If the vote passes the House, he could become only the third Cabinet secretary ever impeached. To discuss, we FEATURE Liz Hempowicz. Hempowicz is deputy executive director at American Oversight. Hempowicz is a recognized expert in government ethics and transparency who brings to American Oversight more than a decade of experience in public policy, whistleblower protections, and congressional investigations. Prior to joining American Oversight, Hempowicz served as the vice president of policy and government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, where she developed and spearheaded projects to advance government transparency and combat corruption, including overseeing the work of the organization’s accountability, national defense, and civil liberties programs. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, WNYC’s On the Media, and Politico, NPR.

The Mississippi Senate race remains too close to call, with Democrat Scott Colom narrowly leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. A Colom victory would be historic, making him Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction and the first Democrat elected to the Senate there since 1982. To discuss, we FEATURE Cassandra Overton Welchlin. Welchlin, a native Mississippian, is the executive director and co-convener of MS Black Women’s Roundtable (MSBWR), an inter-generational statewide network dedicated to increasing civic engagement and voter participation among Black women while at the forefront of championing just and equitable public policy on behalf of Black women and girls. Prior to joining MS BWR, she co-founded and launched the ambitious and progressive MS Women’s Economic Security Initiative (MWESI) founded initially as a project of MS Law Income Child Care Initiative. MWESI is rooted at the intersection of race, gender, and economic justice. It was the first Women’s Agenda launched in the South with seeded support from the Ms. Foundation that prioritizes women’s rights and economic security. Extensive media experience.

Hakeem Jeffries is poised to become the first Black Speaker of the House after Democrats’ midterm victory. To discuss, we FEATURE Former Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards. Edwards represented Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, comprising portions of Prince George’s and Anne Arundel Counties. She was sworn in after a special election to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 110th Congress in June 2008, becoming the first African American woman to represent Maryland in Congress. She began her first full-term in the 111th Congress in 2009. Edwards has enjoyed a diverse career as a nonprofit public interest advocate and in the private sector on NASA’s Spacelab project. As the executive director of the Arca Foundation in Washington, D.C., she led the foundation’s effort in support of worker justice at home and abroad, campaign finance reform, government and corporate accountability, and civic participation. Extensive media experience.

A federal judge ordered Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to comply with an ICE subpoena seeking information on men at a Bronx shelter, despite the city’s sanctuary policies and opposition to ICE enforcement.The court appointed a special master to narrow the list of individual records that will be released so residents without serious criminal histories will not be included. Immigration advocates are pushing for an appeal. To discuss, we FEATURE Anu Joshi. Joshi is the national campaign director for immigration at the ACLU. Before that, she was the senior director of immigrant rights policy at the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella policy and advocacy organization that represents over 200 member organizations statewide. Joshi led the organization's work on issues relating to immigration status and enforcement on both the state and federal level. Her work has focused on federal appropriations, Dream Act and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) negotiations, the proposed public charge rule change, access to drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants in New York, and broad statewide sanctuary policies. Media includes: The Brian Lehrer Show, Capitol Tonight, Democracy Now!, Albany Times Union, Newsweek, Newsday, The Guardian.

Following the Republican election loss in Texas, the Justice Department plans to join Texas’ lawsuit accusing Planned Parenthood of improperly billing Medicaid, potentially seeking more than $1.8 billion in repayments and penalties. To discuss, we FEATURE Jessica Valenti. Valenti is a writer, activist, and one of the country’s most influential voices on gender and politics. After the fall of Roe, she founded Abortion, Every Day, an urgent synthesis of anything and everything happening with abortion rights in the United States. Valenti's groundbreaking anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape helped define the modern definition of consent and paved the way for legislation of the same name. She is also widely credited with sparking feminism’s online wave as the founder of the trailblazing blog Feministing. Medis includes: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, CNN.

A pro-Palestinian “Boycott Ride” targeted six Jewish-owned Philadelphia restaurants, drawing hundreds of counterprotesters and three arrests. Organizers said they were protesting the businesses’ support for Israel, while officials and Jewish groups condemned the action as antisemitic. To discuss, we FEATURE Rebecca Vilkomerson. Vilkomerson has been working in social justice movement organizations for over two decades and was the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace from 2009-2019. She has since co-founded, with Soheir Asaad, the Funding Freedom project, which works to build solidarity and support for Palestinian freedom through education, advocacy, communications in philanthropy. She authored Funding Freedom: Philanthropy and the Palestinian Freedom Movement, a report published by Solidaire in 2022. Her book Solidarity is the Political Form of Love: Lessons from Jewish Anti-Zionist Organizing, co-authored with Rabbi Alissa Wise, was published by Haymarket Books in 2024. During her time at Jewish Voice for Peace, she led JVP’s growth into a leading national and international Jewish progressive force. Media includes: The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Hill, Huffington Post, Tikkun and Zeek, CNN.

The 2026 UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) is taking place in Antalya, Türkiye from November 9–20. To discuss, we FEATURE Barbara Buchner. Buchner is CEO or Climate Policy Initiative and global managing director of the its widely renowned Climate Finance. She is the lead author on CPI's 'Global Landscape of Climate Finance' analyses, which has set the benchmark for climate finance tracking, and 'Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the USD 100 billion Goal' - a joint report with the OECD that played a seminal role in the lead up to the Paris Agreement. She also directs the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab), a public-private initiative that identifies cutting-edge climate finance instruments with the potential to drive investment at scale. Under her leadership, the Lab has raised over 600 million USD for its initiatives and was endorsed by the G7 in its first year of operation. Media includes: Reuters, Bloomberg News, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times.

Russell Brand was sentenced to 10½ years in prison after being convicted of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others between 2004 and 2009. To discuss, we FEATURE Amber J. Keyser. Keyser has significant expertise in sex-positive and consent-focused sex education, rape culture and the #MeToo movement, and the commodification of the female body in history, fashion, and media. She is author of No More Excuses: Dismantling Rape Culture (Twenty-First Century Books, 2019), a deep dive into the #MeToo movement that dissects the beliefs, behaviors, and cultural norms that excuse and normalize male sexual aggression and violence. Extensive media experience.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted he had an affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese business executive whom U.S. officials reportedly suspect of being a Chinese intelligence asset. To discuss, we FEATURE Lotta Danielsson. Danielsson is the executive vice president of the US-Taiwan Business Council, a post she has held since 2025. Between 2003 and 2025 she was vice president, after joining the Council as Director of Corporate Affairs in 2000. She is also a nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. Her specialties include Chinese espionage targeting Taiwan government and businesses; the triangular relationship between the U.S., Taiwan, and China in the technology supply chain; defense and national security issues in the U.S.-Taiwan relationship; U.S. business operations in the Taiwan market; and government policies and their impact on the business environment. Media includes: South China Morning Post, Jane's Defense Weekly, The Washingtonian.

U.S., Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have concluded the first of two days of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi. To discuss, we FEATURE Nina L. Khrushcheva. Khrushcheva is a professor in the graduate program of international affairs at the New School, where she teaches courses on international media, comparative propaganda, culture and capitalism, film and empire, and Russia’s contemporary politics and history.
She is also a senior fellow of the World Policy Institute, where she heads the Russia Projects, which examines the contours of the current national identity of Russians and its impact on Russian politics. She is the author of Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics, and The Lost Khrushchev: A Journey into the Gulag of the Russian Mind. Media includes: Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Nation, Wall Street Journal.

November is Native American Heritage Month. To discuss, we FEATURE Gwen Leaffe Carr. Carr is an award winning artist, musician, singer, writer, storyteller advocate and activist on American Indian and Social Justice issues. She is an enrolled member of the Cayuga Nation of New York, Heron Clan. She is an alumni of Interlochen Arts Academy, the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University. Carr is currently serving as the executive director of the Carlisle Indian School Project, which honors the students of the first government-run boarding school for Native Americans. She is also the founder of the Wisconsin American Indian Democratic Caucus. Carr has turned out the greatest number of American Indian voters in the history of Wisconsin. Her political expertise has successfully elected numerous officials locally and nationally. She has been a senior advisor to Congressional, Senate and Presidential elections since 1991. Extensive media experience.