WE DECIDE: America at the Crossroads with Jenna Flanagan – 10/13/25
On this Indigenous People's Day, President Trump is in Israel to promote peace in the Mideast while he sends troops into U.S. cities that don't want them. Meanwhile, the federal government shutdown enters its second full week with no sign of progress, as the Trump administration uses the shutdown to begin illegal mass layoffs of thousands of federal workers.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers in essential agencies like the TSA continue to report to work without being paid, even as President Trump suggests that they might never be paid.
Congressional Democrats refuse to sign off on Trump's so-called "big beautiful bill" that ends healthcare insurance for 15 million Americans and sets off massive premium hikes for everyone else — all to pay for tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest families and multinational corporations.
We get our current affairs 360 from our reporters’ roundtable, including Washington-based investigative journalist Dave Levinthal and New York City investigative journalist Laura Jedeed, who tracks military affairs and the MAGA movement for us.
In the B Block, Jenna Flanagan has an in-depth conversation with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.8 million teachers as well as nurses. In her new book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy, Weingarten argues that teachers promote critical thinking and pluralism, which "are the bulwark against tyranny."
"If you think about what fascists are—fascists create an us versus them. A fascist government basically starts the story as that we had this amazing, mythical past—a past that never really happened," Weingarten told Flanagan. With that narrative in place, the fascists shift from "denigrating to dehumanizing" the "them," whether it be immigrants, people of color, or anyone that's gay.
In the C Block, Jenna Flanagan asked noted labor historian Josh Freeman about the ripple effect for all workers from President Trump’s stripping of collective bargaining rights for a million federal workers. Professor Freeman was joined by Hank Kalet, Vice President of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and Co-Chair of the Academic Freedom Committee. Hank gave us an update on the saga involving his Rutgers colleague Professor Mark Bray, who studies and writes about anti-fascist movements. Bray was forced to go into exile in Spain with his family after being targeted by the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
From our Pacifica Affiliate reporters' notebook, we have four dispatches:
- WORT, Madison, Wisconsin — on why Planned Parenthood has paused providing abortions in a state where the procedure is legal.
- KRCL, Salt Lake City, Utah — student journalists explore the existing open carry laws in the state where Charlie Kirk was murdered by a sniper.
- WSLR, Sarasota, Florida — a discussion with former U.S. Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat about how to respond to tyranny.
- KPFT's Egberto Willies reflects on White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's dead air moment on CNN.
