Sean Hannity is curiously close to President Donald Trump — so close that some say he may as well have a desk in the Oval Office. In recent weeks, the Fox News host has gone from covering the news to being in the headlines. Nicole Hemmer, author of “Messengers of the Right,” explains how the man near the top of the conservative media’s totem pole might influence the president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the first time in history, the leader of North Korea took a trip to South Korea today. Kim Jong Un met with President Moon Jae-in to talk unification and denuclearization over some cold noodles. NPR’s Elise Hu was there. She tells Sean Rameswaram what transpired before Vox’s Alex Ward explains whether this truly means the end of a nearly 70-year conflict. ******************************** Watch the Vox Video of leaders Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un's joint statement committing to denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula here: https://www.facebook.com/Vox/videos/882052531982350/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Next up on the chopping block? Food stamps or SNAP as it’s now known. A new farm bill, fresh out of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, could force over two million people off the program. Vox’s Tara Golshan explains why Republicans want to put SNAP recipients to work, and Stacy Dean from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities talks about the program’s bipartisan past. ************************************ Today (April 27), a jury found Bill Cosby guilty on all counts of drugging and molesting a woman. It’s actually the second time Cosby’s been tried on these same counts. We recently asked if Cosby’s accusers would be heard differently post-#MeToo. You can hear that episode here: https://art19.com/shows/today-explained/episodes/5f3a10a5-5dfd-4909-9ce6-6de999f8c06a Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Four years ago today, Flint, Michigan switched water supplies to save a few million dollars. To date, that decision has cost over $400 million. Governor Rick Snyder says Flint’s water is finally safe again, but residents remain skeptical — they’re marching today in protest. Michigan Radio’s Lindsey Smith explains what exactly happened in Flint and whether the city will ever regain the trust of its residents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Supreme Court wraps up its term with a bang tomorrow: Trump v. Hawaii, the travel ban case. The Court will hear arguments on whether the ban exceeds the president’s powers under federal immigration law, and whether it violates the establishment clause (unfairly targeting Muslims). Also at issue, the president's tweets. The nine justices will consider whether Donald Trump's tweets and retweets reveal intentions different from what's on paper. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On May 29th, Starbucks will shut 8,000 locations and lose millions of dollars to provide racial bias training for employees. The training comes after the arrest of two black men, who were waiting in the store for a business meeting, prompted nationwide outrage. Alexis McGill Johnson runs trainings for Perception Institute. She schools Sean Rameswaram in how they work, how our brains are biased, and whether people can break these biases down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a plan to decriminalize marijuana federally. But the debate over legalization rages on at the local level. Sean Rameswaram speaks with a Massachusetts mayor who wants marijuana to fund schools, and a D.C. pot entrepreneur who’s finding a way around the city’s ban on sales. Afterwards, a discussion about marijuana reparations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nikki Haley has had a rough week. On Sunday, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations announced sanctions against Russia. On Monday, the White House said there would be no sanctions. Then, the president’s economic advisor said Haley was simply “confused.” Vox’s Zack Beauchamp explains how Ambassador Haley punched back and why this isn’t the best look for the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump signed FOSTA into law a week ago today. The “Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” looks good on paper, but Vox’s Aja Romano says it alters fundamental freedoms online. Plus Alex Levy, a Notre Dame Law School professor, says it won’t do much to curb sex trafficking, either. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scott Pruitt, the embattled head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is facing a host of new scandals: a $43,000 soundproof phone booth, a security detail to Disneyland, and even using a siren on his car to get to a restaurant faster. But Vox’s Umair Irfan says that behind these controversies, Pruitt’s EPA has been one of the most consequential government agencies in the Trump administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump and United States allies bombed chemical weapons facilities in Syria on Friday. The attacks came in response to President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons on his own people. Vox’s Alex Ward explains why the United States escalated its involvement and why the world sees chemical weapons differently from conventional ones. *********************** For an explainer on how Syria got here, check out our previous episode "It's never too late to understand the war in Syria": https://art19.com/shows/today-explained/episodes/d2c4b553-b2e5-4549-85e3-2de05a45064e Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When its corporate owner introduced new budget cuts and layoffs, journalists at The Denver Post decided to fight back. They ran a front-page editorial calling the owners “vulture capitalists”. Chuck Plunkett led the secret revolt, and tells Sean Rameswaram why he picked a fight with the brass. Kate Knibbs of The Ringer then explains why hedge funds and billionaires are bad for local news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today is Day 4 of Bill Cosby’s retrial. The first trial ended in a hung jury, but this time things are different. Five new women are testifying, accusing Cosby of sexual assault. Vox’s Jen Kirby offers the latest, and Vox’s Laura McGann explains why Cosby’s retrial could be a game changer in the wake of #metoo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump today called the raid on the office of his personal lawyer Michael Cohen “unthinkable.” Vox’s Zachary Fryer-Biggs explains what the FBI was looking for, and Vox’s Andrew Prokop reveals Cohen’s complicated past. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today is Equal Pay Day. Vox’s Sarah Kliff reveals the real reason why working women earn about 82% as much as men. Then Valerie Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute explains why things get a lot more complicated when race comes into play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump said he would “always be friends” with China’s leader, but the two countries have been acting anything but these past few days. First, the U.S. slapped China with $50 billion in tariffs. Then, China retaliated with $50 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods, like soybeans and airplanes. Now, the U.S. has replied with $100 billion more. Vox’s Matthew Yglesias explains why this could escalate to a trade war, and really hurt Trump’s base. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump announced this week he wants to withdraw US troops from Syria over the next six months. The country’s civil war has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced around 13 million. Vox’s Zack Beauchamp explains how an uprising led to what the United Nations calls “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The West Virginia teacher strike has ended, but walkouts are just getting started in Kentucky and Oklahoma, where lawmakers are scrambling to pass bills that would supplement school funding. Vox’s Alexia Fernández Campbell explains why public school teachers are mad as hell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

289. That’s the number of people who have been shot and killed by police in 2018 alone. One of them was Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old black man from Sacramento. His death sparked a wave of protests and renewed scrutiny of the police. But less than one percent of those fatal police shootings result in charges. The Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery explains why convictions are even fewer, and what it’s going to take to reduce fatal police shootings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seldom gives interviews, but in the wake of the massive Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, he made an exception to speak with Vox’s Ezra Klein. Mark tells Ezra why he’s hopeful about Facebook’s future before privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg tells Sean Rameswaram why he’s not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Supreme Court is currently deliberating two cases that could reshape the entire country’s political maps. At issue is partisan gerrymandering—the practice of drawing districts that benefit one party over another. Dave Daley, author of "Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count," tells Sean Rameswaram why gerrymandering today is the worst it's ever been. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mexican-American Francisco Cantú never expected to become a U.S. Border Patrol Agent. But for nearly four years, Cantú both detained and rescued migrants stranded in the desert. He tells Sean Rameswaram about his experiences policing a border his own grandfather illegally crossed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s Opening Day — peanuts, cracker jack, and for some, racism. Sundance, a Native American activist, has been protesting the Cleveland Indians mascot, Chief Wahoo, for years. The team recently announced it would be removing the caricature from its uniforms, but Sundance tells Sean Rameswaram that his fight is long from over. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kentucky just joined a wave of states attempting to severely limit when a woman can terminate her pregnancy. Vox’s Anna North surveys the growing restrictions on women’s reproduction under the Trump administration, and explains why the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade might once again be in jeopardy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump announced John Bolton will be his new National Security Advisor just as the White House prepares for historic talks with North Korea. Just last month, Bolton called for pre-emptive strikes on North Korea. In 2015, he endorsed war with Iran. Vox's Zack Beauchamp tells Sean Rameswaram about Bolton's controversial background and what it means to have a hawkish advisor seated next to the president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dantrell Blake traveled from Chicago to Washington, D.C., to join hundreds of thousands for the March of Our Lives on Saturday. Sean Rameswaram spent the day with the survivor of gun violence to find out why he needed to see the march for himself. Also, a Columbine survivor advises a Parkland survivor how to deal with life after a mass shooting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The FBI is investigating over twenty colleges for paying athletes under the table, reigniting the age-old debate: Should college athletes be formally paid? Sean Rameswaram talks to former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and The Nation’s Dave Zirin, who says a lot of this conversation comes down to race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A judge gave the green light this week for a woman to sue President Trump for defamation. Summer Zervos claims Donald Trump sexually assaulted her; he called her a liar. Vox’s Laura McGann explains why this might change the game for other Trump accusers, and Jessica Leeds recalls sitting next to Trump on a plane. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted the social media giant “made mistakes” in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and vowed to fix them. The UK-based company improperly acquired the data of some 50 million Facebook users, and revealed how easily our info can be sold to third parties without our knowledge. Recode’s Kurt Wagner explains, then ProPublica’s Julia Angwin talks about the endgame: brainwashing the masses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today is the six-month anniversary of Hurricane Maria, one of the worst natural disasters in American history. But Puerto Rico remains without fully-restored power or an exact idea of how many people died because of the storm. Latino USA’s Julio Ricardo Varela looks at the recovery and explains the real reason it’s taking so long. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The white nationalist rally in Charlottesville sparked outrage when a driver barreled through the crowd, killing one woman and injuring more than 30. Brennan Gilmore filmed it, and everyone saw his video. Then came the conspiracies, backlash, and death threats. Now, Gilmore is fighting back. He’s taking InfoWars' Alex Jones to court. Can a victim of conspiracy theories take down the king of conspiracy theories? Sean Rameswaram speaks to Gilmore and Vox's Jane Coaston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A president. A porn star. A lawyer with a $130,000 payoff. The allegation is Donald Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels and his lawyer paid her to keep quiet. Now, she’s suing so she can talk freely and just today, Daniels' attorney says someone threatened to physically harm her. Vox's Laura McGann says this is much more than your run-of-the-mill political sex scandal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a new Cold War being fought in the North Pole between the United States and Russia (but also China, Finland, Norway, Canada, Greenland and more). Fueling the battle is the melting Arctic, which just had its warmest winter in recorded history. Vox’s Brian Resnick gives us the science before Yochi Dreazen takes us to the war. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told states to back off regulating the nine private companies that lend money to students last week. That could mean more student debt and more student defaults when both are already at record highs. Vox’s Libby Nelson tells Sean Rameswaram about the national crisis we never solved. And we say goodbye to Stephen Hawking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter. That’s how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson found out he was fired today. The news came on the heels of Tillerson calling Russia “an irresponsible force of instability”. He hands over the reins to CIA director Mike Pompeo - who is now in charge of planning a historic U.S.-North Korea meeting. Vox’s Zack Beauchamp describes Tillerson’s rocky relationship with Trump, and Ezra Klein reflects on this administration’s high turnover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump takes his first trip to California as president tomorrow. Making matters awkward, his administration sued the Golden State last week over SB 54, a law that limits how much the state helps federal immigration agents. KQED reporter Marisa Lagos explains the legal battle, and Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims talks about being stuck in the middle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After months of name calling and test missiles, Donald Trump will be the first sitting United States president to meet with a North Korean leader. Vox’s Yochi Dreazen lays out what to expect from the historic meeting. Plus, he shares some negotiation tips for President Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Out of the ten counties with the most adults on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), nine voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. But in the president’s new budget, he’s calling for $72 billion in cuts to the program over the next ten years. It's a “thin piece of duct tape that’s keeping everything together,” according to Vox’s Dylan Matthews, who traveled to Tennessee to talk to people on SSDI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An historic walkout in West Virginia ended yesterday. Teachers managed to shut down every single public school in the state for nine days to demand higher pay. Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky may be next. Sean Rameswaram speaks with West Virginia Public Broadcasting reporter Dave Mistich and Harrison County math teacher Cathy Drummond Pizzino to find out exactly how the state’s educators pulled off their big win. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump announced that he's okay with a trade war late last week and he's got the tariff proposals to prove it: 25% for steel, 10% for aluminum. It’s another campaign promise fulfilled, but the decision flies in the face of Republicans in Congress and most of Trump’s own advisors. (Economic advisor Gary Cohn even quit today.) Vox’s Matthew Yglesias explains the impact of these tariffs, and the chances they could spark a trade war with our allies. He also hums a little ditty about steel. We run with it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quick bonus episode! Frances McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress last night for her performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” In her memorable acceptance speech, she asked all the nominated women to stand up and left them with two words: “inclusion rider.” Vox’s Caroline Framke explains how inclusion riders could force Hollywood to change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

China's National People's Congress opened its annual two-week meeting today. The country’s parliament is expected to change China’s constitution to allow President Xi Jinping to abolish term limits. Sean Rameswaram speaks to Fordham professor Carl Minzner and The New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan to find out what it means that the leader of one fifth of the world's population just decided he’s never stepping down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was a week of whiplash in the national fight over gun control. First, major retailers like Dick’s and Walmart raised the gun-buying age from 18 to 21, and companies like Delta dropped their NRA discounts. But then pro-gun rights legislatures pushed back. Vox’s German Lopez walks Sean Rameswaram through the many debates. He says the reason the country is stalled is because we haven’t begun to have the right conversation about guns. Sean and Vox’s Dylan Matthews talk about the elephant in the room. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a new kind of algorithm that allows you to take a video of one person and map the face of another person onto his or her body. Not surprisingly, it’s being used to map celebrities’ faces onto the bodies of porn stars having sex. Vox’s Aja Romano tells Sean Rameswaram how “deepfakes” are spreading across the internet. Plus computer scientist Peter Eckersley explores how the same technology could tear our society apart in bigger ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A coalition of 20 states filed a lawsuit claiming Obamacare is unconstitutional yesterday. Vox’s Sarah Kliff says that’s just the latest pushback on the Affordable Care Act. Idaho has been quietly allowing insurance plans that don’t comply with Obamacare’s rules, and the Trump administration hasn’t been doing anything to stop it. Experts say if the federal government doesn’t intervene, other red states will likely follow in Idaho’s footsteps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, special counsel Robert Mueller dropped over 20 criminal counts against former Trump campaign official Rick Gates, just days after Gates agreed to a plea deal. Mueller's Russia probe has a lot of people and moving parts, so how do we keep them all straight? Vox’s Zack Beauchamp tells Sean Rameswaram not to focus on all the names and places or it might start to sound like “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” We update the Billy Joel song to explain Mueller’s investigation.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, the United States Supreme Court denied a request from the Trump administration to expedite a decision on DACA. This keeps the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program on life support for a few more months, but also keeps its 690,000 recipients in limbo: Do they stay or do they go? Congress still hasn’t been able to pass a vote on DACA. Vox’s Dara Lind and Matthew Yglesias say that’s because Trump has moved the conversation into unfamiliar territory: from illegal immigration to legal immigration.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Something changed this week. Teenagers managed to break the deadlock over gun control. Marches, walkouts, and serious policy debates are on the way. To understand what's different about the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Sean Rameswaram speaks with Vox reporter German Lopez, Georgetown psychiatry professor Liza Gold, and Elizabeth Love, a Utah teenager who's a bit of a badass. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices