Contributing Writers

As the number of people in President Trump’s orbit who test positive for COVID-19 continues to grow, we meet a student journalist who is doing what the White House doesn’t want the CDC to do: tracing the contacts of people who may have infected or been infected by President Trump. Benjy Renton, a Middlebury College senior, helped develop a real-time tracking tool to monitor the growing number of people in President Trump’s circle who were exposed or infected with COVID-19.

As the highest-profile coronavirus patient in the world returns to the White House while still infectious and a danger to others, we speak with activist Kristin Urquiza, whose father died from COVID-19 earlier this year. She says President Trump’s minimizing of the disease is a slap in the face to families who have lost loved ones. “I was appalled,” says Urquiza.

Nearly 41 years after Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazis shot dead five antiracist activists in the town of Greensboro, North Carolina, the City Council there has passed a resolution apologizing for the attack and the police department’s complicity in the killings. We speak with two survivors of the 1979 attack, Reverend Nelson Johnson and Joyce Hobson Johnson, who say the city’s apology acknowledges “the police knew and chose to do nothing.

As President Trump compares the deadly COVID-19 outbreak to the flu despite being hospitalized for the virus, we speak to his only niece, Mary Trump, about his increasingly erratic behavior in the final weeks of the election season and how his family views illness as a weakness. “To be treated for something is to admit that you need the treatment, and I don’t see him having any self-awareness,” she says.

Breonna Taylor’s family is calling on Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to appoint a new special prosecutor to reopen the case after they say newly released grand jury tapes confirm the state Attorney General Daniel Cameron “did not serve as an unbiased prosecutor in this case and intentionally did not present charges to the grand jury that would have pursued justice for Ms. Taylor.

As the number of people in President Trump’s orbit who test positive for COVID-19 continues to grow, we meet a student journalist who is doing what the White House doesn’t want the CDC to do: tracing the contacts of people who may have infected or been infected by President Trump. Benjy Renton, a Middlebury College senior, helped develop a real-time tracking tool to monitor the growing number of people in President Trump’s circle who were exposed or infected with COVID-19.

As the highest-profile coronavirus patient in the world returns to the White House while still infectious and a danger to others, we speak with activist Kristin Urquiza, whose father died from COVID-19 earlier this year. She says President Trump’s minimizing of the disease is a slap in the face to families who have lost loved ones. “I was appalled,” says Urquiza.

Shocking medical experts, President Trump has returned to the White House while still infectious with the coronavirus and after more than a dozen people in Trump’s orbit have already tested positive for COVID-19. Emergency room physician Dr. Dara Kass says she was “horrified” by President Trump’s dismissive attitude toward a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States. “I had this virus,” says Dr. Kass.

President Donald Trump has tested positive for COVID-19, throwing the final month of an already unprecedented election season into disarray. What will this latest news mean for the debates and the Supreme Court? And what will happen if President Trump is unable to lead the country? We speak to journalist John Nichols about the line of succession, campaigning in the critical swing state of Wisconsin, and more.

Breonna Taylor’s family is calling on Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to appoint a new special prosecutor to reopen the case after they say newly released grand jury tapes confirm the state Attorney General Daniel Cameron “did not serve as an unbiased prosecutor in this case and intentionally did not present charges to the grand jury that would have pursued justice for Ms. Taylor.

As President Trump and a growing number of prominent Republicans are infected with COVID-19, we speak with Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who says Trump was reckless in his approach to the coronavirus and continues to flout public health recommendations. “There is an outbreak happening at the White House. It will continue to spread. It will not go away on its own,” says Dr. Jha. “The way you stop it is to test, trace and isolate.

As the White House and President Trump’s medical team issue conflicting statements on Trump’s condition after he was hospitalized for COVID-19, and when he was infected, we speak with Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason. The administration’s lack of transparency “certainly raises questions about the decisions that were made to allow him to travel, for him to decide to travel, and to expose what seems like a lot of people,” Mason says.

President Donald Trump has tested positive for COVID-19, throwing the final month of an already unprecedented election season into disarray. What will this latest news mean for the debates and the Supreme Court? And what will happen if President Trump is unable to lead the country? We speak to journalist John Nichols about the line of succession, campaigning in the critical swing state of Wisconsin, and more.

How will President Trump’s revelation that he tested positive for COVID-19 affect the presidential race? Acclaimed journalist, author and activist Naomi Klein warns that the Trump campaign is likely to exploit the news. “We need to be prepared for the president using the fact that he’s having to cancel campaign events for two weeks to try to further delegitimize elections,” she says.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19. The announcement came early Friday morning, hours after Bloomberg News reported that Trump adviser Hope Hicks became ill during Trump’s Wednesday night rally in Duluth, Minnesota, and had to be quarantined aboard Air Force One on the return flight to Washington. Hicks went on to test positive for coronavirus early on Thursday, though the White House did not report her illness.