An investigation into America’s increasingly bitter, divided and toxic politics. PBS, YouTube, 13 Jan 2020.
PART 1
Part One of the documentary traces how Barack Obama’s promise of unity collapsed as increasing racial, cultural and political divisions laid the groundwork for the rise of Donald Trump.
PART 2
Part Two of the documentary examines how Donald Trump’s campaign exploited the country’s divisions and how his presidency has unleashed anger on both sides of the divide.
Robert Reich (Full Interview, 58m)
Reich is a professor, author, and economist who has worked with four presidential administrations. [Wikipedia]
Steve Schmidt (Full Interview, 1h 7m)
Steve Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain. [Wikipedia]
David Axelrod (Full Interview, 1h 3m)
David Axelrod is an American political consultant and analyst, best known for being the Chief Strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. [Wikipedia]
Ben Rhodes (Full Interview, 1h 24m)
Ben Rhodes is is a writer and political commentator. During the Obama administration, Rhodes led the negotiations with Cuba that resulted in the December 17, 2014 announcement by President Obama and Raúl Castro that the two countries would normalize relations. Rhodes traveled to Canada and the Vatican for talks with Cuba about a prisoner exchange that led to the release of Alan Gross and a U.S. intelligence asset, along with the decision to re-establish diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S. [Wikipedia]
Megyn Kelly (Full Interview, 42m)
Megyn Kelly is an American journalist and attorney who was a news anchor at Fox News from 2004 to 2017, and a talk show host and correspondent with NBC News from 2017 to 2018. [Wikipedia]
Steve Bannon (Full Interview 1, 2h 26m)
Steve Bannon is American media executive, political strategist, former investment banker, and the former executive chairman of Breitbart News. He served as White House Chief Strategist in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump during the first seven months of Trump’s term. [Wikipedia]
Steve Bannon (Full Interview 2, 1h 6m)
Ann Coulter (Full Interview, 59m)
Ann Coulter is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. [Wikipedia]
Frank Luntz (Full Interview, 1h)
Frank Luntz is an American political and communications consultant, pollster and pundit, best known for developing talking points and other messaging for Republican causes. [Wikipedia]
Cliff Sims (Full Interview, 1h 27m)
Cliff Sims worked on Trump’s presidential campaign and then in the White House communications office from January 2017 to May 2018. [Wikipedia]
[Posted: 20200114tu1338]
I am absolutely disgusted by the way you trashed our President I will never nor will any of my friends watch anymore of your shows ever you are trash
Thanks for taking time to post a comment in response to the PBS Frontline special from 13 Jan 2020. While some of the Frontline reporting has been critical of the president, this particular four-hour documentary seems to offer quite a bit of praise for the President and other Republicans like Sarah Palin. It offers a platform for key GOP members, and supporters such as Steve Bannon. What happens with balanced news reporting is that some of what is reported we will agree with, and other parts we’ll disagree with. Yesterday, PBS Frontline posted an uncensored 3-hour 26-minute interview with Steve Bannon. That tells you that PBS is not censoring voices on the right, but giving them a platform. It also tells you that people like Steve Bannon respect PBS enough to conduct an interview with them and give them over 2 hours of his time. If Steve Bannon isn’t boycotting PBS, people should take note of that. Also, if one follows the Twitter feeds of Trump and his children, you’ll find they are actually quoting stories from various mainstream media where the reporting is positive. In other words, not even the Trump family is fully boycotting mainstream news sources — despite the occasional rhetoric about them being the enemy of the people. We can all benefit from having a diversity of news sources besides those that reinforce our existing views. Here’s the lengthy PBS interview with Steve Bannon from yesterday: https://youtu.be/pm5xxlajTW0