Radio Atlantic

In a dismal morning Zoom call on Wednesday, The Washington Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, announced that they were laying off roughly a third of its already diminished staff.

We talk to Joshua Benton, the founder of and a senior writer at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, about how the Post reached this point, the loss to journalism, and how Jeff Bezos is uniquely responsible. 

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The Minnesota governor warns of a national unraveling and shares the view from his state. 

“ The way you win this is through nonviolence, that you cannot do violence,” Governor Tim Walz told the Atlantic staff writer Isaac Stanley-Becker in Minneapolis on Wednesday. “And I know my constituents are mad at me for saying that. They’re shooting us. They’re killing us. They’re beating us. They’re taking our children. But you see what’s happening now. For all that power and all that cruelty, they are retreating massively. Now, I believe they’ll only retreat far enough to get to the next day or the next news cycle. But again, they underestimated this state, and I think they’re underestimating the American people. I’m still baffled—if you were gonna pick two states to mess with, Maine and Minnesota, especially in the middle of winter, not smart.”

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Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener.
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A second American was shot and killed by federal agents. The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer joins from Minneapolis to describe what he’s seen there in recent days,  describing it as a form of activism America’s not seen since the 1960s—perhaps even earlier. 

Serwer spent last week in Minneapolis talking to protesters. “They know that ICE has the guns. They know that if ICE kills them, this federal government will call them a terrorist and not even bother to investigate. And they're still out there. Because they feel very strongly about finding a way to nonviolently resist a federal government that has openly said it’’’s there to persecute them.” 

- - - Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener.
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Last year, there was a mass exodus of federal workers: Some were pushed out, while others left on their own. All in all, more than 300,000 Americans left government jobs. The Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer spent months talking to dozens of them, finding out who they were, what they did, and ultimately what, as a country, we may have lost.

Read Foer’s full story: “The Purged.”

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Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener.
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Tensions are high in Minneapolis this week. The Trump administration is sending more federal agents. Protesters are calling for justice for the killing of an unarmed citizen. But what could actually happen legally? Especially when the Department of Justice seems more interested in trying to open a criminal investigation into the victim’s wife than the ICE officer who pulled the trigger?

We talk to the legal researcher Bryna Godar about the history of prosecutions against federal agents and why they’re not often successful. And we speak with the Atlantic staff writer Nick Miroff, who covers immigration, about what members of ICE are saying internally—and why they now feel more emboldened than ever.

Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener.

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