In 1946, a Black Army veteran was returning from World War II when a white police officer pulled him off a Greyhound bus and beat him blind. The details were fuzzy. No one was sure about the identity of the police officer. The veteran, Isaac Woodard, didn’t even know what town he was in when it happened. Radio host Orson Welles learned about the shocking crime and pledged to find the officer who did it. “We’ll call the policeman ‘Officer X,’” Welles said on his Sunday evening program. “He might be listening to this; I hope so. Officer X, I’m talking to you. Wash your hands. Scrub and scour, you won’t blot out the blood of a blinded war veteran.” This week on Reveal, the podcast Radio Diaries brings us Woodard’s story, from his beating to the outrage that prompted the military’s desegregation. And to understand the experience of a Black servicemember today, we speak with Kyle Bibby, a Marine Corps veteran and co-founder of the Black Veterans Project.  Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram

More To The Story: A blue wave engulfed Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. Democrats throughout the country soundly defeated GOP candidates, giving them at least 54 seats in the US Senate and a majority in the House of Representatives. But it was where they won that was so shocking. Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa all elected Democrats to the Senate, while a number of House districts that previously supported President Donald Trump turned against the GOP. On this week’s More To The Story, Mother Jones’ Ari Berman talks with host Al Letson about this potentially transformational moment in American politics, how redistricting backfired on Republicans, and what the 2026 midterm results could mean for the presidential race in 2028. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: The GOP’s Mid-Decade Gerrymandering Strategy Was an Epic Fail (Mother Jones) Read: Trump’s Midterms Nightmare (Mother Jones) Read: Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (Picador) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky

On a brilliantly sunny day in May, Mother Jones national correspondent Kiera Butler found herself eating quiche in the cheerful breakfast nook of a home high above the rolling farmland of Moscow, Idaho. Her host was Doug Wilson, a firebrand pastor, self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, and spiritual leader steering a rapidly growing empire. During her visit, Wilson, who is 73, was soft-spoken and friendly, reminiscing with his wife about when their now-grown kids were young. But behind that grandfatherly veneer lies a movement that preaches rigid patriarchy, strict discipline, and a deep disdain for progressive politics.  “God has called men to be aggressive leaders,” Wilson says. “If they fail to follow through, then they are disobeying God.” This week on Reveal, Butler and producer Steven Rascón go inside the homes of Wilson’s inner circle to show how fringe fundamentalist doctrines are quietly migrating from rural church pews into the heart of American national security policies pushed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who counts Wilson as one of his spiritual advisers. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram

More To The Story: Ken Cuccinelli is a longtime fixture of the conservative movement. The former Virginia attorney general and former Trump official is known for his far-right views on immigration, his denial of climate change, and some very conservative positions on social issues like gay rights and same-sex marriage. But more recently he’s become one of the leading figures on the right pushing for a more open and transparent election process as well as voting restrictions that critics say could wind up disenfranchising legal voters. As the midterms approach, More To The Story host Al Letson talks with Cuccinelli about why he believes beefed-up voting restrictions are necessary, whether he believes the lies about the 2020 election, and why he doesn’t support President Trump’s proposal that Republicans “take over” the elections. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Vincent Sherry | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Listen: Why Are We Still Talking About Voting Rights in 2026? (Reveal) Read: These State Races Could Be the Sleeper Issue of the Midterms (Mother Jones) Listen: Voter Suppression is Happening in the South. This Organizer Fights It. (More To The Story) Learn more: Election Transparency Initiative Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky

In the run-up to this year’s midterm elections, one of the defining campaign issues is the elections themselves. Ever since President Trump first urged red states to draw up new maps to give Republican candidates an electoral edge, America has been caught in a historic redistricting fight that was supercharged this spring when the Supreme Court gutted much of the Voting Rights Act. That landmark decision led to the elimination of majority Black districts around the country. Meanwhile, the president has been pushing legislation that could restrict voting access while using the bully pulpit to falsely claim that there’s widespread voter fraud. Some even fear President Trump could use the power of the executive branch to interfere with the election itself. On this week’s Reveal, host Al Letson talks with three people at the heart of this historic fight over voting rights in America: LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter; and Ken Cuccinelli, chairman of The Heritage Foundation’s Election Transparency Initiative, and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram

More To The Story: Heather Cox Richardson is one of today’s unlikeliest social media stars. The Boston College historian has been teaching and writing about 19th-century America, Reconstruction, and the Civil War for decades. But it was only in 2019 that her work took off when she began writing her daily newsletter, Letters from an American, a no-nonsense analysis of the news through the lens of US history. The newsletter became one of the most popular on Substack. And today, Richardson has millions of loyal fans who rely on her to make sense of American politics and provide a little sanity and democratic reassurance, even as she herself is concerned about the direction of the country today. On this week’s More To The Story, Richardson doles out some advice for the Democrats if they take back power in the midterm elections, the decades-long failure to hold corrupt American leaders accountable, the still-resonant death of Reconstruction, and what she sees as the tragic hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson. This episode first aired in June 2026. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: Trump’s War on History (Mother Jones) Listen: As the Trump Administration Erases Black History, These Writers Are Keeping It Alive (Reveal) Watch: 250 to 250 (YouTube) Read: Letters from an American (Substack) Read: Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America (Penguin Books) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky

2026 would have been a reelection year for Rep. Cleo Fields, who represents the majority-Black 6th Congressional District in Louisiana. But in April, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that led to the dismantling of his district. This was the second time that a district Fields served was taken out from under him.  “I’ve never served a single day in Congress without a federal lawsuit looming over my head,” Fields says. In his view, the court’s ruling was an enormous blow to Black voters across the South. “They basically gutted Section 2 and basically ended the Voting Rights Act.” The Voting Rights Act is a signature piece of legislation passed during the civil rights era of the 1960s to remove restrictions that made it difficult for African Americans to vote. But the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais gutted the VRA by making it more difficult for people of color to challenge districts on the grounds that they are discriminatory.  On this week’s Reveal, we look at how the decision will affect Black voters in Louisiana and throughout the South and examine how the Roberts court borrowed arguments from Supreme Court decisions that undermined Black civil rights more than a century ago, paving the way for the Jim Crow system of segregation.  Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram

More To The Story: One of the defining issues heading into this year’s midterms is how redistricting has rapidly reshaped electoral maps across the country. When the Supreme Court gutted much of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, a number of states redrew maps eliminating majority-Black districts, weakening Black political power potentially for years to come. But what does this shift feel like for someone working on the ground to expand voting access for Black communities when the promise of equal representation itself is under assault? Ask LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, a group that’s been working to increase voter participation within minority communities in the rural South, especially where turnout is low. On this week’s More To The Story, Brown talks with host Al Letson about her winding path into politics, her fight against ongoing voter suppression efforts in the South, and why it’s important to mobilize Black voters now more than ever. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: Whites Only (Mother Jones) Listen: Trump Says Voter Fraud Is Rampant. The Evidence Says Otherwise. (More To The Story) Read: This Is All John Roberts’ Fault (Mother Jones) Learn more: Black Voters Matter Fund Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky

When the FBI showed up at a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, to seize hundreds of boxes of 2020 election records this past January, County Commissioner Dana Barrett thought it looked less like a criminal investigation and more like political theater.  It’s been more than five years since the election, the results already had been investigated multiple times, and the ballots had been counted, recounted, and recounted again. The lie that the 2020 election was stolen has persisted. And the “Stop the Steal” movement’s most ardent believers now hold unprecedented positions of power, including on the once-sleepy State Election Board in the important swing state of Georgia. A lawyer known for his willingness to take on long-shot election cases went from a little-known private practice attorney to a role in the White House, overseeing the country’s election integrity effort—despite being sanctioned by a court for making “unequivocally false” assertions around voting. And everyday members of the movement are trying to change what they fervently believe is a broken system—at the risk of actually breaking it in the process. This week on Reveal, Mother Jones reporter Abby Vesoulis and Reveal’s Najib Aminy examine how the long shadow of doubt over the 2020 elections is being weaponized and what it means ahead of the 2026 midterms.  This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 2026.  Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram

More To The Story: If you’ve ever listened to President Trump talk about our elections, you might hear something like this: Voter fraud is rampant. Noncitizens are voting illegally. Our elections are rigged. The president uses the bully pulpit to repeat these claims despite study after study showing they’re just not true. But it’s not just the president. There are many others at the ground level saying the same things to justify voting restrictions that could disenfranchise legal voters, especially voters of color. One of them is J. Christian Adams. He’s the president of Public Interest Legal Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter voter ID laws and sues states and local governments to remove voters from election rolls.  On this week’s “More To The Story,” Adams claims there’s systemic voter fraud in the US before abruptly ending the interview after host Al Letson challenges his assertions. Al then talks with Mother Jones National Voting Rights Correspondent Ari Berman about the lack of evidence from activists like Adams, the claims Adams and PILF have made that noncitizens are illegally voting, and what conservative activists who say election fraud is rampant are really trying to achieve. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Vincent Sherry | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: Your Private Data is Building Trump’s Voter Purge Machine (Mother Jones) Listen: Stop the Steal Never Stopped (Reveal) Read: Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It (Picador) Read: The Myth of Voter Fraud (Brennan Center For Justice) Learn more: Public Interest Legal Foundation Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky