0:08 – Andrea Bernstein (@AndreaWNYC) is the Peabody Award-winning cohost of the acclaimed WNYC/ProPublica podcast Trump, Inc., which investigates how President Trump’s business works and who might be profiting from his administration. She joins us to talk about her new book, American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power.
1:08 – California Senator Scott Wiener’s contentious housing bill, SB 50, failed to attain the 21 votes it needed in the State Senate on Wednesday. It would upzone “job-rich” and transit-connected areas of the state and incentivize private developers to build more dense housing on this land, mostly at market rate. Critics say it would accelerate gentrification in the most vulnerable communities in California, and result in more vacant luxury housing which residents can’t afford. We host a roundtable with three guests on the bill, and on California’s housing and homelessness crisis.
- Darrell Owens is a co-executive of East Bay for Everyone, a nonprofit housing group supporting SB 50, and a policy analyst for California YIMBY, which is lobbying heavily for the bill.
- Norma Paz Garcia is the director of policy and advocacy at the Mission Economic Development Agency, which is an affordable housing developer and has taken a stance of “oppose unless amended” on SB 50.
- Leslie Dreyer is a Bay Area artist and an anti-eviction organizer with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, who co-wrote a letter signed by 46 tenant rights & housing justice groups who oppose SB 50. She also runs the Stolen Belonging project with houseless members of the Coalition on Homelessness, highlighting the impact of San Francisco’s anti-homeless sweeps.
1:34 – Philip Jacobson, a journalist with environmental news outlet Mongabay, was arrested by Indonesian authorities and held in jail this month. We speak with Mongabay’s founder and CEO Rhett Butler (@rhett_butler) about the arrest and the outlet’s concerns over press freedom.
1:41 – Mitch Jeserich (@MitchJeserich), host of Letters and Politics, gives an update on impeachment. KPFA is broadcasting impeachment proceedings every day live from 10 a.m. until the evening.