Episodes
Published 10/16/23
Journey through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks. The Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham ventures off the marked trail to better understand the most urgent stories playing out in five iconic landscapes today.
Published 06/14/23
An unusual warrant. A pattern of questionable no-knock raids. A reporting thread that just kept going. “Broken Doors” is a new investigative podcast series from the Washington Post. Hosted by Jenn Abelson and Nicole Dungca.
Published 04/27/22
Host Lillian Cunningham's next podcast explores the real story of why we went to the moon -- a darker, but truer story than the one you've heard before. Listen to this trailer, and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or at washingtonpost.com/moonrise.
Published 07/19/19
In the "Constitutional" finale, we address listener questions about the history--and future--of the nation's governing document.
Published 02/12/18
Why do First Amendment rights trump nearly every other right in America? Thank Jehovah's Witnesses.
Published 01/29/18
How should the Constitution's privacy protections be translated for a new era? This is a question before the Supreme Court today, but it was also a question that captivated a justice appointed to the Supreme Court 100 years ago — Louis Brandeis.
Published 01/15/18
The passage and then repeal of the 18th Amendment, banning alcohol in America, highlighted the pitfalls of trying to legislate against vice.
Published 01/01/18
Congress today faces the same question it faced a century ago when creating the modern tax system: What kind of society should America be?
Published 12/18/17
One intention the framers had when creating the U.S. Constitution was to “provide for the common defense.” But who shoulders that duty has not always been so clear.
Published 12/04/17
War
What was the original point of the Second Amendment? We examine its colonial and revolutionary roots—plus its quiet companion, the Third Amendment—with renowned American history scholar Gordon Wood.
Published 11/20/17
The words "marriage" and "love" appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. Yet 50 years ago, the Supreme Court issued a decision that would embed those concepts in the heart of the document itself.
Published 11/06/17
"There is so much feeling of racial injustice around the issue of punishment. And you have to understand that those feelings have a history -- and that history is Parchman Farm."
Published 10/23/17
In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that states must offer a defense attorney to all poor people accused of crimes. The decision transformed the concept of fair trials in America, but left major challenges to the justice system today.
Published 10/09/17
Is it a feature or a bug of the amendment process that an idea of James Madison's, more than 200 years ago, could be recently resurrected and etched into the U.S. Constitution?
Published 09/25/17
When the United States changed its process for electing senators, did that lead to a decline in state power? Or did it instead bring us closer to a "more perfect union"?
Published 09/11/17
Published 09/04/17
From the American Revolution through today, women have been leading a long-burning rebellion to gain rights not originally guaranteed under the Constitution.
Published 08/28/17
As powerful as it was to change the Constitution after the Civil War, and enshrine racial equality into our governing document, that wasn’t enough to change the reality of life in America.
Published 08/21/17
What makes someone American? A landmark Supreme Court case in 1898, involving a child born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, would help answer that question.
Published 08/14/17
This "we the people" episode explores indigenous rights. In 1879, a case involving Chief Standing Bear came before a Nebraska courtroom and demanded an answer to the question: Are Native Americans considered human beings under the U.S. Constitution?
Published 08/07/17
Published 07/31/17
In the premier episode of “Constitutional,” we go back in time to that hot Philadelphia summer in 1787 when a group of revolutionary Americans debated, drank and together drafted the U.S. Constitution.
Published 07/24/17