Boston Public Radio

On Tuesday, Sen. Ed Markey discussed his re-election campaign, police reform, and the possibility of another federal stimulus package.

Social media has spurred the boycott of Goya Foods products, after the company's CEO praised President Donald Trump.

The Massachusetts legislature, citing economic downturns due to COVID-19, appears unlikely to adopt a higher gas tax. Transportation advocates say that's a missed opportunity.

The "All Rev'd Up" hosts were critical of what they described as a whitewashing, in U.S. schools, of the nation's history of racial injustice and white violence.

Commissioner for Elementary and Secondary Education Jeff Riley said schools may continue to operate fully remotely if there is a high rate of community transmission of COVID-19 in their district.

On Monday, media scholar Bob Thompson joined Boston Public Radio to share what he's watching on TV this week.

Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem spoke with Boston Public Radio on Wednesday about the current state of the 2020 presidential election. “My biggest fear was a systemic breakdown of voting, such that you would get a real question from both sides that these counts were not legitimate,” she said. “There are huge issues around the post office, and we still have votes to count, but you didn’t see the kind of the thing I would’ve worried about.” One potential threat, currently undetected, was nefarious interference from foreign governments, Kayyem noted. “You didn’t see any activity in particular of foreign activity or disruption,” she said. “My worry was that that would lead to a majority of the population going to the streets demanding our democracy work better.” Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Back in June, the bipartisan Transition Integrity Project gamed out a handful of likely outcomes for the 2020 election. On the Wednesday after Election Day, one of the group's co-organizers, Rosa Brooks, called in to Boston Public Radio for a debrief on how Tuesday’s results compared to the project's worst-case scenarios. "Never say never, but I am actually more optimistic now,” she said in reference to the possibility that President Trump might successfully manage to discredit and nullify late-counted election ballots. "The ballots will get counted, and the Trump team will make legal challenges. But I think we’re gonna get through this – I hope we’re gonna get through this – without the level of crisis that some of our exercises got us to." Brooks is the co-organizer of the Transition Integrity Project, a former Pentagon official under the Obama administration, and the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center. Her forthcoming book is “Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City.”

New York Magazine writer-at-larger Frank Rich talked about some worst-case scenarios for Democrats ahead of Tuesday's election tallies, and what he believes might happen to the careers of GOP Trump loyalists if the President loses his reelection bid. Next, we opened lines to talk with listeners about your feelings on everything related to Tuesday's presidential election. Mass. ACLU Executive Director Carol Rose talked about the work being done by the ACLU to ensure a fair election as day-of voters head to the polls. She also touched on some complaints about long lines and improper ID checks that her organization has already received. Robert Blair, an assistant professor of political science at Brown University and coordinator of the Democratic Erosion consortium, discussed his recent writing for the Boston Globe on why Democrats should have a plan for how to respond if President Trump loses the election and contests the results. Jennifer Horn, former Chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party and a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, talked about what her collective of anti-Trump Republicans is doing to encourage fellow conservatives to support former Vice President Joe Biden on Election Day. Historian Allan Lichtman discussed the reasoning behind his prediction that Joe Biden will clinch a victory in the 2020 election, after correctly predicting the winner of every presidential race across the last nine elections with his famous “Keys to the White House." CNN’s John King gave a debrief on the latest political headlines on Election Day, and talked about which Senate races he'll be watching closely as Tuesday night’s results come in. We closed out Tuesday’s show by returning to callers – including former Secretary of State John Kerry – to hear your thoughts on election 2020.

New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich joined Tuesday’s Boston Public Radio, breaking down a slew of worst-case scenarios ahead of Tuesday’s Election Day vote tallies. "We all have a million fears – I’m speaking now, of course, of those of us who want to see Biden win,” he said. "I’m sure there’s another group of fears on the other side, as it were.” Rich spoke about the possibility of votes not getting counted, partisan court rulings, and the ominous presence of pro-Trump militias popping up the Midwest and elsewhere. He also weighed in on what he thinks might come of the careers of the many Republican Trump loyalists, should the president lose his reelection bid. Rich is writer-at-large for New York Magazine, where he covers politics and culture. He’s also an executive producer of the HBO’s “Succession,” and “Veep."

Today on Boston Public Radio: Washington Week moderator Robert Costa talked about his special report for the program, about the attitudes of Penn. voters ahead of Tuesday’s election, and how they have and haven't changed in the four years since 2016. We opened lines to talk with listeners about your anxieties and hopes ahead of Tuesday’s election. Charlie Chieppo and Shannon O’Brien joined for a politics roundtable, weighing in on where both of the candidates stands on the eve of Election Day. Chieppo is principal of Chieppo Strategies, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, and Adjunct professor at Suffolk University. O’Brien is former state treasurer and Democratic nominee for governor of Mass. Rep. Ayanna Pressley called in as a surrogate for the Biden/Harris ticket, to make her final appeal to voters ahead of Tuesday’s election. She also weighed in on Mass. police reform, and why she believes the U.S. is due for a third Reconstruction. Charles Stewart III talked about the varying outcomes of Tuesday’s election, and how the surge of mail-in voting and other coronavirus precautions might impact when we get election results. Stewart is the Kenan Sahin distinguished professor of political science at MIT. He’s also director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, and co-director of the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project. Irene Monroe and Emmett Price, hosts of GBH’s All Rev’d Up, talked about the latest headlines at the intersect of religion and Tuesday’s election. We closed out the show by returning to listeners to talk about anything and everything related to Tuesday’s presidential election.