Seriously?

Watching lies become the truth in this year's election. And a few people who try to bridge the gap between the way the two sides see the facts. Prologue: Ira talks about what’s alarming him about this year’s election: facts seem less meaningful than they ever have, and the gap between the mainstream media and right-wing media’s versions of the world have never seemed further apart. CNN’s Jake Tapper explains what it was like to be on the air live when Donald Trump tried to take a huge, obvious lie and pass it off as the truth. (8 minutes) Lies Become the Truth: Ira's quest continues. He calls his Uncle Lenny, who gets his news from Fox and the Wall Street Journal, and lives with an entirely different set of facts, and Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the CATO Institute, who explains that the central issue in Donald Trump’s candidacy is based on something that isn’t true. (11 minutes) Judges with Grudges: In this election year we look at the story of one small ballot initiative, in one state. We heard this referendum would gut Georgia's Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC), an independent organization that investigates ethics complaints about judges. Years ago, the JQC investigated a judge we did a whole episode about, Amanda Williams, and she resigned from the bench. We wondered why in the world someone would want to tamper with an agency that seemed to be doing a good job at a low cost. Producer David Kestenbaum went to Georgia to figure out what was going on. (21 minutes) Aw, Do We NAFTA?: Ira explains that when Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton all seemed to be against free trade agreements, he got genuinely confused. Is free trade good or bad? Was NAFTA good or evil? Are we down with TPP? He asked Jacob Goldstein of NPR’s Planet Money podcast to explain, once and for all, the pros and cons of free trade. (7 minutes) Seriously?: We’ve been wondering about some of the things President Obama thinks about the current election, but can’t say publicly. But since he hasn’t told us his thoughts explicitly, we asked singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles – who did the Broadway musical “Waitress” – to imagine those thoughts for us. One of the stars of Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr., performs the song. Music direction by Nadia DiGiallonardo, strings orchestration by Alex Lacamoire. (4 minutes) Recorded and mixed by Derik Lee Emily Grishman, music copyist Lee Nadel, bass Jonathan Dinklage, violin Adele Stein, cello Todd Low, viola Antoine Silverman, violin2