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OFF-KILTER with Rebecca Vallas


Dec 16, 2017

When Senator-elect Doug Jones addressed his supporters Tuesday night in Alabama, one of his first shout-outs went to his African-American supporters. As well it should have been – with exit polls showing that 30% of the voters in Tuesday’s special election were black, even beating the record-high black turnout in the 2012 presidential election. To unpack what was behind the wave of black turnout – and what Democrats can learn from it – I’m joined by Michele Jawando, Vice President of Legal Progress at the Center for American Progress and host of Thinking CAP, Off-Kilter’s sister podcast. Later in the show, while Trump and his colleagues in Congress try to push tax cuts for billionaires and wealthy corporations over the finish line without a single democratic vote, they’re not even trying to hide what comes next: cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, Meals on Wheels and more – in the name of “welfare reform.” To discuss the role of language in debates around cutting these and other critical programs, Rebecca talks with Greg Kaufmann, editor in chief of TalkPoverty.org, and Kate Gallagher Robbins, Director of Family Policy at the Center for American Progress.