THE WEEKLY REVEAL
Saturday, April 12, 2025
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This week:
- The Trump administration’s immigration actions are raising serious constitutional questions.
- This week on More To The Story, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik discusses Trump’s attacks on the media.
- Inside the “churn” that traps people with serious mental illness.
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THIS WEEK’S PODCAST
Trump’s Deportation Black Hole
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Mother Jones illustration; Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/Getty; Photos courtesy Génesis Lozada, Joseph Giardina, Arturo Suárez, and María Alvarado
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On March 15, federal agents rounded up more than 230 Venezuelan nationals who were then deported to El Salvador and locked up in the country’s notorious megaprison. Nearly a month later, families of the Venezuelan men say their relatives are not gang members, and they have heard nothing about their fate.
It’s as if they disappeared.
This week on Reveal, we peer into the black hole of the Trump administration’s deportation cases. Mother Jones reporters Isabela Dias and Noah Lanard speak to the families and lawyers of 10 men now imprisoned in El Salvador without court hearings in which the men could contest the allegations. Several of the men had one thing in common: common tattoos that experts say offer no connection to membership in the Tren de Aragua gang.
To learn more about the Trump administration’s arrangement with the government of El Salvador, host Al Letson speaks with Carlos Dada, co-founder and director of El Faro, the Salvadoran investigative news outlet. Dada says that in addition to foreign nationals, the agreement also allows for American citizens convicted of crimes to be imprisoned in El Salvador.
And as the Trump administration also targets international students who have spoken out about Israel’s war in Gaza, Reveal’s Najib Aminy reports on pro-Israel groups that are claiming to have shared lists of student protestors with the White House, and then taking credit when some of those young people are targeted for deportation.
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🎧 Other places to listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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MORE TO THE STORY
Trump’s “Pincer Attack” on Journalism Is Working. But There’s Hope.
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President Donald Trump walks toward the Marine One helicopter after speaking with reporters at the White House. Credit: Evan Vucci/AP
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David Folkenflik occupies a unique role at NPR: He’s a journalist who writes about journalism. And that includes the very organization where he works, which is once again being threatened by conservatives in Washington.
The second Trump administration has aggressively gone after the media in its first few months. It’s kicked news organizations out of the Pentagon. It’s barred other newsrooms from access to the White House. And Trump supporters in Congress have targeted federal funding for public media. In late March, the heads of NPR and PBS testified on Capitol Hill to defend public broadcasting from Republicans accusing them of political bias. Meanwhile, some major news organizations seem to be capitulating and bending to the will of the Trump administration.
Folkenflik, who’s been covering media for two decades for NPR, says journalism across the country is facing a two-pronged attack from both commercial and political forces.
"You’re seeing sort of discrete and specific and seemingly almost comedic attacks. You don’t say ‘Gulf of America’? Get to the back of the line,” Folkenflik says. “I think it’s actually part of a larger effort to control the flow of information.”
On this week’s episode of More To The Story, Folkenflik talks to host Al Letson about this unprecedented moment for journalists, why more media outlets seem to be bowing to pressure from the Trump administration, and how journalism can begin to win back public trust.
Find this episode wherever you listen to Reveal, and don’t forget to subscribe:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Pandora
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“I was just completely consumed. Every movement, everything I was doing was because of the voices.”
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Lew Middleton struggled with hearing voices, and he was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. His story is an example of someone navigating their mental illness towards a recovery that works for them, even when federal and state services fall short.
At one point, Lew came across the Hearing Voices Network, a community of people who hear voices and support each other. Lew wanted to make sure no one else like him ever went through what he did, running from the voices alone. Then he became the longest-serving certified peer counselor in Washington state history.
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Kate Howard and edited by Daniel King. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend. Have some thoughts? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas!
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