Trump Country, Raging Fires, Nat Turner’s Rebellion

Coming up on today’s show:

• Reports emerged this weekend that Donald Trump may abandon his plan to use a “deportation force” to round up an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, though his campaign has denied such claims. David Weigel, a writer with The Washington Post, says that the GOP nominee is trying to appease white voters who are concerned that he is racist, while also embracing those who adore him for that precise xenophobia.

• Over the course of four months, journalist Alexander Zaitchik traveled through the heart of Trump country. He visited places that are symbolically resonant with the Trump campaign in Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and California, and he shares his findings in a new book, “The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride through Donald Trump’s America.”

• Unrest continues in Turkey as the nation faces a scene that feels all too familiar. On Saturday night, a suicide bomber attacked a wedding ceremony in the city of Gaziantep, killing more than 50 people and injuring nearly 70. Many of the victims were children. Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has the details on this attack.

• Years after a cholera epidemic killed thousands in Haiti, the United Nations has admitted its role in the outbreak, which was brought in by U.N. peacekeepers. Dr. Louise Ivers, a senior health and policy adviser at Partners In Health and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, has been leading cholera treatment and prevention activities in Haiti, and explains how the U.N.’s acknowledgement may change things on the ground.

• More than 10 wildfires have been actively burning across the state of California, and more have been kindling around the country. How is the federal government paying to fight fires they never anticipated 10 years ago? Robert Bonnie, USDA Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, weighs in. 

• The West Coast is due for a massive earthquake. Experts say it’s not a matter of if, but when. To prepare for this inevitable disaster, last month officials across the Pacific Northwest simulated their response with dozens of cities, state and federal agencies all mobilizing their emergency teams. Cassandra Profita, a reporter for EarthFix from Oregon Public Broadcasting, explains what happened when the simulated earthquake hit the city of Portland.

• Sunday was the 185th anniversary of Nat Turner’s rebellion — one of the largest slave rebellions ever to take place in the United States. Kenneth S. Greenberg, a distinguished professor of history at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, and an editor of the forthcoming second edition of the “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” looks back on this historic event.