1/27/2017: Understanding Mike Pence, Hugh Hewitt on Trump, Weekend Movies

Coming up on today’s show:

• Today, Vice President Mike Pence will be attending the March for Life, becoming the highest ranking official to ever speak in person there. Maureen Groppe, a reporter for The Indianapolis Star’s Washington bureau, interviewed Vice President Pence earlier this month. We speak with Groppe about Mike Pence’s role as the face of conservative social values in the Trump White House, and the influence he can be expected to have within the administration.

• Over the course of the presidential campaign, conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt spoke to President Trump more than a dozen times on his program. While he wasn’t a Trump supporter from the start, he describes his personal evolution as one that left him “wearing Trump tattoos at the end of the campaign.” Hewitt describes how Trump revitalized an unwitting Republican Party, and what it means for the future of the GOP. 

• For decades, during times of injustice, unfairness, and power over people, millions have been called to protest – and to come up with songs that describe that experience. Takeaway Culture Reporter Melissa Locker does a deep dive on the genre, and recommends two new compilations of protest songs for the Trump administration. 

• Every Friday, Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, drops by to review the new releases hitting the box office. This week, Rafer reviews the family-friendly dog movie “A Dog’s Purpose”; “Gold,” featuring Matthew McConaughey as a rogue prospector; and “Paterson”, a film by Jim Jarmusch about a poetic bus driver in small-town America featuring Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani. 

• British Prime Minister Theresa May will become the first world leader to meet with President Donald Trump today. Gisela Stuart, a Labour Member of Parliament who was a leading figure in the Vote Leave Brexit campaign in Britain, discusses the expectations for May’s visit in the U.K., where many are wary of the Trump presidency. 

• For forty years, North Carolina ran one of the largest and most aggressive sterilization programs in the United States. A new documentary out this weekend, “State of Eugenics,” by Dawn Sinclair Shapiro explores North Carolina’s efforts to find and recognize survivors of the state’s eugenics program and the bipartisan partnership between two North Carolina lawmakers to get compensation for the victims.

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