Trump Looks for a Reset, An Emotional Release, The Music of Resistance

Coming up on today’s show:

• In a prime time address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump laid out this policy priorities and called on the House and Senate to work together. Today The Takeaway hears from three voters — a Republican who voted for Trump, a Democrat who voted for Trump, and a Republican who didn’t vote for Trump — to find out what they thought of the president’s address. Shirl St. Germain is a former restaurant owner in Marco Island, Florida, Kenneth Lanci is founder of Consolidated Solutions a business in Cleveland, and Hal Scoggins is an attorney from Portland, Oregon. 

• On Monday, bomb threats were called into Jewish schools and community centers in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, in what is the fifth wave of threats in the past two months. David Shtulman, director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, weighs in on the attacks. 

• Every 20 years, Florida amends its constitution through the Constitution Revision Commission — the only state with such a body. The members of the 2017-18 Constitution Revision Commission are being named this month. For details on this process and how the state’s Constitution may change, we turn to Sandy D’Alemberte, president emeritus of Florida State University and a former state legislator who chaired the Constitution Revision Commission in 1977-78.

• Today, the Texas Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a Houston case challenging the city’s benefit policy for same-sex couples, despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on same sex marriage in 2015. Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom To Marry, discusses the case. 

• In part III of our series, “Commuted: Life After Prison,” we meet Aaron Glasscock for the first time as a free man. As Aaron is set free, he quickly learns that life outside looks much different than he remembered it. He’s both worried and optimistic about the future, hoping that the skills he gained in prison will be enough to get him a job. He’s also set rules for himself to help set his life on a positive course. 

• Indian-American and Muslim musician Zeshan Bagewadi discusses his cover of George Perkins’ civil rights-era song “Cryin’ in the Streets.” Perkins originally wrote the song in 1970 as a reaction to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.