Contentious elections are nothing new and 1856 proved a particularly fraught example. In “Imperfect Union,” NPR host Steve Inskeep tells the story of America’s first political power couple, John and Jessie Fremont. He joins the show from D.C. to discuss their lives and assess parallels with today’s politics.

Dan Buettner is a National Geographic fellow and founder of The Blue Zones Project, a well-being improvement initiative launched in over 40 cities across the United States. It also inspired a cookbook called “The Blue Zones Kitchen,” based on the diet of people who live in these zones living long and healthy lives. Buettner tells Hari exactly what makes these places so special to him.

Father Greg Boyle is a Catholic priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest rehabilitation program in the world for active gang members. Over 3-plus decades, Father Boyle has helped more than 15,000 people a year break their vicious cycles of violence, find jobs and leave gangs behind. Boyle tells Christiane about the healing power of tenderness and spirituality.

For more than 25 years, Peggy Orenstein broke new ground with her intimate explorations of girls and sexuality in New York Times bestsellers like “Girls and Sex.” Now she turns her eye to “Boys and Sex,” hearing directly from young men about their most intimate experiences. Christiane speaks with her about the pervasive messages our culture sends about emotional suppression and sexual aggression.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has explored the ancestry of dozens of people from diverse backgrounds on his show Finding Your Roots, including Christiane’s in 2019. Now in its sixth season, the show features guests like Jeff Goldblum, RuPaul, and Queen Latifah. Gates believes family tapestries can offer a sense of stability and joins Walter Isaacson to discuss what he's learned about race and identity.

In an exclusive interview, Ukraine’s foreign minister says he doesn’t know or trust Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, who gave an explosive interview detailing the White House’s efforts to intimidate the Ukrainian president into providing information about Joe Biden. Christiane spoke with Vadym Prystaiko in London, where he was to attend a meeting about the downing of the Ukrainian plane.

Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest is digging into his own pockets to donate $48 million to fire relief in his country. As the founder of Fortescue Metals Group, Forrest leads one of the world’s largest iron ore producers and has enormous political clout in Australia. He joins Christiane to discuss his views on climate change.

French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy has gone to the front lines of the fight against ISIS alongside Kurdish fighters. In two documentaries, Peshmerga and The Battle of Mosul, he tells the story of a people repeatedly abandoned by the West, who continue to fight for shared causes and values. Lévy tells Hari about his projects and explains how he has evidence ISIS is regrouping.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s retirement as senior royals is still top news. But the couple has always been open about their struggle with being tabloid fodder. So, less than two years since their fairy-tale wedding, what's changed? Could the move provide a way forward for an increasingly irrelevant royal family? Journalist Afua Hirsch and royal historian Robert Lacey join Christiane to assess.

Last night, the six Democratic candidates faced off in a debate for the final time before the Iowa caucuses next month. The party is split between two strands, moderates and progressives, but which stands a better chance of prevailing in November? Jennifer Granholm and Andrew Gillum have both represented key swing states for the Democrats, and join the program to discuss.

The Iranian government's lie about the Ukrainian passenger plane fits in with a global dilemma: how to navigate a post-truth world. Michel Martin delves into that conundrum with Lee McIntyre, whose book, Post-Truth, traces the development of this phenomenon from its roots in science denial, cognitive bias and postmodernism through the rise of “fake news,” and “information silos.

Harvey Weinstein's career came crashing down after journalists Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey published their bombshell investigation, exposing alleged abuse and intimidation over decades. They told the story of their own reporting in the recent book “She Said”, and Kantor speaks with Christiane from the New York Times office to give an update on the Weinstein story.

Cybersecurity experts say Russian hackers are once again attempting to interfere in the US presidential election and have infiltrated Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Oren Falkowitz worked at the NSA before co-founding Area 1, a cyber security firm working to prevent these attacks. He joins the show from California to discuss the latest developments.

Gretchen Carlson was an anchor at Fox News and was the first to sue Fox CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Her case was eventually settled for $20 million, but this came with a mandatory non-disclosure agreement. Now, along with two other women who sued Fox, Carlson has launched “Lift Our Voices” to try and end the silence imposed by non-disclosure agreements.

Facebook remains a goliath of the tech world and a range of critics have said that the company’s influence is a major risk to liberal democracy. One of its co-founders, Chris Hughes, shares these concerns and now is leading the fight against corporate monopolies, potentially placing him in confrontation with the company he helped to build. He sat down with Hari Sreenivasan.

There is a rather traumatic sense of déjà vu for the Ukranian public, with comparison being drawn between the doomed flight 752 from Iran and that of Flight MH17, the commercial airline brought down by a Russian missile in 2014. Danylo Lubvisky was the Ukranian Deputy Foreign Minister at the time of the MH17 disaster and he joins us from Kiev to discuss the fallout.

This week, Beijing’s top trade negotiator has touched down in D.C. with one aim; to bring an end to a bitter economic war between the two superpowers. With the White House distracted by Iran, could the situation play to the advantage of the Chinese? Evan Osnos has written extensively on just this subject for The New Yorker.

There have been worrying signs that the Iranian regime is responding in the way it has done to rebellion in the past- with an iron fist. To break this all down, Mohammad Ali Shabani, Iran Researcher at the University of London joins Christiane.

The U.S. has a long and complicated history with Iran, dating back to before the Ayatollahs came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Ervand Abrahamian is an Iranian-Armenian historian whose book “The Coup” is the latest in his work unpacking U.S./Iranian relations. He tells Walter about the history of distrust and hostility between these two nations.

It has been a week of turmoil after the U.S.'s targeted killing of Iran’s military chief. Events took a tragic turn when a Ukrainian plane crashed over Tehran, killing all 176 on board. Most were Iranians and Canadians, along with 11 Ukrainians and other nationals. To discuss this tragic human cost of diplomatic drama, Christiane speaks with Michael Kergin, Canada’s former Ambassador to the U.S.