Behind every vaccine are thousands of trial volunteers – and in Pfizer’s case, one of those thousands is our own Walter Isaacson. He is of course a renowned biographer of great minds in science and history, and perhaps more used to interviewing than being interviewed. Nevertheless, he joins the show to share the rare experience of being a guinea pig in the race to defeat COVID-19.

El Paso, Texas has been hit particularly hard by a spike in the COVID-19 pandemic. The city is recording around 1,000 cases per day, hospitals are overflowing, and inmates have been recruited to help transport bodies of the dead. Christiane speaks with the city’s mayor about the dire situation.

In his final weeks in office, President Trump is planning significant troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq. Military historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tom Ricks discusses whether or not this is a good idea.

In his new book "One Billion Americans," Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias argues that when it comes to America’s population size, bigger is better. He joins Walter Isaacson to explain this theory.

The new hit Netflix show "The Queen’s Gambit" follows a young woman’s spectacular rise through the male-dominated world of chess. To discuss the series and its impact, Christiane speaks with two of the greatest chess players of all time. Garry Kasparov was a consultant on the show, while Judit Polgar is widely considered the best female player ever.

Why would a crisis make us act oddly, even against our own interests? Dan Ariely is an expert in irrationality, and for him it is personal. An accident left him with terrible burns on much of his body. During his recovery, he began to observe human quirks. As he explains to Hari Sreenivasan, the experience kick-started a lifelong quest to unravel behavioral mysteries.

It’s a tradition nearly every president has followed: writing a personal account of their time in office. Few have been as eagerly anticipated as Barack Obama's memoir, "A Promised Land," which hits the shelves today after a four-year creative process. Valerie Jarrett is a close friend and adviser to Obama. She joins the show to discuss the presidential memoir and our current politics.

As a physician, sociologist, and former hospice doctor, Nicholas A. Christakis is in a unique position to understand COVID-19 and its ripple effects on society. His latest book explores what it means to live amid a plague, and he speaks to Hari Sreenivasan about all this and more – including what he thinks President-elect Biden must do to restore confidence in institutions.

Jon Ossoff is the Democratic Senate candidate in Georgia's runoff election against sitting GOP Senator David Perdue, and if he were to win – along with fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock – in January, it would flip the senate from Republican to Democrat. Ossoff joins the program to discuss the stakes.

Early data announced by Moderna today indicates that its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective--just one week after Pfizer shared the successful early results of its own trials. This news couldn’t come at a more critical time, as infections increase at unprecedented speed. CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen outlines the differences between Moderna and Pfizer's vaccines.

Conspiracy theories and misinformation about coronavirus and the recent election are spreading like wildfire online. These are the sort of phenomena Renée DiResta has been studying for years. She is a disinformation expert and technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and she speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about what can happen when false narratives go viral.

Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who is reviewing President Obama's upcoming memoir for the New York Times, is perhaps best known for her novels "Americanah" and "Half of a Yellow Sun." The latter book was just crowned the "winner of winners" of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She joins the program from Lagos, Nigeria to reflect on Obama, her own literary success, and a year of racial reckoning.

Europe's top heads of state have now congratulated President-elect Biden, hoping to refresh transatlantic alliance ties after four years of tension with the U.S. Stability is of paramount concern for France in particular. Today marks five years since deadly terrorist attacks in Paris with more attacks in recent weeks.All this as the country faces a second wave of COVID-19 and economic devastation.

Secretaries of state around the nation -- Republican and Democrat alike -- say there has been no evidence of meaningful voter fraud. Yet President Trump still has not recognized President-elect Biden's victory. Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who has been a close friend of President-elect Biden for many years, joins the program to discuss.

A world of challenges lie ahead for President-elect Joe Biden's administration--challenges made more difficult as President Trump removes top staffers at the Pentagon. The president has begun the process of stacking the Department of Defense and other government agencies with political allies. Christiane is joined by Ambassador James Jeffrey.

Records numbers of COVID-19 patients are entering hospitals across the country for the second day in a row. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious disease and public health, has been named to President-elect Biden's COVID-19 task force. He speaks with Walter Isaacson about building community trust in vaccines.

As President Trump continues to battle the election results, we turn for insight to his niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist. Her recent bestselling book "Too Much and Never Enough" tells the story of her childhood and how President Trump came to despise the concept of losing.

From Europe to India, world leaders are congratulating President-elect Joe Biden on his victory. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had found common cause with President Trump over Brexit, but now says he is looking forward to working closely with Biden on issues like climate change. To discuss the world's reaction to this unusual election, Christiane speaks with former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

One of the surprises of this election was President Trump’s strong performance with Latinx voters. Initial exit polls show that Trump’s share increased four percentage points since 2016. Journalists Paola and Jorge Ramos know the community well. Paola is the author of "Finding Latinx," and her father Jorge is a renowned news anchor for Univision, America's leading Spanish-language network.

What separates President Trump’s behavior from that of the average autocrat? Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist who has been writing about authoritarianism for decades. Their latest book, "Surviving Autocracy," makes the case that Trump’s presidency has endangered American democracy and the world’s faith in it. Gessen speaks with Michel Martin about all this--and about the road ahead.