Pfizer and BioNTech are today asking the FDA for emergency use authorization for their coronavirus vaccine, with Moderna soon to follow. This week Moderna announced preliminary results showing its vaccine to be nearly 95% effective at preventing COVID-19. To discuss these findings and how the vaccine might be distributed, Walter Isaacson speaks with Moderna co-founder and chairman Noubar Afeyan.

Film director Steve McQueen's new project "Small Axe" is a series of five original feature-length films that offer an intimate and historical perspective on life in London’s Caribbean community. They’re based on true stories, and the entire project is deeply personal to McQueen. He joins the show to discuss why he felt compelled to tell these stories.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is calling for a royal commission in Australia to investigate Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire and its dominance in his home country. He joins Christiane to discuss.

G20 leaders are getting ready for a virtual summit hosted by Saudi Arabia this weekend. In anticipation, human rights organizations are calling for accountability for Jamal Khashoggi. His widow, Hatice Cengiz, famously waited for hours outside the consulate after he entered -- and he never emerged. Now she is calling on world leaders to boycott the Saudi summit, as she explains to Christiane.

Months of protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd undoubtedly put racial justice at the front and center of American politics. Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, tells Michel Martin how BLM mobilized the Black vote in this month’s election and what she believes the slogan “Defund the Police” really means.

The new documentary "The Dissident" traces Jamal Khashoggi’s life and career from insider to outcast -- and the harassment and monitoring of other critics of the Saudi regime. Director Bryan Fogel is well versed in challenging oppressive governments. His last feature "Icarus" exposed the Russian doping scandal and won an Oscar in 2018. He joins the program to reflect on Khashoggi's legacy.

The Trump administration’s strong support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a hallmark of its foreign policy, with a particular point of unity being their common enemy: Iran. There are reports that President Trump has asked for options for an attack against Iran, as he seeks to cement a hardline stance against the Iranian regime.

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.