The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman
by VTDigger
The Vermont Conversation is a VTDigger podcast hosted by award-winning journalist David Goodman. It features in-depth interviews about local and national topics with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and ordinary citizens. The Vermont Conversation is also an hour-long weekly radio program that can be heard on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. on WDEV/Radio Vermont.
Episodes
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‘An incredible repudiation of Trump.’ Sen. Peter Welch on the 2026 Democratic tsunami.
Landslide. Tsunami. Earthquake. Bloodbath. Wipeout. Massacre. That is how mainstream news accounts are characterizing the results of this year’s midterm election, as Democrats led a historic rout of Republicans. Democrats are poised to retake control of both the U.S. Senate and House. The…
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Bill McKibben sees a nation at a crossroads as he barnstorms battleground states
Bill McKibben says that “elections should not be this important.” They should not “be the deciding factor between continued stability and whatever kind of creeping fascism we’re playing with,” he writes. “And they certainly shouldn’t be determining questions of planetary survival. But they are.”...
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‘We can’t solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.’ Amanda Janoo would ‘lead a different way.’
Who is Amanda Janoo? And how is this political novice polling closely with Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, now running for his sixth term? “The conventional political wisdom would say I shouldn’t have a chance,” Janoo told me. “But I don’t think that these are conventional times.” With two weeks to go...
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Stealing Elections, American Style: Voting rights attorney David Walbert on how the 2026 election could be hijacked — and saved
Election deniers, egged on by President Donald Trump, are now running elections in numerous locales across the country. The playbook for stealing elections has remained the same for over a century: “control who votes, control how votes are counted, and control who decides when the counting…
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Forester, influencer and author Ethan Tapper on why ‘it's our responsibility to carry hope for each other’
Ethan Tapper is a forester, philosopher, bestselling author and social media star. The chainsaw-toting, ATV-driving Vermonter has an audience of some 400,000 followers for his folksy and instructive videos on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. His previous book, “How to Love a Forest: The...
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‘Gradually, then suddenly.’ Bestselling author Richard North Patterson on how American democracy was undermined.
“Gradually, then suddenly, America reached the precipice of authoritarianism.” That’s how author Richard North Patterson begins his exploration into key turning points in the last quarter century that have altered the course of American history. He breaks it down in his new book, “Tripwires: 15...
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‘There was some justice.’ Hisham Awartani on enduring and speaking out for Palestinian lives.
Hisham Awartani thought he was going to die. That’s what he told a police dispatcher in desperation as he lay on the ground after being shot by Jason Eaton in November 2023. Awartani and two friends, all of whom are of Palestinian descent, were walking down North Prospect Street in Burlington…
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Filmmaker Bess O’Brien on connection, resilience and joy after tragedy
Bess O’Brien is best known for making award-winning documentary films that take deep dives into difficult issues like addiction, hunger and homelessness. With her latest film, she is taking a different approach: She is inviting audiences on a feel-good journey about resilience and joy. “Every…
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‘We are the patriots fighting for democracy.’ AG Charity Clark on suing Trump and winning $92.7M from Meta
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark has had a busy summer. Since late June, she has sued the Trump administration an average of twice per week. That brings to 67 the number of lawsuits — as of midday Wednesday — she has filed or joined against President Donald Trump since January 2025. They...
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Historian Jill Lepore on the threat of authoritarianism and how to counter it
Is technology killing democracy and destroying communities? Yes, argues acclaimed historian Jill Lepore in her new book, “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.” She writes that the artificial state is “the rule of humans by machines manufactured by corporations.” It is the fantasy of tech...
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Alternative media pioneer Nat Winthrop on a half-century of covering Vermont
Journalist Nat Winthrop has been covering Vermont for a half-century, reporting stories that have surprised, infuriated and enlightened readers. From 1978 to 1990, Winthrop was publisher of the pioneering alternative weekly the Vanguard Press, and later the Vermont Times. These publications were...
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Grace Potter on how she achieved musical stardom by trespassing
Vermont-born rock star Grace Potter releases her seventh studio album on Aug. 21. “Trespasser” is the latest offering from the four-time Grammy nominee. Potter burst onto the music scene in 2002 with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Since that group disbanded in 2015, Potter has gone on to tour...
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‘What can I do?’ Ami Fields-Meyer on what global dissidents can teach Americans
As President Donald Trump intensifies his campaign of retribution against his political opponents and unleashes masked federal agents on immigrant communities, many American citizens are asking: What can I do? For answers, we can look to dissidents who have stood up to authoritarianism....
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‘You have a choice on how you respond.’ Kelly Brush on thriving after a life-altering accident
Few people have turned adversity into opportunity as dramatically as Kelly Brush. Brush was on the Middlebury College ski team when she was paralyzed in a ski racing accident in 2006. Twenty years later, Brush is a leader of a national movement to empower people with spinal cord injuries. “I'm so...
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Author Chris Bohjalian on writing, activism and challenging the language of genocide
A teen golf prodigy launches a powerful drive that kills a golf caddy at a tony New York country club. Investigations and hidden scandals soon follow. So begins best-selling Vermont author Chris Bohjalian’s spellbinding new book, “The Amateur.” His 26th novel is classic Bohjalian: a riveting tale...
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‘I’m sorry that this isn’t what we promised.’ Immigration attorney Jill Martin Diaz on fear and hope in Vermont’s immigrant community
President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is intensifying. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained over 10,000 people just in the last week of June. This month, ICE agents killed two men in less than a week, including a young Columbian father in Maine who reportedly had legal...
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Some joy, some tragedy. 2 Vermont authors on the struggles of rural living
Summer reading is often about traveling to far-away places and meeting fascinating people. But for two Vermont authors, the exotic destination for their new books is their home state. Hardwick author Brett Ann Stanciu’s latest book is “Call It Madness.” It features a young protagonist, Avah…
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‘How the Democrats Screwed Bernie.’ Former Sanders chief campaign strategist Tad Devine on the 2016 presidential race
In 2016, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was an insurgent candidate taking on Hillary Clinton, the heavily favored pick of the Democratic establishment for the presidential primary. As Sanders barnstormed the country and brought out millions of people to hear his message, the Clinton machine’s...
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‘Strive for that more perfect union.’ Rep. Becca Balint on resurgent white nationalism, war in Iran and her mixed feelings about America’s 250th
The Supreme Court ended its term with a series of blockbuster decisions on birthright citizenship, immigration, transgender rights and campaign finance. I spoke with U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., who is the vice ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. “It's shocking to me that we ever…
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Cartoonist Tillie Walden celebrates early American queer love in Vermont in new book
In the early 1800s, Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake spent 44 years as life partners living together in the small Vermont town of Weybridge. They are one of the earliest lesbian couples in America whose story is documented, thanks in part to a new graphic novel by Tillie Walden. Walden is a rising...
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‘Going to where the silence is.’ Journalist Amy Goodman on 30 years of speaking truth to power
For 30 years, journalist Amy Goodman has been “going to where the silence is” to report stories that the powerful would rather you not know about and the corporate media have often ignored. She has stared down armed soldiers in Nigeria, survived a massacre in East Timor, documented dogs attacking...
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Are smartphones birth control? Economist Caitlin Myers on sex, abortion access and talking across divides
The birth rate in the U.S. has dropped by an astonishing 22% since 2007. Are smartphones to blame? Yes, according to a groundbreaking new study by Middlebury economist Caitlin Myers. Her smartphone study is garnering national attention this week, confirming an idea that people have long…
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Celebrating and defending protest, America’s founding principle
As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, two veteran activists are celebrating one of the country’s foundational principles: the right to protest, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence. But they warn that this right is under attack. “Our ability to protest is key to moving forward...
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‘Action is the antidote to despair.’ Ben Cohen fights to save the soul of Ben & Jerry’s.
When Ben & Jerry’s ice cream held its annual Free Cone Day in April, it had to contend with an unlikely protester: Ben Cohen, the company’s co-founder, was standing on the site of the original scoop shop in Burlington, urging customers to Free Ben & Jerry’s. “Ben & Jerry's itself has not given up...
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Journalist Jasper Craven on the toxic mix of militarism and masculinity
Vermont journalist Jasper Craven has spent a decade investigating and exposing the culture of toxic masculinity that pervades the American military. In 2018, he wrote a multipart exposé for VTDigger about sexual misconduct and abuse in the Vermont Air National Guard that resulted in hearings at…
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Going fast and breaking barriers
The documentary "Best Day Ever" features the world's first adaptive mountain bike trail network and the athletes who are changing lives. In 2022, Allie Bianchi, a 23-year-old outdoor enthusiast and special educator from Richmond, broke her neck while mountain biking. She is now paralyzed below…
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Shepherd, farmer and award-winning author Helen Whybrow on life, death and belonging
When Helen Whybrow isn’t herding her flock of Icelandic sheep or in the paddock with a ewe that’s giving birth to lambs, she can be found writing. This week, this shepherd was awarded Vermont’s highest literary prize. Whybrow received the 2025 Vermont Book Award for creative nonfiction for her...
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What happens when law enforcement is lawless?
When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents launched an immigration raid in South Burlington on March 11, they ran into a wall of resistance. Neighbors linked arms in an attempt to stop the masked agents from entering a house in their effort to arrest and deport a Mexican-born man....
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Who made the president a king?
Millions of Americans have attended “No Kings” protests, voicing outrage that President Donald Trump has turned the presidency into an imperial platform from which to launch wars of choice, levy illegal tariffs, and unleash armed agents against his political adversaries. Isn’t the American system...
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‘I am not afraid’: One year after arrest, Mohsen Mahdawi refuses to be silent
Mohsen Mahdawi has come a long way since being released from a Vermont jail in April 2025. Mahdawi is a Palestinian student at Columbia University and a green card holder who lives in Vermont. He co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Union and was president of the Columbia University Buddhist...
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Who killed abortion rights?
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision in 2022, it was the culmination of a successful half-century movement to ban abortion. Despite the fact that 60 percent of Americans support abortion in all or most cases, it is now difficult to nearly impossible to get an...
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"There are more of us than there are of them" — Vermonters speak out against Trump and in defense of democracy
Thousands of Vermonters from nearly every county took to the streets to voice their outrage at the Trump administration on Saturday, March 28, in the third No Kings protest. About 50 rallies were held around the state. Nationally, 8 million to 9 million people turned out to over 3,000...
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Freed for now from ICE detention, Minister Steven Tendo on being a beacon of hope
In February, I was surprised to receive a phone call from jail. It was Steven Tendo calling from the Strafford County jail in Dover, New Hampshire, where he was being held after being violently arrested by ICE agents on Feb. 4 at the Vermont assisted living facility where he works. Tendo was...
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How a melting Greenland went from universal wonder to imperial prize
When President Trump threatened to annex Greenland earlier this year, the vast Arctic island with a population slightly larger than Burlington was dragged from the periphery of world affairs to the center. The threat that the U.S. might forcibly take Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of...
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Bill McKibben on fighting climate denialism with democratic power
As the world contends with increasingly destructive and costly climate-fueled disasters, the Trump administration has announced that it is eliminating the government’s ability to fight climate change. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is erasing the scientific finding, known as the...
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How Ben Ogden became the best men’s cross-country skier in US Olympic history
When cross country skier Ben Ogden won a silver medal in the classic sprint at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, he broke a 50-year medal drought for American men. The last American man to medal in cross country skiing was Bill Koch, Ogden’s Vermont neighbor and skiing mentor. Ogden, who began...
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Vermont Rep. Becca Balint on ICE, Epstein and presidential fealty
When Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., traveled to Minneapolis on a Congressional oversight mission several weeks ago, she saw a city under siege. Some 3,000 masked federal agents dispatched by President Donald Trump were roaming the city, snatching people from their homes and streets, often without...
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How Sen. Bernie Sanders went from perennial trifle to progressive trailblazer
Young Bernie Sanders arrived in Vermont in 1964 as part of a counter-cultural wave. The tall Jewish kid with the thick Brooklyn accent who spoke of socialism and revolution fit right in with the communards and hippies, though he was neither. Sanders was then, as now, his own man, raging against…
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Vermont clergy see Minnesota as 'testing ground' for Trump's immigration crackdown
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota has sparked furious backlash. Protests have been held around the country following the killing by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott characterized the immigration raids as “a deliberate federal...
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House Speaker Jill Krowinski on the state budget and federal immigration crackdown
Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, was elected Speaker of the House in 2021. It was the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and state coffers were unexpectedly flush with federal relief money. But just as that federal pot of dollars has since dried up, property taxes have risen and voters took out their...
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Cartoonist Alison Bechdel on cultivating a 'little oasis of queer freedom'
“Who can draw when the world is burning?” asks celebrated Vermont cartoonist Alison Bechdel in her new graphic novel, Spent. This tension between the political and personal has been a deep well for Bechdel in her art. Bechdel has been cartoonist laureate of Vermont, as well as a recipient of a...
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'An act of war' — Sen. Peter Welch on Trump's Venezuela and Capitol insurrection
President Donald Trump marked the new year by launching a military assault on Venezuela and abducting President Nicolas Maduro. Some 75 people in Venezuela were killed in the Saturday attack and 7 U.S service members were injured, according to the Washington Post. Many Democrats and some...
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Vermont Conversation: Yankee editor Mel Allen on a half century of New England storytelling
For 90 years, Yankee Magazine has been telling stories of and about New England. And for more than half of the magazine’s life, Mel Allen has been Yankee’s foremost storyteller. Allen wrote his first stories for Yankee in 1977, then held various editorial roles before becoming Yankee’s fifth…
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A former EPA official on how the plastics industry sabotages real recycling
“Plastic is everywhere — wrapped around our food, stitched into our clothes, even coursing through our veins.” That’s how Judith Enck begins her new book, "The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and our Planet Before It’s Too Late," co-authored with Adam Mohoney. A former regional...
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A Vermont Jewish student banished from Israel speaks out
Leila Stillman-Utterback graduated from Middlebury Union High School in June and decided to take a gap year to pursue a dream. The 18-year-old Vermonter traveled to Israel to participate in a solidarity program that included volunteering with Rabbis for Human Rights in the Israeli-occupied West...
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VTDigger Editor-in-Chief Geeta Anand on rebuilding trust through local news
Every week, two local newspapers close somewhere in the country. Some 50 million Americans have limited to no access to local news. That may increase with loss of public media funding. What is the future of journalism in an age where truth itself is under attack? Local news is essential because...
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'We don’t have a safety net': A Vermont family confronts a future without health insurance
The health care apocalypse has arrived. In the past month, many of the 30,000 Vermonters who get their health insurance through Vermont Health Connect — part of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as it's popularly known — are experiencing sticker shock. Average health insurance premiums on...
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Maria Stephan on the 3.5% Rule and how nonviolent protest can stop authoritarianism
The No Kings protests in October, which drew over seven million people across the country, were hailed as the largest demonstrations in American history. Now the question for many people is: What works to stop authoritarianism? Maria Stephan has been studying this question. Her award-winning…
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Pianist Adam Tendler transforms his father’s death into 'little masterpieces'
On New Year’s Day 2020, Adam Tendler unexpectedly received his father’s final gift: a wad of cash stuffed into a manila envelope handed over in the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant in West Lebanon, NH. The strangely furtive exchange launched a musical journey. Tendler, a renowned concert…
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Rep. Jamie Raskin on 'the fight of our lives' under President Donald Trump
In 2016, Jamie Raskin was elected to Congress from Maryland just as Donald Trump was first elected president. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, and Trump, a real estate developer who flouts rules and shatters norms, have been locked in a struggle ever since. When Congress impeached...
About this show
The Vermont Conversation is a VTDigger podcast hosted by award-winning journalist David Goodman. It features in-depth interviews about local and national topics with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and ordinary citizens. The Vermont Conversation is also an hour-long weekly radio program that can be heard on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. on WDEV/Radio Vermont.
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