Fresh Air
Hosted by NPR
About this Show
Fresh Air from WHYY, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Hosted by Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, the show features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries. Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including weekly bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews from Fresh Air.And subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Fresh Air Weekly, to get interview highlights, staff recommendations, gems from the archive, and the week's interviews and reviews all in one place. Sign up at www.whyy.org/freshair
Latest Episodes
Best Of: Meshell Ndegeocello / Betty Gilpin
Singer, songwriter, and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello helped define the sound of neo-soul, blending funk, jazz, and R&B into music that was unmistakably her own. Now, on her new album, Synonym, she's taking familiar duets and turning them into something unexpected. In the hit horror/comedy series ...
Platinum songwriter Jimmy Webb
Hall of Fame songwriter Jimmy Webb talks about writing some of the 1960s songs he’s best known for: “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” and “MacArthur Park.” Now 80, he’s got a new album of unreleased songs titled Yours for the Taking. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2004. Also, Justi...
Betty Gilpin is seeking anti-algorithm, weird roles – and it's working
"There's an understandable pull in my industry to make things that are kind of like a gleaming vanilla car commercial, like super safe, super familiar, appeal to the masses. And [then there are] people that are out there who are like, I'm actually going to go the other way,” she tells Fresh Air’s...
Election experts share concerns about the midterms
Ahead of the midterms, we talk with two election experts about President Trump’s efforts to interfere with voting. Richard Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, and Pennsylvania’s lead election official, Al Schmidt. Both are hoping the states, the courts and the public will ensur...
David Treuer traces America's relationship with violence back to the frontier
Ojibwe writer David Treuer’s new book, The Savage Mind: An American Legacy, is written as a letter to his three children. It examines how the violence that shaped America's founding still influences who we are today. Treuer has spent much of his career challenging the idea that Native American hi...
Meshell Ndegeocello turns familiar songs inside out
Grammy-winning singer, bassist, and composer Meshell Ndegeocello helped shape the sound that became known as "neo-soul," but she's spent more than three decades resisting the labels placed on her and her music. Now, on her new album, Synonym, she's reimagining familiar songs, including duets made...
Best Of: Mahershala Ali / Writer Yiyun Li
In his new film, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali plays a devout Muslim father and hit man whose life is upended when he suddenly has to care for his children on his own. The role brings together a lot of what has shaped Ali as an actor, including an attract...
Remembering Eva Marie Saint / 'Interview with the Vampire' turns 50
The actor Eva Marie Saint died last week at age 102. She won an academy award for her first film role in On the Waterfront opposite Marlon Brando, and in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest she co-starred with Cary Grant. She said Hitchcock didn't give her much direction. “Things like lower you...
Inside the Musk/Bezos space race
Atlantic staff writer Josh Tyrangiel says Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos each want to colonize the moon, mine its resources and launch thousands more satellites -- but their only real competition is each other. “Ordinarily, we have entrusted the future of our civilizations to people we elect to office,...
Why the Arctic is a new source of global tension
As polar ice melts in the Arctic, shipping lanes are opening up, making the region a new zone of super-power competition. Writer Rana Foroohar spoke with Dave Davies about the stakes. Her book is in Sea Change.Also, Maureen Corrigan reviews the new graphic book The Saddest Kitchens, by New Yorker...
After losing her sons, Yiyun Li learned to ‘suffer better’
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.Li’s teenage sons both died by suicide six years apart, Vincent in 2017 at age 16, and James in 2024 at age 19. Her Pulitzer-Prize winning 2025 memoir, Things in Nature M...
Mahershala Ali
In his new action thriller, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, Mahershala Ali plays a devout Muslim father and hit man whose life is upended when he suddenly has to care for his children on his own. The role brings together a lot of what has shaped Ali as an actor, including an attraction to ch...
A John Prine Appreciation
Prine, who died in 2020, would’ve turned 80 this weekend. A five-day event in and around his native Chicago is underway, including a tribute concert. The beloved folk singer-songwriter spoke with Terry Gross in 2018 about how throat and neck surgery affected his voice, getting discovered by Roger...
Veteran White House reporter April Ryan’s ‘Blacklash’
Ryan has spent decades pressing presidents for answers. She talks about access, power, race and how asking questions put her in President Trump's crosshairs. She spoke with Tonya Mosley about her book, Notes on a Blacklash. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new CBS legal drama set in Si...
How Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth brought the culture wars to the military
New York Times military and Pentagon reporter Greg Jaffe says Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has disproportionately blocked promotions of Black and women senior officers, and he’s also been purging the military of transgender people. “Usually Secretaries of Defense do everything they can to pr...