Episodes

Our guest this week is Heather McGhee. Heather is the Chair of the Board of Directors for Color of Change, America’s largest racial justice organization. She’s also the author of the new book “The Sum of Us,” now available in bookstores across the country. ABOUT THE SUM OF US One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of c...

After producing The Hangover and its sequels, Scott Budnick took the incredibly rare step of leaving Hollywood to work full-time on sentencing reform and keeping young people out of jail. Through his work with the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, he was instrumental in passing sentencing reform and other key social justice measures in California. He's continuing in this work and is now pack in Hollywood with One Community, a production company making socially-minded entertainment.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been stripped of her committee assignments in Congress, but California Congressman Jimmy Gomez doesn't think that's enough. In this week's episode, he joins Alyssa Milano to discuss why he wants to expel the QAnon-supporting, gun-toting, victim-blaming conspiracy theorist from the halls of American government.

Our guest this week is Desmond Meade. When Desmond was sentenced on felony charges, he lost his right to vote. After completing his sentence, on the other side of addiction and the recipient of a law degree, Desmond was the driving force behind Amendment 4, a constitutional amendment which restored voting rights to those in Florida who served their sentences and were back in society. He joined Alyssa Milano to discuss his successes and the current state of voter reinfranchisement in Florida.

Our guest is Laura Packard. Laura is a Stage 4 cancer survivor, a national co-chair of Health Care Voter, and an advocate for effective and affordable health care for everyone. In 2017, just as the Congress was trying to end the Affordable Care Act, Laura was diagnosed with cancer. Like millions of Americans, losing access to affordable healthcare would have been a death sentence, and it inspired a life of activism for Laura.

Our guest this week is Marc Elias. Marc is an election law attorney who has been at the forefront of protecting voting rights and stopping political interference in elections. Marc is also the founder of Democracy Docket, a website and newsletter that highlights voter suppression efforts and his actions to stop them from taking effect.

In the week before this episode airs, the sickness and violence in our country again came into harsh focus. An insurrection, spurred by the delusional, hateful, and outgoing President of the United States resulted in five deaths and the desecration of the seat of our government. This episode has healing. This episode has magic. This episode has Kwame Alexander. Kwame Alexander is the New York Times Bestselling author of 32 books, including THE UNDEFEATED, HOW TO READ A BOOK, THE WRITE THING, S...

On January 3rd, 2020, the Washington Post broke news of a truly shocking phone call between Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Since then, multiple media outlets have obtained the full recording of that call. We're providing it here, unedited and in its entirety, and reminding you that on January 5th Georgia has a special election. Republicans in the Senate are trying to overturn the will of Georgia voters, and the will of the American voters. Keep that in mind as y...

Our guest this week is D.W. Gibson. D.W. is an awarding-winning writer who shared a National Magazine Award for his work on “This is the Story of One Block in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn” for New York magazine. His work has also appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Nation. He joins us to discuss his new book 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall.

2020 was one hell of a year. On January 1st, none of us could have imagined that a pandemic would completely change the way we interacted with one another and that our government would be so very bad at managing it. We experienced a popular uprising for justice, an economic collapse, and, of course, a presidential election. Along the way we had so many important conversations about so many critical issues. This week, we’re taking a look back at just a few of my favorite moments from Sorry Not So...

Mark Shanahan is a writer and reporter for the Boston Globe. He’s also a prostate cancer survivor who developed the podcast Mr. 80 percent for the globe detailing his experience with prostate cancer. After his diagnosis and during treatment, Mark had to re-examine and rebuild relationships and consider what it means to be a man if your sexual function is at risk. Be forewarned, this episode has very frank discussions about sex and anatomy, so if you haven’t had the birds and bees chat with your ...

Sex is the elephant in the room that most people can’t stop thinking about but also which most of us have no good language to discuss. We hide it, or we flaunt it, and far too many learn from porn, which is so rarely a good teacher about good sex. We owe it to ourselves to be better. We deserve the ability to talk about sex without hiding from it, to have clear and honest discussions of what we want—assuming those conversations are with partners who also want to have these discussions and not j...

Our guest this week is Jill Twiss. Jill is a former writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, where she won Emmy and Peabody awards and wrote “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.” She’s the author of the new children’s book about voting called “Everyone Gets a Say.” About Everyone Gets a Say: Don't miss this picture book about voting from the #1 New York Times bestselling team behind Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo and The Someone New. Pudding...

As the Trump presidency winds to its chaotic end, we examine Trump's approach to the world stage with our guest Jim Sciutto. Jim is an Emmy-award wining journalist, Senior National Security Correspondent for CNN, a former diplomatic Chief of Staff during the Obama Administration, and the author of the new book The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World.

It’s Thanksgiving week, and we have an episode for you that will change the way you see the holiday. Our guest today is Denise Kiernan. Denise is an author, journalist and producer. Her books, The Last Castle, and The Girls of Atomic City were national bestsellers. She joins us to discuss her new book We Gather Together: A Nation Divided, A President in Turmoil, and a Historic Campaign to Embrace Gratitude and Grace.

Our guest this week is Samantha Busch. Samantha is a lifestyle blogger, writer, business owner, and infertility activist. Her husband, Kyle Busch, is a two-time NASCAR cup champion. The pair founded the Bundle of Joy Fund to help couples struggling with infertility to afford their treatments.

So the 2020 election is in the history books. On Thursday, November 5th – two days after the polls closed – we hosted the first ever live episode of Sorry Not Sorry to put it in perspective. Our guests had such great information, and so many smart things to say that I know you’ll forgive the slightly less than perfect audio that comes from a live streamed event. At the time, it was clear that Biden has a significant popular vote margin, and was then about four million votes ahead of Donald Trum...

Angela Glover Blackwell is an attorney and founder in residence of PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity by lifting up what works. Her work changes lives and changes hearts, and our conversation was so enlightening. Please listen to her words, take them in, and channel them into action.

Santiago Mayer, Randi Garcia, Jerome Foster, Sophia Shapiro, and Matthew Weinstein are young voters and activists attending colleges across America. They—and their generation—lost so much this year when COVID struck and schools closed. Graduations, summer vacations, and other important rites of passage, like their Proms. And so, they came together to form Prom at the Polls—an incredible initiative designed to bring young voters to the polls in massive numbers. They inspire us, and we're sure the...

This episode features two amazing women doing hugely important things for our democracy. Our first guest is Amanda Litman. Amanda is the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, an organization supporting young candidates running in state and local elections. Later in the program, we hear from Kat Calvin, founder and executive director of Spread the Vote, a non-profit dedicated to clearing obstacles that keep poor people from getting the IDs needed to vote. Have you made your vot...

Elizabeth Lesser is a bestselling author and the cofounder of Omega Institute, the renowned conference and retreat center located in Rhinebeck, New York. Elizabeth’s first book, The Seeker’s Guide, chronicles her years at Omega and distills lessons learned into a potent guide for growth and healing. Her New York Times bestselling book, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, has sold almost 500,000 copies and has been translated into 20 languages. Her newest book Cassandra Speaks: Whe...

Julian Castro has been many things: Mayor of San Antonio, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama Administration, Author of An Unlikely Journey: Waking Up from My American Dream, 2018 presidential candidate, and now is hosting the new podcast "Our America." He’s a brilliant advocate for making sure everyone who is searching can find the American Dream

Our guest this week is Ebony Underwood. Ebony is a Soros Justice Fellow and the daughter of William Underwood, who has served decades of a cruel and unnecessarily harsh mandatory life sentence without parole. As the founder and CEO of We Got Us Now, Ebony is an advocate for children impacted by parental incarceration and keeping families connected and doing incredible and important work.

In the new book Shattering Glass: A Nasty Woman Anthology, Kelli Stanley of Nasty Woman Press brought together essays from so many remarkable women, and she’s brought two of them here with her today. From 1993-2017, Barbara Boxer represented California in the United States Senate, where she was a hero for women’s rights. Valerie Plame served as an undercover agent in the CIA protecting our national interests until she was outed by senior members of the Bush Administration. All three of these rem...