Why Should I Trust You? – Details, episodes & analysis

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Why Should I Trust You?

Brinda Adhikari, Tom Johnson, Maggie Bartlett, Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

News

Science

Frequency: 1 episode/5d. Total Eps: 121

Why Should I Trust You? is a bold, unfiltered, weekly look at the collapse of public trust in science, medicine, public health, and AI. Every Thursday, we dig into what's behind that breakdown and whether there is common ground beneath our division.

Described as "truly excellent" in The New York Times, WSITY has drawn attention across America's divides, from being mentioned on Joe Rogan's podcast to NPR. We host conversations that cross political and cultural lines, bringing people together with the experts they no longer trust. Hosted by Brinda Adhikari (former EP of The Problem with Jon Stewart), Tom Johnson (former EP of The Circus, former TV news journalist), Dr. Maggie Bartlett (virologist and assistant research professor, University of Texas Medical Branch), and Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (skin cancer surgeon and medical journalist).

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Score global : 83%

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Why Is There So Much Cancer In Iowa? A Conversation w Chris Jones, Democratic Ag Candidate & MAHA Supporter Courtney Hunt

Season 2

Thursday, October 22, 2026 • Duration 56:56

As the midterms approach, a distinctive issue is animating races up and down the ballot in Iowa: rising cancer rates and growing concerns about the safety of the state’s drinking water.

Iowa has one of the highest cancer rates in the nation, and voters are asking hard questions about the state’s water, soil, and agricultural practices. With Election Day almost here, water has emerged as one of the top issues Iowa voters cite in polling.

This week, we’re joined by retired water scientist and Democratic candidate for Iowa agriculture secretary Chris Jones, and Iowa mom and MAHA supporter Courtney Hunt.

We explore whether voters are ready to demand change, and what that could mean for Iowa’s farmers, who are already facing mounting economic pressures.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Guests:

Chris Jones, Democratic candidate for Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa, retired water scientist

Courtney Hunt: social worker; Iowa resident; former Kennedy campaign volunteer; MAHA supporter

Information about our live taping at WashU Bursky School of Public Health, Oct 27th, 5pET.

Live stream link:

https://wustl.zoom.us/j/93933475249?pwd=E9uuw64sJakba6OW3CCCTfPI4ROZ9v.1

More about the event: https://publichealth.washu.edu/event/live-podcast-taping-of-why-should-i-trust-you/

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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Institutions Are Losing the Battle for Attention. Here’s How to Get Back in the Arena: A Conversation w Researcher Renée DiResta

Season 2 · Episode 51

Thursday, October 8, 2026 • Duration 01:05:04

Researcher and author Renée DiResta has spent years studying how influence works online, including the power dynamics that determine which voices get heard and which ones have influence.

In a new report she co-authored, DiResta not only digs into the transformation from old media to new, but also examines how institutions need to rethink their approach to communication. Which brings us to a bigger question: What happens when institutional authority itself is no longer enough to earn people’s attention or trust?

The old system, in which institutions such as universities, government agencies, think tanks, and nonprofits could rely on mainstream media gatekeepers to relay their insights and messages, has been upended. Today, as influence and attention have shifted toward individual creators, online communities, and influencers, those same institutions (along with their expertise) must find ways to enter these new arenas or risk becoming irrelevant.

In this episode, DiResta wrestles with how institutions can make headway and rebuild trust in this new world while staying true to their core missions.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guest:

Renée DiResta is an associate research professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where she studies influence, propaganda, online information systems and institutional resilience. She previously served as research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Her latest work, co-authored for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, examines how institutions must adapt to a radically changed media environment—and rethink how they earn attention, influence and legitimacy.

Link to the report:

https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/08/nonprofit-organizations-how-to-engage-social-media-new-media-strategy

Special Ep: Who Gets to Decide What Science Gets Funded? Inside the Fight Over NIH: A Conversation w Sudip Parikh & Michael Green

Season 2 · Episode 50

Friday, October 2, 2026 • Duration 01:04:42

Today we ask: When it comes to spending taxpayer dollars on scientific research, how much should elected politicians decide what gets funded, and how much should be decided by scientists and those who lead our health agencies?

Where should the line be between supporting the best scientific questions and the ones that our elected leaders think are best?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals. 2001 to 2009, he served as science advisor to the Republican leadership on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he was responsible for negotiating budgets for the NIH and several of the other health agencies.

Michael Green, a population health researcher and a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His work includes examining how people's experiences of unfair treatment in health care affect their health. Michael is one of the researchers who filed a class-action lawsuit this month alleging the NIH is using keyword searches to flag grants for things like DEI and gender, and to cut or force changes to those grants.

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Measles Is Spreading: Beyond the Fighting, What's Helping People On the Ground? We Talk w a Midwife, a Doctor, a Public Health Leader & a Journalist

Season 2 · Episode 49

Thursday, October 1, 2026 • Duration 01:20:36

This year is shaping up to be the worst in three decades for measles cases. The biggest case count is in Pennsylvania, home to the country’s largest outbreak right now. At its center is Lancaster County and its large Amish community.

As you're likely aware, the outbreak has also become a political fight, with Governor Josh Shapiro and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly clashing, even over how many deaths to count.

So what is that fight obscuring about what’s actually happening on the ground? And, widening out, what does this year’s rise in measles across the country portend? And finally, how can public health reach low-vaccination populations and help protect them during outbreaks like these?

Today, we hear from Roberta Devers, a traditional midwife and Kennedy supporter caring for Amish families at the heart of the outbreak who now believes everyone who can should be vaccinated; The Atlantic’s Tom Bartlett, who has been reporting from the Amish community and spoke with a family whose infant died; immunologist Michael Mina, who has worked with vaccine-hesitant families; and Katherine Wells, the Lubbock public health director who led the response to last year’s Texas outbreak.

What can we learn when we get past politics and listen to the people working on the front lines of these outbreaks?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Tom Bartlett, staff writer The Atlantic; has interviewed parents of children who have died from or with measles.

Roberta Devers, home birth midwife, serves Lancaster County Amish families

Katherine Wells, director Lubbock, Texas Health Department

Experts Say AI Could Kill Us. Why Should We Trust Them? A Conversation w Jennifer Reich, Stephen Witt & Rachael Bedard

Season 2 · Episode 48

Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Duration 01:20:01

AI’s story feels like it's gotten a lot scarier. Some people in the tech world building AI now say it poses a meaningful risk of catastrophic harm, or even human extinction. Others insist this kind of “doomerism” is wildly exaggerated—that the warnings amount to crying wolf, and that the real danger is slowing down and ceding our advantage to China.

What we do know is that the claims are enormous, sometimes even hard to fully believe or trust, the stakes range from disruptive to potentially existential, and nobody knows what comes next.

So rather than hearing from the people building the technology or the politicians reacting to the warnings, we gathered voices from the human sciences and professions. We’re joined by Stephen Witt, a journalist who has spent years covering AI; Jennifer Reich, a sociologist who studies how people navigate risk and uncertainty; and Rachael Bedard, a physician and New York Times contributor currently focused on deciphering this AI moment.

In an era of collapsed trust, how do we process what we’re hearing from tech giants, naysayers, and politicians? How do we make decisions when the experts themselves disagree about the risks? How much uncertainty—and risk—are we willing to accept? And ultimately, will America’s mistrust of institutions and big business be our armor, or our undoing?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Stephen Witt, tech journalist, author of The Thinking Machine, recent opinion piece in the NYT titled "This is Really Bad": https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/opinion/ai-safety-threat-technology.html

RFK Jr.’s Former Campaign Adviser Charles Eisenstein: On MAHA & The Kind of Candidates America Needs

Season 2 · Episode 47

Thursday, September 17, 2026 • Duration 01:04:45

Charles Eisenstein was a senior adviser and speechwriter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign and an early architect of the ideas that would help shape MAHA.

In a wide-ranging interview, Eisenstein talks about his heartbreak over how that campaign evolved and, in the wake of Kennedy’s speech at last week’s Republican midterm convention, how he views the possibility of a Kennedy presidential run in 2028. In that speech, the HHS Secretary said the foundational values of the Democratic Party he grew up in had “found a new home” in the Republican Party.

Eisenstein discusses his original vision for Kennedy’s candidacy: leading a movement that would rise above party fights and political divisions. We talk about whether the growing concern over AI could become an issue that finally brings people together across the political divide. What types of candidates does he see succeeding in this moment?

And ultimately, does Eisenstein still recognize the movement he helped imagine?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (seeing patients)

Guest:

Charles Eisenstein, former speechwriter and senior adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr's 2024 Presidential campaign; author, philosopher, strategist. www.charleseisenstein.org

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

What Happens If Your AI Is the Better Doctor? A Conversation w Dr. Robert Wachter & Dr. Dhruv Khullar

Season 2 · Episode 46

Thursday, September 10, 2026 • Duration 01:12:29

A debate has broken out in medicine and tech over what the role of AI should be. Is it a useful tool for doctors to consult when making a diagnosis, or, given studies now showing how powerful AI can be in diagnostics and other areas, should the field actually begin preparing for a not-too-distant future when what’s best for a patient is AI taking the lead in care?

To explore that question, we're joined by two leading voices in the debate: Dr. Robert Wachter, a leading voice on technology and medicine, who has called AI “the biggest experiment in the history of medicine,” and Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a physician and writer who has written extensively about AI and medicine for The New Yorker.

So, what does it mean to be a doctor if AI is doing the heavy lifting? Is that the best scenario, or is a hybrid model, with a doctor consulting an AI, the better path? And how do doctors and patients learn to trust AI with life-and-death decisions in a world where AI agents have already shown they can go rogue?

But beyond the provocative question of what AI will eventually mean for doctors, what about all the ways AI could make medicine better? Could it provide millions of Americans without access to affordable care with an alternative?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a physician and health policy professor at Weill Cornell, and a writer at The New Yorker covering medicine and health care. He directs The Physicians Foundation Center for the Study of Physician Practice and Leadership

Dr. Robert Wachter, physician, professor and chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine. Bob coined the term 'hospitalist' which redefined what it meant to be a doctor. He's the author of 300 articles and six books, including his latest, .

What Is MAHA Right Now -- Is It Working? A Conversation About the Future of MAHA w A Group of Its Supporters

Season 2 · Episode 45

Thursday, September 3, 2026 • Duration 01:15:04

It’s been two years since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Donald Trump and forged an unlikely alliance between the Make America Healthy Again movement and MAGA. Now, as we head toward the midterms, with Kennedy campaigning for Republican candidates, we’re asking: What is MAHA now? Is it working? Is it a political force, a social force, or has it lost its way?

To hear from supporters about where they see the movement heading, we’re joined by Zen Honeycutt, Aaron Everitt, Elizabeth Frost, Jeff Hutt and Mark Harris. Each has been deeply involved in or closely aligned with MAHA, including several who worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign. They represent very different priorities and hold different views of where the movement has gone. Some remain committed; others have grown disillusioned or walked away.

We’re also joined by former Congressman Tim Ryan, a longtime Democrat, who held MAHA-congruent positions on food and agriculture years before MAHA was a slogan on a hat. Where does he see the movement going from here?

And then there’s the bigger question: If roughly four in ten Americans support many of the aspirations behind MAHA, what does that foreshadow for the future of our politics?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guests:

Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America

Jeff Hutt, former National Field Director, Kennedy Campaign

Aaron Everitt, former Kennedy Campaign volunteer

Elizabeth Frost, MAHA Ohio

Mark Harris, former Kennedy campaign supporter

former Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH)

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Why Should I Trust You? – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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Why Should I Trust You? – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other96

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

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Other96

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