VTDigger
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Vermont questions with national consequences.
The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman treats Vermont as a place where national and global conflicts become personal. Its interviews move patiently through immigration cases, abortion access, protest movements, Arctic climate politics, Olympic achievement, and federal power.
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The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman works from a simple editorial instinct: large public crises are clearest when someone is allowed to tell the whole story. The show is measured, grave, and interview-centered. It favors direct questions, careful context, and long answers over rapid argument. Vermont is never just a backdrop. It is the place where immigration enforcement, protest, climate politics, abortion access, and national power become immediate. Recent episodes follow Mohsen Madawi after his arrest in Vermont and the pending legal fight over his deportation. They give Stephen Tendo space to describe asylum, detention, and the violence that drove him from Uganda. They bring Amy Littlefield’s reporting on abortion rights into a conversation about class, law, religious power, and preventable deaths. The show also leaves the studio for public dissent, capturing Vermonters at No Kings protests and treating signs, uniforms, and personal testimony as civic evidence. Its climate coverage is broad but grounded. Greenland is discussed as an Arctic place, a geopolitical flashpoint, and a warning about conservation. Bill McKibben’s arguments about climate denialism are linked to nonviolent democratic power. The range is wider than politics alone. Ben Ogden’s Olympic cross-country skiing medals become a Vermont story about mentorship, family, pressure, and place. Representative Becca Ballant’s appearance turns congressional oversight into a question about ICE, Epstein files, survivors, and presidential loyalty. Across these conversations, the show keeps returning to rights, state power, moral courage, and the people forced to bear the consequences of policy. It is not detached. It is also not sensational. Its strength is the willingness to slow down, define the stakes, and let difficult experiences remain difficult. The best episodes feel like public memory being assembled in real time.
Made for: For listeners who want sober public-affairs interviews with legal, political, historical, and moral context. It especially suits people who follow democracy, climate politics, immigration, and Vermont’s place in national debates.
What sets it apart: The show connects large national and international conflicts to Vermont people, places, and institutions without shrinking their complexity. Its interviews give guests room to build full arguments while keeping the human stakes close.
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.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
David Goodman makes national political conflicts concrete through patient interviews rooted in Vermont cases, institutions, and lives.
David Goodman starts with the stakes, then lets interviews carry the reporting. The Vermont Conversation connects local lives and institutions to national questions about immigration, free speech, abortion rights, authoritarianism, and foreign policy.
Green cards and ceasefires lead to the people living under them, so you get consequences, not slogans.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A measured arrest and free speech conversation with real political weight and a steady moral center.
Mohsin Madawi's one-year mark in Vermont frames a conversation about an arrest, free speech, and the line between advocacy and prosecution. David Goodman lets him walk through the sequence in order: Columbia, the arrest, the release order, the appeal, and the still unsettled…
A plainspoken account of how abortion rights were rolled back, step by step.
This Vermont Conversation treats abortion rights as the outcome of a half century campaign, and Amy Littlefield's "Killers of Roe" follows that line from the Hyde Amendment to today's patchwork of bans.
A Vermont arrest, a Columbia graduation, and a searching talk about peace and suffering.
This episode turns Mohsen Madawi's Vermont legal fight and Columbia graduation into a serious discussion of Palestine, Israel, and what peace would have to confront.
A serious look at detention, lawful permanent residence, and the lawyers pushing for real representation.
David Goodman opens with a sober look at immigration detention and widens it into a plain warning about liberty and democracy. Vermont lawyers explain how people can be held, moved across state lines, and left with little real access to counsel.
A grave public-affairs conversation on authoritarian drift, crisis leadership, and Vermont's COVID memory.
The segment reads as a serious public-affairs conversation about authoritarian drift, due process, and the sense that power is moving ahead of the law.
Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson debate Canadian politics, from Alberta separatism to Ottawa's bureaucracy.
Robert Evans, Katie Stoll, and Cody Johnston build fake conspiracies and mock right-wing media.
Jonah Goldberg's literate, dry-witted arguments about politics and ideas.
On The Vermont Conversation, Bill McKibben describes a battleground-state tour where voters raised high prices, gas costs, and anxiety about Donald Trump.
Amanda Janoo says Vermont should judge economic success by whether people can afford healthcare, housing, and food—not by GDP growth or stock prices.
On The Vermont Conversation, voting-rights lawyer David Walbert warns that election disputes could shape who takes office in Congress on January 3, 2027.
David Goodman marks the one-year anniversary of Mohsen Madawi’s arrest in Vermont.
David Goodman opens by pressing on the stakes.
This episode covers the No Kings protest in Vermont, where thousands gathered to oppose the Trump administration and defend democracy, featuring interviews with participants like Guy Rock.
This episode features an interview with Stephen Tendo, a Ugandan asylum seeker and health care worker who shares his harrowing story of persecution, torture, and detention by ICE, highlighting his resilience and advocacy for community acceptance.
This episode explores how Greenland's melting ice has transformed it from a natural wonder into a geopolitical flashpoint, featuring interviews with a journalist and an artist who have firsthand experience in the region.
Bill McKibben discusses the importance of democratic power and nonviolent protest in fighting climate denialism, drawing parallels to historical movements and criticizing the Trump administration's rollback of climate protections.
Interview with Olympic medalist Ben Ogden about his historic cross-country skiing achievements and personal journey.
Host David Goodman interviews Representative Becca Ballant about her preparation to question Attorney General Pam Bondi and her concerns about a two-tiered justice system.
An interview with author Dan Chason about his book on Bernie Sanders' early political career in Burlington, Vermont.
Vermont clergy discuss their witness trip to Minneapolis amid protests against ICE raids and federal violence.
Speaker Jill Krawinski discusses leading the Vermont House during COVID-19 and the challenges of rising property taxes and political fractures.
This episode discusses the impending health insurance crisis in Vermont, where premiums are set to double due to the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies, leaving many families without coverage.
David Goodman sets the conversation against a fragile ceasefire in Israel's two-year-long war in Gaza and the images of reunion and devastation that hang over it.
An interview with extremism expert Cynthia Miller Idris about the link between misogyny and political violence.
Interview with former Vermont Chief Justice Jeffrey Amestoy about his new true crime legal thriller set in the 1920s.
David Goodman opens a conversation about the immigration crackdown and the Vermont lawyers pushing back.
Vermont Senator Peter Welch discusses the economic impact of Trump's tariffs and budget bill on Vermont families.
Wilmer Chavarria, a Vermont school superintendent and U.S.
An interview with author Graff about the oral history of the making of nuclear weapons and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This episode discusses the challenges to reproductive rights in Vermont despite constitutional protections, focusing on Planned Parenthood's clinic closures and federal defunding threats under the Trump administration.
David Goodman interviews a guest about the history and impact of Vermont's civil unions law, sparked by the Baker v.
David Goodman interviews reporter Ellie Reeve about her experiences covering far-right extremists and the rise of the alt-right from internet forums to violent attacks.
Host David Goodman interviews filmmaker Eugene Jarecki about his documentary on Julian Assange and the fight for government transparency.
David Goodman interviews the owners of Jasper Hill Farm about the impact of Canadian boycotts and Vermont's housing crisis on their business.
An interview with flutist Karen Kevra about her journey back to music and the 25th anniversary of Capital City Concerts.
This episode discusses the case of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian activist and Columbia University student who was arrested by immigration enforcement in Vermont during what he thought was a citizenship interview, highlighting his background and human rights advocacy.
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark discusses her lawsuits against the Trump administration and the importance of defending democracy.
Host David Goodman interviews Representative Bill Lippert about the 25th anniversary of Vermont's historic Civil Unions Bill.
Host David Goodman interviews Jeff Sharlet about his work covering militant right-wing movements and Christian nationalism.
An interview discussing the arrest of a Palestinian student activist during his naturalization interview in Vermont, highlighting immigration enforcement and due process concerns.
David Goodman opens with a blunt warning about presidential power and due process.
Interview with retiring Vermont health commissioner Dr.