What You Said About …

THE STATE OF THE GOP

Readers praised Peter Wehner’s March 21 analysis of the Republican Party’s path from Reagan to Trump, with George Benninger of Hardwick, N.J., calling it “wonderful and well written.” But some objected to the portrait of Reagan–” ‘Intellectual depth?’ [He] was hardly known for that,” wrote Michael Ludwig of Media, Pa.–and other aspects of his tenure, like what Jack Kinstlinger of Towson, Md., called a “studied avoidance of the AIDS epidemic.” “Trump is not the problem with the GOP,” wrote Walter Easton of Honey Brook, Pa. “He is the result of a steady march to the extreme right that has been going on for five decades.”

BEHIND THE SCENES

President Obama has stepped away from the podium in recent months to engage in informal conversations with writer and producer David Simon (The Wire), novelist Marilynne Robinson (Gilead) and science educator Bill Nye. In February, White House aides approached TIME about facilitating a conversation between Obama and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland, both of whom are past TIME 100 honorees. TIME reporter Maya Rhodan, who covers the White House, sat down with them in the Cabinet Room on Feb. 29 for a discussion on race, body image and mentoring. “I wasn’t expecting the President to be so candid about his experiences as a father and a husband,” says Rhodan.

Read more on page 56 in this issue, and watch the video at time.com/misty

PODCAST

Editor at large Jeffrey Kluger has long brought his insights on science and space to TIME readers–and now there’s a new platform for his expertise. The podcast It’s Your Universe illuminates a different part of the cosmos each week. Tune in at time.com/podcast

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