President Obama

Last week, President Obama re-committed himself to closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Obama’s remarks came during a mass detainee hunger-strike and on the heels of a renewed conversation about terrorism in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

With the epic fail of his post-Newtown gun reforms and the first terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, President Obama arrives at the 90-day mark of his second term with his job approval slipping and many wondering what, if anything, he can achieve before midterm elections. Our guests: Ari Shapiro, NPR White House correspondent; Michael Reisch, professor of social justice at the University of Maryland School of Social Work; and Barry Rascovar, political commentator and communications consultant.

Analysis of the first address of President Obama's second term with Max Hilaire, associate professor and chair of political science at Morgan State University; Barry Rascovar, political columnist for The Gazette; and Heather Harris, associate professor of business communications at Stevenson University and co-editor of "The Obama Effect."

What should we expect from the second term of the Obama presidency? Political analysts Herb Smith (McDaniel College), Max Hilaire (Morgan State University) and Republican blogger Richard Cross III discuss fiscal challenges, immigration and foreign policy and gun regulation and other issues facing President Obama during the next four years.

We examine President Obama’s strategy of linking a deficit deal to another attempt at crafting a “grand bargain.” Is the president conceding too much to congressional Republicans by accepting the premise that Social Security and Medicare contribute to the deficit and that such entitlements need to be cut to improve the national economy?

Jeffrey Toobin, staff writer for The New Yorker and senior legal analyst for CNN, visits Midday to discuss his latest book, “The Oath,” about the relationship between the Supreme Court of John Roberts and the White House of Barack Obama.

A look at President Obama, his latest actions and speeches, and what’s ahead for the campaign season with Max Hilaire, chair of the Department of Political Science at Morgan State University; Dedrick Muhammad, executive director of the NAACP's Financial Freedom Center; and Shawn Parry-Giles, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership.

Out of the thousands of letters that President Obama receives each day, he chooses ten to read. Our guest this hour, Washington Post staff writer Eli Saslow, takes a look at some of these letters and 10 to which the President personally responded.  A quest to understand the everyday citizens who author letters to the most powerful person in the U.S. Saslow is the author of Ten Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President.

From the Midwest to the Middle East. We’ll talk with a Red Cross volunteer from Baltimore. Phillip Bovender is part of the disaster relief operation helping people in the flood and tornado-ravaged areas of the south. Also: we’ve invited Kimberly Katz, Associate Professor in Middle East and Islamic History at Towson University and Waleed Hazbun, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at American University of Beirut.  to weigh in on President Obama’s Middle East speech.