The country has recently faced a number of storms, both geographic and political. Texas and Florida were both hit with significant hurricanes while President Donald Trump struck up a deal to raise the debt ceiling, causing concern among some.

Prominent political players are also making their way to the media stage. Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, said a Republican civil war is brewing, while presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s new book was released, reminding Americans of her defeat in the 2016 presidential election.

How are all of these events affecting Trump’s political base? Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang catch up on all of this and more in this week’s episode of Politics & Polls.

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 
Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has been one of the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He is the author of several books including, most recently, "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society." Zelizer is a frequent commentator in the international and national media on political history and contemporary politics. He has published more than 600 hundred op-eds, including his weekly column on CNN.com.

Wang is professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at Princeton University. He is known for his books "Welcome to Your Brain" and "Welcome to Your Child's Brain" and for his founding role at the Princeton Election Consortium, a blog providing U.S. election analyses. In 2004, Wang was one of the first to aggregate U.S. presidential polls using probabilistic methods. He has also developed new statistical standards for partisan gerrymandering. A neuroscientist, Wang's academic research focuses on the neuroscience of learning, the cerebellum.