Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast

With Biden's inauguration approaching, Trump is running out of legal ways to challenge the results of the election. So where are those efforts now? On Today's Show:Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter for BuzzFeed News, talks about how the Trump campaign is still trying to change the results of the election through the courts, and whether there is any chance they could succeed. NOTE: This conversation was recorded on Wednesday, Nov. 25. That afternoon, a judge in Pennsylvania put the certification process on hold, pending a hearing scheduled for Friday, Nov. 27.

Every presidential transition, we can see the incoming administration start to take shape. So what's the executive branch going to look like under Biden? On Today's Show:John Hudson, national security reporter for The Washington Post, talks about the establishment figures President-elect Biden is appointing to join his cabinet and the White House.

For the first woman elected to the Vice Presidency, Kamala Harris's support among women, and specifically white women, is lacking. What political, racial and gender dynamics are at play? On Today's Show:Kat Stafford, AP national race and ethnicity reporter, and Julie Kohler, fellow in residence at the National Women's Law Center, a senior advisor to the Democracy Alliance, a progressive donor network, and host of the podcast White Picket Fence, talk about how women voted and the effect of having a woman on the ticket as vice president.

Trump continues to try and invalidate the ballots of voters in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit, areas with large numbers of Black and Latinx voters. On Today's Show:Vanessa Williams, reporter on the national desk at The Washington Post, talks about the latest political news you may have missed over the weekend, and hones in on the, injustice, long perpetrated through this country's history, of disenfranchising voters of color.

Trump's attempts to overturn the election in the courts isn't going well for him. But are there other ways, through quirks in the Electoral College, that he could hold on to power? On Today's Show:Robert Alexander, professor of political science and founding director of the Institute for Civics and Public Policy at Ohio Northern University and the author of Representation and the Electoral College (Oxford University Press, 2019), talks about how tightly the Electoral College is bound by certified election results in their states.

Trump's lawsuits continue, but there are so many of them, being brought on so many different complaints, that it's hard to keep track of them all. On Today's Show:Rebecca Green, professor of law at William & Mary and co-director of its Election Law Program, gives an update on the president's attempts to overturn the results of the election by filing (what most legal experts say are baseless) lawsuits.

Joe Biden has proposed changes that would affect millions of student loan borrowers, while leaders in the Democratic Party have pushed for student debt to be forgiven. Other commentators have said forgiving student loan debt would be unfair to people who did not go to college or have already paid back their loans. On Today's Show:Sarah Jones, senior writer at the Intelligencer and New York Magazine, talks about the potential backlash against these changes, and argues that change is needed anyway.

Voters have sent a record-breaking wave of Republican Congresswomen will be going to DC in January, and they want to challenge what they call the 'socialism' of the progressive left. On Today's Show:Olivia Perez-Cubas, communications director for Winning For Women, which advocates and organizes to elect Republican women, and the former communications director for Senator Marco Rubio (R FL), talks about how Republicans got 35 women elected, and what it means for the GOP.

Trump has yet to concede the election. And while he's not doing well in his court ballot challenges, he could turn to state legislatures to help him win the electoral college. On Today's Show:Amber Phillips, Washington Post political reporter and author of “The 5-Minute Fix” newsletter, talks about the latest national political news, as the president still refuses to concede, the Biden transition hums along and the coronavirus continues to rage out of control.

On Today's Show: Michael Mina, MD, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, talks about the latest developments in COVID-19 testing and when (and how) to get tested.

Trump has claimed massive voter fraud as the reason he didn't win the election. The New York Times called officials in each state. None of them had reason to believe there was fraud. On Today's Show:Nick Corasaniti, New York Times national politics reporter, and his colleagues called around to election officials all over the country and found zero evidence of such fraud.

President Trump is no stranger to legal battles. In some cases, it's only his high office that's kept prosecutors for bringing charges. So what happens when he leaves the White House? On Today's Show:Jane Mayer, staff writer and chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, talks about the latest political headlines plus her recent story about President Trump's post-election loss fate.

The Commander in Chief is empowered to use the military to protect American interests. But in his final days in office, could Trump start a war to serve his own interests? On Today's Show:Zach Montellaro, Campaign Pro reporter for Politico and the author of the Morning Score newsletter, and Fred Kaplan, Slate's War Stories columnist and the author of many books, including The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (Simon & Schuster, 2020), talk about the latest political news, including the president's lawsuits to try to change the outcome of the presidential election, Attorney General Barr's involvement, and the firing secretary of defense Mark Esper.

President Trump is in court, fighting to invalidate enough ballots to flip the projected results of the 2020 election. But there might be other motivations behind this legal strategy. On Today's Show:Richard Hasen, professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, author of Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy (Yale University Press, 2020) and writer behind the Election Law blog, talks about the current Trump campaign challenges to the vote counting -- and why he's not expecting the Biden victory to be overturned in the courthouse.

Votes are still pouring in and the President's path to an electoral victory is narrowing. So, he's begun a different approach: He's trying to sue himself into a second term. On Today's Show:Ari Berman senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering voting rights and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America and Jami Floyd, senior editor for race & justice at WNYC, break down the legal challenges, the unfounded claims of rampant voter fraud, and where we go from here.

Democrats didn't see the electoral blowout they hoped for, and they actually lost some seats in the House. That, plus the Trump campaigns count the vote/stop the vote lawsuits. On Today's Show: Hakeem Jeffries, U.S. Representative (D NY-8th, Brooklyn and Queens), talks about where the Democratic Party stands after Election Day, and what comes next.

The voting ended yesterday, the election saga continues, now in the courts and at election authorities around the country. So what's next? And when will we have a president? On Today's Show:Dale Ho, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, talks about legal challenges to voter access or the counting of ballots.

It's election day, so we thought we'd talk to voters who switched parties, or hadn't made their choice until recently, as we go over what to expect from the returns tonight as the polls close on the 2020 election. On Today's Show:Jim Newell, senior political writer for Slate, offers the latest news on races, polls, voter intimidation and more.

When public health agencies get politicized, it's that much harder to separate medical advice from political messaging. But in a pandemic, "communication is medicine." So how do we fix it? On Today's Show:Andy Slavitt, former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and host of the podcast In the Bubble, talks about the presidential candidates' pandemic preparedness in the context of the CDC, the FDA, and the healthcare system.

The president's top advisor said that Trump wants to help Black Americans, but "he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful." How do Black Americans feel about that? On Today's Show:Callers react to Kushner's statements, and Kai Wright, host and managing editor for the WNYC show The United States of Anxiety, talks about how this line of thinking has permeated the Republican Party.

We've talked about the underlying reasons that Black and Brown people have been hit disproportionately hard by this pandemic. But what can we do about it? On Today's Show:Mary Bassett, director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, as well as professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, talks about how to fight the disparate impact in who gets sick, and who dies, from COVID-19.

On Today's Show:Former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg discusses his book, the election, and how the new Supreme Court could affect same-sex marriages like his.

It's the final countdown to election day, just 8 days away, and the Trump administration has signaled that it's done trying to contain the pandemic. The election, the pandemic, and today's Senate vote on Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's pick for the Supreme Court. On Today's Show:Amber Phillips, reporter for The Washington Post's The Fix, discusses the latest in politics, polls, COVID and SCOTUS, and takes your calls.

Possible parallels between post-election 2020 and the uncertainty caused by Florida's recount in 2000? Plus, how Trump's racism actively hurts people of color. On Today's Show:Donna Brazile, Fox New analyst, former Democratic National Committee chair and author of Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House (Hachette, 2017), offers analysis of last night's debate between Pres. Trump and his Democratic challenger, former vice president Joe Biden. Plus her lessons from the contested 2000 election.

Democrats boycotted a Senate Judiciary Committee vote to move Amy Coney Barrett's SCOTUS nomination for a full floor vote. So how are Democrats thinking about the future of the court? On Today's Show:U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D CT), member of the Foreign Relations committee and author of the forthcoming The Violence Inside Us: A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy (Random House, 2020), talks about the latest federal response to the public health and economic crisis, plus election security and the status of the Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court nomination.

New rules mean that at Thursday's presidential debate, there won't be as much interrupting as the first one. So what should we expect? On Today's Show:Susan Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker, CNN global affairs analyst and co-author, with Peter Baker, of The Man Who Ran Washington: the Life and Times of Jim Baker III (Doubleday, 2020), talks about the latest national political news.

Trump's Justice Department is fighting in court to end affirmative action in college admissions. So what's behind the argument that this policy meant to address racial bias is, in fact, racist? On Today's Show:Erwin Chemerinsky, professor and dean of Berkeley Law, and the author of several books, including We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century (Picador Macmillan, 2018) and Jami Floyd, senior editor for race & justice at WNYC, talk about affirmative action as an issue in the presidential race - where Joe Biden stands on it as the Trump administration sues Yale over its use of race in admissions. Plus, Chemerinsky weighs in on affirmative action in his state, California, where it is currently banned but is on the ballot for voters this year as Prop 16 asks whether it should be allowed again.

The two candidates have different ideas of what law and order means. In terms of handling protests, police reform, white supremacy & white collar crime, where do Trump and Biden stand? On Today's Show:Inimai Chettiar, federal legislative and policy director for the Justice Action Network, and Jeffrey Butts, professor and director of the Research and Evaluation Center at CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice, discuss the Trump administration's "law and order" policies and rhetoric as they relate to the 2020 presidential election.

It's a pretty atypical election year, which means that things won't look like they usually do when you cast your ballot. But how can we spot voter suppression this pandemic election? On Today's Show:With voting underway around the country, Franita Tolson, law professor at USC specializing in election law, talks about some of the early challenges, from long lines to too few or unauthorized drop-boxes.

With Election Day less than a month away, the Senate began hearings into Trump's nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. On the line: Roe v. Wade, LGBTQ+ rights, the Affordable Care Act, and more. On Today's Show:Amanda Becker, Washington correspondent for The 19th, talks about the latest national political news, as Washington's eyes are trained on the Amy Coney Barrett hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

There's no shortage of voices clamoring to be heard on the issue of policing. So what needs to be done? How much reform is the right amount? On Today's Show:Paul Butler, professor at Georgetown Law and the author of Chokehold: Policing Black Men (The New Press, 2017), and Jami Floyd, senior editor for race and justice at WNYC, talk about how the candidates are addressing movements to defund, reform or support the police - and where their policies fall along that spectrum.

In a pluralistic society, can we honor people from our history who some consider a hero, and others consider a genocidal monster? On Today's Show:The Mellon Foundation plans to re-imagine monuments over the next five years, to highlight underrepresented groups or stories and re-think current monuments and memorials. On the day many now celebrate as Indigenous Peoples' Day, Elizabeth Alexander — poet, educator, memoirist, scholar and president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — talks about the group's plans and what they hope to achieve.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a UN agency dedicated to ending world hunger. But is the award worth the hype? On Today's Show:Anne Applebaum, Atlantic staff writer, covering national politics and foreign policy, and the author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (Doubleday July, 2020) talks about this year's Nobel Peace Prize: the U.N.'s World Food Programme for its work fighting hunger during the worldwide pandemic -- and also why she's a skeptic when it comes to the award's significance.

Back in 2018, Congress passed the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform measure. So how big of a 'first step' was it, and what are the next steps toward fixing mass incarceration? On Today's Show:Ekow Yankah, professor of law at Cardozo Law School, discusses the First Step Act—a criminal justice bill aimed at reforming sentencing laws, reducing recidivism and decreasing the federal inmate population—and assesses the next steps proposed by the presidential candidates.

Last night's VP debate was full of sparks and barbs. We take calls about that, plus, new uncertainty about whether the second presidential debate will even happen. On Today's Show:Callers respond to the vice-presidential candidates' debate between current Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris, plus analysis from Tarini Parti, politics reporter at The Wall Street Journal. UPDATE: The negotiations have shifted from whether to have the second presidential debate on Oct. 22, or to postpone it until President Trump is no longer contagious.

The president says that his bout with COVID-19 has taught him about the virus. We took calls from regular people who have been impacted by COVID-19 to hear what he missed. On Today's Show:Dr. Craig Spencer, New York City emergency medicine physician and director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, talks about whether the president's medical treatment differs from what the average American receives. Plus callers describe what they've learned about the virus from contracting it, or caring from a loved one, and what they'd like the president to understand about their experience.

Trump had already tested positive for COVID-19 when he went to an event in Bedminster, NJ. Now, NJ contact tracers want to know who he might have infected, but he won't give them any info. On Today's Show:Nancy Solomon, managing editor for New Jersey Public Radio and WNYC, reports on the contact tracing effort in New Jersey following the president's fund-raiser in Bedminster. She is joined by Anita Kumar, White House correspondent and associate editor for Politico, who talks about the latest developments in the president's COVID-19 case and the others at the White House and the press corps.

The Supreme Court is back in session, for the first time in several decades, without Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So what's on the docket, and what will the court look like as they preside over these cases? On Today's Show:Jami Floyd, senior editor for race and justice at WNYC, previews the court's upcoming cases, plus the latest on the confirmation process.

With just about a month until the final deadline to vote in the 2020 election, President Trump has contracted COVID-19. So what happens next for his campaign, and his White House? On Today's Show:Annie Karni, White House reporter for The New York Times and MSNBC and NBC News contributor, brings us what we know about the President's health, and what it means for a country in the throes of a viciously contentious election. NOTE: In this episode, Annie Karni reports that Trump's public schedule included a conference call with senior groups about the dangers of COVID-19. The New York Times has since reported that the President was not on that call, with Vice President Mike Pence taking his place.

Pundits have used a lot of colorful language to describe the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden. But who came out on top? On Today's Show:Jonathan Alter, MSNBC analyst, co-host, Sirius XM Alter Family Politics, Daily Beast columnist and the author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life (Simon & Schuster, 2020), offers his analysis as listeners respond to the first debate between Pres. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The lead prosecutor on Robert Mueller's team has some issues with the way the probe was conducted. We hear about those, plus his take on Trump's newly public tax documents. On Today's Show: Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation (Random House, 2020), "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":10552,"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"16":13}" data-sheets-formula="=IF(RDAUX!R[-5]C[2] = "",RDAUX!R[-5]C[5], CONCATENATE(RDAUX!R[-5]C[2], ", ",RDAUX!R[-5]C[4], ", ",RDAUX!R[-5]C[5])) ">Andrew Weissmann, now teaching criminal and national security law at NYU School of Law and the former lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel's Office, talks about his new book, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation (Random House, 2020), and more generally about what's at stake for the Justice Department in this presidential election.

Today we examine how much capitalism and how much socialism is needed to save America's middle class. On Today's Show:Pavlina R. Tcherneva, associate professor at Bard College and research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and the author of The Case for a Job Guarantee (Polity, 2020) and Oren Cass, executive director of American Compass, a domestic policy advisor for the Romney presidential campaign and the author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America (Encounter Books, 2018), talk about where on the spectrum from capitalist to socialist each candidate stands, from their own very different points of view.

Seung Min Kim, White House reporter for The Washington Post, talks about the latest national political news, including the president's comments about potentially not accepting a peaceful transition of power and his admission that he wants wants a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in case of an election dispute.

Today we examine racial justice and the presidential election through the lenses of truth, and reconciliation -- how we got here and where we go now. On Today's Show:Keisha Blain, University of Pittsburgh historian and president of the African American Intellectual History Society talks about truth, and Black feminist scholar Barbara Smith, co-founder of the Combahee River Collective, discusses reconciliation.

We asked voters around the country how they're planning to vote this year, and whether they trust the system to count their votes. On Today's Show:This year especially, there's not one "Election Day": More people can choose to vote early or vote by mail. What does that mean for this presidential election and for our expectations of when the votes will be counted? Joining this discussion are Ari Berman, senior reporter at Mother Jones covering voting rights and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and Myrna Perez, director of the Brennan Center's Voting Rights and Elections Program.

The Justice Department is trying to withhold funds from certain "Democrat-run cities" by designating them "anarchist jurisdictions." So, what's with the anarchy in the U.S.? On Today's Show: Amber Phillips, Washington Post political reporter and author for The 5-Minute Fix, and Errol Louis, political anchor on Spectrum News NY1, host of Inside City Hall on NY1, host of the podcast You Decide and New York Daily News columnist, discuss the latest national political news—from the Senate jockeying on RBG's replacement to the news that the Justice Department named New York City an "anarchist jurisdiction." i'm not finding him saying "I'm

The Supreme Court is always an issue in presidential elections. But the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg just weeks away from election day has changed the stakes, and the political landscape. On Today's Show:Since Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death late last week, Republicans have vowed to push through her replacement before the election. Sabrina Siddiqui, national politics reporter at The Wall Street Journal and political analyst at CNN, talks about the Republicans who won't go along with it, whether it's enough to prevent it from going through and what the Democrats and Joe Biden may do if they win the presidency and the Senate in November.

Trump is touting his international chops, and his ability to broker peace in troubled areas of the world. So what's the substance of his Middle East peace plan? On Today's Show:Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post columnist and author of Today’s WorldView, the Post’s international affairs newsletter, talks about the latest Trump administration attempts at peacemaking initiatives around the world and what, if anything, their impact might be.

Latino and Latina voters are a crucial demographic for the Biden campaign. But is he doing enough to bring them into the conversation? On Today's Show:Julio Ricardo Varela, co-host of the In The Thick podcast and founder of Latino Rebels, assesses the Biden campaign's attempts to gain support among Latinx voters.

In the police reform debate, the question of holding officers accountable is a key issue. But the way things are, prosecutors often work on cases in conjunction with the police, creating a potential conflict of interest. On Today's Show:Emily Bazelon, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, co-host of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast, Truman Capote Fellow for creative writing and law at Yale Law School and author of Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2020), and Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, talk about why so few district attorneys choose to prosecute police officers who some say have very clearly committed unlawful acts.