The Brian Lehrer Show

The canonization of the first millennial saint has sparked calls for a queer saint. For some, Father Mychal Judge, New York City Fire Department chaplain and the first certified 9/11 casualty, is at the center of these calls. Antonio Pagliarulo, writer and author of The Evil Eye: The History, Mystery & Magic of the Quiet Curse (Weiser Books, 2023), makes the case.

In the past decade, millions of Americans made the switch from cigarettes to vaping in hopes of avoiding the worst smoking-related illnesses. In the process, many who never smoked cigarettes have found themselves addicted to nicotine without strong guidelines on how to quit. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, FSAHM, professor of pediatrics/adolescent medicine at Stanford, and founder/director of the Stanford REACH Lab, explains how we got here and shares medical advice on how to quit vaping.

Bill McKibben, environmental activist, founder of Third Act and author of many books, most recently The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened (Henry Holt and Co., 2022), talks about why he hopes Gov. Hochul will sign a bill passed by the New York State legislature earlier this year that would require fossil fuel companies to pay for damages associated with climate change. Plus, he talks about how climate activists are feeling about the presidential election, now that Kamala Harris is on the top of the Democratic ticket.

Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, talks about the stock market sell-off, the latest jobs report, how to gauge the health of the economy, and why he thinks the stock market "is a bit like a toddler."

Jonathan Lemire, host of “Way Too Early" on MSNBC, Politico White House bureau chief, and the author of The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020 (Flatiron Books, 2022), talks about Kamala Harris's choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, and listeners weigh in with their thoughts.

Governor Hochul's pause on congestion pricing has left transit improvement projects in the lurch. Ana Ley, transportation reporter for the New York Times, discusses how officials are coping with the upheaval that's come with the loss of projected revenue.

For our ninth thing in our centennial series, Ian MacAllen, Italian-American food expert and author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), covers the history and development of a beloved New York City food: pizza.

As Joe Biden knows, stepping away from a high-powered job can be a difficult decision to make. Charley Locke, freelance writer, discusses her reporting on why some people put retirement off, and listeners weigh in.→ Retirement Gets Harder the Longer You Wait

With Vice President Kamala Harris about to name her V.P. pick, Nancy Cook, senior national political correspondent at Bloomberg News, talks about the top contenders to be Vice President Harris' running mate, plus what the latest polls show about the changes in the presidential race.

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.A hundred years of James Baldwin (First) | Election integrity as a matter of national security (Starts at 27:50) | New York City etiquette rules (Starts at 57:35)If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.

For this "Summer Friday" we've put together some of our favorite conversations this year:Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post columnist, host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, and the author of Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024), looks back at other turbulent eras for insights into navigating this one.Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher university professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, host of "Finding Your Roots" on PBS and that author of The Black Box: Writing the Race (Penguin Press, 2024), talks about his new book that examines the history of Black self-definition.Judith Butler, professor at UC-Berkeley and the author of several books, including Gender Trouble and their latest, Who's Afraid of Gender? (Macmillan, 2024), talks about her pioneering academic work on the concept of gender and how fraught, and misunderstood, the topic has become.Appliances are rarely built to last, but many from the past are still as good as new. Anna Kramer, technology and climate journalist, author of the newsletter, "Bite into this," talks about her Atlantic article "KitchenAid Did It Right 87 Years Ago" as listeners call in to share which gadgets and technologies have survived years of use in their homes. These interviews were polished up and edited for time, the original versions are available here:Revolutionary Eras, Then and Now (May 21, 2024)Defining 'Blackness' Through Literature (Mar 22, 2024)Judith Butler on Gender (Apr 4, 2024)Appliances That Lasted (Mar 1, 2024)

Brigid Bergin, WNYC's senior political correspondent, discusses her reporting on problems the Campaign Finance Board found in Mayor Adams's 2021 campaign, and how it could affect his re-election campaign.

Sarah Jones, senior writer at the Intelligencer and New York Magazine, discusses J.D. Vance's viral comment that America is run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies." Plus, listeners weigh in on how the trope is being reclaimed.

Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, CNN political analyst, NPR contributor, and author of several books, and Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, the author of several books, discuss the new book they co-edited, Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue(NYU Press, 2024), in which experts weigh in on the risks to national security posed by election insecurity.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) discusses recent developments, including Kamala Harris's campaign, today's prisoner swap with Russia, the latest in the Middle East, working across the aisle on healthcare issues, and more.

Until recently, the nation’s tech capital, Silicon Valley, was seen as a liberal bastion, but the tech billionaires are starting to diverge in their political ideologies. Erin Griffith, New York Times reporter covering tech companies and Silicon Valley, explains what's going on with the infighting and how wealthy tech donors are influencing the 2024 presidential election.

Allie Volpe, senior reporter at Vox, talks about how to learn a new sport at any age.=>"Inspired by the Olympics? You can become an athlete at any age." (Vox.com, July 25)

Mayor Adams holds one off-topic press conference per week, where reporters can ask him questions on any subject. Elizabeth Kim, Gothamist and WNYC reporter, recaps what he talked about at this week's event. This weeks topics include: how the Adams administration communicates with the press and public, mayor Adams' reaction to comptroller Brad Lander launching a primary campaign against him, another sexual misconduct lawsuit against Adams' advisor, Tim Pearson, and more.

Continuing our centennial series, Eddie Glaude Jr., Princeton professor and the author of several books, including Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own (Crown, 2020) and We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For (Harvard University Press, 2024), talks about the life and legacy of James Baldwin, who would be 100 years old on August 2.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on polls that show young men under 30 are skewing increasingly conservative, while young women are much more likely to vote for Democrats. Listeners call in to talk about how that dynamic has showed up in their dating lives.

In our Climate Story of the Week, Rob Jackson, chair of the Global Carbon Project, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy, a professor of earth science at Stanford University, and the author of Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere (Simon & Schuster, 2024), offers a hopeful vision for addressing the climate crisis and an argument for redefining our most urgent goals. To repair the climate, he argues, we need to actively restore the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases.

New York City Councilmember Carlina Rivera (D-2, East Village, Gramercy Park, Kips Bay, Lower East Side, Murray Hill, Rose Hill) talks about the mayor's emergency order that delays implementation of Local Law 42, just days before it would have gone into effect, that would have capped solitary confinement, among other things.

After a tumultuous Supreme Court term that included the presidential immunity opinion and reporting that showed Justice Thomas received undisclosed gifts and favors from a GOP megadonor, President Biden has proposed changes to the court, including term limits and a code of ethics. Elie Mystal, justice correspondent and columnist for The Nation magazine and host of the podcast, "Contempt of Court with Elie Mystal," and author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution (New Press, 2022), offers legal analysis of the reforms, and talks about how much of a long a shot it is that any of this would make it through Congress.

Brittany Kriegstein, WNYC/Gothamist breaking news reporter focusing on crime and gun violence, shares her reporting on the same few New York City blocks that see the most shootings year after year.

Joan Walsh, The Nation's national affairs correspondent and the co-author of Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America (The New Press, 2023), and Christopher Cadelago, California bureau chief at Politico, talk about the latest national political news, with a focus on Vice President Kamala Harris's biography as she locks up the Democratic nomination for president.

Continuing our centennial series, Kevin Baker, novelist, historian, journalist and the author of The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City (Knopf, 2024), takes us through the past hundred years of baseball in NYC, as listeners share their oral histories."100 Years of 100 Things" is part of WNYC’s centennial celebration. Each week, we’ll take listeners through a century’s worth of history of things that shape our politics, our lives and our world. Topics will include everything from immigration policy to political conventions, American capitalism to American socialism, the Jersey Shore to the Catskills, baseball to ice cream.

Nick Leighton, journalist and host of the podcast Were You Raised By Wolves?, offers a few simple etiquette rules for New York City and listeners share theirs.→ 10 etiquette rules to not be the worst in New York City

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.A closer look at Trump and the GOP's mass deportation pledge (First) | The future of outdoor dining in New York City (Starts at 35:05) | The 100-year history of air conditioning (Starts at 53:45)If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.

For this "Summer Friday" we've put together some of our favorite conversations this year:Kara Swisher, tech journalist, host of the podcasts "On with Kara Swisher" and "Pivot" and the author of Burn Book: A Tech Love Story (Simon & Schuster, 2024), tells her story as it overlaps with that of the tech industry, and what's gone right and where it's gone wrong.USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page talks about her latest book, The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters (Simon & Schuster, 2024).Charan Ranganath, PhD, professor of psychology and neuroscience at U.C. Davis, director of the Dynamic Memory Lab, and the author of Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters (Doubleday, 2024), explains what we know about remembering and forgetting.Meg Jay, developmental clinical psychologist and the author of The Defining Decade and her latest, The Twentysomething Treatment: A Revolutionary Remedy for an Uncertain Age (Simon & Schuster, 2024), offers advice for navigating the extremes of trivializing and over-medicating the struggles of young adults today.Faith Hill, staff writer at The Atlantic, talks about what people are looking for when they visit their childhood homes, and how it can be stressful, or sweet. These interviews were polished up and edited for time, the original versions are available here:Kara Swisher's 'Tech Love Story' (Mar 29, 2024)Politics, and the Life of a Broadcast Trailblazer (Apr 29, 2024) - Part 3How Memory Works (Mar 7, 2024)A Way Through the Mental Health Struggles for Twentysomethings (May 16, 2024)Searching for Something in Our Childhood Homes (May 23, 2024)

Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent for USA Today, talks about the news from Washington, including President Biden's speech, Netanyahu's visit, the Harris campaign (and the memes propelling it from below).

Matthew Futterman, senior staff writer for The Athletic, the sports unit of The New York Times, previews the start of the summer Olympics which begin this Friday, July 26th, in Paris, France.

Dame Louise Richardson, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, talks about research into and strategies to reduce political polarization in the United States, especially in this fraught election year.

Ben Max, host of the Max Politics podcast and executive editor and program director at New York Law School’s Center for New York City Law, talks about some of the successful policies from the Adams administration and the power struggle with the City Council seemingly playing out in the Charter Review process.

Micah Loewinger is the brand new co-host of WNYC's On the Media. Brooke Gladstone, co-host of WNYC's On The Media and Micah Loewinger talk about their plans for the show and how it might evolve.

Mayor Adams holds one off-topic press conference per week, where reporters can ask him questions on any subject. Elizabeth Kim, Gothamist and WNYC reporter, recaps what he talked about at this week's event. This weeks topics include: fights over shelters, his support for VP Kamala Harris, and the comparisons he draws between himself and former mayor David Dinkins.

Continuing our centennial series "100 Years of 100 Things," Eric Dean Wilson, Queens College writing instructor and the author of After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort (Simon & Schuster, 2021), walks us through the promise of air conditioning of the past 100 years -- how it relieved people of warming temperatures and how they have eventually contributed to climate change.

Chris Crowley, senior writer at Grub Street, discusses the Mr. Fruit stores, a "chainlet" of delis that has amassed a cult following in Brooklyn.

The Secret Service director resigned under pressure after former President Trump was shot during a rally earlier this month. Carol Leonnig, Washington Post national investigative reporter, explains how Secret Service protection works: who gets it, how are they protected, and what went so wrong at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, host of the upcoming podcast Master Plan, an investigation into government corruption in the United States, co-creator of the movie Don't Look Up, and former presidential campaign speechwriter for Bernie Sanders, offers political analysis from the left on President Biden's decision to drop out, the Democrats' rallying behind VP Kamala Harris as the new nominee, and how he sees the campaign as a Trump - Harris matchup looks likely.

Ryan Kailath, WNYC/Gothamist arts and culture reporter, talks about the August 3rd deadline for restaurants wanting to continue outdoor dining and why the streetscape will see changes.

The Republican Party has promised to initiate the largest deportation effort in U.S. history if Donald Trump is elected president. Felipe De La Hoz, contributing member of the New York Daily News editorial board and lecturer at New York University's College of Arts and Sciences, offers a look at Trump's plan.→ The Supreme Court Just Supercharged the Scariest Part of Trump’s 2025 Agenda

Ahead of the second round of the annual "Subway Series," listeners share who they're rooting for, where their loyalty comes from, and weigh in on the informal map of Yankees vs. Mets territory in the New York area.

During the show, Vice President Kamala Harris gave her first public speech about her presidential bid. Democrats call in share how they are feeling about Biden's exit from the presidential race and his endorsement of VP Harris.

Continuing our centennial series "100 Years of 100 Things," Michael E. Mann, presidential distinguished professor and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania and author of several books, most recently,Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis (PublicAffairs, 2023), walks us through the impact that fossil fuels have had on the climate—and the temperature record—of the past 100 years.

Christine Quinn, president & CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter and supportive services for homeless families in New York City, reacts to the news that President Biden has dropped out of the presidential campaign, especially in her role as a Democratic delegate, and talks about the protests against the homeless shelter in Bensonhurst and other related news.

Bonnie Watson Coleman, U.S. Representative (D, NJ-12), co-chair and co-founder of the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, and Adriano Espaillat, U.S. Representative (D, NY-13), react to the news that President Biden has dropped out of the presidential race. Plus, Gabriel Debenedetti, national correspondent at New York Magazine and author of The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama (Henry Holt and Co., 2022) reports on the news from his position as a reporter steeped in Biden world, and Democratic voters call in to share their thoughts and feelings on this huge shakeup to the campaign.

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.Poverty in Black and White (First) | The City's First Official Trash Can (Starts at 35:37) | "Weird Al" Yankovic Celebrates 10 Years of "Mandatory Fun" (Starts at 1:04:11)If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.

10 years after his comedy album "Mandatory Fun" became the first comedy album in history to hit number 1 on the Billboard charts, "Weird Al" Yankovic, musician, comedian, and actor, looks back on his career parodying hit pop songs, previews his latest single "Polkamania!", and takes calls from his multi-generational fanbase.

Clayton Guse, WNYC/Gothamist editor on the NYC Accountability desk, and Stephen Nessen, transportation reporter for the WNYC Newsroom, break down the latest city data that show more New Yorkers were killed by drivers during the first six months of 2024 than those who were fatally shot over the same period.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D NY-8th, Brooklyn) talks about the debate engulfing the Democrats on whether President Biden should stay in the race, plus reacts to Trump's speech at the RNC and listeners share their views.