The Brian Lehrer Show

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, including on the mayoral campaign and fundraising numbers, subway safety and more.

Listeners north of the border weigh in on the impact of Donald Trump's second term on their country's politics.

Heather Cox Richardson, professor of American history at Boston College and author of "Letters from an American" on Substack and several books, including Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America (Viking, 2023), offers a historian's take on the first weeks of the second Trump presidency.

After Chuck Schumer voted last week to prevent a government shutdown, Democrats have been deeply divided on whether he made the right decision or not, largely along generational lines. Philip Bump, national columnist for The Washington Post and the author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America (Viking, 2023) reports on how polls are showing voters are feeling about the episode and Charlie Mahtesian, senior politics editor at Politico, offers analysis of Schumer's decision and the Democrats' response to President Trump.

The Trump administration is rapidly canceling grants at the National Institutes of Health. Katherine Wu, staff writer for The Atlantic, explains how the agency is beginning to terminate active research grants — seemingly on political grounds. 

Derek Thompson, staff writer at The Atlantic, author of the "Work in Progress" newsletter and host of the podcast "Plain English," and Ezra Klein, New York Times opinion columnist and host of their podcast, the "Ezra Klein Show," co-authors of Abundance (Simon & Schuster, 2025), discuss their new book that argues limits placed by past generations to protect jobs and the environment are preventing solving shortages today.

Andrew Weissmann, professor of practice at NYU School of Law, MSNBC legal analyst, and the co-author of The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024), offers legal analysis of the ways the Trump administration has challenged the rule of law in the first few months, including on deportations, fired inspectors general and more.

S. Mitra Kalita, co-founder of URL Media and CEO and publisher of Epicenter-NYC, reflects on the COVID shutdown, how it profoundly changed the city and which consequences from it are still lingering and affecting people's lives.

As our centennial series continues, Annie Polland, president of the Tenement Museum, looks at the life and enduring legacy of Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member as Secretary of Labor who was instrumental in crafting The New Deal, and passing a slew of federal workers protections, including Social Security, a minimum wage and a 40-hour work week.

For St. Patrick's Day, listeners call in to share their family's immigration stories, from Ireland to America, plus listeners who have emigrated from the U.S. to Ireland share their stories.