The Brian Lehrer Show

Chris Crowley, senior writer at Grub Street, talks about his reporting on the fears among local restaurant workers over potential ICE raids.

Federal agencies like the CDC, NIH and the FDA had to remove and alter some data from their websites to comply with executive orders issued by President Trump. Katelyn Jetelina, founder and author of the newsletter "Your Local Epidemiologist," explains why data is "gold," and how these changes may affect our health.

Shane Goldmacher, national political correspondent for The New York Times covering the major developments, trends and forces shaping American politics, talks about the Democrats ability to respond to the barrage of action by the new Trump administration and the national party's new leadership.

Adam Gopnik, staff writer for The New Yorker, and author of The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery (Liveright, 2023), discusses a recent essay in which he describes his long battle with insomnia.

News outlets are reporting that NYU Langone is cancelling some appointments for gender-affirming care for transgender children -- and that other hospital systems have removed mentions of gender-affirming care from their websites after President Trump issued a related executive order. Caroline Lewis, health care reporter for WNYC/Gothamist, reports on how trans kids and their families are reacting and the New York attorney general's warning to hospital systems that not providing the care would run afoul of state laws.

As Girl Scout Cookie season kicks off, Karen Lundgard, interim CEO of Girl Scouts of Greater New York, tells listeners about Troop 6000, a first-of-its-kind program to serve families living in temporary housing in the New York City shelter system, as well as asylum seekers in New York City, and their efforts to sell some of America's favorite sweets.

As our centennial series continues, Martha S. Jones, legal and cultural historian at Johns Hopkins University and the author of the forthcoming, The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir (Basic Books, 2025), shares her family's long history along America's "jagged color line" and what that's meant for her, her family and the society at large.

Andrew Prokop, senior politics correspondent at Vox, talks about the "vast powers" that President Trump has given to Elon Musk, what he's doing with them and what's underpinning the effort overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.

Mayor Adams cancelled his weekly press conference with reporters in favor of a trip to Albany to press the legislature for the city's priorities—traditionally known as "tin cup day." WNYC and Gothamist reporters Elizabeth Kim and Jon Campbell recap what he talked about and how legislators in Albany reacted to the mayor.

As our centennial series continues, Bernadette Atuahene, property rights scholar, professor at USC's Gould School of Law and leader of the grassroots Coalition for Property Tax Justice and Black Homes Matter campaigns, and the author of Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America (Little, Brown, 2025), explains the long history of inequality in property tax burdens rooted in redlining.