The Brian Lehrer Show

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.

 U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D NY) responds to the actions of the Trump administration  so far, when and how Democratic in the Senate can push back, and other matters affecting New Yorkers and the country.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D NY-8th, Brooklyn) talks about his 10-point plan and explains what he is calling for Democrats to do in response to President Trump's moves on federal funding and more.

As the U.S. Agency for International Development faces a shutdown from the Trump administration, Elissa Miolene, reporter covering the USAID and the U.S. government at Devex, an independent news organization covering global development, explains what the agency does, who might be impacted and why the agency is being targeted.

Following Groundhog Day, listeners call in to share how they beat back the winter blues and what sort of rituals they have this time of the year when it's so cold and grey, and Hannah Docter-Loeb, homepage editor for Slate and a freelance writer, shares her tip -- to spend one Saturday eating ice cream for breakfast.

The collision between a passenger jet and Army Blackhawk Helicopter resulted in the worst aviation tragedy in the United States in decades. Oriana Pawlyk, POLITICO’s aviation reporter, and Jeff Wise, aviation journalist and host of the Finding MH370 podcast, share their reporting on the incident, the issues surrounding air traffic controllers, and whether or not this tragedy could have been prevented.