The Brian Lehrer Show

Early voting is underway in the primary to fill now-Governor Sherrill's seat in Congress.  Mike Hayes, WNYC/Gothamist New Jersey politics reporter and the author of The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform (Kingston Imperial, 2023), runs through the many candidates and their bases of support, ahead of the election on Thursday. 

President Trump is revoking Temporary Protected Status from Haitians in the United States, putting them at risk of deportation to a country experiencing unprecedented violence and a political crisis. Macollvie Neel, special projects editor at The Haitian Times, discusses the looming uncertainty for the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who will be affected.

Elizabeth Kim, WNYC politics reporter, gives on-the-ground takes from Mayor Mamdani's first month. Dr. Lloyd Minor, Stanford Medicine dean, explores how AI is being used in diagnostics, trials, and medical training. Eric Blanc, Rutgers labor scholar, traces the history and tactics of general strikes and modern organizing. Short segments cover symbolism, AI risks and training, and strike strategy and scaling.

Eric Blanc, assistant professor of Labor Studies at Rutgers University, author of several books including We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big (University of California Press, 2025) and author of the Substack newsletter Labor Politics, talks about the history of general strikes, and what makes them effective, and listeners call in if they are participating in Friday's general strike.

President Donald Trump and Democrats say they have reached a deal to avert a partial government shutdown. Siobhan Hughes, a reporter covering Congress in The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau, talks about the latest and whether Republicans will agree to limit funding and impose restrictions on the Department of Homeland Security. 

As the cold snap continues and the piles of snow linger, listeners share if they've taken up a hobby appropriate to the season.

Elizabeth Kim, Gothamist and WNYC reporter talks about Mayor Mamdani's first month in office, including challenges like this week's big snowstorm and a major budget crisis.

Russell Berman, a staff writer at The Atlantic, talks about how Republicans in Congress are speaking out against the deportation operation (and the fatal shootings), in a rare intra-party rebuke to President Trump, and what this might signal ahead of this year's midterm elections.

Lloyd Minor, M.D., dean of Stanford Medicine and leader in medical AI education. He discusses AI in diagnostics and pathology. He covers AI helping tumor boards and clinical trial matching. He talks about wearables for chronic disease monitoring. He warns about bias and skill loss and describes Stanford’s mandatory AI training for clinicians.

Nostalgia for 2016 is a trend on social media this month, so we ask our listeners to reflect on the recent past. Are you nostalgic for 2016?