The Current

Can investing in youth sports—especially in certain neighborhoods where children are particularly vulnerable—reduce gun violence? In this episode, Rashawn Ray, senior Brookings Governance Studies fellow, leads a conversation on the role that basketball can play in community building and reducing violent conflict. Joining him are Hanna Love, Brookings fellow; Howard Levy, head men's basketball coach at Mercer County Community College and a founder of Play Smart Save Lives; and Craig Robinson, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Brookings Metro Senior Fellow Joe Parilla speaks with Alma Flores, executive director of the Latino Economic Development Center, and Peter Frosch, CEO of the GREATER MSP Partnership, about how their Minnesota-based organizations responded to the crisis brought about by Operation Metro Surge, the federal immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Two weeks into the United States' and Israel's war with Iran, there are increasingly urgent questions about Iran's future and the Trump administration's objectives. In this episode of The Current, Brookings Fellow Aslı Aydıntaşbaş is joined by Vice President of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney and Visiting Fellow Mara Karlin to discuss the state of the war, the Iranian regime, and the global ripple effects of the conflict. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Suzanne Maloney, Brookings vice president and Iran analyst; Jeffrey Feltman, former senior U.N. diplomat; Mara Karlin, former Assistant Secretary of Defense; Philip Gordon, former U.S. foreign policy official. They discuss U.S. objectives and strategy clarity. They examine military phases, drone threats, evacuations, and regional political effects. They debate leadership targeting and post-conflict incentives.

In new research, scholars at the Center for Community Uplift at Brookings and Gallup find a high degree of interracial cooperation across key aspects of American life such as work, relationships, and family. In this episode of The Current, Brookings Senior Fellow Andre Perry discusses the report's findings and implications for policy, with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi of Howard University and Washington Post White House reporter Cleve Wootson, Jr. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

With the annual Munich Security Conference now wrapped, Brookings expert Constanze Stelzenmüller brings back insights from the conversations unfolding on the ground. In her conversation with Aslı Aydintaşbaş, Stelzenmüller, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings, reflects on the main stage speeches from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and shares what she learned from reactions in the hallways. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The first State of the Union address of President Trump's second term is coming up, but Brookings scholars aren't waiting for the speech to take the country's pulse. In this episode, E.J. Dionne asks Molly Reynolds, Wendy Edelberg, and Melanie Sisson to offer their views on the governance, economic, and global security challenges that characterize America's state of the Union today. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In the first year of his second term, President Trump has conducted a trade policy that features tariff cuts, tariff raises, and tariff exemptions. While the economic impacts of this tariff approach are uncertain, it's clear that the post-World War II rules-based liberal trade policy is over. On this episode, David Wessel talks with Kari Heerman, director of Brookings's Trade and Economic Statecraft Initiative, about Trump's pursuit of foreign policy objectives through trade actions. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The violence in Minneapolis has become a flashpoint for a national debate regarding ICE and immigration enforcement. In this episode of The Current, Gabriel Sanchez and Rashawn Ray, senior fellows in Governance Studies at Brookings, analyze the structural breaks behind the headlines, from hiring 18- year-olds in "six-minute" windows to slashing training academies from 22 weeks to just 47 days. They offer a roadmap for reform with specific policy remedies, including vetting reforms, virtual reality training, and ending absolute immunity, aimed at restoring public accountability and reversing the trend of violence Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Brookings senior fellows Michael O'Hanlon and Robert Kagan discuss O'Hanlon's latest book, To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution, an examination of 250 years of U.S. defense policy around the world. "Isolationism," O'Hanlon says, "strikes me as the least accurate term" to describe that history. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.