Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast

With just about a month until the final deadline to vote in the 2020 election, President Trump has contracted COVID-19. So what happens next for his campaign, and his White House? On Today's Show:Annie Karni, White House reporter for The New York Times and MSNBC and NBC News contributor, brings us what we know about the President's health, and what it means for a country in the throes of a viciously contentious election.  NOTE: In this episode, Annie Karni reports that Trump's public schedule included a conference call with senior groups about the dangers of COVID-19. The New York Times has since reported that the President was not on that call, with Vice President Mike Pence taking his place. 

Pundits have used a lot of colorful language to describe the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden. But who came out on top? On Today's Show:Jonathan Alter, MSNBC analyst, co-host, Sirius XM Alter Family Politics, Daily Beast columnist and the author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life (Simon & Schuster, 2020), offers his analysis as listeners respond to the first debate between Pres. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The lead prosecutor on Robert Mueller's team has some issues with the way the probe was conducted. We hear about those, plus his take on Trump's newly public tax documents. On Today's Show: Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation (Random House, 2020), "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":10552,"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"16":13}" data-sheets-formula="=IF(RDAUX!R[-5]C[2] = "",RDAUX!R[-5]C[5], CONCATENATE(RDAUX!R[-5]C[2], ", ",RDAUX!R[-5]C[4], ", ",RDAUX!R[-5]C[5])) ">Andrew Weissmann, now teaching criminal and national security law at NYU School of Law and the former lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel's Office, talks about his new book, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation (Random House, 2020), and more generally about what's at stake for the Justice Department in this presidential election.

Today we examine how much capitalism and how much socialism is needed to save America's middle class. On Today's Show:Pavlina R. Tcherneva, associate professor at Bard College and research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and the author of The Case for a Job Guarantee (Polity, 2020) and Oren Cass,  executive director of American Compass, a domestic policy advisor for the Romney presidential campaign and the author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America (Encounter Books, 2018), talk about where on the spectrum from capitalist to socialist each candidate stands, from their own very different points of view.

Seung Min Kim, White House reporter for The Washington Post, talks about the latest national political news, including the president's comments about potentially not accepting a peaceful transition of power and his admission that he wants wants a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in case of an election dispute. 

Today we examine racial justice and the presidential election through the lenses of truth, and reconciliation -- how we got here and where we go now. On Today's Show:Keisha Blain, University of Pittsburgh historian and president of the African American Intellectual History Society talks about truth, and Black feminist scholar Barbara Smith, co-founder of the Combahee River Collective, discusses reconciliation.

We asked voters around the country how they're planning to vote this year, and whether they trust the system to count their votes. On Today's Show:This year especially, there's not one "Election Day": More people can choose to vote early or vote by mail. What does that mean for this presidential election and for our expectations of when the votes will be counted? Joining this discussion are Ari Berman, senior reporter at Mother Jones covering voting rights and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and Myrna Perez, director of the Brennan Center's Voting Rights and Elections Program.

The Justice Department is trying to withhold funds from certain "Democrat-run cities" by designating them "anarchist jurisdictions." So, what's with the anarchy in the U.S.? On Today's Show: Amber Phillips, Washington Post political reporter and author for The 5-Minute Fix, and Errol Louis, political anchor on Spectrum News NY1, host of Inside City Hall on NY1, host of the podcast You Decide and New York Daily News columnist, discuss the latest national political news—from the Senate jockeying on RBG's replacement to the news that the Justice Department named New York City an "anarchist jurisdiction." i'm not finding him saying "I'm

The Supreme Court is always an issue in presidential elections. But the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg just weeks away from election day has changed the stakes, and the political landscape. On Today's Show:Since Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death late last week, Republicans have vowed to push through her replacement before the election. Sabrina Siddiqui, national politics reporter at The Wall Street Journal and political analyst at CNN, talks about the Republicans who won't go along with it, whether it's enough to prevent it from going through and what the Democrats and Joe Biden may do if they win the presidency and the Senate in November.

Trump is touting his international chops, and his ability to broker peace in troubled areas of the world. So what's the substance of his Middle East peace plan? On Today's Show:Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post columnist and author of Today’s WorldView, the Post’s international affairs newsletter, talks about the latest Trump administration attempts at peacemaking initiatives around the world and what, if anything, their impact might be.