Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast

During the pandemic, unemployment is top of mind. But it won't go away when we get control over the virus. Our guest wrote about a "vaccine" for unemployment: a federal jobs guarentee. 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, talks about the Modern Monetary Theory and why it allows for full employment at a living wage -- even now.

As we go into the July 4th weekend, we're seeing COVID-19 cases take a dramatic rise across the country. Did we declare independence from the virus too soon? On Today's Show:Health officials are urging Americans to rethink their holiday plans as virus case levels reach new highs. Dr. Ashwin Vasan, physician, epidemiologist, and professor at Columbia and CEO of Fountain House, a community-based mental and public health organization, talks about which states are now setting single-day reporting records, and takes your calls.

 What can we learn from the writings of James Baldwin, a Civil Rights era thinker who, in exploring injustice, treated the whole person, body and soul, as subject? On Today's Show:Eddie Glaude, chair of Princeton's African-American studies department, talks about his new book, Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own (Crown, 2020).

A generation of Black children has been raised on videos of violence against those who look like them, committed by police. How can we help them make sense of these traumatic images? On Today's Show:Elizabeth Alexander, poet, educator, memoirist, scholar and president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, talks about raising Black sons, and how they and their generation are coping with the trauma of watching police violence against Black people, caught on video.

A moment at last week's Senate Judiciary Hearing on policing reform underscored a persistent and common misunderstanding about the difference between personal and systemic racism.  On today's show:  Eugene Scott, The Washington Post political reporter covering identity politics for The Fix. 

Systemic racism is everywhere, from social media policies around hate speech, to the Department of Justice. Today, a look at some of the finer details of the reforms needed beyond policing. On Today's Show:Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, talks about the change his organization is pushing for, and where he sees the Black Lives Matter protest movement going from here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put healthcare systems around the world under close scrutiny. Today, we discuss what works, what doesn't, and where there's room for improvement. On Today's Show: Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives, and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, an "architect of Obamacare," co-host of the podcast "Making the Call," and the author of Which Country Has the World's Best Health Care?, compares the healthcare systems around the world, including Taiwan, Germany, Australia and Switzerland, to see which country does it best and could be a model for the U.S.

Not long ago, New York was suffering the worst COVID outbreak in the world. Now, other states, like Texas Florida and Arizona, are showing case rates ticking up. On Today's Show:Dr. Uché Blackstock, emergency medicine physician, founder & CEO of Advancing Health Equities and a Yahoo News medical contributor and Dr. Amesh Adalja, infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, talk about COVID-19 surging in places like Arizona, Florida and Texas, and testimony before Congress by Dr. Fauci and CDC director Dr. Redfield.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top medical expert in the federal response to this pandemic, on the role of the media, the upticks in Florida and other places, other pandemic updates. On Today's Show:Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discusses how the U.S. is doing in its fight against COVID-19 and the effect the virus is having on the American healthcare system.

On the same day of the president's poorly attended in-person rally in Tulsa, the Poor People's Campaign held a highly attended virtual rally to set an agenda to address systemic injustices. On today's show: Jonathan Capehart, member of The Washington Post editorial board, host of the “Cape Up” podcast and an MSNBC contributor.