Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast

President Trump says that he wants to halt parts of the immigration system in response to COVID-19, leaving many in limbo, including those who were on their way to obtaining green cards.On Today's Show:Sayu Bhojwani, founder and president of New American Leaders and the author of People Like Us: The New Wave of Candidates Knocking at Democracy’s Door  (The New Press, 2018) talks about the president's latest return to immigration as a central issue, and reflects on stories of uncertainty from listeners in the immigrant community.

Gyms. Bowling alleys. Tattoo parlors and piercing shops. Barbers and hair and nail salons. Masseuses. If you live in Georgia, some of those establishments could be open for business as early as this Friday. But those tracking COVID-19 say that the Peach State has yet to hit its peak infection rate. As Governor Kemp hastens to reopen, residents of Atlanta are worried about what the consequences will be for the state's biggest city. On Today's Show:Gregg Gonsalves, co-director of the Global Health Justice Partnership and an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and contributing writer to The Nation, discusses the state of testing, how it needs to be expanded, and why the federal government and state governments need to cooperate.

As the infection, hospitalization and death rates begin to plateau in hard-hit New York City, pandemic-adjacent issues -- food security, unemployment and right-wing protests against social distancing measures -- come into clearer focus. On Today's Show:Tom Suozzi, U.S. Representative for NY's 3rd District, an area that includes parts of Long Island and Queens, NY, and member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, talks about the federal response, the politics of pandemic and the need for a widespread testing regime.

On Today's Show:Rep. Max Rose represents a swing district in NYC. Today, he talks about his work responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, both in Congress and on National Guard duty.

New York City is the densest city in the US. The runner up is San Francisco. NYC has more than 10,000 COVID-19 deaths. As of Monday, San Francisco had 15. Not 15,000. Fifteen people. California got hit with COVID-19 first, but they didn't get hit hard. We explore why, and what places like New York can learn from their approach. On Today's Show:As states begin to weigh how to enter people back into the workforce, Thomas Fuller, San Francisco bureau chief for The New York Times, discusses how California is approaching the move and what New York can learn from the state and Moritz Kraemer, scholar and researcher of epidemiology at Oxford University, joins to discuss what we know about how the virus has spread worldwide.  

What does science tell us about the smartest, safest steps to take to restart the country once we start coming down the other side of the flattened curve? And what could life look like during the reboot? On Today's Show:Sharon Begley, senior science writer for STAT News, and author of Can't Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions, discusses when it will be safe to relax the COVID-19 lockdown, and how it should happen.

New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman argues that Joe Biden should create a unity cabinet, appointing members across the political spectrum to serve in key positions, from Democrats on the Bernie Sanders left to Republicans on the Mitt Romney right. 

COVID-19 originated in China and exploded across the US. Today, a look at the leaders of those two countries: What have they done right to contain this pandemic, what have they done wrong, and what haven't they done at all? On Today's Show:Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer, Peabody, and Polk-prize-winning health and science writer, and author of multiple best-selling books on global health and epidemic diseases, including, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance ( Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1994) discusses her cover story from The New Republic’s May issue about how Presidents Trump and Xi set the stage for the coronavirus pandemic. 

Susan Page, Washington bureau chief of USA TODAY, talks about some of the things that might have flown under the radar during this public health crisis.

The coronavirus pandemic has hit some groups harder than others. Why is this virus affecting healthcare workers, Black and Brown neighborhoods and poorer communities worse than others? On Today's Show:Irwin Redlener, professor of pediatrics and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, co-founder of the Children's Health Fund, and the author of The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America (Columbia University Press, 2017), talks about the latest on the COVID-19 pandemic and issues of testing, medical volunteers and disparities in outcomes by sex, age, income and race.