Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast

Elon Musk has made a series of changes to Twitter, which he recently purchased, that have left users and commentators questioning his approach to managing the platform. On Today's Show:Philip Bump, national correspondent for The Washington Post, bring his analysis on Musk's stewardship of Twitter, including what to make of a poll he posted asking whether he should step down as CEO.  

On Thursday, Congress passed a stopgap bill to fund the government for an extra week to avoid a shutdown, and to give them more time to agree on a full-year budget for 2023 when the GOP takes control of the House. On Today's Show:Emily Cochrane, reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, covering Congress, brings us her latest reporting about Congress's spending bills, and Eric Toder, Institute Fellow at the Tax Policy Center, explains the federal budget process, and the latest deal passed by Congress, which averts a shutdown for a week to give lawmakers more time to agree on a full-year budget.

An influx of asylum seekers have made their way to El Paso to seek entry into the United States, as a federal border regulation is set to expire next week.  On Today's Show:Uriel García, immigration reporter at The Texas Tribune, brings the latest from the western corner of Texas, and Maria Sacchetti, reporter covering immigrant communities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Washington Post, shares the latest on Title 42.

With Congress poised to pass a defense spending bill, we look at the cost of the US military, and why, even in a time of relative peace, that cost continues to rise. On Today's Show:Fred Kaplan, Slate's 'War Stories' columnist and the author of many books, including The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (Simon & Schuster, 2020), talks about the massive budget, and why very few in politics or media seem to raise an eyebrow at the size of the military budget.

A new scientific breakthrough in nuclear power, with political and economic implications, could completely change the course of our energy future. On Today's Show:Arthur Turrell, deputy director for research and economics at the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics (ONS) Data Science Campus, a visitor to the plasma physics group at Imperial College London and the author of The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet (Scribner, 2021), talks about the reports of a breakthrough in the pursuit of nuclear fusion which promises a cleaner source of energy.

Some right-wing voices claim that the prisoner swap that brought Brittney Griner back to American soil was a mistake. That, and more Monday Morning Politics. On Today's Show:Susan Glasser, a staff writer at the New Yorker, where she writes a column on life in Biden's Washington and co-anchors a weekly roundtable discussion on "The Political Scene" podcast, and co-author with Peter Baker of The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 (Doubleday, 2022), talks about the latest national political news, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's change in party affiliation, the disparate reactions to the release of Brittney Griner, and more.

After a year with so much hate-motivated politics and violence, we take a step back with three perspectives on bigotry and hate movements, and on responding with love. On Today's Show:Sharon Kleinbaum, senior rabbi and spiritual leader of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City, Jay Caspian Kang, staff writer for The New Yorker, documentary film director, and the author of The Loneliest Americans (Crown, 2021), Eddie Glaude, Jr., chair of Princeton's African-American studies department and the author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own (Crown, 2020), on the verbal and physical expressions of hate in 2022, and how to combat it.

There's news of a prisoner swap in Russia, a thwarted QAnon coup attempt in Germany, and a Supreme Court case about elections and democracy in North Carolina. On Today's Show:Jonathan Lemire, host of “Way Too Early" on MSNBC, Politico White House bureau chief, and the author of The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020 (Flatiron Books, 2022), talks about the latest developments in national politics, including the Warnock victory in Georgia, Brittney Griner's release, and more.

What does a calculated leak from Elon Musk to a journalist suggest about partisan fairness in the realm of social media, and what does it mean for responsible reporting? On Today's Show: Michael Grynbaum, a media correspondent for The New York Times, explains controversies in the tech and media worlds surrounding Elon Musk's leak of internal Twitter documents to journalist Matt Taibbi. Musk handed over a trove of documents related to Twitter's decision to limit posts related to a story about Hunter Biden in 2020. The nature of the leak and Taibbi's story have set off debates about Musk's leadership and media ethics.

Can a website designer refuse too bake a cake... wait, no, design a website, for a gay couple's wedding? And what can we glean from SCOTUS's oral arguments in the case? On Today's Show:Katherine Franke, professor of law at Columbia Law School and the director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, explains the details of the case, where a website designer did not want to create a site for a gay wedding, and what's at stake for religious liberty, LGBTQ rights, and speech.