This week’s episode is a special presentation of All The Presidents’ Lawyers, a KCRW podcast that Josh Barro and Ken White host. It’s all about the legal problems of presidents and their associates.

This week: the indictments of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and various Trump businesses came down. The charges allege a a fifteen-year tax fraud scheme that protected Weisselberg and other Trump Organization employees from paying tax. In Weisselberg’s case, that’s over $1.7 million in compensation. After years of investigation, was this expected? Was it likely that Trump himself would have been charged?

Next, Ken and Josh discuss Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to decline to investigate the Trump administration’s DOJ, leaving it to the inspector general. And then: Rudy Giuliani has been stripped of his law license for making demonstrably false statements about the outcome of the 2020 elections. Is this the end of his career?

And on this special episode, you’ll get to hear Ken and Josh answer listener questions about all things legal, including why former President Trump can claim such broad legal immunity against lawsuits for statements he made in office, like when he crudely denied E. Jean Carroll’s rape allegation or encouraged his supporters toward the Capitol on January 6.

Left, Right & Center’s regularly scheduled programming will return July 9.

A bipartisan success story: That’s how President Biden wants us to remember the infrastructure deal he announced this week. It was an opportunity for the president to remind people that he gets Congress, he knows how to reach across the aisle, and he’ll still reassure progressives that it won’t stop him from delivering on other Democratic priorities. In this episode: Ross, Liz and Josh discuss what’s in the infrastructure deal, if it’ll get the additional support it needs to be come a reality, and how likely it is that Biden can get to everything on the Democrats’ wishlist.

Then: Sasha Issenberg talks about the massive and relatively rapid success story that was the campaign for same-sex marriage, from a local fight in Honolulu to a U.S. Supreme Court decision. How did public opinion change so quickly, and how integral was it to the fight that it did? Do social movements today have similar advantages? Finally, some Catholic bishops are pushing to deny President Biden communion for his pro-choice views. What does that even mean? Does it matter? We discuss.

After a highly anticipated summit between President Biden and Vladimir Putin, here’s what we’re left with: if Russia’s going to cyberattack the United States, they should not target sixteen critical areas of American society and infrastructure, or else. What does that mean? And where does that leave us with Russian hackers that aren’t part of the government?

Also: The Supreme Court upholds Obamacare after another attempt to shake it down. Is this a win for progressives? Is it a major loss for conservatives? And Senator Joe Manchin proposes a voting rights compromise. Is it a good deal for both sides? Plus: a discussion of Ross Douthat’s book The Decadent Society and how the pandemic has left a mark on decadence.

Joe Biden is in Europe. He’s meeting with the G7, then he’ll see European and NATO leaders and meet one-on-one with Putin. European leaders are relieved Trump is gone, but does that mean they have an alignment of interests with Biden ashe seeks to challenge Russia and China? And is that more pressing than the role of G7 leaders in leading vaccination around the world?

Then: the new bipartisan infrastructure deal is so secret nobody even know what’s in it. We know one thing that’s not in it: new taxes, which makes sense, because Republicans and Democrats have embraced expansions of government spending without taxes! Plus the panel discusses the death of Democrats’ voting bill and the ProPublica exposé of billionaires’ tax information. It didn’t expose anything illegal. Is any of it our business?

Josh Barro finally admits cicadas are real, but he says it’s still stupid to promote anything about eating them.

The jobs report for May was better than April but still left a lot of room for improvement. Workers are being more selective, which may not be a bad thing. With a tight labor market and a material shortage, is this the right time for a big infrastructure package? Negotiations continue in Washington for a possible bipartisan deal, but the final package may be much more modest than what President Biden hoped for.

The cruise line industry is trying to recover after a devastating year and the CDC is saying cruise lines must ensure that at least 95% of passengers and crew must be vaccinated against COVID. But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed a state law prohibiting private companies from requiring proof of vaccination from its customers and has threatened to fine cruise lines if they do so. Should the government be making rules about when private companies can require vaccines? And what about workplace vaccine mandates?

Then: This week, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn seemed to be saying a coup like the one in Myanmar should happen here and former President Trump has hopes of being “reinstated” in August.

Finally, the panel talks with Princeton Professor of Sociology Patrick Sharkey about the rise in violent crime over the past year, the possible causes for this dramatic spike and the data-backed ways to bring crime down.

Congress has been unusually productive lately. The sausage making process is actually getting us some sausage — in this case, a bipartisan plan to boost spending on applied science research, framed as a way to compete with China. There is less agreement on the bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 riot, and as expected, Republicans blocked the plan after we recorded this episode. Josh Barro and panelists Elizabeth Bruenig, Rahcel Bovard and David Frum discuss why and the split on the right about the panel. Plus: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into a law a new avenue to make social media companies be nice to conservatives. Tech companies say it violates the First Amendment, but is the intention even for the law to work?

Finally: what’s the right way for the United States to respond to a state-sponsored hijacking of a passenger jet in Europe and other increasingly bold actions from authoritarian states?

There is a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians. Joe Biden told Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that he expected a significant and swift de-escalation, which he got. But the Biden administration’s overall approach to Israel and Palestine has been to keep expectations low and not get too involved. There are no big peace process hopes here. Is there anything more productive the US can do?

Then: Congress is being normal again. There’s a big science funding bill that’s probably going to pass with big bipartisan majorities — and lots of pet projects that undermine the bill’s core mission. That’s the regular order Congress is supposed to use — is it any good? We’ll look at Republican opposition to a bipartisan Capitol riot commission.

The panel talks with expert Rupali Limaye of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University about incentives for vaccinations, sending doses abroad and more.

Inflation is back! It may not be here to stay — there’s a lot of weirdness in the economy right now — but with wages rising quickly despite surprisingly weak job growth in April, some states are moving to cut off unenhanced unemployment benefits in an effort to drive more Americans back into work. Is that a good idea? Will it work? And will it push back on inflation? Josh Barro talks with panelists Tim Carney and Elizabeth Bruenig about that, and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack that disrupted gasoline delivery in the Eastern U.S. Why do these ransom attacks happen, and how can we protect ourselves against the next one? Finally: the panel discusses an unexpectedly controversial Mother’s Day essay Liz Bruenig wrote about becoming a mother at 25.

The April jobs report number was disappointing. We expected a million new jobs and only got 260,000. There are a few factors that could be slowing job growth: a very specific reason why manufacturing jobs are down, enhanced unemployment benefits, disrupted child care and school schedule, and the pandemic and the pace of vaccination.

Then: it’s possible that Rep. Liz Cheney will no longer be in House Republican leadership. She’s been outspoken about her disapproval of Donald Trump and her anger about his lies about the 2020 election that inspired a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol in January. She may be replaced by Rep. Elise Stefanik, who got an emphatic endorsement from former President Trump this week. Is that infighting a proxy fight over Trump’s role in the party? Finally: the panel discusses a ruling from the Facebook Supreme Court, which is a real thing that exists, about Trump’s future on Facebook and Instagram.

President Biden made his first address to a joint session of Congress. It didn’t get big TV ratings, but the content reflected big changes to what he’d have the government do, with trillions of dollars in new spending on infrastructure and social programs. So is Joe Biden a quiet radical? Or is he just showing that a left agenda was never that intensely controversial if you did it quietly? And how did Republican Senator Tim Scott do in his response to Biden’s address? His speech drew a lot of praise and a lot of criticism. Josh Barro, Rachel Bovard, Gustavo Arellano and Keli Goff talk through the speeches, what Biden said about his agenda, and where Republicans might oppose it.

Plus: three stories about whether the government will tell you what to do in your own personal consumption behavior. Should there be a federal ban on menthol cigarettes? What about marijuana? And what’s the beef with beef?