After Chuck Schumer voted last week to prevent a government shutdown, Democrats have been deeply divided on whether he made the right decision or not, largely along generational lines. Philip Bump, national columnist for The Washington Post and the author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America (Viking, 2023) reports on how polls are showing voters are feeling about the episode and Charlie Mahtesian, senior politics editor at Politico, offers analysis of Schumer's decision and the Democrats' response to President Trump.

The Trump administration is rapidly canceling grants at the National Institutes of Health. Katherine Wu, staff writer for The Atlantic, explains how the agency is beginning to terminate active research grants — seemingly on political grounds.

Derek Thompson, staff writer at The Atlantic, author of the "Work in Progress" newsletter and host of the podcast "Plain English," and Ezra Klein, New York Times opinion columnist and host of their podcast, the "Ezra Klein Show," co-authors of Abundance (Simon & Schuster, 2025), discuss their new book that argues limits placed by past generations to protect jobs and the environment are preventing solving shortages today.

Andrew Weissmann, professor of practice at NYU School of Law, MSNBC legal analyst, and the co-author of The Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024), offers legal analysis of the ways the Trump administration has challenged the rule of law in the first few months, including on deportations, fired inspectors general and more.

S. Mitra Kalita, co-founder of URL Media and CEO and publisher of Epicenter-NYC, reflects on the COVID shutdown, how it profoundly changed the city and which consequences from it are still lingering and affecting people's lives.

As our centennial series continues, Annie Polland, president of the Tenement Museum, looks at the life and enduring legacy of Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member as Secretary of Labor who was instrumental in crafting The New Deal, and passing a slew of federal workers protections, including Social Security, a minimum wage and a 40-hour work week.

For St. Patrick's Day, listeners call in to share their family's immigration stories, from Ireland to America, plus listeners who have emigrated from the U.S. to Ireland share their stories.

The federal government has issued a list of demands to Columbia University that they say it must comply with in order to restore hundreds of millions of dollars of funding. Jake Offenhartz, New York City reporter for The Associated Press, talks about the nature of the ultimatum and the contentious relationship between the university and the Trump administration.

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.

The Nation Asks 'Are Men OK?'; (First) | 100 Years of 100 Things: Birth Control (Starts at 33:00) | Can We Change Our Personalities? (Starts at 46:20)

If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.

Eamon Whalen, freelance journalist and Nation contributor, offers analysis of the premise that men and boys are suffering, how to help them if they are, and how this intersects with the "manosphere," and the politics of the moment.