The Brian Lehrer Show

Andy Kim, U.S. Senator (D NJ), talks about his work in the Senate and the issues in New Jersey, including the war with Iran and partisan redistricting in the Garden State and around the country.

Photo: US Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ). December 2024, Office of Senator Andy Kim U.S. Senate Photographic Studio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

NYC Health and Hospitals announced plans to shut down a storied program at Bellevue Hospital that treats torture survivors, citing tenuous federal funding and the possibility of ICE raids at the hospital. Allen Keller, M.D., associate professor of medicine and population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and founder of Bellevue's Program for Survivors of Torture, and Ibrahim, former patient at Bellevue's Program for Survivors of Torture, discuss the impact of the program and why they're fighting to keep it open.

Photo: Bellevue Hospital - NYC (Credit: ajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The U.S. fertility rate dropped to another record low in 2025, according to provisional CDC data, marking a 23% drop since 2007. Jill Filipovic, attorney and author of several books, including OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind (Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2020),  and Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center and a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explain what's behind the decline, the current Republican and far-right conservative policy plans to try and reverse those trends and what actually works to incentivize a growing population.

Photo: A doctor uses a hand-held Doppler probe on a pregnant woman to measure the heartbeat of the fetus on Dec. 17, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. (Credit: Rogelio V. Solis/AP)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Wes Jackson, president of BRIC, unveils the lineup for the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! festival in Prospect Park, where the theme this year is "radical joy." 

Photo: A Celebrate Brooklyn! performance at the Lena Horne Bandshell in July 2022. (Credit: BailieSchaefer via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily reinstated a Food and Drug Administration rule allowing the abortion pill mifepristone to be prescribed via telemedicine. Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent at The Nation and author of Killers of Roe: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights (Hachette, 2026), explains the legal battle over the abortion pill playing out in courts and how abortion access in the United States could be upended if reproductive care becomes inaccessible through the mail. Plus, Kristyn Brandi, MD, abortion provider in New Jersey and previous board chair with Physicians for Reproductive Health, explains how abortion access has expanded via telemedicine post-Dobbs and how abortion care providers are navigating shifting policies.

Photo: Trans man and abortion rights advocate Artemis Duffy of New England shows a box of mifepristone he is taking outside the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March 26, 2024. (Photo by Shuran Huang for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Zellnor Myrie, New York State Senator (D-20, parts of central Brooklyn including Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Park Slope), talks about his bill that would allow survivors of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein to seek damages from the Epstein estate, plus other budget-related news of the day.

Photo: State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, center, questions New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James, Daniel Martuscello III, commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and Joseph Popcun, deputy commissioner of the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services, during a joint legislative budget hearing on public protection on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, at the Legislative Office Building in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Melissa Murray, NYU law professor, co-host of the podcast Strict Scrutiny, MSNOW commentator and the author of  The U.S. Constitution:  A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader (Simon & Schuster, 2026), explains the Constitution and how all the problems inherent in the founding are contained in it, not solved by it.

Photo: The first page of the US Constitution. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

WNYC has been targeted by scammers who posed as hosts and offered authors interviews -- for a fee (which WNYC would never do). Rachel Tobac, co-founder and CEO of Social Proof Security, and Kenneth Atkins, assistant director of IT and data security at WNYC, talk about how to spot sneaky online phishing scams, and how to deal if you fall for it.

Photo: Stock image (Vertigo3d via Getty Creative)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nick Corasaniti, New York Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections, talks about how the Supreme Court's recent voting rights decision could fuel "endless redistricting wars," and how this may affect this year's midterm elections and beyond.

Photo: Campaign signs in Takoma Park, Md. on Oct. 27, 2018. (Credit: Edward Kimmel/Wikimedia Commons BY CC 2.0)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Christine Clarke, commissioner and chair of the NYC Commission on Human Rights, talks about her new role, the Mamdani administration's priorities in human rights and the state of New York's anti-discrimination laws.

Photo: Christine Clarke, chair and commissioner of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. (Credit: New York City Commission on Human Rights)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.