The Briefing with Michael Waldman

From everyday instances of corruption to an administration intent on undermining the Constitution, it can feel as though American democracy is in decline. Yet amid the attacks on the rule of law and strains on our system of checks and balances, there are ways that we can engage, participate, and work together to defend and uphold our democratic institutions. Listen as legal expert and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance discusses her new book, Giving Up is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy.

Speakers: 

• Joyce Vance, Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at University of Alabama School of Law; Senior Fellow, Brennan Center 

• Host: Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center

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Recorded on November 3, 2025.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.

Congress has the power of the purse, not the president. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide how much the federal government spends and for what purposes. While presidents and Congress have always engaged in a push-and-pull over funding, President Trump has taken unprecedented steps to ignore this constitutional framework and impose his own spending priorities. Experts break down these efforts, the lawsuits challenging them, and the impact of these actions on Americans’ daily lives.

 Speakers:

• Shalanda Young, Former Director, White House Office of Management and Budget; Distinguished Scholar in Residence, NYU School of Law; Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy

• Lauren Miller Karalunas, Counsel, Brennan Center Democracy Program

• Host, Michael Waldman, President and CEO, Brennan Center

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Recorded on October 28, 2025.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.

President Trump has done away with the Justice Department’s historic independence, firing career prosecutors and using the department to pursue his political enemies. Former DOJ leaders under Republican and Democratic administrations break down what is happening inside the department and what can be done about its weaponization.

Speakers:

• Peter Keisler, Former Acting Attorney General 

• Vanita Gupta, Former Associate Attorney General 

• Host: Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center

Recorded on October 24, 2025.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.

We are living in a new era of corruption, one that combines personal self-dealing and vast funds pouring into the political process. Whether it’s the crypto industry dominating Congress, the world’s wealthiest man bankrolling the winning presidential campaign, regulatory decisions used to pressure businesses, or the government quashing the bribery investigation of a top official, public power and private gain are fusing into one. Experts lay out a plan to end the culture of kleptocracy.

Speakers:

• Jane Mayer, Staff Writer, The New Yorker

• Daniel I. Weiner, Director, Elections and Government Program, Brennan Center

• Host, Michael Waldman, President and CEO

If you enjoy this program, please give us a boost by liking it, subscribing, and sharing it with your friends. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, please give it a five-star rating. 

Recorded on October 15, 2025.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.

This year’s Supreme Court term will be a historic one for the future of presidential power and our system of checks and balances. 

The Court has steadily chipped away at protections designed to make American democracy fairer, more inclusive, and more representative. In the 2025–26 term, the justices will hear a set of cases that could accelerate that troublesome trend and produce landmark decisions. One case implicates how the Voting Rights Act ensures fair representation in state legislatures. Yet another takes up the controversy over the president’s asserted power to unilaterally impose tariffs. Learn about the major cases on the Court’s docket and what the outcomes could mean for the future of American democracy. Hosted in partnership with the Kohlberg Center on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Speakers:

• Host, Michael Waldman, President and CEO, Brennan Center

• Kareem Crayton, Vice President for Washington, DC, Brennan Center

• Gilda R. Daniels, Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law

• Elizabeth Goitein, Senior Director, Brennan Center Liberty and National Security Program

• Leah Tulin, Senior Counsel and Litigation Manager, Brennan Center Democracy Program

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Recorded on September 30, 2025.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.

The Constitution gives states and Congress the power to run elections, and the president has virtually no role in the process. Yet President Trump ignored this fact and issued an executive order in March that aims to overhaul the nation’s election systems. His administration is dismantling a federal agency responsible for protecting election security. And it has targeted and threatened election officials and others who keep elections free and fair, while supporting those who undermine elections, including the January 6 rioters.

A new report from the Brennan Center connects the dots between these unprecedented, and in some cases illegal, moves. 

Listen to host Michael Waldman, President and CEO of the Brennan Center discuss the report’s findings with Sean Morales-Doyle, Director, Voting Rights and Elections Program and Jasleen Singh, Counsel, Voting Rights and Elections Program.

If you enjoy this program, please give us a boost by liking it, subscribing, and sharing it with your friends. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, please give it a five-star rating. 

Recorded on September 18, 2025.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.

Challenges to democracy intensified over the summer. The National Guard deployed in California. The Supreme Court ruled on presidential power using the shadow docket. In Texas, an egregious gerrymander has set off a partisan war nationally. Now the fall will mark the next phase of the fight for the Constitution. Will the rule of law hold? How will the 2026 election unfold?

Brennan Center experts discuss some of the biggest news stories of the past three months and explore what will come next in the struggle to uphold democratic values. 

Speakers:

• Kareem Crayton, Vice President for Washington, DC

• Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Senior Director, Justice Program

• Elizabeth Goitein, Senior Director, Liberty and National Security Program

• Hernandez Stroud, Senior Fellow, Justice Program

• Wendy Weiser, Vice President, Democracy Program

• Daniel I. Weiner, Director, Elections and Government Program

• Moderator: Michael Waldman, President and CEO

If you enjoy this program, please give us a boost by liking it, subscribing, and sharing it with your friends. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, please give it a five-star rating. 

Recorded on September 4, 2025.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

In 1965, a nonviolent voting rights march in Alabama culminated in a brutal televised brutal attack by state police. The public outrage that followed prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, a law meant to dismantle racially discriminatory barriers to voting. Since then, this landmark civil rights law has faced continued attacks. The Supreme Court has weakened its protections, most notably in the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder. And just this summer, a lower court ruling in Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe blocked voters in seven states from using the Voting Rights Act to challenge racially discriminatory voting practices. 

The Supreme Court has put that decision on hold for the moment while it considers whether to take up the case. But the very fact that we're celebrating a pause on the near destruction of the Voting Rights Act’s last remaining protection illustrates how bad things have gotten in the courts. Thankfully, courts don’t have the only say. The 15th Amendment gives Congress the power to safeguard the right to vote through legislation. This conversation explores the history of the Voting Rights Act, its impact on voters today, and what it will take to ensure fair representation for all.

Speakers:

• Alexander Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

• Sean Morales-Doyle, Director, Brennan Center Voting Rights and Elections Program

• Lenny Powell, Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund

• Nikema Williams, U.S. Representative (D-GA)

• Moderator: Natalie Tennant, Kanawha County Commissioner; Former West Virginia Secretary of State

  
  

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Recorded on August 19, 2025. 
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.

In his new book Outbreak Behind Bars: Spider Bites, Human Rights, and the Unseen Danger to Public Health, physician and epidemiologist Dr. Homer Venters reveals the grave reality of how infections and diseases spread in correctional facilities, which are often overcrowded and unsanitary. Detailing first-hand accounts of the spread of tuberculosis, MRSA, and other infections, he shines a light on the critical need to improve health care behind bars.  

Venters was the chief medical officer of the New York City jail system and is currently a federal monitor of health services in jails and prisons.   

Listen to him in conversation with Dr. Josy Hahn, senior research fellow, manager, and social epidemiologist in the Brennan Center’s Justice Program. 

Recorded on July 28, 2025. 

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing. 

The executive branch has amassed tremendous power, challenging the constitutional balance among branches of government. This year alone, the president has ignored the laws passed by Congress to fire leaders of independent agencies without cause, freeze the spending of appropriated funds, and deploy the military as a domestic police force.

Supporters of vast presidential power have a name for this: the unitary executive. It’s the idea that the Constitution gives the president full personal control over the executive branch and wide latitude to act unilaterally. While legal scholars debate its scope, the theory in its most expansive form envisions a king-like president largely unconstrained by Congress or the courts. An embrace of this theory by the executive branch and Supreme Court could carry far-reaching consequences for American democracy.

This conversation among experts examines the modern presidency, the origins of the unitary executive theory, and its implications for the future of checks and balances.

Speakers:

• Samuel Breidbart, Counsel, Brennan Center Democracy Program

• Jane Manners, Associate Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law

• Julian Davis Mortenson, James G. Phillipp Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School

• Cristina Rodríguez, Deputy Dean and Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law, Yale Law School

• Moderator: Wilfred U. Codrington III, Walter Floersheimer Professor of Constitutional Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

  
  

If you enjoy this program, please give us a boost by liking, subscribing, and sharing with your friends. If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, please give it a 5-star rating. 

Recorded on August 5, 2025, and produced in partnership with State Court Report.

Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing: https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing