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This week, the Trump administration did a seemingly uncommon thing – it reversed course under pressure. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House subcommittee this week that the Justice Department would not go forward with its plans to implement a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund. Fellow Republicans in Congress who saw it as funneling federal money to the president’s supporters – possibly including Jan. 6 rioters – held up other legislation in protest. For a president who claims ...
This month will mark two years since the beginning of the end for Joe Biden’s presidency – when the calls for him to end his campaign for a second term reached a fever pitch following a disastrous debate performance in 2024. And this month, for the first time, we’re hearing about that period of time from the person closest to the former president: his wife, Jill Biden. In this episode, the former first lady discusses her view on her husband’s fitness for office during the campaign, and other mom...
For six decades 60 Minutes has been one of the most trusted news programs in America… is CBS leadership making changes that could destroy the program’s future? Over the last week, some of the biggest names at 60 Minutes have been fired from CBS News. Executive Producer Tanya Simon, correspondents: Sharon Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega and last night Scott Pelley. Pelley was fired after he confronted CBS leadership for, as he put it, trying to gut and "murder" the show. Now, the most iconic show in broadc...
DOGE cuts, global confusion and the devastating effect on an HIV/AIDS organization in Mozambique. Mozambique has the second-largest AIDS epidemic in the world. And Gaza province is the hardest hit spot in the country. NPR's Juana Summers recently traveled there to see how the Trump administration’s cuts left aid organizations scrambling. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . This episode ...
A New Jersey immigration facility is the latest hot spot for protests against Trump's immigration policy. What's happening inside, and could the situation outside worsen? The Delaney Hall Detention Facility has been the site of intense protests since last month, and they’ve become increasingly violent in recent days. Family members of detainees say a hunger and labor strike has begun inside the prison, over poor living conditions and alleged human rights violations. To control the tension outsid...
As aid groups warn that the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa is worsening, Nicholas Enrich, the former acting assistant administrator for global health at US AID, worries the U.S. capacity to stop this crisis - or future ones - is less robust than it was. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . This episode was produced by Henry Larson. It was edited by Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer...
For his series What's Eating America, NPR reporter Joe Hernandez has been examining how people across the country are adapting to high food prices. In this week's Reporter's Notebook, Hernandez discusses how he got Americans to share their very personal stories connected to the food and affordability. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . This episode was produced by Gurjit Kaur. It was e...
Louisiana leads the country in crawfish production, bringing more than $300 million to the state each year. What happens when there aren't enough employees to get them to buyers? Farmers, landscapers and the hospitality industry have long argued that the U.S. government doesn’t issue enough temporary visas to meet seasonal labor needs. Current limits under Trump’s second term have worsened that problem. And farmers in rural Louisiana are feeling that pinch. NPR’s Debbie Elliott went to Louisiana...
American presidents have long used scripture as a rhetorical resource to frame important moments in the nation’s history. But the Trump administration has used the Bible in different ways to publicly frame policies such as immigration crackdowns and military actions abroad. NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose explores specific instances when Trump administration officials have invoked the Bible to back the president’s agenda. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider T...
The podcast examines the devastating effects of U.S. cuts to HIV funding on community health programs in South Africa, focusing on the 'We Care' clinic in Soweto. Once supported by PEPFAR, the clinic has seen its staff reduced from over 30 to just four, severely limiting their ability to support low-income people with HIV and AIDS. Remaining workers share the personal and professional challenges, including a breakdown of trust with beneficiaries and concerns about a rise in new infections, highlighting the unseen impact of foreign aid decisions.
U.S. forces struck Iranian boats and missile launch sites in southern Iran on Monday, in what U.S. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins has called "self-defense strikes ... to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces." Iran says it shot down three U.S. drones. Despite the violence, neither Iran nor the United States appear to be pulling back on diplomatic efforts to reach an interim deal to end the almost three-month long war. But what does that look like? For sponsor-fr...
In recent days, the news has been filled with some eyebrow-raising choices by the Trump administration. Like the disclosure of thousands of stock trades, being granted immunity from IRS audits, and the DOJ's nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. These actions have raised questions from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan legal think tank, says these actions amount to "corruption in plain sight." For...
Throughout the war, the U.S.’ main objectives have fluctuated from regime change, to stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, to reopening the strategic straight of Hormuz. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, explains why the U.S. will likely come out of the war weaker than before. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . This episode was produced by Daniel Ofma...
Media mogul Byron Allen owns the Weather Channel, a bunch of local TV and cable channels and also recently acquired a majority stake in Buzzfeed. And on Friday, he’s bringing his show Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen to the CBS time slot long held by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Host Ailsa Chang spoke with Byron Allen about his plans for Comics Unleashed and why he thinks there’s still more than enough political comedy after the cancellation of Colbert. This conversation is part of NPR’s...
With Trump's DOJ anti-weaponization fund, Jan. 6 defendants may go from prison to payday. Can the police officers who defended the Capitol stop them? The new “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from the Trump Department of Justice is a pot of money worth almost $1.8 billion from a settlement between President Trump, and the government he leads. Trump officials say anyone who believes they were victims of “weaponized” law enforcement can apply for this taxpayer-funded compensation. And that includes the hu...
Special education teachers are using artificial intelligence to manage crushing paperwork. Could it help instructors spend more time with their students? Millions of students qualify for special education and they need qualified teachers to help them. But burnout for these teachers has caused many to leave the profession – one reason – the paperwork Now, a growing number of special educators are using A-I to speed up that paperwork and some research shows that despite the risks – it could help t...
More than a decade ago, Ron Klain helped orchestrate the U.S. response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, as the White House Ebola response coordinator under President Obama. Now, with a fast-growing outbreak of a different strain of Ebola, in a different part of Africa, the public health infrastructure to address an outbreak has vastly changed, following the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID. In this episode, Klain talks about the role USAID played in responding to the 2014-2016 Eb...
Is Kennedy heir Jack Schlossberg ready to lead? We ask him. Schlossberg seems to be trying to follow the path his grandfather John F. Kennedy took when he was elected to Congress almost eight decades ago. And his campaign has momentum. Lots of attention, favorable press and the endorsement of Speaker of the House emeritus Nancy Pelosi. But now after the New York Times article – he’s speaking out – a lot. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts o...
A prayer festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC was partially organized and funded by the federal government. Its evangelical Christian messaging and call for more religion in politics not less, aligns with the Trump administration's fusion of faith and governance. NPR's Emily Feng went to the event to understand the audience for this approach, and she spoke with author Eric Metaxas, a speaker at the Rededicate 250 festival. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsi...
NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro has spent years covering elections and parsing through voter data. With the midterm elections approaching Montanaro talks about how he relies on both polling and stories from voters to report as accurately as possible on the current political moment. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . This episode was produced by Gabriel ...
The Trump administration hasn't been talking much about its mass deportation policy, but that doesn't mean efforts have stopped. Back in February, support for President Trump’s mass deportation policy had plummeted. Two thirds of Americans polled by NPR said immigration enforcement had gone too far after agency officers killed two American citizens in Minneapolis. The Trump administration has spent the past several months trying to regain public support ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. B...
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is butting heads with Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona again — this time, over Kelly’s recent statements that the U.S. is depleting its weapons supply in this war with Iran. Secretary Hegseth says that in discussing information from Pentagon briefings, Senator Kelly violated protocol. But the back-and-forth does raise the question: What's the status of the Pentagon's weapons stockpile amid the war with Iran? Barbara Starr, former CNN Pentagon correspondent ...
Flying discs, metallic orbs, and a mysterious cylinder tumbling past the Apollo spacecraft. Those are just a few of the unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, contained in a batch of government files the Department of Defense released this month. The DoD report, coming on President Trump’s orders, is another step towards the federal government taking the question of UAPs more seriously. But how much of this is really new – and what more can we learn from the files? Astrophysicist Adam Frank o...
President Trump promised Americans, fair, equal and impartial justice…is that what he’s delivering? President Trump campaigned on a promise to undo the levers of the justice system that he said were weaponized against him. His administration has gutted the Justice Department unit that investigates and prosecutes public corruption. But since the beginning of Trump’s second term investigations into corrupt public officials have dropped nearly 90 percent. Meanwhile, pardons of officials convicted o...
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, for her work to promote democracy in her country. Many Venezuelans expected Machado would eventually become their president once authoritarian ruler Nicolas Maduro was ousted from power. But Maduro has been out of power and in a U.S. prison since January, and Machado is still on the outside looking in. Host Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Maria Corina Machado about her plans to return to Venezuela, her re...
China’s nuclear weapons capabilities are small compared to that of Russia and the U.S. However, China has been expanding its nuclear arsenal under the leadership of Xi Jinping, doubling in size in just the last decade. NPR's Emily Feng explains the current state of China's nuclear program and why the country is seeking to further develop it. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . This epis...
Skiing star Lindsey Vonn was on the cusp of capping off one of the most remarkable career comebacks the Olympics has ever seen. Then it all changed. It had been six years since she stepped away from competitive skiing due to injuries and made her triumphant return at the 2026 Winter Olympics. But then it came all tumbling down. Millions watched as the 41-year-old had the worst crash of her career. Most people wouldn't want to show their face in public again — not Lindsey Vonn. NPR's Becky Sulliv...
The number of antisemitic incidents is on the rise in the UK. What is driving it, and – how is the British government trying to combat it? The United Kingdom faces an antisemitism emergency. That’s according to the government there. This week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there is a plan to fight it. Brendan McGeever co-director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in London breaks down what's happening. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider Thi...
When the U.S. and Israel bomb Iran and start a war, we know about it moments after it’s started — sometimes even moments before. When Russian tanks cross the border into Ukraine, we watch as it’s happening. This access to immediacy — our ability to be there as history is unfolding — much of that is possible, thanks to the vision of CNN founder Ted Turner. Turner transformed the media industry and revolutionized television news when he launched the Cable News Network — CNN — in 1980. It was the c...
There already was an affordability crisis in the U.S. How the war with Iran is making life more expensive. President Trump says the economy is “roaring.” That as Americans are paying an average price of $4.48 a gallon for gas on Tuesday. A year ago it was $3.17. The reason for that increase — the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, which resulted in the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices are just one measure of the cost of living in the United States. But they’re a significant one. Martha Gimbel...
