New York Governor Kathy Hochul, along withother top officials spent much of Tuesday weighing whether to use her power to remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office. It's a power that no New York Governor has ever used before. Adams faces growing calls to step down over allegations of corruption - and criticism that Adams' deepening ties with the Trump administration have compromised his ability to govern independently. The nation's biggest city has been all but paralyzed by the legal and ...
Feb 18, 2025•10 min
An Israeli delegation is in Cairo to hash out details for the second phase of a ceasefire deal with Hamas. Under the first phase of the deal, Hamas agreed to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages – and Israel said it would free around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. NPR's Jerome Socolovsky looks into why Israel has long accepted lopsided deals to bring back abducted citizens. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org...
Feb 17, 2025•10 min
Across the country and around the world, tens of thousands of federal workers face uncertainty amid an unprecedented reduction and restructuring of the federal workforce. President Donald Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders — freezing hiring, ordering teleworkers back to the office, reclassifying employees and dismantling wide-ranging DEI programs. What will mass layoffs mean for federal workers and the government services they provide? For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign ...
Feb 16, 2025•14 min
There are at least two million people in America who have thoughts and ideas they can't put into words. People who have had strokes or traumatic brain injuries often live with aphasia: difficulty using language, both written and spoken. But music mostly originates in the undamaged hemisphere of the brain, and people with aphasia can often sing. Today in our bonus episode, in partnership with the podcast Rumble Strip, we meet a member of The Aphasia Choir of Vermont. For sponsor-free episodes of ...
Feb 15, 2025•9 min
President Donald Trump is now chairman of The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Trump replaced 18 members of the board with allies who then elected him into the position. There is no precedent for this move – most presidents have been hands-off with the cultural center since it opened in 1971 – including President Trump himself during his first term. Already, artists affiliated with the center have departed and performers are canceling shows. For a decade, Deborah Rutter...
Feb 14, 2025•9 min
Panama has been looking for solutions to a long-term problem. Every time a ship passes through the Panama Canal, more than 50 million gallons of fresh water from Lake Gatun pour out into the ocean. Nobody ever thought Panama could run out of water. It is one of the rainiest countries in the world. But a couple years ago, a drought got so bad that the canal had to reduce traffic by more than a third - which had a huge impact on global shipping. The Panama Canal needs more water. Authorities have ...
Feb 13, 2025•9 min
The Gaza Strip – ground zero of Israel's war with Hamas – is only about twice the size of Washington, DC. It has about 25 miles of coastline along the Mediterranean Sea, with a population of about 2 million people. Last week, President Trump proposed relocating those people to other countries in the region, like Egypt and Jordan. Trump has said the Palestinians would not be allowed to return: UN officials and others say Trump's plan would amount to ethnic cleansing. Despite domestic and internat...
Feb 12, 2025•8 min
President Trump's blizzard of executive orders has run into a snowplow of legal challenges. There are dozens of cases challenging the White House's actions. Judges all over the country have found that the White House acted illegally. The challenges, and the rulings, continue to pour in. But Trump's team is punching back. After a judge blocked Elon Musk's DOGE team from accessing personal data and other Treasury department systems, Musk referred to him as "a corrupt judge protecting corruption" a...
Feb 11, 2025•12 min
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is quickly expanding its reach through the federal government. It recently accessed systems at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Musk and his team now are looking at key payment and contracting systems for Medicare and Medicaid. That was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. On X, Musk said he believes quote "big money fraud is happening." Medicare insures older people. Medicaid offers insurance to low income people and those wit...
Feb 10, 2025•9 min
Project 2025 , is a 900-plus page blueprint for a conservative President. It was unveiled in the spring of 2023, well before Donald Trump had won the republican presidential nomination. It outlined a suite of very conservative policies that would, for example, outlaw the mailing of abortion pills and abolish the department of education. It even suggests a return to the gold standard. It became a democratic talking point, so much so that Trump repeatedly distanced himself from the plan and the au...
Feb 09, 2025•9 min
For centuries, scholars only had one version of the life of Margery Kempe, an English mystic who lived in the 14th and 15th centuries — until a ping pong match revealed her story in her own words. 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 See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privac...
Feb 09, 2025•9 min
A lot of labels have been applied to Trump's foreign policy approach. America First, Isolationist, transactional, imperialist, protectionist. "I'm a nationalist and a globalist" he told the Wall Street Journal during his first term. In his inaugural address last month , Trump made comments suggesting his foreign policy will be characterized by restraint, saying, in part, success should be defined by the "wars we never get into." Yet in the same address, he also said, the United States will take ...
Feb 07, 2025•11 min
As President Trump dismantles Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices at the federal level, organizations across the country are also shifting their approach to diversity. 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 . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Feb 06, 2025•10 min
President Trump floated two stunning ideas about Gaza on Tuesday. The first is he said the U.S. would take over the territory, which has been devastated by the recent war. And, he said the entire population of Gaza would be relocated to other countries. Trump offered no specifics for his plans sending Palestinians and Israelis scrambling to understand what he means. President Trump's vague plan to "Make Gaza Beautiful Again" could signal the largest shift in US-Middle East policy in decades and ...
Feb 05, 2025•12 min
In Washington these days, Elon Musk seems to be everywhere. In the 15 days Donald Trump has been back in the White House, Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have been moving to change every corner of the federal government. The billionaire entrepreneur and his team have gained access to a sensitive government payment system in the Treasury Department. They're pushing to drastically reduce the number of federal employees. How did the world's richest man come to have such a big role ...
Feb 04, 2025•10 min
The Panama Canal has sat at the center of global trade for more than a century, connecting two oceans. The things Americans use every day pass through here, from gas to food. And now, this spot is also at the center of President Trump's global expansionist agenda. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has just wrapped up a trip to Panama where he told the President that if China's influence over the canal isn't curbed the United States will take measures to protect its rights. Trump's threat to take ba...
Feb 03, 2025•12 min
Most presidents want as much power as they can get. And it's not unusual to see them claim authority that they don't, in the end, actually have. We saw it just last term, when former President Biden tried to unilaterally forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loans. Or when he announced, days before leaving office that the 28th Amendment, on gender equality, was now the law of the land. So are the opening moves of Trump's presidency just a spicier version of the standard play...
Feb 02, 2025•12 min
Schools, corporations, even churches, are wrestling with how to approach issues of racial and social justice in a highly polarized U.S. But what happens when people with shared political views disagree on how much is too much? 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 . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast s...
Jan 31, 2025•11 min
What went wrong in the midair collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet over Reagan National Airport, outside of D.C.? As officials search for clues the country mourns those lost. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Jan 30, 2025•12 min
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced senators today in a contentious confirmation hearing to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary under President Trump. He's a former Democrat — turned independent presidential candidate — turned Trump loyalist. He's also someone who has pushed vaccine misinformation, something he was repeatedly questioned about during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. HHS is a massive system that oversees everything from the Food and Drug Administration to vaccine funding to...
Jan 29, 2025•11 min
Country music singer Charley Crockett was born and raised in Texas, grew up in a single-wide trailer with his mom and says his family lineage traces all the way back to the frontiersman Davy Crockett. This Sunday is the music industry's biggest night — the Grammy Awards. And Crockett is up for an award for the first time — Best Americana Album — for his record "$10 Cowboy." For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org Email us at c...
Jan 28, 2025•9 min
Susie Wiles is doing something no woman has done before. She is the first in history to hold the position of White House Chief of Staff. Now, we will find out if she can do something that no one — man or woman – has ever done before: Impose discipline and order on a Trump White House that was rife with leaks, drama, and by many accounts – chaos – during his first term. A chief of staff can be the difference between a ground-breaking presidency and chaos. Is Susie Wiles up to the task? For sponso...
Jan 27, 2025•10 min
Former President Joe Biden championed DEI programs–initiatives aimed at diversity, equity inclusion and accessibility in recruiting, hiring and retention of federal government employees. In a matter of days – and a few pen strokes – President Donald Trump brought it all to an end this week. NPR's Pien Huang speaks with Timothy Welbeck, the director of Temple University's Center for Anti-Racism, to understand more about the history of DEI and how it became targeted by President Trump, For sponsor...
Jan 26, 2025•10 min
As evacuation orders are lifted, people in Los Angeles are returning to their homes--if their homes survived. But the disaster doesn't end when the fire stops. A single block and a half separates the Altadena home of Jennifer and Ed Barguiarena from complete destruction. Just down the street lies charred, flattened debris. But for families like the Barguiarenas — the seemingly lucky ones, whose houses survived — an altogether different ordeal is just beginning. The water still isn't safe to drin...
Jan 24, 2025•9 min
What do Babygirl, Singing in the Rain and Apocalypse Now have in common? They've all been overlooked by Oscar voters. Some Oscar blunders fall into the category of snubs - others show a failure to recognize films that will endure. Now sometimes, these critiques are a matter of movie taste. Sometimes, they're a broader matter of representation – raising questions about who the movie industry chooses to celebrate or ignore. The Academy Awards have made some truly epic misses over their long histor...
Jan 23, 2025•12 min
When Donald Trump was sworn in on Monday, he was flanked by billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Also on the dais was Apple CEO Tim Cook, Open AI's CEO Sam Altman, and Bernard Arnault owner of L-V-M-H which owns luxury brands like Dior and Louis Vuitton. An American government closely aligned with money and power is something outgoing President Joe Biden warned about in his farewell address. Oligarchy – A word that once more commonly referred to the super wealthy of Eastern Eu...
Jan 22, 2025•11 min
President Donald J. Trump began taking decisive steps to implement his agenda hours after being sworn in. In the day since he's once again become President, Trump has signed more than 200 executive actions aimed at delivering on campaign promises such as lower energy prices, mass deportations and an end to birthright citizenship. There's been a deluge of actions, orders and pronouncements during the President's first day. From tariffs to immigration to the January 6th pardons – we breakdown ever...
Jan 21, 2025•18 min
Donald Trump returns to Washington newly empowered. The Republican party has remade itself in his image. The Supreme Court has granted him sweeping immunity for his official actions. And, unlike last time, he narrowly won the popular vote. And Trump is prepared to exercise his new power almost immediately. He's pledged to sign an unprecedented wave of executive actions – many of which will be challenged in court. These actions include one making it U.S. policy to recognize only two biologically ...
Jan 21, 2025•10 min
When he ran for office in 2020, President Joe Biden vowed to turn the page on then president Donald Trump. But it's Trump who is returning to the White House for a second term in office. We speak with NPR's Asma Khalid, who covered the Biden administration, on the legacy he leaves behind. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use...
Jan 19, 2025•10 min
Will Rogers State Historic Park is a vast stretch of natural space in the Santa Monica Mountains. It's a treasure to Angelenos. People get married there, picnic there, and have kids' birthday parties on the great lawn. The park's namesake, Will Rogers, was a vaudeville performer, radio and movie star, and was known as America's "cowboy philosopher." His nearly century-old ranch house is the park's centerpiece. It's survived a near miss with wildfire before. Last week, as firestorm engulfed large...
Jan 17, 2025•9 min
