The Brian Lehrer Show

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History of the War on Terror Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

As we approach the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Peter Bergen, national security analyst for CNN, a vice president at the New America Foundation and the author of All the Presidents' Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America's War on Terror (WW Norton, 2026), reviews the history of the U.S. War on Terror.

Photo: UAF 175 crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City during the September 11 attacks. Photo by: Flickr user TheMachineStops (Robert J. Fisch) via Wikimedia Commons.

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Labor Day: Working Class; White Collar Unions; Supermarkets; Summer Songs Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

For Labor Day, we've put together some of our favorite recent interviews, including:

As the Democratic Socialists of America rack up electoral wins during primary season, the group is pushing an expansive definition of who counts as working-class. Gothamist and WNYC reporter Elizabeth Kim and Christopher Maisano, editor of New Labor Forum, a labor journal from the Murphy Institute at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, discuss who counts as working class and why the definition matters.
Noam Scheiber, New York Times reporter focusing on white-collar workers and the author of Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026), talks about the conditions leading young college-educated workers to lead unionization efforts.
Ann Larson, a fellow with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the author of Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register (One Signal/Atria, 2026), talks about what she learned about the economy and workers when she went from reporting on low-wage work to taking a job during the pandemic at a local supermarket
On Labor Day, listeners weigh in to answer what is 2026's "song of the summer."

These interviews were lightly polished up and edited for time, the original versions are available here:

Who Counts as Working-Class? (July 23)

White-Collar Workers Unite! (April 15)

What's Unseen at the Grocery Store (July 13)

Song of the Summer 2026 (July 20)

Photo: Thousands of New Yorkers and laborers march during the New York City Labor Day parade, America's oldest Labor Day Parade, along with members of more than 200 unions and organizations, on Saturday, September 6, 2025, in New York City, USA (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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Brian Lehrer Weekend: El Niño; NYC Schools & AI; Jeff Spurgeon Sep 05, 2026

Show notes

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

Extreme Weather and El Niño (First) | Back to School Report (Starts at :30) | Goodbye, WQXR's Jeff Spurgeon (Starts at 1:03)

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

Photo: Higher-than-normal sea surfaces (red) are visible in the central and eastern Pacific on June 8, 2026, a few days before El Niño was declared. (NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Summer Friday: Right's Women; West's Mistake; Culture Wars; Post-Literate; Wildflowers Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

On this Summer Friday, we've put together some of our favorite recent interviews, including:

Katie Gaddini, sociologist, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, an associate professor of sociology at the Social Research Institute, University College London (UCL) and a research associate at the University of Johannesburg department of sociology, and the author of Esther's Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right (WW Norton, 2026), talks about her research into the activism of right-wing Christian women and their leadership of the political evangelical movement.
Ian Shapiro, professor of political science and global affairs at Yale University, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of After the Fall: From the End of History to the Crisis of Democracy, How Politicians Broke Our World (Basic Books, 2026), traces the breakdown in democratic institutions to missteps by Western leaders following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Isaac Butler, culture historian, critic, podcaster and the author of The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars (Bloomsbury, 2026), revisits the late 1980s start of the culture wars as the religious right took on the contemporary art world.
As the number of adults who report reading books has declined, Rose Horowitch, staff writer for The Atlantic, argues that we're living in a "post-literate world" and talks about what that means for society.
As part of the yearlong series "Wild NYC," Marielle Anzelone, urban botanist and ecologist and the founder of NYC Wildflower Week, and Clara Holmes, plant ecologist at New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, talk about the challenges facing local wildflowers and native plants and how to preserve them.

These interviews were lightly polished up and edited for time, the original versions are available here:

The Political Power of Christian Right Women (July 22)

Where Western Leaders Went Wrong (May 8)

Where the Culture Wars Began (June 23)

Our 'Post-Literate World' (July 8)

Wild NYC - Wildflowers (June 10)

Photo: Narrow-leaved Blue-eyed Grass - native wildflower with grasslike leaves and small blue-violet flowers. Grows in open sandy meadows in low wet spots. Uncommon in NYC and locally rare. {Marielle Anzelone)

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Back to School Report Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Jessica Gould, education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, talks about the newly announced NYC AI policy for schools, plus other back-to-school issues.

Photo: Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar H. Samuels announce a moratorium on student-facing generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) use in schools. Brooklyn STEAM Center. Wednesday, September 2, 2026. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.

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The Life and Legacy of Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Gloria Steinem died yesterday at age 92. Carolyn Maloney, former Manhattan congresswoman, president of the NYS chapter of the National Organization for Women and founder of Sign4ERA reflects on the feminist icon's life and legacy, and talks about the work they did together on the Equal Rights Amendment.

photo: Gloria Steinem attends Equality Now 30th Anniversary Gala at Guastavino's on November 15, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

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What Rising Global Bond Yields Mean for the Economy, and Your Money Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Amidst rising inflation, ongoing wars in Iran and Israel, and the U.S. national debt climbing to a record $40 trillion, the global bond market is rattled. Mary Childs, host of the talk show podcast Mary in America, author of The Bond King, and former co-host of Planet Money, explains why bond yields are so high right now and what it all means for the global economy, and for your wallet.

c/o: Blue Arauz, via Pexels

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Who's Winning at Kids Sports? Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Caitlin Moscatello, author and contributor to New York Magazine, talks about the expense of youth sports and the investors who profit.

Photo: Members of the Guilderland travel team arrive to play a home game against Queensbury as Guilderland Youth Baseball starts up using safety procedures at Keenholts Park on Wednesday, July 8, 2020 in Altamont, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)

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Labor Day History Quiz Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About History and Don't Know Much About Mythology, quizzes listeners on how well they know their Labor Day history.

Kenneth's blog
Kenneth's YouTube channel

image: Labor Day Parade, Union Square, New York, 1882 (Lithographie), 16 September 1882 (Author not known, but more than 100 years old, Image edited, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Dark Money Midterms Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

Theodore Schleifer, covers billionaires and their impact for the New York Times, talks about the impact of dark money on the 2026 midterms, why the spending source is growing, and where it's being spent.

Photo: Stock image by fStop Images - Antenna via Getty Creative

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