PODCAST · news
The Briefing with Michael Waldman
by Brennan Center for Justice
Every week, Brennan Center President Michael Waldman interviews the leaders, thinkers, and activists who are changing American democracy.
Episodes
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How safe is your vote? (with Ben Ginsberg, Caitlin Durkovich, and Veronica Degraffenreid)
Foreign interference, conspiracy theories from the White House, threats to election officials, and even weather disasters could all affect elections — but according to experts across the political spectrum, our system is built to prevail. This week, Michael is joined by Ben Ginsberg, Republican...
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The Dynamic Latino Vote (with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes)
The “Latino vote” may be decisive in the upcoming election. A diverse and complex group, it continues to defy easy categorization. Political preferences vary influenced by age, geography, religion, and family background. And a series of obstacles and threats could limit Latino political power –...
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The Midterms, Built by the Roberts Court
The Supreme Court term starts the first Monday in October. It’s an annual reminder that the institution looms large over our governmental system. The Court is no longer coequal branch, but in many ways a super-legislature. Its members are unelected and serve for life. Some believe it has been...
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Are the Midterms for Sale? (with Theodore Schleifer, Kareem Crayton & Dan Weiner)
We are weeks away from a consequential midterm election, which will set the course for the president’s final two years in office and beyond. Yet we have no way of knowing is who exactly is spending billions of dollars to try to sway the outcomes. This week, Michael sits down with New York Times...
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How to Save the Vote (with Kareem Crayton and Sean Morales-Doyle)
The Trump administration has been leading an unprecedented campaign to undermine Americans’ right to vote. Luckily, his legislative attempts and executive orders have been halted by Congress and the courts. But will this matter if confusion encourages voters to sit out the midterms? This week,...
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The Battle for American Identity (with Ben Rhodes)
Are we a country based on ideals, on the American creed set out in our founding documents? Or are we a nation of blood and soil, as Vice President JD Vance has argued? Both these strains run throughout American history. Those of us on the side of equality and inclusion have much to learn from…
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Clearing the Confusion on the Supreme Court and Mail Voting
This week, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on Donald Trump’s executive order on mail voting. Headlines suggested that the justices had given Trump a green light. What did the Supreme Court actually do? And what does this mean for voters? In this urgent episode of The Briefing, Michael Waldman...
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Let’s Unstick Congress (with Maya Kornberg and Tom Malinowski)
Does Congress need reform? To many, it's weaker and more hollowed out than ever. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Brennan Center expert Maya Kornberg has extensively researched the institution’s complexities and created a list of solutions that could make it stronger and more productive at...
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How will AI affect the midterms? (with Larry Norden and Abdi Ahmed)
We’re back! After a summer hiatus, the podcast returns to discuss a major new study by the Brennan Center on how artificial intelligence can affect the upcoming election. A team of technology experts looked at how popular chatbots responded to prompts related to election conspiracy theories. We...
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Trump Ramps Up Election Meddling (with Larry Norden and Wendy Weiser)
We’re about 110 days out from the midterms, and the threats to our elections are mounting. This week alone, President Trump fired all remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency that helps states fund and administer elections. At the same time, a federal judge...
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Bringing Power Back to the People (with Maya Wiley)
This week, Michael is joined by Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, for a wide-ranging conversation on the power of coalition building in a moment of deep challenge. Drawing on her experience as a lifelong activist and the daughter of influential...
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Power Grab: Supreme Court Delivers for Trump (with Sam Breidbart and Eric Petry)
As the nation approaches its 250th birthday, the Supreme Court has ended its term with a slew of rulings that further undermine our constitutional system of checks and balances and allow more money to flood our political system. What do the Court’s most recent rulings mean for executive power?...
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The Lost Founder (with Jesse Wegman)
In this week’s episode, Jesse Wegman joins Michael Waldman to discuss his new book, The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution, the first major biography of James Wilson. Wilson was a coauthor of the Constitution (his words: “We the People”). He signed both...
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FBI Raids Ohio Voting Registration Group
Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the state’s leading voter registration organization. This is part of the latest and most aggressive escalation in the DOJ's ongoing investigation over alleged voter fraud. This show of force raises serious...
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Voters Demand Solutions to End Corruption (with Dan Weiner and Marina Pino)
At the beginning of his second administration, Trump said about accusations of corruption and conflicts of interest: “I found out that nobody cared, and I’m allowed to.” According to a new Brennan Center poll, that is emphatically false. Americans care deeply. And they are furious. Voters see...
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Trump’s Supreme Court Showdown — and Other Cases to Watch (with Tom Wolf and Wilfred Codrington)
This month, the Supreme Court will likely finish its work for the year. Already this term, it has aggressively and controversially asserted its authority — most recently gutting the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais. Soon, the Court is expected to rule on cases that could dramatically…
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The Intellectual Movement Behind MAGA (with Laura Field)
Today, there is a great deal of ferment on the right. The primary ideas and policies are very different from those that previously dominated conservative politics. They are obscure and provocative and often run counter to the traditional U.S. embrace of liberalism and constitutional democracy.…
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Hyperpartisanship and the Attack on Voting Rights (with Julian E. Zelizer)
The Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais has set off a redistricting race to the bottom. States, particularly in the South, are scrambling to redraw their maps to undercut Black representation — all in the name of partisanship. It marks the end of a project, since the passage of the…
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Understanding the U.S. Constitution (with Melissa Murray)
As a host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, on MSNOW, in her classes at NYU School of Law, and in op-eds, Melissa Murray is known for her accessible explanations of constitutional law. In her new book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader, Murray brings…
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How to Fix the Supreme Court (with Miriam Rosenbaum and Olatunde Johnson)
In the wake of the Louisiana v. Callais ruling, calls for Supreme Court reform have grown louder. What would a reform agenda look like? And how would it strengthen the Court as an institution? The Brennan Center recently published the second installment in its series on Solutions for a Stronger...
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The Supreme Court Eviscerates the Voting Rights Act (with Wendy Weiser and Kareem Crayton)
This week, the Supreme Court struck down the remaining enforcement tool of the Voting Rights Act — the law often called the crown jewel of the civil rights movement. In this emergency episode, Brennan Center experts analyze the ruling and assess what it will mean for voters in 2026 and beyond.…
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The Age of New Media (with V Spehar)
As the midterm elections draw near, the questions of how voters get their information and who they are listening to are top of mind. Polling shows that more than half of Americans get at least some of their news from social media — and that number is even larger for younger voters. V Spehar is an...
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Why Election Officials Are Alarmed (with Liz Howard)
In 2024 and 2025, elections were safe and secure largely due to the efforts of election officials. Yet those who run our elections face ongoing threats of violence and political interference as their jobs have been thrust into the spotlight. The Brennan Center recently released its sixth annual...
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The Conservatives Fighting for the Rule of Law (with Gregg Nunziata)
Amid unprecedented threats to our system of checks and balances – driven by an overpowerful executive and an acquiescent Congress – a group of conservative lawyers and jurists is stepping forward to defend the Constitution and the principles of liberal democracy. Listen as Gregg Nunziata…
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Speed Round (with Molly Jong-Fast)
Molly Jong-Fast is a journalist, political commentator, and contributing writer at The New York Times. She has appeared numerous times as an analyst on MSNBC and has contributed to national publications including The Atlantic and Vanity Fair. She hosts iHeartMedia’s Fast Politics podcast and is…
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How Equality Wins (with Kenji Yoshino)
Over recent years, we’ve seen a rapid retreat from diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in corporations, universities, law firms, and other institutions. What started with the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in higher education has since been pushed by top…
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How to Improve America’s Prisons (with L.B. Eisen and Randall Liberty)
Over the past few years, crime has plummeted across the country, opening up new opportunities for progress inside prisons. Many corrections systems have adopted new approaches and policies that are making prisons less violent and more stable. Overwhelmingly, these practical, often inexpensive…
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Why Is Congress Stuck? (with Maya Kornberg)
When crafting the Constitution, the framers believed that Congress would be the most powerful branch of government. Today, its failure to function is the biggest story in American politics. Its retreat from relevance has created a vacuum filled by executive abuse and Supreme Court overreach. Maya...
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A Fight for Voting Rights and a Showdown over AI Warfare (with Eliza Sweren-Becker & Amos Toh)
This week, President Donald Trump declared that the SAVE Act should be congressional Republicans’ “No. 1 priority.” He even said that he would not sign another bill until it is passed. The SAVE Act would be the most restrictive voting law in history. How bad is it? And what can we do to stop it?...
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Executive Overreach in a Time of War
The war in the Middle East launched by President Trump continues to unfold. Underneath the headlines and the chaos, something else is going on. Recent reporting has exposed signs that election deniers inside and outside the White House may be trying to exploit this moment to claim national…
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Can the Presidency Be Tamed? (with David Frum)
From Washington to Lincoln to FDR to the present day, presidents have long been drivers of American progress. Yet the presidency has also been prone to immense abuse. Today, we are experiencing an executive power grab at a scale never seen before. Is this merely a continuation of trends or...
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A Moment for Reform in Congress (with Rep. Joe Morelle)
Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, is leading efforts in the House to craft the Democrats’ agenda to fight corruption and strengthen democracy. Recently, he has spoken emphatically about the dangers of the SAVE Act, which would effectively bar…
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How the Justice Department Came to Threaten Elections (with Eileen O'Connor and Chris Berger)
Recently, we’ve seen an escalation in efforts to meddle with elections, from the dangerous SAVE Act, which is gaining momentum in Congress, to President Trump himself calling for “nationalizing” the counting of ballots. Less known is how the administration is leveraging the Department of Justice...
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Why Nothing Works (with Marc Dunkelman)
Our government can often be defined by inefficiency and gridlock. We see big promises but inadequate action on many issues Americans care about, from health care to the environment. Author and scholar Marc Dunkelman thinks he can explain why. In his new book Why Nothing Works, he makes the case...
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Pam Bondi's “Ransom” Letter (with Wendy Weiser)
Following the second killing of an American by ICE agents in Minneapolis, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz linking the violence in Minnesota to a demand that the state give the Justice Department complete access to the state’s voter rolls, among other...
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How We Can Fix America’s Corruption Problem (with Celinda Lake and Daniel Weiner)
Americans are unhappy with their government. They’ve connected the dots: Corruption and self-dealing at the highest levels have led to voters feeling left out, left behind, and disconnected from government. What could solve the problem The Brennan Center has begun publishing a series of policy...
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An Emergency in Venezuela
Over the weekend, the Trump administration launched a military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolas Maduro. Such an aggressive use of war powers without congressional consent is alarming and in many ways unprecedented. Trump is declaring victory. Critics are decrying a breach of...
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2025: Year in Review
This year we saw extraordinary threats to American democracy: an executive power grab, attacks on the freedom to vote, and more. Yet we also saw a growing response, from court rulings to citizen alarm. What happened? And what can we expect next? Speakers: Sean Morales-Doyle, Director, Voting…
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Bush v. Gore and the State of U.S. Elections
For a generation, presidential races were blowouts. Every winner between 1980 and 1996 won by at least 37 Electoral College votes. These landslides relegated conspiracy theories about contested elections to the political fringes. Then came 2000. The last polls showed a dead heat. On election…
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How Congress Must Respond to Trump's Boat Strikes (with Katherine Yon Ebright)
Over the past several months, the Trump administration has undertaken a congressionally unauthorized military campaign against supposed “narco-terrorists” in international waters. One of the administration’s attacks in particular has roiled Washington — according to recent reporting, military...
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Does the Constitution Still Work?
U.S. politics today can be defined by extreme dysfunction and polarization. But the founders accounted for a fractured society, and designed our government specifically to handle moments like these. Listen as conservative scholar Yuval Levin discusses his book, American Covenant: How the...
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Troops in American Cities
Our military is trained to defeat enemies, not to police American citizens. President Trump’s troop deployments in Los Angeles, DC, Chicago, Portland, Memphis, and potentially other cities pose real threats to civil liberties and the rule of law. During the Constitutional Convention, James…
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Keeping a Democracy (with Joyce Vance)
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...
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The Power of the Purse
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...
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Justice Weaponized
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...
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Paying for Power
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…
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Supreme Court Preview
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…
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The Campaign to Undermine the Midterms
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...
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The Next Phase of the Fight
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…
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The Past, Present, and Future of the Voting Rights Act
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…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Briefing with Michael Waldman have?
The Briefing with Michael Waldman currently has 112 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Briefing with Michael Waldman about?
Every week, Brennan Center President Michael Waldman interviews the leaders, thinkers, and activists who are changing American democracy.
How often does The Briefing with Michael Waldman release new episodes?
The Briefing with Michael Waldman publishes regularly with 112 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to The Briefing with Michael Waldman on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Briefing with Michael Waldman?
The Briefing with Michael Waldman is created and hosted by Brennan Center for Justice.
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