The Brian Lehrer Show

Mayor Mamdani has released his executive budget. Elizabeth Kim, Gothamist and WNYC reporter, explains how the mayor proposes the city closes the major funding gaps and how the tardy state budget has factored in. Plus, she shares her related reporting on the mayor's relationship with the business community and his base. Photo: Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and Speaker Julie Menin hold a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 to call on Albany to help close New York City's multi-billion dollar budget gap for the 2027 Fiscal Year, urging New York State to finalize its budget that delivers the City’s fair share of funding. April 28, 2026. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kai Ryssdal, host and senior editor of Marketplace, talks about the latest economic news, including recent data on inflation, jobs and productivity, the effects of President Trump's tariffs and more. Photo: High gas prices are displayed at a Shell gas station on May 11, 2026 in Burbank, California. President Trump today said he wants to suspend the national gas tax amid elevated gas prices as the war in Iran continues. The gas tax currently stands at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listeners try their hand at a quiz based on places in the news. Photo: Colorful Pins Locating Destinations on World Map, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, Credit: freebie.photography Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jodi Kantor, New York Times investigative reporter, co-author of She Said (Penguin, 2019) and author of How to Start: Discovering Your Life's Work (Hachette, 2026), expands on her Columbia University commencement address where she tried to answer the question, “How, in this environment, is anyone supposed to find and start their life’s work?” Photo: Cover art for 'How to Start: Discovering Your Life's Work.' (Credit: Hachette) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As part of a series on "spring cleaning," Kaitlyn Wells, senior writer at Wirecutter, offers advice on how to organize and digitize life's most important documents. Photo: Stock image by Tsuji/E+ via Getty Creative Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mara Liasson, NPR national political correspondent, talks about the latest national political news, including what's happening in foreign policy as President Trump travels to China and a deal to end the Iran war is still not happening. Plus, she discusses the redistricting wars and what a recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll found about the president's approval ratings. Photo: A Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida speaks during an emergency town hall about Florida Republicans’ newly approved congressional redistricting map (seen on wall) on May 04, 2026 in Coral Springs, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As state lawmakers continue to hammer out the details in this year's budget, Jon Campbell, Albany reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, reports that it looks like the state will loosen the emissions goals in the landmark 2019 climate law, and explains why Gov. Hochul is dedicated to this, and why environmentalists are furious. Photo: Factory smoke via rawpixel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listeners try their hand at a quiz based on numbers in the news. Image: Stock illustration, (GrafikLab via Getty Creative) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As part of the yearlong series "Wild NYC," Marielle Anzelone, urban botanist and ecologist and the founder of NYC Wildflower Week, and Christian Cooper, science and comics writer, host of the National Geographic TV series Extraordinary Birder, NYC Bird Alliance board member, and the author of Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World (Random House, 2023), talk about the spring migration of birds and butterflies, happening now. Photo: Northern Parula, a small warbler, perched on diagonal perch in Spring, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, New York (Adria Photography via Getty) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As part of a series on "spring cleaning," Kaitlyn Wells, senior staff writer for The Wirecutter, offers advice on how to purge your old clothes, including where to send them when they're out of your closet. Image: Stock photo; (smirart via Getty Creative) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jimmy Vielkind, New York State Issues reporter for WNYC, digs into the details of the new, though still not final, $268 billion dollar New York State budget. Photo: The New York State Senate. (Credit: The New York State Senate) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As the Trump administration is in the process of revamping Penn Station, Tom Wright, CEO and president of the Regional Plan Association (RPA), talks about a new report that offers the RPA's ideas for how to increase capacity and make the transit hub work for commuters. Photo: A clock at Penn Station. (Credit: Boaventuravinicius via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Civil rights scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, founder and executive director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, distinguished professor and Promise Institute chair for human rights at UCLA Law School and Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher professor at Columbia Law School, and author of Backtalker: An American Memoir (Simon & Schuster), talks about key moments in her life that helped her develop groundbreaking legal concepts. Crenshaw is popularly known for her development of “intersectionality,” “Critical Race Theory” and as the host of the podcast Intersectionality Matters! She'll be in discussion about Backtalker at NYPL on Wedneesday. Cover art courtesy of Simon & Schuster Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jessica Grose, opinion writer at The New York Times, discusses the still-mostly-unequal division of household labor. Photo: Two women wash dishes in a kitchen in Australia in 1944. (Credit: Jim Fitzpatrick via National Library of Australia/Wikimedia Commons) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them. Demise of Spirit Airlines (First) | Is a Rent Freeze Coming? (Starts at 38:21) | Avoiding Phishing Scams (Starts at 57:35) If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here. Photo: The self-service check-in kiosks of Spirit Airlines stand idle with a message to customers after the company ceased global operations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on May 2, 2026. US air carriers mobilized Saturday to help passengers and crew members stranded by the overnight shutdown of Spirit Airlines, after last-minute talks with creditors and the White House collapsed. The budget airline known for its bright yellow planes succumbed to crushing fuel prices and announced in the early hours of Saturday that "all flights have been canceled, and customer service is no longer available" as it "started winding down its global operations, effective immediately." (GIORGIO VIERA / AFP via Getty Images)

Janai Nelson, president-director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, talks about the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Callais V. Louisiana, which they say gutted the Voting Rights Act. Plus, her reaction to the news that the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the voter-approved redistricting ballot measure that would have been a boon to Democrats. Photo: United States Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C., Marielam1, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

David Brand, housing reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, talks about the Rent Guidelines Board's preliminary vote on rent regulations for about one million regulated apartments, and other housing news. Photo: The Queensbridge public housing development in the neighborhood of Long Island City in Queens, New York, NewYork1956 at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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. Photo: US President George HW Bush (in grey suit) and Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin (1931 - 2007) (in black suit) wave as they step off Marine One, Maryland, June 17, 1992. (Photo by Ron Sachs/CNP/Getty Images)

Author Alva Gotby's book "They Call it Love: The Politics of Emotional Life" (Verso Books, 2023), coined the term emotional reproduction to describe the unseen and unappreciated labor involved in maintaining relationships that tends to fall on women in heterosexual pairings. For this Mother's Day, listeners call in to share how this concept appears in their lives and appreciate the emotional reproduction of the mothers in their lives. Photo: A woman gives a child a hug. (Credit: Myles Grant/Wikimedia Commons BY CC 2.0)

Dean Seal, corporate news reporter for The Wall Street Journal, talks about how the Iran war and higher fuel prices were a major factor in the demise of Spirit Airlines, and how the budget carrier shutting down may mean higher fares across the board. Photo: Author John Mckenna, CC BY 2.0. Public Domain