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The IRS and the Postal Service are close to their breaking points. On this episode of The Current, Katie Dunn Tenpas speaks with Senior Fellows Elena Patel and Vanessa Williamson about how cuts have impacted the agencies' mission,, if they can be saved, and what all this means for taxpayers. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.  

Culture wars have distracted America's K-12 system at the expense of students, says former U.S. Ambassador and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. On this episode of The Current, Emanuel sits down with Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy, to diagnose what went wrong and how some schools are trying to get it right. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.  

Research shows that investing in programs and places for youth to participate in sports can reduce gun violence. But what can the people most directly affected do in the wake of tragedy? In this episode, part two of a conversation, Brookings Senior Fellow Rashawn Ray speaks with Taren Weaver-Smith, mother of Darius Lee, a rising basketball star whose life ended by gun violence, and Ron Cottrell, Darius' coach at Houston Christian University. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.  

This episode of The Current features excerpts from a new Brookings podcast, The Beijing Brief, on which scholars from the China Center at Brookings discuss a range of issues in the U.S.-China relationship. On this episode, they focus on why the Trump-Xi summit was delayed and what the rescheduled summit could look like. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.  

Can investing in youth sports—especially in certain neighborhoods where children are particularly vulnerable—reduce gun violence? In this episode, Rashawn Ray, senior Brookings Governance Studies fellow, leads a conversation on the role that basketball can play in community building and reducing violent conflict. Joining him are Hanna Love, Brookings fellow; Howard Levy, head men's basketball coach at Mercer County Community College and a founder of Play Smart Save Lives; and Craig Robinson, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Brookings Metro Senior Fellow Joe Parilla speaks with Alma Flores, executive director of the Latino Economic Development Center, and Peter Frosch, CEO of the GREATER MSP Partnership, about how their Minnesota-based organizations responded to the crisis brought about by Operation Metro Surge, the federal immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Two weeks into the United States' and Israel's war with Iran, there are increasingly urgent questions about Iran's future and the Trump administration's objectives. In this episode of The Current, Brookings Fellow Aslı Aydıntaşbaş is joined by Vice President of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney and Visiting Fellow Mara Karlin to discuss the state of the war, the Iranian regime, and the global ripple effects of the conflict. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

This week, Brookings experts convened to discuss the Iran war and its implications for Iran, the Middle East, and international security. This episode of The Current offers highlights from that event, moderated by Michael O'Hanlon, and including panelists Philip Gordon, Mara Karlin, Jeff Feltman, and Suzanne Maloney. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In new research, scholars at the Center for Community Uplift at Brookings and Gallup find a high degree of interracial cooperation across key aspects of American life such as work, relationships, and family. In this episode of The Current, Brookings Senior Fellow Andre Perry discusses the report's findings and implications for policy, with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi of Howard University and Washington Post White House reporter Cleve Wootson, Jr. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

With the annual Munich Security Conference now wrapped, Brookings expert Constanze  Stelzenmüller brings back insights from the conversations unfolding on the ground. In her conversation with  Aslı Aydintaşbaş, Stelzenmüller, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings, reflects on the main stage speeches from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and shares what she learned from reactions in the hallways. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.  

The first State of the Union address of President Trump's second term is coming up, but Brookings scholars aren't waiting for the speech to take the country's pulse. In this episode, E.J. Dionne asks Molly Reynolds, Wendy Edelberg, and Melanie Sisson to offer their views on the governance, economic, and global security challenges that characterize America's state of the Union today. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.  

In the first year of his second term, President Trump has conducted a trade policy that features tariff cuts, tariff raises, and tariff exemptions. While the economic impacts of this tariff approach are uncertain, it's clear that the post-World War II rules-based liberal trade policy is over. On this episode, David Wessel talks with Kari Heerman, director of Brookings's Trade and Economic Statecraft Initiative, about Trump's pursuit of foreign policy objectives through trade actions. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The violence in Minneapolis has become a flashpoint for a national debate regarding ICE and immigration enforcement. In this episode of The Current, Gabriel Sanchez and Rashawn Ray, senior fellows in Governance Studies at Brookings, analyze the structural breaks behind the headlines, from hiring 18- year-olds in "six-minute" windows to slashing training academies from 22 weeks to just 47 days. They offer a roadmap for reform with specific policy remedies, including vetting reforms, virtual reality training, and ending absolute immunity, aimed at restoring public accountability and reversing the trend of violence Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Brookings senior fellows Michael O'Hanlon and Robert Kagan discuss O'Hanlon's latest book, To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution, an examination of 250 years of U.S. defense policy around the world. "Isolationism," O'Hanlon says, "strikes me as the least accurate term" to describe that history. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In recent days, the Iranian regime has conducted an unprecedented and bloody crackdown on protests across Iran. In this episode, Brookings Fellow Aslı Aydıntaşbaş is joined by two Iran experts, vice president of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney and visiting fellow Mara Karlin, to discuss the unique nature of the protests and the regime's violent response, options for U.S. military action, and President Trump's possible endgame. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Are we heading in the right direction with AI in education, or drifting into a "wild west" of privacy risks and lost learning? In this episode, Rebecca Winthrop, senior fellow and director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, sits down with tech reporter Kara Swisher to unpack the urgent findings from her task force's new report, "A new direction for students in an AI world: Prosper, prepare, protect." The episode also features highlights from the report's launch event, where student co-author Rida Karim joins the conversation to discuss practical strategies for integrating AI without sacrificing critical thinking. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Scott Anderson and Caitlin Talmadge discuss the legal, tactical, and strategic angles of the recent U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Anderson, a fellow in Governance Studies and general counsel for Lawfare, and Talmadge, Foreign Policy nonresident senior fellow and professor at M.I.T., explore what the stunning tactical success of the operation means for U.S. strategic goals in the region and around the world. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Tony Pipa, senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development and host of the Reimagine Rural podcast, sits down with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to discuss what the governor calls the "biggest threat to rural healthcare in my lifetime." With nearly 200 rural hospitals having closed since 2005, the stakes for rural America have never been higher. In this episode, Governor Beshear breaks down the devastating economic ripple effects of these closures, from lost jobs to reduced workforce productivity. He notes that rural hospitals are often the largest payrolls in their communities and explains why he believes new federal policy proposals could shutter 35 hospitals in Kentucky alone. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

A recent flurry of negotiations among American, Russian, Ukrainian, and European officials to find a diplomatic solution to end the Russia-Ukraine war has, so far, been unsuccessful. To discuss Putin's negotiation tactics, the reality on the battlefield, and how Ukraine can best position itself moving forward, Fiona Hill and Thomas Wright, two Brookings Foreign Policy senior fellows, join The Current. Show notes and transcript. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), is heralding a profound shift in how we learn, work, and live. To gain insight into how AI is reshaping the American workforce and economy, two Brookings experts join this episode of The Current. First, Molly Kinder, senior fellow in Brookings Metro, examines how AI is impacting the American workforce today; and then Senior Fellow Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, looks at how we can prepare our students to thrive in the future workforce. Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.