Consider This from NPR

In recent days, the news has been filled with some eyebrow-raising choices by the Trump administration. Like the disclosure of thousands of stock trades, being granted immunity from IRS audits, and the DOJ's nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. These actions have raised questions from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan legal think tank, says these actions amount to "corruption in plain sight." 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. This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Peter Ellena and Ted Mebane. It was edited by Tinbete Ermyas. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Throughout the war, the U.S.’ main objectives have fluctuated from regime change, to stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, to reopening the strategic straight of Hormuz. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, explains why the U.S. will likely come out of the war weaker than before. 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. This episode was produced by Daniel Ofman, with audio engineering by Hannah Gluvna. It was edited by Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Media mogul Byron Allen owns the Weather Channel, a bunch of TV channels and also recently acquired a majority stake in Buzzfeed. And on Friday, he’s bringing his show Comics Unleashed to the CBS time slot long held by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Host Ailsa Chang spoke with Byron Allen about his plans for Comics Unleashed and why he thinks there’s still more than enough political comedy after the cancellation of Colbert. This conversation is part of NPR’s Newsmakers video podcast series. For more, follow or subscribe to Newsmakers on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen. You can also find the show in the NPR app. 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. This episode was produced by Erika Ryan and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Kwesi Lee and Maggie Luthar. It was edited by Christopher Intagliata and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

With Trump's DOJ anti-weaponization fund, Jan. 6 defendants may go from prison to payday. Can the police officers who defended the Capitol stop them? The new “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from the Trump Department of Justice is a pot of money worth almost $1.8 billion from a settlement between President Trump, and the government he leads. Trump officials say anyone who believes they were victims of “weaponized” law enforcement can apply for this taxpayer-funded compensation. And that includes the hundreds of people who assaulted police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 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. This episode was produced by Monika Evstatieva and Alejandra Marquez Janse, with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro. It was edited by Barrie Hardymon and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Special education teachers are using artificial intelligence to manage crushing paperwork. Could it help instructors spend more time with their students? Millions of students qualify for special education and they need qualified teachers to help them. But burnout for these teachers has caused many to leave the profession – one reason – the paperwork Now, a growing number of special educators are using A-I to speed up that paperwork and some research shows that despite the risks – it could help them spend more time with students. 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. This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam. It was edited by Steven Drummond, Nirvi Shah and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

More than a decade ago, Ron Klain helped orchestrate the U.S. response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, as the White House Ebola response coordinator under President Obama. Now, with a fast-growing outbreak of a different strain of Ebola, in a different part of Africa, the public health infrastructure to address an outbreak has vastly changed, following the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID. In this episode, Klain talks about the role USAID played in responding to the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, and assesses whether today’s outbreak poses more or less of a risk to people in the United States. 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. This episode was produced by Christopher Harland-Dunaway, Kathryn Fink and Karen Zamora. It was edited by Christopher Intagliata and Gisele Grayson. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Is Kennedy heir Jack Schlossberg ready to lead? We ask him. Schlossberg seems to be trying to follow the path his grandfather John F. Kennedy took when he was elected to Congress almost eight decades ago. And his campaign has momentum. Lots of attention, favorable press and the endorsement of Speaker of the House emeritus Nancy Pelosi. But now after the New York Times article – he’s speaking out – a lot. 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. This episode was produced by Mia Venkat, with audio engineering by Ted Mebane. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

A prayer festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC was partially organized and funded by the federal government. Its evangelical Christian messaging and call for more religion in politics not less, aligns with the Trump administration's fusion of faith and governance. NPR's Emily Feng went to the event to understand the audience for this approach, and she spoke with author Eric Metaxas, a speaker at the Rededicate 250 festival. 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. This episode was produced by Henry Larson, with audio engineering by It was edited by Sarah Robbins and Daniel Burke. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro has spent years covering elections and parsing through voter data. With the midterm elections approaching Montanaro talks about how he relies on both polling and stories from voters to report as accurately as possible on the current political moment. 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. This episode was produced by Gabriel Sanchez and Michael Levitt. It was edited by Adam Raney. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

The Trump administration hasn't been talking much about its mass deportation policy, but that doesn't mean efforts have stopped. Back in February, support for President Trump’s mass deportation policy had plummeted. Two thirds of Americans polled by NPR said immigration enforcement had gone too far after agency officers killed two American citizens in Minneapolis. The Trump administration has spent the past several months trying to regain public support ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. But what has actually changed about the policy? 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. This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam. It was edited by Kelsey Snell, Tinbete Ermyas and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is butting heads with Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona again — this time, over Kelly’s recent statements that the U.S. is depleting its weapons supply in this war with Iran. Secretary Hegseth says that in discussing information from Pentagon briefings, Senator Kelly violated protocol. But the back-and-forth does raise the question: What's the status of the Pentagon's weapons stockpile amid the war with Iran? Barbara Starr, former CNN Pentagon correspondent and current senior fellow at the The USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, provides insight. 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. This episode was produced by Lauren Hodges, with audio engineering by Hannah Gluvna. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Tinbete Ermyas. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Flying discs, metallic orbs, and a mysterious cylinder tumbling past the Apollo spacecraft. Those are just a few of the unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, contained in a batch of government files the Department of Defense released this month. The DoD report, coming on President Trump’s orders, is another step towards the federal government taking the question of UAPs more seriously. But how much of this is really new – and what more can we learn from the files? Astrophysicist Adam Frank of the University of Rochester, who’s involved in the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, weighs in on this new trove of ‘alien files.’ 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. This episode was produced by Gabe Sanchez and Jordan-Marie Smith, with audio engineering by Damian Herring. It was edited by Christopher Intagliata and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

President Trump promised Americans, fair, equal and impartial justice…is that what he’s delivering? President Trump campaigned on a promise to undo the levers of the justice system that he said were weaponized against him. His administration has gutted the Justice Department unit that investigates and prosecutes public corruption. But since the beginning of Trump’s second term investigations into corrupt public officials have dropped nearly 90 percent. Meanwhile, pardons of officials convicted of corruption have risen. 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. It was edited by Kelsey Snell, Jeanette Woods and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, for her work to promote democracy in her country. Many Venezuelans expected Machado would eventually become their president once authoritarian ruler Nicolas Maduro was ousted from power. But Maduro has been out of power and in a U.S. prison since January, and Machado is still on the outside looking in. Host Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Maria Corina Machado about her plans to return to Venezuela, her relationship with President Trump and the burden Machado’s political career has placed on her own family. This conversation is part of NPR’s Newsmakers video podcast series. For more, follow or subscribe to Newsmakers on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen. You can also find the show in the NPR app. 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. This episode was produced by Alejandra Marquez Janse, with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro, David Greenburg, and Robert Rodriguez. It was edited by William Troop and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

China’s nuclear weapons capabilities are small compared to that of Russia and the U.S. However, China has been expanding its nuclear arsenal under the leadership of Xi Jinping, doubling in size in just the last decade. NPR's Emily Feng explains the current state of China's nuclear program and why the country is seeking to further develop it. 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. This episode was produced by Daniel Ofman. It was edited by Hannah Bloch, Sarah Robbins and Michael Levitt. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Skiing star Lindsey Vonn was on the cusp of capping off one of the most remarkable career comebacks the Olympics has ever seen. Then it all changed. It had been six years since she stepped away from competitive skiing due to injuries and made her triumphant return at the 2026 Winter Olympics. But then it came all tumbling down. Millions watched as the 41-year-old had the worst crash of her career. Most people wouldn't want to show their face in public again — not Lindsey Vonn. NPR's Becky Sullivan sat down with her and shares her story. 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. This episode was produced by Chad Campbell and Karen Zamora. It was edited by Russell Lewis and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

The number of antisemitic incidents is on the rise in the UK. What is driving it, and – how is the British government trying to combat it? The United Kingdom faces an antisemitism emergency. That’s according to the government there. This week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there is a plan to fight it. Brendan McGeever co-director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in London breaks down what's happening. 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. This episode was produced by Mia Venkat. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

When the U.S. and Israel bomb Iran and start a war, we know about it moments after it’s started — sometimes even moments before. When Russian tanks cross the border into Ukraine, we watch as it’s happening. This access to immediacy — our ability to be there as history is unfolding — much of that is possible, thanks to the vision of CNN founder Ted Turner. Turner transformed the media industry and revolutionized television news when he launched the Cable News Network — CNN — in 1980. It was the country’s first 24-hour news channel. Turner died Wednesday. He was 87. NPR’s Ailsa Chang speaks with CNN Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour about Turner’s legacy. 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. This episode was produced by Erika Ryan and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Ted Mebane. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

There already was an affordability crisis in the U.S. How the war with Iran is making life more expensive. President Trump says the economy is “roaring.” That as Americans are paying an average price of $4.48 a gallon for gas on Tuesday. A year ago it was $3.17. The reason for that increase — the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, which resulted in the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices are just one measure of the cost of living in the United States. But they’re a significant one. Martha Gimbel, executive director at the Budget Lab at Yale, weighs in on how the war with Iran is affecting American's bottom line. 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. This episode was produced by Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Ted Mebane. It was edited by Christopher Intagliata and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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

Trump is once again threatening NATO allies. What would a reduction of U.S. troops in Germany mean for security and the U.S. military? Today, about 36-thousand U.S. troops are stationed in Germany, and they’re a key part of the U.S. military ecosystem and the NATO alliance. Now, President Trump plans to reduce that number. Trump has grown increasingly and publicly frustrated with NATO allies. This time he’s taking it out on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the U.S. has been humiliated by Iran. Among the many questions raised by this: What are U.S. troops doing in Germany anyway? 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. This episode was produced by Fio Geiran, Tyler Bartlam and Karen Zamora. It was edited by Sarah Handel and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. 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