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The Current brings you smart, timely, and quick analysis from Brookings experts on breaking news and changing policies. In under ten minutes, learn not only what happened, but why, and how to make sense of it.
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The conflict in Sudan is the world's worst humanitarian crisis. More than 150,000 people have died; millions have fled their homes and are starving; and prospects for a ceasefire are bleak. To discuss the roots of the war, the humanitarian emergency, and prospects for peace, Visiting Fellow Jeffrey Feltman joins Michael O'Hanlon, director of research for Foreign Policy, on 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.
Little Village, a Latino business corridor in Chicago, has been contending with tariffs, immigration enforcement, and other changes in federal policy. But business owners have been figuring out new ways to make money, sell their products, and stay open. Tonantzin Carmona, a fellow in Brookings Metro, as well as Chicago civic leaders Luis Gutierrez and Jennifer Aguilar discuss how. 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 expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans set to expire at the end of 2025, Americans on ACA health plans are starting to see big increases in their monthly health insurance premiums for 2026 as insurers send out annual notices. To address why this is happening and what the impacts are for health care access, coverage, and outcomes generally, Brookings expert Matt Fiedler, a senior fellow with the Center on Health Policy, joins 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.
The thirtieth Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP30, meets in Belém, Brazil next week. The most urgent challenge is finance: How do we pay for the massive global shift away from fossil fuels and fund essential adaptation projects to cope with a changing climate? To preview COP30, two leading Brookings experts on climate join the show: Samantha Gross is a fellow in Foreign Policy and director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings; and Amar Bhattacharya is a senior fellow with the Center for Sustainable Development in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. 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.
After years of war, Syria is attempting to rebuild under a new government. Brookings Fellow and Director of the Turkey Project Aslı Aydıntaşbaş is joined by Visiting Fellow Mara Karlin, a former assistant secretary of defense, who recently visited Syria. They discuss the country's "plastic moment" of transformation, analyzing the realities on the ground, the complex new leadership, the challenge of lifting U.S. sanctions for reconstruction, and the tough diplomatic balancing act with regional players like Turkey and Israel. 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 annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, or APEC, starts October 31 in South Korea. Leaders from the twenty-one Pacific Rim economies are expected to attend. In this episode of The Current, two Brookings senior fellows talk about the aims of the summit and what's at stake for the U.S. and other participants. Ryan Hass directs the John L. Thornton China Center and Mireya Solís directs the Center for Asia Policy Studies. 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 Washington, D.C., metropolitan region, known as the DMV — District, Maryland, and Virginia — is home to the U.S. federal government, 6.4 million people, and hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs. To track the cascading impacts of federal restructuring and national policy shifts, Brookings has launched the DMV Monitor. Joining The Current to introduce the DMV Monitor are two of the researchers behind this crucial effort, Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow in Brookings Metro, and Glencora Haskins, research associate and applied research manager at Brookings Metro. 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.
As of October 1, 2025, non-essential U.S. government operations ceased due to the failure of Congress to pass legislation that funds government agencies. The latest shutdown follows others that have occurred during both Republican and Democratic administrations and under Congresses' controlled by both parties. To discuss this shutdown and what it means for governance moving forward, Brookings senior fellows Elaine Kamarck and Molly Reynolds 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.
The 80th UN General Assembly is underway in New York City, in session from just after Labor Day into December. The annual High-Level Week, when world leaders gather, ended in September. To share their takeaways from the 80th General Assembly thus far and to look ahead at the UN's role in global security and development, experts Jeff Feltman and John McArthur 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.
On this episode — a look at the shifting landscape of media regulation, consolidation, and the ongoing debate over free speech in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension from his late-night talk show and subsequent reinstatement. To talk about these developments, including the role of the FCC in regulating U.S. media in an era of media consolidation, Tom Wheeler, a visiting fellow in Governance Studies and former chairman of the FCC from 2013 to 2017, joins 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.
The credibility of U.S. federal government data may seem an arcane topic, but it is critical for a well-functioning economy. To explore the importance of reliable economic data and potential challenges to that reliability, and why it matters to businesses and the public, Ben Harris, vice president and director of Economic Studies at Brookings, joins 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.
On August 11, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that put the federal government in charge of the local police force. A second executive order directed members of the D.C. National Guard into active federal service. Today, over 2,000 National Guard members from D.C. and other states are mobilized in the nation's capital. To talk about the constitutional and legal basis of these actions and what this expansion of federal military power by the Trump administration could mean for other U.S. cities, Scott Anderson, a fellow in Governance Studies, plus general counsel and senior editor for Lawfare, joins 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.
20 years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast, researchers from New Orleans, Brookings, and The Data Center are examining how the city has recovered and the challenges it still faces. Manann Donoghoe joins The Current to talk about the extensive new analysis, the many factors that make a city resilient, and the areas policymakers should be investing in to ensure communities can adapt to extreme weather events and other shocks. Transcript and show notes: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-resilient-is-new-orleans-today Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu
Mara Karlin, a visiting fellow at Brookings and former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities, discusses the recent U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, the Israeli-Iran conflict, and what might come next. A key question is how to assess the impact of the military strikes on Iran's nuclear capabilities. 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.
Molly Kinder, fellow in Brookings Metro, reflects on the moral and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence, work, and workers, as she lays out in her recent paper, "The unexpected visionary: Pope Francis on AI, humanity, and the future of work." Kinder addresses the late Pope Francis's leadership on this issue, and look ahead to how Pope Leo XIV will continue the Church's attention to this fundamental challenge. 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.
House Republicans are currently negotiating a budget reconciliation bill that packages extensive tax breaks with deep spending cuts to anti-poverty programs like Medicaid and SNAP. Robert Greenstein explains how the U.S. safety net has cut the poverty rate nearly in half in recent decades and the impacts of the cuts now being considered. Show notes and transcript: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-medicaid-safety-net-cuts-could-mean-for-us-poverty Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.
Historically, Black Americans' quest for power has been seen as an attempt to gain equal protection under the law, but power in America requires more than basic democratic freedoms. It's linked with economic influence and ownership of one's own self, home, business, and creations. In his new book, "Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It," published by McMillan, Brookings Senior Fellow Andre Perry quantifies how much power Black Americans really have and calculates how that translates into the longevity of Back communities. On this episode of The Current, which was taped in front of a live audience, Perry, who also directs the Center for Community Uplift at Brookings, is interviewed by senior fellow David Wessel, who directs the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. Show notes and transcript: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/closing-the-racial-gap-in-economic-and-social-power Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.
In its first two months, the Trump administration has not only laid off thousands of federal workers and shuttered agencies, but it has also purged taxpayer-funded data sets from a swathe of government websites, including data on crime, sexual orientation, gender, education, climate, and global development. Caren Grown, senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings, joins The Current to explain why the loss of data and the expertise behind its collection will harm good policymaking. Show notes and transcript: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-government-data-purge-is-a-loss-for-policymaking-and-research/ Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.
Democracy Playbook 2025, published by the Anti-Corruption, Democracy, and Security project at Brookings, identifies seven pillars that are essential to safeguard democracy worldwide and offers actionable steps to strengthen democratic institutions in the U.S. and globally. To talk about the new report, Governance Studies Senior Fellow Norm Eisen, co-editor of the Playbook, joins The Current. Show notes and transcript: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-might-us-rural-policy-look-like-in-the-trump-administration/ 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, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ordered a freeze of funding across a broad array of federal programs, leading to mass confusion around the country from local governments, nonprofits, and individuals. While that particular order appears to have been rescinded, Molly Reynolds explains how it touches on foundational questions of Congress' spending power and constitutional authorities, and how it's just one of the Trump administration's first steps to try to dramatically remake the size and scope of the federal government. Show notes and transcript: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-the-trump-administration-freeze-federal-spending Follow The Current and all Brookings podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.
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