Year: 2025

The Supreme Court has become the focal point of the legal battle over President Donald Trump’s executive authority – and presidential power more broadly.

Few reporters are as prepared as NPR’s Nina Totenberg to report on this unique moment.

Over the last fifty years, Totenberg established herself as the preeminent Supreme Court reporter in America. She’s broken countless stories – including allegations of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas during the justice’s 1991 confirmation hearings.

For this week’s Reporter’s Notebook host Scott Detrow speaks with Totenberg about this crucial moment in the court’s history and consequential cases she has covered over the years.

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem got a pop quiz at a senate hearing this week. The question came from Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire.

Hassan asked Noem to to explain habeas corpus.

For the record, habeas corpus is the legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, that protects people from illegal detention.

The reason that this bit of Latin is under discussion – is because the Trump administration says it’s considering suspending habeas corpus.

This core constitutional protection has been an obstacle to the President’s mass deportation plan.

Habeas corpus is a principle that’s hundreds of years older than America itself.

What would it mean if the President suspended it? And could he, under the Constitution?

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim worked for the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.

This weekend, they were slated to go to Jerusalem — Milgrim was to meet Lischinsky’s family for the first time. According to Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter, Lischinsky had bought a ring and was planning to propose.

Instead, they were gunned down outside an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum on Wednesday night.

The killing comes aside a rise in antisemitic incidents. Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, reacts to the news.

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Federal regulators are now limiting the number of flights in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport. This comes after a harrowing month for the air traffic controllers who work the airspace around it.

On April 28th, communications and radar systems went dark at the air traffic control facility in Philadelphia, where controllers manage the airspace around Newark.

Since then there have been more outages.

Hundreds of flights in and out of Newark have been cancelled or delayed since that first outage. Now the Federal Aviation Administration is slowing the pace of arrivals and departures.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy insists that will help.

Still, these incidents have raised big questions. How did the mess in Newark get as bad as it did? And, What it will take to fix an aging air traffic control system.

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

The U.S. economy is in flux. And for millions of Americans, a new line item in their budget includes repaying federal student loans.

Making ends meet isn’t just tough for student loan borrowers. Groceries cost a lot more now than they did in 2020. Tariff disputes make it difficult to plan future purchases and they can make it harder to find everyday items at affordable prices.

Housing — whether it’s your mortgage or rent — remains expensive.

And the job market — well that’s tough, too.

Unpredictable inflation, added expenses, a volatile stock market – the health of the U.S. economy is anything but certain right now. How can you manage?

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Joe Biden has stage four metastatic prostate cancer.

The former president made that announcement Sunday afternoon. It came just days before the publication of “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.”

An explosive book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Original Sin chronicles what the authors say was Biden’s steep physical and cognitive decline.

Joe Biden repeatedly insisted he was capable of serving a second term. “Original Sin” argues his advisors and his family went to great lengths to hide that he wasn’t.

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

On the first major foreign trip of his second term, President Trump met with leaders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. His arrival was greeted with fanfare across the region — there were motorcades featuring Teslas, long processions of Arabian horses and camels, and traditional dance and musical performances. According to the White House, Saudi Arabia agreed to invest $600 billion in the United States. Qatar placed a huge order for Boeing Passenger jets.

But the biggest announcement of Trump’s trip was a bit of surprise deal-making: after more than 20 years, Trump said, the U.S. will lift sanctions on Syria. President Trump and interim Syrian President al-Sharaa met for tea and also discussed the possibility that Syria could recognize Israel as a sovereign state.

NPR’s Scott Detrow and Hadeel Al-Shalchi examine how this news was received in Israel, whether this moment be a critical turning point for Middle East peace and ask, can Trump actually deliver on these promises?

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Earlier this week, the White House announced that the U.S. and China had agreed to lower the reciprocal tariffs they had put in place in April – but only for ninety days.

As the trade war enters a new and uncertain phase, host Scott Detrow speaks with veteran NPR China correspondent John Ruwitch about this unprecedented 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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

It’s been six months since President Trump first announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, which has dramatically shrunk parts of the federal government. And with so many individual stories about federal workers losing their jobs around the country, the big picture can sometimes look blurry.

A team of NPR reporters has been looking at agencies — from food inspectors to nuclear scientists to firefighters and more — and today, we’ll connect some of the dots on how DOGE cuts have impacted workers, and hear how Americans far beyond Washington may feel the effects of these cuts.

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

President Trump’s order that would end automatic citizenship for the children of many categories of immigrants has been blocked from going into effect by three separate federal judges. Those injunctions have been upheld by three separate appeals courts.

So Thursday’s case at the Supreme Court was really about two questions: Whether the constitution guarantees birthright citizenship and whether judges can issue nationwide injunctions against federal policies.

University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, author of the book You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers, followed the arguments and breaks down clues that point to the Justices’ thinking.

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy