5 On 45

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.

In this episode, ACDS chair Norm Eisen discusses the forthcoming fourth edition of the Democracy Playbook and the emerging research showing how democracies can reverse democratic backsliding. He explains how the new edition—released on a rolling basis—will offer practical strategies drawn from scholarship and practitioner experience to help spark and sustain these "U-turns" globally. Drawing on global fieldwork and cutting-edge research, Eisen highlights what has strengthened democracies in real-world contexts thus far. 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 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.