From everyday instances of corruption to an administration intent on undermining the Constitution, it can feel as though American democracy is in decline. Yet amid the attacks on the rule of law and strains on our system of checks and balances, there are ways that we can engage, participate, and work together to defend and uphold our democratic institutions. Listen as legal expert and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance discusses her new book, Giving Up is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy.
Speakers:
Joyce Vance, Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at University of Alabama School of Law; Senior Fellow, Brennan Center
Host: Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center
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Recorded on November 3, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.
Congress has the power of the purse, not the president. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide how much the federal government spends and for what purposes. While presidents and Congress have always engaged in a push-and-pull over funding, President Trump has taken unprecedented steps to ignore this constitutional framework and impose his own spending priorities. Experts break down these efforts, the lawsuits challenging them, and the impact of these actions on Americans’ daily lives.
Speakers:
Shalanda Young, Former Director, White House Office of Management and Budget; Distinguished Scholar in Residence, NYU School of Law; Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy
Lauren Miller Karalunas, Counsel, Brennan Center Democracy Program
Host, Michael Waldman, President and CEO, Brennan Center
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Recorded on October 28, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.
President Trump has done away with the Justice Department’s historic independence, firing career prosecutors and using the department to pursue his political enemies. Former DOJ leaders under Republican and Democratic administrations break down what is happening inside the department and what can be done about its weaponization.
Speakers:
Peter Keisler, Former Acting Attorney General
Vanita Gupta, Former Associate Attorney General
Host: Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center
Recorded on October 24, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.
We are living in a new era of corruption, one that combines personal self-dealing and vast funds pouring into the political process. Whether it’s the crypto industry dominating Congress, the world’s wealthiest man bankrolling the winning presidential campaign, regulatory decisions used to pressure businesses, or the government quashing the bribery investigation of a top official, public power and private gain are fusing into one. Experts lay out a plan to end the culture of kleptocracy.
Speakers:
Jane Mayer, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Daniel I. Weiner, Director, Elections and Government Program, Brennan Center
Host, Michael Waldman, President and CEO
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Recorded on October 15, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.
This year’s Supreme Court term will be a historic one for the future of presidential power and our system of checks and balances.
The Court has steadily chipped away at protections designed to make American democracy fairer, more inclusive, and more representative. In the 2025–26 term, the justices will hear a set of cases that could accelerate that troublesome trend and produce landmark decisions. One case implicates how the Voting Rights Act ensures fair representation in state legislatures. Yet another takes up the controversy over the president’s asserted power to unilaterally impose tariffs. Learn about the major cases on the Court’s docket and what the outcomes could mean for the future of American democracy. Hosted in partnership with the Kohlberg Center on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Speakers:
Host, Michael Waldman, President and CEO, Brennan Center
Kareem Crayton, Vice President for Washington, DC, Brennan Center
Gilda R. Daniels, Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law
Elizabeth Goitein, Senior Director, Brennan Center Liberty and National Security Program
Leah Tulin, Senior Counsel and Litigation Manager, Brennan Center Democracy Program
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Recorded on September 30, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.
The Constitution gives states and Congress the power to run elections, and the president has virtually no role in the process. Yet President Trump ignored this fact and issued an executive order in March that aims to overhaul the nation’s election systems. His administration is dismantling a federal agency responsible for protecting election security. And it has targeted and threatened election officials and others who keep elections free and fair, while supporting those who undermine elections, including the January 6 rioters.
A new report from the Brennan Center connects the dots between these unprecedented, and in some cases illegal, moves.
Listen to host Michael Waldman, President and CEO of the Brennan Center discuss the report’s findings with Sean Morales-Doyle, Director, Voting Rights and Elections Program and Jasleen Singh, Counsel, Voting Rights and Elections Program.
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Recorded on September 18, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.
Challenges to democracy intensified over the summer. The National Guard deployed in California. The Supreme Court ruled on presidential power using the shadow docket. In Texas, an egregious gerrymander has set off a partisan war nationally. Now the fall will mark the next phase of the fight for the Constitution. Will the rule of law hold? How will the 2026 election unfold?
Brennan Center experts discuss some of the biggest news stories of the past three months and explore what will come next in the struggle to uphold democratic values.
Speakers:
Kareem Crayton, Vice President for Washington, DC
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Senior Director, Justice Program
Elizabeth Goitein, Senior Director, Liberty and National Security Program
Hernandez Stroud, Senior Fellow, Justice Program
Wendy Weiser, Vice President, Democracy Program
Daniel I. Weiner, Director, Elections and Government Program
Moderator: Michael Waldman, President and CEO
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Recorded on September 4, 2025.
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In 1965, a nonviolent voting rights march in Alabama culminated in a brutal televised brutal attack by state police. The public outrage that followed prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, a law meant to dismantle racially discriminatory barriers to voting. Since then, this landmark civil rights law has faced continued attacks. The Supreme Court has weakened its protections, most notably in the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder. And just this summer, a lower court ruling in Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe blocked voters in seven states from using the Voting Rights Act to challenge racially discriminatory voting practices.
The Supreme Court has put that decision on hold for the moment while it considers whether to take up the case. But the very fact that we're celebrating a pause on the near destruction of the Voting Rights Act’s last remaining protection illustrates how bad things have gotten in the courts. Thankfully, courts don’t have the only say. The 15th Amendment gives Congress the power to safeguard the right to vote through legislation. This conversation explores the history of the Voting Rights Act, its impact on voters today, and what it will take to ensure fair representation for all.
Speakers:
Alexander Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Sean Morales-Doyle, Director, Brennan Center Voting Rights and Elections Program
Lenny Powell, Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund
Nikema Williams, U.S. Representative (D-GA)
Moderator: Natalie Tennant, Kanawha County Commissioner; Former West Virginia Secretary of State
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Recorded on August 19, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
In his new book Outbreak Behind Bars: Spider Bites, Human Rights, and the Unseen Danger to Public Health, physician and epidemiologist Dr. Homer Venters reveals the grave reality of how infections and diseases spread in correctional facilities, which are often overcrowded and unsanitary. Detailing first-hand accounts of the spread of tuberculosis, MRSA, and other infections, he shines a light on the critical need to improve health care behind bars.
Venters was the chief medical officer of the New York City jail system and is currently a federal monitor of health services in jails and prisons.
Listen to him in conversation with Dr. Josy Hahn, senior research fellow, manager, and social epidemiologist in the Brennan Center’s Justice Program.
Recorded on July 28, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.
The executive branch has amassed tremendous power, challenging the constitutional balance among branches of government. This year alone, the president has ignored the laws passed by Congress to fire leaders of independent agencies without cause, freeze the spending of appropriated funds, and deploy the military as a domestic police force.
Supporters of vast presidential power have a name for this: the unitary executive. It’s the idea that the Constitution gives the president full personal control over the executive branch and wide latitude to act unilaterally. While legal scholars debate its scope, the theory in its most expansive form envisions a king-like president largely unconstrained by Congress or the courts. An embrace of this theory by the executive branch and Supreme Court could carry far-reaching consequences for American democracy.
This conversation among experts examines the modern presidency, the origins of the unitary executive theory, and its implications for the future of checks and balances.
Speakers:
Samuel Breidbart, Counsel, Brennan Center Democracy Program
Jane Manners, Associate Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
Julian Davis Mortenson, James G. Phillipp Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Cristina Rodríguez, Deputy Dean and Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Moderator: Wilfred U. Codrington III, Walter Floersheimer Professor of Constitutional Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
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Recorded on August 5, 2025, and produced in partnership with State Court Report.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing: https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing
President Trump has ordered cuts to the Department of Education and federal education funding. The brunt of these cuts will likely fall on low-income communities. The president is also demanding changes to school services and curricula, including the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
State courts and constitutions stand in the president’s way. States are required by their constitutions to provide a public education, and many must meet certain standards, teach certain curricula, and provide student services. In cases where these state obligations conflict with the administration’s orders, both state and federal judges may be called on to decide whether state law provides a bulwark against harmful federal policies. This conversation among experts explores how the Trump administration’s actions have affected schools, how schools are responding, and how court fights over education policy may play out.
Speakers:
John B. King Jr., Former U.S. Secretary of Education; Chancellor of the State University of New York
Aaron Saiger, Professor of Law, Fordham University
Martha Dalton, Journalist, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Moderator: Alicia Bannon, Director, Brennan Center Judiciary Program; Editor in Chief, State Court Report
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Recorded on July 15, 2025, and produced in partnership with State Court Report.
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The end of the 20th century saw the rise of mass incarceration as well as originalism, the idea that judges must interpret the Constitution according to its supposed original intent. In a new book, Justice Abandoned: How the Supreme Court Ignored the Constitution and Enabled Mass Incarceration, legal scholar Rachel Barkow highlights the conflict between the two.
Using six Supreme Court cases, she shows how mass incarceration is at odds with the Constitution’s text and original meaning. In this event, Barkow and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who spent eight years overseeing federal prosecutions in Manhattan, discuss what the cases in Justice Abandoned teach us about today’s Supreme Court, including the long-term ramifications of sacrificing the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution in the name of public safety.
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Speakers:
Rachel Barkow, Charles Seligson Professor of Law, Faculty Director of Zimroth Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, NYU School of Law
Preet Bharara, Former U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York; Partner, WilmerHale
Moderator: Hernandez Stroud, Senior Fellow, Brennan Center Justice Program
Recorded on June 05, 2025.
In Justice Abandoned, Rachel Barkow exposes how the Supreme Court’s embrace of originalism helped erode constitutional protections and fuel mass incarceration — a must-read for anyone who cares about our Constitution and criminal justice reform. You can find the book here.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing: https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing
This term, the Supreme Court addressed some of the biggest challenges in its history, with a president determined to break through the constitutional limits of executive power and the Court’s own public approval near all-time lows. Did the justices stand up for the Constitution on the biggest issue facing the country, the extraordinary executive power grab?
Against this backdrop, the justices handed down rulings in key cases affecting millions of people’s lives, including access to health care, education, and political representation and the power of federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions.
Whether you follow the Court closely or are looking to understand its role in our system of checks and balances, this discussion will provide essential context for how the Court is working today.
Speakers:
Joyce Vance, Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law, University of Alabama School of Law; Senior Fellow, Brennan Center for Justice
Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director, ACLU
Kim Wehle, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law
Moderator: Alicia Bannon, Director, Brennan Center Judiciary Program and Kohlberg Center on the U.S. Supreme Court
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Recorded on July 09, 2025.
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On the first day of his second term, President Trump issued an executive order purporting to strip U.S. citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants. The order directly conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” And it defies more than a century of case law.
The executive order was met with a wave of court rulings blocking its enforcement, and the Supreme Court has already heard arguments on the issue. What historical currents led to the ratification of the amendment’s Citizenship Clause? How did courts interpret its guarantees in the decades following? And how do today’s attacks on birthright citizenship relate to historical attempts to deny citizenship to people born and living in the United States?
Speakers:
Recorded on June 11, 2025.
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In the first 100 days of his second term, President Trump issued more than 100 executive orders aimed at changing policy through executive authority alone.
But has this flurry of orders led to meaningful change? Despite Trump’s sweeping executive actions — ranging from imposing global tariffs and targeting major law firms to declaring an emergency at the southern border and attempting to end birthright citizenship — judges appointed from both parties are pushing back. Already, 46 challenges to executive orders are pending in court, with no clear victories for the administration in any of them.
Listen to a recording of a conversation with our experts as they discuss what these three months have made clear about this administration’s priorities, how the courts are responding, and what might lie ahead.
Speakers:
Elizabeth Goitein, Senior Director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program
Michael Waldman, President and CEO of the Brennan Center
Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Andrew Rudalevige, Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government at Bowdoin College
And moderator Kareem Crayton, the Brennan Center’s Vice President for Washington DC
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Recorded on April 30, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing: https://brennancenter.org/briefing
On the day President Trump took office, he revoked the Biden administration’s executive order that imposed guardrails on the development and use of artificial intelligence technology. Since then, Vice President JD Vance and DOGE have pushed to integrate AI into critical government functions.
But government use of AI raises important questions about data privacy and democratic integrity. Will the adoption of AI truly benefit Americans? How can we trust this process given the unprecedented role of tech billionaires in the new administration? And what might come next?
Listen to the recording of a conversation with a leading technology journalist, former government AI leaders, and Brennan Center experts as they discuss the potential consequences and future of AI in the federal government.
Speakers:
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Recorded on April 2, 2025.
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President Trump’s new executive order could disenfranchise millions of American citizens, undermine data security, and decertify voting systems across the country. It would give DOGE access to voter records in every state and decertify every voting machine in the United States, costing states hundreds of millions of dollars.
Coupled with the SAVE Act, a voter suppression bill that would require every American to provide a document like a passport or birth certificate to register or re-register to vote, these measures could block millions of eligible American citizens from voting and upend voter registration.
Listen to a recording of a conversation with our experts as they break down the executive order, the SAVE Act, and what we all must do to protect our elections.
Speakers:
Lawrence Norden, Vice President, Brennan Center Elections and Government Program
Sean Morales-Doyle, Director, Brennan Center Voting Rights and Elections Program
Wendy Weiser, Vice President, Brennan Center Democracy Program
Moderator: Michael Waldman, President and CEO, Brennan Center
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Recorded on April 1, 2025.
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing: https://brennancenter.org/briefing
In the first few weeks of his second term, Donald Trump has engaged in a display of unprecedented executive power, in most cases without legal authority. This lawbreaking spree has extended to his unelected patron, Elon Musk. Courts across the nation have responded, demanding that the new administration comply with federal statutes and proving that the Constitution still matters. Everyone has to follow the law — even presidents.
While no one can be totally sure what will happen next during these extraordinary times, Brennan Center experts can tell you what should happen next, according to U.S. law.
Listen to a recording of a conversation with our lawyers and policy advocates about what’s happening to U.S. democracy and how you can play your part in defending the rule of law.
Speakers:
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Recorded on February 24, 2025.
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Law enforcement has long overlooked the dangers of white supremacy and far-right violence both in the community and within its ranks. The January 6 insurrection made this problem much harder to deny.
In a new book, Policing White Supremacy: The Enemy Within, Mike German draws on research and his experiences as an FBI undercover agent infiltrating white supremacist groups to reveal law enforcement’s alarmingly permissive approach to domestic extremism.
Listen to a recording of a conversation with German and Natalie Tennant, Kanawha County commissioner and former West Virginia secretary of state, about these threats and what it will take for law enforcement to appropriately tackle far-right violence.
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Recorded on January 28, 2025.
Check out Mike German’s new book here: Policing White Supremacy: The Enemy Within (bookshop.org)
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing: https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing
President Trump began his second term with a slew of executive orders regarding the TikTok ban, birthright citizenship, and border enforcement, among other things. While his actions cover a wide range of topics, there is a common theme: the unprecedented broadening of presidential authority.
In a new analysis published in Just Security, Dean Emeritus of NYU Law Trevor Morrison analyzes how Trump's claim to an expansive executive power violates statutes and the Constitution.
Listen to a conversation with Morrision and Brennan Center Fellow Wilfred Codrington III as they break down Trump’s opening executive orders and what they reveal about his theory of presidential power.
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Recorded on January 31, 2025.
Check out Trevor Morrison’s analysis in Just Security here: https://www.justsecurity.org/106969/trump-dictatorial-theory-presidential-power-executive-orders/
Keep up with the Brennan Center’s work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing: https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing