House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet with President Biden to discuss the debt ceiling and possible spending cuts after it was announced that the government has met its borrowing limit. To discuss, we FEATURE Rachel Snyderman. Snyderman is a Senior Associate Director of business and economic policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center. Snyderman joined BPC following federal service with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Department of Commerce, and the Office of Management and Budget. Prior, Snyderman worked with the Mexican Ministry of Finance’s Economic Productivity Unit in Mexico City to design innovative financial products that promoted financial security and social inclusion. Earlier in her career, Snyderman was a Senior Analyst with EY’s Quantitative Economics and Statistics practice in Washington, DC. Media includes: The Hill, The Washington Post, New York Daily News, Newsweek.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed a bill Saturday that would ban transition care for transgender youth. To discuss, we FEATURE Kierra Johnson, Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force. As a bisexual Black woman, Johnson is one of few out queer-identified women of color at the helm of a national LGBTQ organization. When announced as the next Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, Kierra said, “Dignity, liberation, joy, freedom, love and resistance are just a few of the words that I associate with the National LGBTQ Task Force... In these cultural and political times, it is an act of resistance to live out loud and to lead and love with our full identities... I welcome the opportunity to think strategically with a powerful team of leaders and be in service to those working to ensure that LGBTQ people—especially the most targeted among us—not only survive but thrive.” She is recognized as a national expert on queer and reproductive rights issues and has testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, Fox News, Feministing.com and NPR.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul promised during her campaign to implement more effective sexual harassment training, which would mean live trainings instead online training. Hochul has yet to do so. To discuss, we FEATURE Sarah Beaulieu. Sarah is an author, speaker and trains workplaces on sexual harassment prevention and response. Sarah's book, Breaking the Silence Habit: A Practical Guide to Uncomfortable Conversations in the MeToo Workplace (Berrett-Koehler) provides an overview of uncomfortable conversations and their role in effective, skills-based sexual harassment training. Driven by her personal experience surviving sexual violence, Sarah co-founded An Uncomfortable Conversation, a nonprofit YouTube channel that has now helped more than 10,000 viewers engage in meaningful conversations about sexual violence through 100+ videos. Media includes: Boston Business Journal, the Associated Press, Providence Journal, Chronicle of Philanthropy, AskMen, Fox News Providence, WHYY, Philadelphia Metro, Huffington Post Live.

With the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, the abortion battle has moved to state supreme courts and constitutions. Abortion advocates are now targetting state constitutions in order to strike down restrictions on abortion. To discuss, we FEATURE Robin Marty. Robin is the Director of Operations for the West Alabama Women's Center and a freelance reporter and the author of the book Handbook for a Post-Roe America, a guide for what to do if and when Roe is overturned and states make abortion illegal. She is also the co-author of The End of Roe v. Wade (formerly "Crow After Roe"), an updated account of 12 different abortion laws meant to provoke challenges to Roe v. Wade, published in August of 2019. Robin specializes in abortion rights and access and the anti-abortion movement and figures. Media includes: DAME Magazine, Cosmopolitan, The Guardian, Politico, NBC.

On Monday, over 90 people were killed by a suicide bomber that struck a mosque in Pakistan. To discuss, we FEATURE Samina Ahmed. Ahmed oversees International Crisis Group’s work in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nepal. Together with our analysts throughout the region, she prepares reports on the political, social, economic and military factors that increase the risks of extremism, internal conflict and war, and she makes policy recommendations to overcome these threats. In general, her team focuses on political, security and stability issues in South Asia, including problems of authoritarianism; Islamic extremism, domestic and regional terrorism; educational, judicial, and security sector reform; international involvement and intervention in the region, including US relations with authoritarian states; and domestic insurgencies and the risk of inter-state conflict. Extensive media experience.

On Saturday, Israel launched a drone attack on a military facility in Iran. To discuss, we FEATURE Samantha Neakrase. Neakrase is Senior Advisor at the Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control. Neakrase served as a research assistant for David Sanger on his book Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, providing research and writing support for chapters on President Obama’s policies on nuclear security and Iran, Pakistan’s nuclear program, and the international legal and policy dimensions of drone warfare. Previously, she was the Director of the Global Nuclear Policy Program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative where she led programming on nuclear weapons policy. She joined NTI in June 2012 and led two major projects: the NTI Nuclear Security Index and the Global Dialogue on Nuclear Security Priorities. She helped lead NTI’s analysis related to the Nuclear Security Summit process and helped develop new projects on cybersecurity of nuclear facilities and nuclear command and control. Media includes: Huffington Post, The Drew Mariani Show, CCTV America.

February is Black History Month. To commemorate, we FEATURE Janus Adams. Host and Co-Executive Producer of “The Janus Adams Show,” pioneer of issue-oriented women’s programming, former NPR correspondent, Janus Adams is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and scholar of women’s and African-American history. A northern school desegregation pioneer and mother, she is founder of BackPaxKids. Engaged by history since childhood, a northern school desegregation pioneer at 8, she was one of the four children selected to break New York’s “de facto” public school segregation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. Her series, “Milestones in African-American Business History,” ran on public radio’s Marketplace. Media includes: Essence, Ms. Magazines, The New York Times, Newsday, USA Today, The Washington Post.