BPR Full Show 4/7: Trump Threatens Iran

April 7, 2026·1 hr 52 min·5 clips

A retired federal judge calls Trump's threat to wipe out Iran 'lunacy' and suggests invoking the 25th Amendment.

The House vote lands hard. Boston Public Radio opens with a kitchen table question that quickly turns legal: should Massachusetts bar children under 14 from social media platforms? The hosts want callers in the mix. They describe the proposal as the strictest step in the country, which gives the segment its live radio snap before anyone can settle in. Nancy Gertner brings the caution. She says the impulse behind the ban makes sense, but the First Amendment problems need a closer look. The comparison gets blunt. If minors can be blocked from pornography because child protection outweighs access concerns, she asks whether adolescent development should matter in the same way here. Then comes the adult problem. If platforms have to verify that users are over 14, everyone else may have to prove age too, and that creates another rights fight. Gertner does not sound especially shaken by that. Different rules for children already exist across public life, she says, even if social media companies would fight hard. The joke has teeth. Her line about platforms having a coronary works because young users matter to their business. From there, the conversation shifts underfoot. Reports about Samuel Alito going to Walter Reed pull the show toward the future of the Supreme Court. The timing has political weight. The hosts raise the idea that Alito or Thomas could be pushed to resign before the November elections, giving Trump a cleaner path to replacements. That is the bigger shadow over the hour. A local fight over children's screens sits next to a national fight over courts, elections, and presidential power. John King is previewed too. The second hour looks toward the election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene and the president's threat involving Iran. The show never quite settles down. It keeps jumping between caller questions, legal analysis, and political alarm, which is the feel of the whole thing.

As heard by us

A lively public-radio hour that moves from social media and the Supreme Court to Iran and listener advice.

Boston Public Radio moves through a packed news hour with a steady through-line, putting the Massachusetts House vote to ban children under 14 from social media, Trump's second-term effect on the Supreme Court, and the tensions around Iran in the same frame as listener advice…

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a live radio argument that swings from a social media ban to Iran and the Supreme Court.

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