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Join The New Yorker’s writers and editors for reporting, insight, and analysis of the most pressing political issues of our time. On Mondays, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, presents conversations and feature stories about current events. On Wednesdays, the senior editor Tyler Foggatt goes deep on a consequential political story via far-reaching interviews with staff writers and outside experts. And, on Fridays, the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the latest developments in Washington and beyond, offering an encompassing understanding of this moment in American politics.

Eric Adams and Donald Trump’s Curious Alliance

The staff writer Eric Lach joins the guest host Andrew Marantz to discuss the alleged quid pro quo between Mayor Eric Adams and President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice. Plus, why the President keeps inserting himself into New York City politics and what to make of former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s bid for Gracie Mansion. This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Golden Age of Bunk,” by Susan B. Glasser “Elon Musk Also Has a Problem with Wikipedia,” by Margaret Talbot “What Will Democrati

Mar 6, • 27:25

Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?

Democrats in Washington have seemed almost paralyzed by the onslaught of far-right appointments and draconian executive orders coming from the Trump White House. But some state governors seem more willing to oppose the federal government than congressional Democrats are. In January, Governor Tim Walz, of Minnesota, tweeted, “President Trump just shut off funding for law enforcement, farmers, schools, veterans, and health care. . . . Minnesota needs answers. We’ll see Trump in court.” He’s only o

Mar 3, • 34:11

Trump’s Putin-Like Cull of the White House Press Pool

The Washington Roundtable discusses the Trump Administration’s decision to bar the Associated Press from Presidential events, Jeff Bezos’s dramatic makeover of the Washington Post’s opinion section, and why freedom of the press matters. Plus, what journalists can do to meet this moment. This week’s reading: “Why Aren’t We in the Streets?,” by Susan B. Glasser “What Will Democratic Resistance Look Like?,” by Jay Caspian Kang “The Peril Donald Trump Poses to Ukraine,” by Keith Gessen “Gro

Mar 1, • 34:15

Is America Destined for a Future Without Children?

The staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss why people around the world are having fewer and fewer children and how the issue of birth rates has become a rallying cry for the American right. Plus, the lack of political will on the left to contend with the issue; and the societal effects on South Korea, which has the lowest birth rates in the world. This week’s reading: “The End of Children,” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus The Chaos of Trump’s Guantánamo Plan,” by Jonathan

Feb 26, • 38:52

John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong

Since the election, Senator John Fetterman—once a great hope of progressives—has conspicuously blamed Democrats for the electoral loss. Fetterman tells David Remnick that the Democratic Party discouraged male voters, particularly white men. He has pursued a lonely course of bipartisanship by meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before his Inauguration, joining Truth Social, and voting to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney General—the only Democrat to do so. But, despite Trump’s relatively high a

Feb 24, • 34:02

What Stops Democracy from Backsliding?

The Washington Roundtable discusses with the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond about President Trump’s attempts to claim broad powers, why most Republican lawmakers have fallen into line out of fear, and whether the United States has already tipped over into authoritarian territory. Plus, how the courts, Congress, and ordinary citizens might course-correct American democracy.This week’s reading: “The Crisis of Democracy Is Here,” by Larry Diamond “Trump’s Putinization of Amer

Feb 22, • 30:33

Elon Musk’s A.I.-Driven Government Coup

The New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Elon Musk’s seizure of power within the U.S. government, the tech industry’s slide into right-wing politics, and how the ideology of techno-fascism is taking root in Silicon Valley. Can the populists and the technologists coexist in Donald Trump’s Washington? This week’s reading: “Elon Musk’s A.I.-Fuelled War on Human Agency,” by Kyle Chayka “The Second Trump Administration’s New Forms of Distraction,” by Kyle Chayka “Make So

Feb 20, • 38:35

The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0

In Donald Trump’s first term in office, the American Civil Liberties Union filed four hundred and thirty-four lawsuits against the Administration. Since Trump’s second Inauguration, the A.C.L.U. has filed cases to block executive orders ending birthright citizenship, defunding gender-affirming health care, and more. If the Administration defies a judge’s order to fully reinstate government funds frozen by executive order, Anthony Romero, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, says, we will have arri

Feb 17, • 32:48

What Does It Mean to Resist Trump in 2025?

The essayist and cultural critic Brady Brickner-Wood talks with Tyler Foggatt about the opposition Donald Trump encountered in his first Presidential term, why many liberals are feeling a sense of resignation, and the Democratic Party’s struggle to present a unifying message. Plus, the political commentary embedded in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. This week’s reading: “What Happened to the Trump Resistance?,” by Brady Brickner-Wood “The War on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” by K

Feb 13, • 37:36

Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I.

Many of the most draconian measures implemented in the first couple weeks of the new Trump Administration have been justified as emergency actions to root out D.E.I.—diversity, equity, and inclusion—including the freeze (currently rescinded) of trillions of dollars in federal grants. The tragic plane crash in Washington, the President baselessly suggested, might also be the result of D.E.I. Typically, D.E.I. describes policies at large companies or institutions to encourage more diverse workplac

Feb 10, • 25:59

Why Trump Is Targeting Foreign Aid, with Atul Gawande

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Atul Gawande, the former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, to discuss Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s rapid-fire dismantling of the agency. They explore the life-and-death implications of the Trump Administration ending foreign aid, why the agency was targeted, and which federal agencies might be next.  This week’s reading: “Behind the Chaotic Attempt to Freeze Federal Assistance,” by Atul Gawande “Elon Musk’s Revolutionary Terror,” by Sus

Feb 8, • 30:05

Is Flying Actually Becoming Less Safe?

Matthew L. Wald joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the political aftermath of last week’s horrific collision between an American Airlines plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter. They look at the current state of airline safety, the changes afoot at the Federal Aviation Administration, and President Trump’s wild pronouncements that somehow diversity initiatives were to blame for the crash that claimed sixty-seven lives. “The culture warriors, with such a vengeance, are now turning to the F.A.A.—i

Feb 6, • 32:57

Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago

In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, Bill Gates was the best known of a new breed: the tech mogul—a coder who had figured out how to run a business, and who then seemed to be running the world. Gates was ranked the richest person in the world for many years. In a new memoir, “Source Code,” he explains how he got there. The book focusses on Gates’s early life, and just through the founding of Microsoft. Since stepping away from the company, Gates has devoted himself to his foundation, which is

Feb 3, • 31:45

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on What Democrats Should Do Next

The Washington Roundtable discusses the fallout of the White House releasing, and then rescinding, a memo intended to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans. The incident, as well as this week’s Senate confirmation hearings for controversial Cabinet nominees such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Kash Patel, offers Democrats an opportunity to seize control of the narrative—if they can get organized, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, says. “If w

Feb 1, • 36:14

How Trump’s Federal-Aid Fiasco Is Testing the Separation of Power

On Tuesday, the Trump Administration sent out a memo attempting to put a blanket pause on most federal funding, sowing confusion about financing for  student loans, SNAP benefits, nonprofits, and more. The next day, after a backlash, the Administration rescinded the memo, while maintaining that a freeze remains in “full force and effect.” The order created chaos across the federal government, threatening a power struggle between the President, Congress, and the courts. The New Yorker co

Jan 30, • 29:34

A Spirit of Vengeance in Trump’s First Week

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Trump’s first week in office, during which he broke a record for the most executive orders any modern-day President has signed on Day One. The President’s inaugural address and barrage of orders seemed driven by a sense of grievance, accrued in the course of four years out of office, four criminal prosecutions, and a deep desire for revenge. Will an apparatus of rage, taking form as vengeance, ultimately inhibit the government from performin

Jan 25, • 45:06

David Remnick on the Dawn of Trump’s Second Term

Within hours of his Inauguration, and shortly after proclaiming that his victory had been preordained by God, Donald Trump signed dozens of executive orders. These included exiting the World Health Organization, attempting to end birthright citizenship in the United States, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. He also issued pardons for hundreds of the January 6th convicts. David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what Trump’s first days back in office por

Jan 23, • 35:12

Big Money and Trump’s New Cabinet

The Washington Roundtable discusses this week’s confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and the potential for a “shock and awe” campaign in the first days of Donald Trump’s second term. Plus, as billionaires from many industries gather around the dais on Inauguration Day, what should we make of President Biden’s warning, in the waning days of his Administration, about “an oligarchy taking shape in America”? This week’s reading: ““The Trum

Jan 18, • 36:15

How the Blazes in L.A. Got Swept Into the Culture War

The Eaton and Palisades fires continue to wreak destruction across Los Angeles. They are predicted to become the most expensive fire recovery in American history. As the fires have burned, a torrent of right-wing rage has emerged online. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Charlie Kirk have attacked liberal mismanagement and blamed D.E.I. programs and “woke” politics for the destruction. Meanwhile, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has expressed concerns that the future Trump Administration may add

Jan 15, • 30:01

Representative Ro Khanna on Elon Musk and the Tech Oligarchy

Representative Ro Khanna of California is in the Democrats’ Congressional Progressive Caucus. And although his district is in the heart of Silicon Valley—and he once worked as a lawyer for tech companies—Khanna is focussed on how Democrats can regain the trust of working-class voters. He knows tech moguls, he talks with them regularly, and he thinks that they are forming a dangerous oligarchy, to the detriment of everyone else. “This is more dangerous than petty corruption. This is more dangerou

Jan 13, • 34:51

What the End of Meta’s Fact-Checking Program Means for the Future of Free Speech

The Washington Roundtable discusses Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to end its fact-checking program across Meta’s social-media sites. Instead, Meta will release a tool that allows readers to add context and corrections to posts, similar to the way one can leave a “community note” on X. What does this choice mean for truth online in the coming Trump Administration, and have “alternative facts,” as they were dubbed by Kellyanne Conway in 2017, won out? Plus, free speech in the era of Donald Trump, law

Jan 10, • 32:40

Will Justin Trudeau’s Resignation Lead to the MAGA-fication of Canada?

After nearly a decade as Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has resigned from office. His stepping down follows a years-long decline in popularity, which stands in sharp contrast to his meteoric rise in 2015. It now seems likely that the Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whose far-right populist support some have likened to Trump’s MAGA movement, will attain Canada’s highest office. The New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik joins the show to discuss Trudeau’s descent, Poil

Jan 8, • 28:47

From Critics at Large: The Modern-Day Fight for Ancient Rome

The Political Scene will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy a recent episode from The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast. Artists owe a great debt to ancient Rome. Over the years, it’s provided a backdrop for countless films and novels, each of which has put forward its own vision of the Empire and what it stood for. The hosts Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the latest entry in that canon, Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” which has drawn massive audiences and

Jan 3, • 44:10

Why Banning TikTok Could Violate the First Amendment

The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss efforts by the U.S. government to rein in social media, including the latest attempt to ban TikTok. While Kang agrees that society should be more conscientious about how we, especially children, use social media, he argues that efforts to ban these apps also violate the First Amendment. “Social media has become the public square, even if it is privately owned,” he says. This episode was originally published in March, 202

Jan 1, • 34:25

Remembering Jimmy Carter, a “President Out of Time”

President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of one-hundred. He is remembered as a man of paradoxes: an evangelical-Christian Democrat, a white Southern champion of civil rights and solar energy, and a one-term President whose policies have come to seem prescient. Carter was unpopular when he departed the White House, in 1981, but, more than any other President, he saw his reputation improve after he left office. What does the evolution of Carter’s legacy tell us about American politics,

Dec 30, 2024 • 45:08

How Henry Kissinger Accumulated and Wielded Power

The Washington Roundtable revisits an episode recorded after Henry Kissinger’s death, in November, 2023. Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos evaluate Kissinger’s controversial legacy, share anecdotes from his time in and around Washington, and discuss how he continued to shape U.S. foreign policy long after leaving the State Department.“There are not that many hundred-year-olds who insist upon their own relevance and actually are relevant,” Glasser says.This week’s reading: “Henry Kissin

Dec 24, 2024 • 39:23

We Have Some Questions for Isaac Chotiner About 2024

From the conflict in Gaza and the war in Ukraine to political chaos across Europe and the reëlection of Donald Trump, 2024 has been among the most tumultuous years in recent memory. Isaac Chotiner, the primary contributor to The New Yorker’s Q. & A. segment, has been following it all. He joins the show to reflect on his favorite interviews of the year, and to discuss 2024’s two biggest stories: the violence in Gaza and the reëlection of Donald Trump. Chotiner also talks about Joe Biden’s legacy,

Dec 18, 2024 • 26:44

Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism

Power dynamics in the Middle East shifted dramatically this year. In Lebanon, Israel dealt a severe blow toHezbollah, and another crucial ally of Iran—Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria—was toppled by insurgents. But the historian Rashid Khalidi is skeptical that these changes will set back the Palestinian cause, as it relates to Israel. “This idea that the Palestinians are bereft of allies assumes that they had people who were doing things for their interest,” Khalidi tells David Remnick, “whic

Dec 16, 2024 • 51:51

Why Luigi Mangione Is Being Treated as a Folk Hero

After a five-day manhunt, Luigi Mangione, a twenty-six-year-old Ivy League graduate, was arrested and charged on Monday with the widely publicized assassination of the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. Brian Thompson. The case seized public imagination, and there has been a torrent of commentary celebrating Mangione and denigrating Thompson, including fan edits of the alleged shooter to posts sharing personal anecdotes of denied health-insurance claims. “Mangione is going to be seen as a folk her

Dec 11, 2024 • 28:32

Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans

Immigration has been the cornerstone of Donald Trump’s political career, and in his second successful Presidential campaign he promised to execute the largest deportation in history. Stephen Miller, Trump’s key advisor on hard-line immigration policy, said that the incoming Administration would “unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” possibly involving the use of the military. “I do think they’re going to strain the outer limits of the

Dec 9, 2024 • 29:23

Is Trump’s “Shock and Awe” Transition Working?

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s transition back into the White House, the world he will inherit in 2025, and his provocative nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense. In their final Roundtable episode of 2024, Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos also reflect on the twists and turns of the past year in politics, including what to make of President Joe Biden’s legacy.This week’s reading: “The Scandal of Trump’s Cabinet Picks Isn’t Just Their Personal Failin

Dec 6, 2024 • 40:22

How the Trump Indictments Backfired

A year ago, Donald Trump was facing four separate criminal indictments, and had become the first President to be charged with and convicted of a felony. Now that Trump is President-elect, and with the Supreme Court having granted sitting Presidents broad immunity, the Justice Department’s efforts to hold Trump accountable appear to be over. Even so, Trump’s legal saga has radically changed American law and politics, the New Yorker staff writer Jeannie Suk Gersen argues. “These prosecutions force

Dec 4, 2024 • 39:15

Ketanji Brown Jackson on Ethics, Trust, and Keeping It Collegial at the Supreme Court

Since the founding of the nation, just 116 people have served as Supreme Court Justices; the 116th is Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by President Biden in 2022. Jackson joined a Court with six conservative Justices setting a new era of jurisprudence. She took her seat just days after the Dobbs decision, when Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion overturned Roe v. Wade. She wrote a blistering dissent to the Harvard decision, which ended affirmative action in college admissions, in which she a

Nov 25, 2024 • 25:59

How to Prepare for Trump 2.0

The Washington Roundtable discusses how people in D.C. and across the country are preparing themselves for Donald Trump’s second Presidency, and what tools citizens have to protect their rights and push back on abuses of power. The American Civil Liberties Union has called attention to the strategies of litigation, legislation, and mobilization—strategies that are proven to work. David Cole, a former legal director of the A.C.L.U. and a professor of law and public policy at Georgetown University

Nov 23, 2024 • 39:53

What Is Donald Trump’s Cabinet Planning for America?

The New Yorker staff writers Dexter Filkins and Clare Malone join Tyler Foggatt to examine Donald Trump’s appointments of former congressman Matt Gaetz and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to his Cabinet.Gaetz, who has been nominated for Attorney General, is one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders and the former subject of a sex-trafficking investigation run by the Department of Justice. (Gaetz has denied all allegations.) Trump has chosen Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, giv

Nov 20, 2024 • 46:37

The Authors of “How Democracies Die” on the New Democratic Minority

American voters have elected a President with broadly, overtly authoritarian aims. It’s hardly the first time that the democratic process has brought an anti-democratic leader to power. The political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who both teach at Harvard, assert that we shouldn’t be shocked by the Presidential result. “It’s not up to voters to defend a democracy,” Levitsky says. “That’s asking far, far too much of voters, to cast their ballot on the basis of some set o

Nov 18, 2024 • 32:06

Chris Hayes on the New Trump Coalition, and What Democrats Do Next

The second Trump Administration might dramatically reshape the foundations of the federal government for decades to come. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is reckoning with what could be interpreted as a generational rebuke of its platform and presentation. But is this the beginning of a mass political realignment in the United States? And how will politicians communicate their platforms in a world where the “attention economy” has so radically shifted? Author, political commentator, and MSNBC h

Nov 13, 2024 • 43:58

Donald Trump Returns. What Now?

The Washington roundtable is joined by David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, to discuss how Donald Trump, a convicted felon and sexual abuser, won both the Electoral College and the popular vote—a first for a Republican President since 2004. Democrats lost almost every swing state, even as abortion-rights ballot measures found favor in some conservative states. On this crossover episode with The New Yorker Radio Hour, they discuss Kamala Harris’s campaign, Trump’s overtly authoritarian rh

Nov 8, 2024 • 53:41

How Trump Took Back America

Four years after refusing to accept defeat and encouraging a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Donald J. Trump has once again been elected President of the United States. The former President, who in the past year alone has been convicted of a felony and has survived two assassination attempts, campaigned largely on a platform of mass deportations, trade wars, and retribution for his detractors. On Tuesday, he secured the Presidency thanks to a surge of rural voters, high turnou

Nov 7, 2024 • 32:55

Liz Cheney on Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Jeff Bezos

In recent weeks and months, dozens of prominent security and military officials and Republican politicians have come out against Donald Trump, declaring him a security threat, unfit for office, and, in some cases, a fascist. Way out in front of this movement was Liz Cheney. Up until 2021, she was the third-ranking Republican in Congress, but after the January 6th insurrection she voted to impeach Trump. She then served as vice-chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6th attack. She mu

Nov 4, 2024 • 29:46

Why American Democracy is in Danger, with Michael Beschloss

The Washington Roundtable discusses the 2024 election with the historian Michael Beschloss, before a live audience at The New Yorker Festival, on October 26th. He calls this election a “turning point” as monumental as the election of 1860—on the eve of the Civil War—and that of 1940, when the U.S. was deciding whether to adopt or fight Fascism. “I think Donald Trump meets most of the parts of the definition of the word fascist,” Beschloss says. “You go through all of American history, a

Nov 1, 2024 • 59:38

Is the Backlash to a Racist Joke Trump’s October Surprise

At Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden this past weekend, the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage.” In the swing state of Pennsylvania, which is home to nearly half a million people of Puerto Rican descent, the fallout from Hinchcliffe’s offensive remarks threatens to shift the balance of the Latino electorate. The New Yorker contributing writer Geraldo Cadava joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the public response to the rally and why the Republican

Oct 30, 2024 • 35:50

Charlamagne tha God Has Some Advice for Harris and the Democrats

In these final days of the Presidential campaign, Vice-President Kamala Harris has been getting in front of voters as much as she can. Given the polls showing shaky support among Black men, one man she absolutely had to talk to was Lenard McKelvey, much better known as Charlamagne tha God. As a co-host of the syndicated “Breakfast Club” morning radio show, Charlamagne has interviewed Presidential candidates such as Harris, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, as well as New York City’s embattled Mayo

Oct 28, 2024 • 37:37

The Lies Are Winning

The Washington Roundtable discusses the avalanche of disinformation that has taken over the 2024 election cycle, including an A.I. video meant to slander Tim Walz and claims that the votes are rigged before they’re even counted. Will this torrent of lies tip the election in favor of Donald Trump? Is there a way out of this morass of untruth? “I think the lies are clearly winning,” the staff writer Evan Osnos says. “But I would also say that that doesn’t mean that we should abandon the t

Oct 26, 2024 • 41:43

How Poll Watchers Could Help Trump Challenge the Election Results

Since Donald Trump tried to challenge the 2020 election, the Republican National Committee has been hard at work building a network of poll watchers to observe ballot counting in counties across America. The program could help Trump and the R.N.C. challenge the results of the 2024 election should Trump lose, while also driving turnout among Republican voters who are skeptical of election integrity in the U.S. The New Yorker contributing writer Antonia Hitchens joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how

Oct 24, 2024 • 33:23

The Stakes for Abortion Rights, from the Head of Planned Parenthood

If Vice-President Kamala Harris wins in November, it will likely be on the strength of the pro-choice vote, which has been turning out strongly in recent elections. Her statements and choices on the campaign trail couldn’t stand in starker relief against those of Donald Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance, who recently called for defunding Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, Harris “is the first sitting Vice-President or President to come to a Planned Parenthood health center, to come to an abort

Oct 22, 2024 • 23:09

What Billionaires See in Donald Trump

The Washington Roundtable discusses the ultra-rich figures, such as Elon Musk, who are donating staggeringly large sums of money to Donald Trump’s campaign. Susan B. Glasser’s recent piece examines what these prominent donors may expect to get in return for their support.“You’ve now got oligarchs who have a sense of impunity,” Jane Mayer says. “There are no limits to how much they can give and how much power they can get.” Plus, how Trump’s fund-raising figures compare to those of Vice-President

Oct 19, 2024 • 41:34

How Hurricane Helene Has Fuelled Far-Right Conspiracies

Jessica Pishko, who recently published a piece about the devastation left behind by Hurricane Helene, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss conspiracy theories that have emerged in the storm’s wake. On social media, people have falsely claimed, among other things, that the federal government has diverted disaster funding to migrants and that FEMA has seized peoples land. In a battleground state such as North Carolina, where the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, has been mired in scanda

Oct 16, 2024 • 32:04

How Kamala Harris Became a Contender

Since July 21st, when Joe Biden endorsed her in the Presidential race, all eyes have been on Vice-President Kamala Harris. The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos has been reporting on Harris for months, speaking with dozens of people close to her from her childhood to her days as a California prosecutor, right up to this lightning-round campaign for the Presidency. “What’s interesting is that some of those people . . . were asking her, ‘Do you think there should be a process? Some town halls or conventions

Oct 15, 2024 • 28:38

What Motivates Kamala Harris?

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the final stretch of Kamala Harris’s Presidential campaign, including a recent media blitz on podcasts and television shows. The Vice-President has never been entirely comfortable with the interview format. “She doesn’t ruminate and reflect,” the staff writer Evan Osnos says. “I think it’s the self-protection that comes with being aware of people who are always going to doubt her capacity to make history.”

Oct 12, 2024 • 31:20

What Some Gaza Protest Voters See in Trump

With the U.S. Presidential election less than a month away, and the war in Gaza now ongoing for a full year, the group of voters who are “uncommitted” to a candidate remains a wild card. Thousands of Democratic voters say that they will not vote for Kamala Harris because of her support for Israel’s war effort. The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the potential impact of such protest voters. “If you’re antiwar . . . it can actually be really hard to f

Oct 9, 2024 • 35:54

Newt Gingrich on What Trump Could Accomplish in a Second Term

Long before Donald Trump got serious about politics, Newt Gingrich saw himself as the revolutionary in Washington, introducing a combative style of politics that helped his party become a dominating force in Congress. Setting the template for Trump, Gingrich described Democrats not as an opposing team with whom to make alliances but as an alien force—a “cultural élite”—out to destroy America. Gingrich has written no fewer than five admiring books about Trump, and he was involved in pushing the l

Oct 7, 2024 • 30:52

How to Find Every Democratic Voter in Wisconsin

The Washington Roundtable is joined by the Wisconsin Democratic Party chair, Ben Wikler, to discuss ground operations for Kamala Harris in the key battleground state, and why he thinks the Trump campaign is falling behind when it comes to reaching voters in person, despite the financial support of Elon Musk and other big donors. “I was just on the phone with the chair of Oneida County, in Northern Wisconsin, and we’re seeing crickets,” Wikler says of G.O.P. outreach. Still, he sees the state of

Oct 5, 2024 • 34:58

Will J. D. Vance’s Debate Victory Matter on Election Day?

The first and only Vice-Presidential Debate of the 2024 campaign was mostly cordial, but J. D. Vance's smooth performance tried to soften the sharper edges of Trumpism in a conversation that stretched from climate policy to child care, gun control, the Middle East, and January 6th. However, with polls tightening and barely a month till Election Day, can Vance’s efforts compensate for Donald Trump’s poor debate with Kamala Harris, last month? The New Yorker staff writers Clare Malone and Vinson C

Oct 2, 2024 • 37:43

Young Donald Trump, Roy Cohn, and the Dark Arts of Power

Actors and comedians have usually played Donald Trump as larger than life, almost as a cartoon. In the new film “The Apprentice,” Sebastian Stan doesn’t play for laughs. He stars as a very young Trump falling under the sway of Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong)— the notorious, amoral lawyer and fixer.  “Cohn took Donald Trump under his wing when Donald was a nobody from the outer boroughs,” the film’s writer and executive producer Gabriel Sherman tells David Remnick. He “taught him the dark arts

Sep 30, 2024 • 19:54

The Election Dividing Husbands and Wives Across America

Recent polls suggest that American men and women are more divided over the 2024 election than they were in 2016, when Donald Trump ran against Hillary Clinton. The Washington Roundtable discusses the split with the independent Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who identifies causes that go beyond the issue of abortion. As for how Kamala Harris can win over blue-collar women who might be leaning toward Trump, “we have a program,” she says.This week’s reading: “Trump Is Not Pivoting to Policy, Now

Sep 28, 2024 • 40:00

From “Inside the Hive”: Behind Donald Trump's “Bro Podcast” Binge

The Political Scene brings you a recent episode of Vanity Fair’s “Inside the Hive,” hosted by the special correspondent Brian Stelter. The Atlantic staff writer Helen Lewis and the Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carman join Stelter to discuss the Trump campaign's strategy of courting so-called podcast bros,  including the comedian Theo Von and the Twitch streamer Adin Ross. Both have provided Trump with some of the most viral moments of the 2024 campaign, and helped him reach a young, male audience w

Sep 25, 2024 • 29:17

Timothy Snyder on Why Ukraine Can Still Win the War

Since the war in Ukraine began, the historian Timothy Snyder has made several trips to Ukraine, and it was there that he wrote parts of his newest book, “On Freedom.” The author of “Bloodlands” and “On Tyranny,” Snyder spoke in Ukrainian with soldiers, farmers, journalists, and politicians, including President Volodymyr Zelensky.  He talks with David Remnick about the Ukrainian conviction that they can win the war, and the historical trends that support that conviction.  But the thrust of Snyder

Sep 24, 2024 • 19:58

Is Eric Adams Impervious to Scandal?

Last week, New York City’s police commissioner, Edward Caban, resigned after a federal corruption probe. Shortly after, Mayor Eric Adams’s chief legal adviser also stepped down. But, despite the scandals, Adams remains in contention for reëlection in 2025. “The job of Mayor of New York is a big job,” Eric Lach says. “But it’s also attached to a political system that is insular and small.”Tyler Foggatt sits down with the New Yorker staff writer Eric Lach to parse the scandals and to preview the u

Sep 18, 2024 • 30:33

Josh Shapiro on How Kamala Harris Can Win Pennsylvania

In 2024, all eyes are on Pennsylvania: its nineteen electoral votes make it the largest swing state, and it’s considered a critical battleground for either  or  to win the White House. For many years, Pennsylvania trended slightly blue, but the state has become deeply purple—with a divided state House and a series of razor-thin margins in general elections. One notable exception to this was the 2022 Pennsylvania governor’s race. The Democrat Josh Shapiro won by almost fifteen points aga

Sep 16, 2024 • 25:44

How to Get Under a Strongman’s Skin, with George Conway

The Washington Roundtable revisits Vice-President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s past debate performances and considers how the candidates might approach next week’s showdown. “Trump doesn’t do subdued self-defense,” Evan Osnos says. “He’ll come back furious and basically do a lot of the work for [Harris] of showing, to borrow one of his favorite adjectives, what a ‘nasty’ guy he is. I think that could be pretty effective for her.” Plus, where the fund-raising race stands with Election Day onl

Sep 14, 2024 • 41:58

Will Kamala Harris’s Debate Win Be Enough to Move the Needle?

Kamala Harris successfully prosecuted a case against Donald Trump on issues ranging from abortion to the January 6th insurrection at last night’s debate in Philadelphia. How will that fare with voters against Trump’s “fan service” recitation of Internet conspiracies? Tyler Foggatt sits down with the New Yorker staff writers Clare Malone and Vinson Cunningham to examine each candidate’s performance, along with a surprise Taylor Swift endorsement for Harris, and what it means with less th

Sep 11, 2024 • 27:02

Preparing For Trump’s Next “Big Lie,” with the Election Lawyer Marc Elias

Of the sixty-five lawsuits that Donald Trump’s team filed in the 2020 election, Democrats won sixty-four—with the attorney Marc Elias spearheading the majority.  Elias was so successful that Steve Bannon speaks of him with admiration. Now Marc Elias is working for Vice-President Kamala Harris’s campaign, and, despite his past victories, Elias says that 2024 is keeping him up at night.  The bizarre antics and conspiracy theories of Rudy Giuliani are a thing of the past, Elias tells David Remnick:

Sep 9, 2024 • 27:19

Will Harris Get Trump to Self-Destruct at the Debate?

The Washington Roundtable revisits Vice-President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s past debate performances and considers how the candidates might approach next week’s showdown. “Trump doesn’t do subdued self-defense,” Evan Osnos says. “He’ll come back furious and basically do a lot of the work for [Harris] of showing, to borrow one of his favorite adjectives, what a ‘nasty’ guy he is. I think that could be pretty effective for her.” Plus, where the fund-raising race stands with Election Day onl

Sep 7, 2024 • 40:33

What Does “Election Interference” Even Mean Anymore?

How has a phrase that just a decade ago had a narrow, technical definition come to essentially represent anything political that we don’t like? Jon Allsop, who writes Columbia Journalism Review’s daily newsletter and contributed this week to The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how “election interference” has become a ubiquitous term and what that indicates about the future of American political discourse. “It’s a project that is designed to insulate candidates against losing, whether

Sep 4, 2024 • 33:17

The Writer Danzy Senna on Kamala Harris and the Complexity of Biracial Identity in America

In fiction and nonfiction, the author Danzy Senna focusses on the experience of being biracial in a nation long obsessed with color lines. Now that Kamala Harris is the Democratic candidate for President, some of Senna’s concerns have come to the fore in political life. Donald Trump attacked Harris as a kind of race manipulator, implying that she had been Indian American before becoming Black for strategic purposes.  The claim was bizarre and false, but Senna feels that it reflected a mind-set i

Sep 2, 2024 • 26:53

How Much is “Being Cool” Actually Worth in Politics?

The New Yorker staff writer Naomi Fry joins Tyler Foggatt to unpack Kamala Harris’s cultural blitzkrieg and how a litany of A-list celebrities and online influencers have helped revitalize the Presidential race. “It’s like the scene in ‘Pulp Fiction’ or something, where Uma Thurman overdoses and then has the adrenaline shot into her heart,” Fry said. To what degree can a candidate turn “being cool” into a winning strategy?This week’s reading: “What Kamala Harris May Have to Do Next,” by Jay Casp

Aug 29, 2024 • 31:33

Kamala Harris’s “Different Kind of ‘Hope’ Campaign”

The Washington Roundtable discusses the highs and lows of the Democratic National Convention and Vice-President Kamala Harris’s rousing acceptance speech, with Evan Osnos and Susan B. Glasser reporting from Chicago. Plus, behind-the-scenes moments from the “festival atmosphere” for delegates, donors, and influencers, at the United Center. This week’s reading: “The Speech of Kamala Harris’s Lifetime,” by Susan B. Glasser “Proud and Impassioned, Joe Biden Passes the Torch at the D.N.C.,”

Aug 24, 2024 • 40:03

Unity, Millennial Cringe, And Overwhelming Relief Abound at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the sights, sounds, and broader implications of the Democratic National Convention. Marantz describes a convention defined by feelings of unity and a profound sense of relief among party insiders. Plus, they reflect on the D.N.C.’s use of what Marantz describes as “cringe-millennial” culture.This week’s reading: Proud and Impassioned, Joe Biden Passes the Torch at the D.N.C., by Evan Osnos. The Obamas’ Rousingly Pragmati

Aug 21, 2024 • 31:55

Why Are More Latino Voters Supporting Trump?

Despite a surge of enthusiasm for Vice-President Kamala Harris’s campaign, the 2024 race remains extremely competitive. And one factor very much in Donald Trump’s favor is an increased share of support from Latino voters. Anti-immigrant messaging from Trump and the Republican Party has not turned off Latino voters; he won a higher percentage of Latino voters in 2020 than in 2016, and he was roughly tied with President Biden at the time Biden stepped out of the race in July. Geraldo Cadava, the a

Aug 19, 2024 • 31:40

What the Harris Campaign Needs to Win, with James Carville and Paul Begala

The Washington Roundtable discusses the surge of enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz campaign among Democrats in relation to Bill Clinton’s bid for the White House in 1992. They’re joined by the Democratic strategists James Carville and Paul Begala, whose work as architects of that Clinton campaign was portrayed in the 1993 documentary “The War Room.” Plus, a look ahead at next week’s Democratic National Convention.This week’s reading: “Kamala Harris’s Best Campaign Surrogate Is Donald Trump,” by Sus

Aug 17, 2024 • 45:58

Elon Musk’s Pivot from Online Troll to Political Machinator

The New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Elon Musk has once again found himself at the center of a geopolitical dustup—this time in Venezuela, where strongman Nicolas Maduro has accused Musk of hacking the nation’s electoral council. Although the allegations are unsubstantiated, Maduro’s worries about Musk meddling in the affairs of other countries “are not without foundation,” Anderson writes. His latest piece, “Elon Musk’s Surging Political Activ

Aug 14, 2024 • 28:56

Nancy Pelosi, the Power Broker

Nancy Pelosi, who represents California’s Eleventh Congressional District, led the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives for so long, and so effectively, that one forgets she was also the first woman to hold the job. Her stewardship of consequential legislation—including the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act—during her eight years as Speaker is legendary. And Pelosi has wielded tremendous influence this election cycle: she seems to have been instrumental in persuadin

Aug 12, 2024 • 36:31

The Harris-Walz Reboot

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the addition of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to the Democratic ticket and Donald Trump’s erratic response at a press conference on Thursday. “Walz has scrambled the circuits for Trump because he’s not easy to pigeonhole,” Osnos says. “He’s not what Trump imagines, in his comic-book way, of what a progressive looks like.” Plus, the campaigns’ strategies in the battleground states and what it will take to win key states

Aug 10, 2024 • 38:20

Israel’s Other Intractable Conflict

Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River since 1967, after the third Arab-Israeli war, and ever since Israelis have settled on more and more of this contested land. Violence by armed settlers against their Palestinian neighbors has increased dramatically in recent years, as a far-right government came to dominate Israeli politics. Unless things change, the American journalist Nathan Thrall tells David Remnick, the future for Palestinians is “not unlike that of the Native Americans.”

Aug 5, 2024 • 42:23

Decoding the “Compelling” Attack Ads of the 2024 Campaign

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the fiery advertising war between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. They are joined by Jennifer Lawless, the chair of the politics department at the University of Virginia and the author of “Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era.” Plus, how memes and social media have boosted the Harris campaign. “The Harris campaign will have a couple of uplifting,

Aug 3, 2024 • 40:08

J. D. Vance’s Rough Rollout and Kamala Harris’s Veepstakes

As J. D. Vance faces a bumpy public reception on the Trump ticket and Kamala Harris considers her options for a running mate, the New Yorker staff writers Amy Davidson Sorkin and Benjamin Wallace-Wells join Tyler Foggatt to discuss all things Vice-Presidential. In a race as short and tight as this one, what is each campaign communicating with its choice?This week’s reading: “Who Should Kamala Harris Pick as Her Running Mate?” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “J. D. Vance’s Sad, Strange Politics o

Jul 31, 2024 • 39:35

From In the Dark: Season 3, Episode 1

Today, we're bringing you a special preview of the new season of the New Yorker investigative podcast In the Dark, hosted by Madeleine Baran. The series examines the killings of twenty-four civilians in Haditha, Iraq, and asks why no one was held accountable for the crime.In Episode 1, a man in Haditha, Iraq, has a request for the In the Dark team: Can you investigate how my family was killed?In the Dark is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Jul 30, 2024 • 10:09

What Kamala Harris Needs to Win the Presidency

Kamala Harris will face barriers as a woman running for the Presidency. “Women constantly have to credential themselves,” Jennifer Palmieri, a veteran of Democratic politics who served in the Clinton Administration, says. She was also the director of communications for the Obama White House, and then for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential campaign. Harris will “need to remind people of what she has done in her career and what she’s done as Vice-President, because people assume that women haven’

Jul 29, 2024 • 31:34

Could Kamala Harris Be a Trump-Level Cultural Phenomenon?

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the start of Kamala Harris’s Presidential campaign and the surge of excitement among Democrats on the Internet and at rallies. Plus, who might be her running mate and how Republicans plan to launch “racist, misogynist” attacks against her. This week’s reading: “Biden’s Exit, Harris’s Moment,” by Susan B. Glasser “Why Did Progressive Democrats Support Joe Biden?,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor “Kamala Harris Should Tell

Jul 26, 2024 • 39:44

The “Strange Charisma” of Kamala Harris

The New Yorker staff writers and cultural critics Doreen St. Félix and Vinson Cunningham join Tyler Foggatt to discuss Kamala Harris’s sudden ascendence to the top of the Democratic ticket. How might her gender, race, and long political career from prosecutor to Vice-President shape the campaign ahead? “In a weird way, I think that she can run against both Trump and, implicitly, very subtly, against Biden, too,” Cunningham says. “I think her strongest way to code herself is: we're finally turnin

Jul 25, 2024 • 51:28

Special Episode: Biden Passes the Torch

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss President Biden’s stunning exit from the 2024 Presidential election and his endorsement for Vice-President Kamala Harris to lead the Democratic ticket. How could this new matchup change the terms of the race, now that Biden’s age is no longer a key issue?This week’s reading: “Joe Biden’s Act of Selflessness,” by Evan Osnos “Joe Biden Leaves the Stage,” by Adam Gopnik “Where Do Republicans and Democrats Stand

Jul 23, 2024 • 39:23

Trump’s Triumphant R.N.C. and Biden’s Dilemma

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss takeaways from the Republican National Convention, which Glasser reports had the feeling of “a very polite Midwestern cult meeting.” Plus, Donald Trump's selection of J. D. Vance as his running mate and the mounting pressure for President Biden to drop out of the race.This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Second Coming,” by Susan B. Glasser “Doctors Are Increasingly Worried About Biden,” by Dhruv Khullar “The Rise of

Jul 20, 2024 • 36:25

A Dispatch from the Republican National Convention

The New Yorker contributing writer Antonia Hitchens calls Tyler Foggatt from Milwaukee to offer some details and observations from the first night of the Republican National Convention, at which Donald Trump was formally nominated to be the G.O.P.’s 2024 Presidential nominee. An assassination attempt on the former President over the weekend only heightened the messianic feeling that surrounds Trump, and gave a strange poignancy to the anointing of J. D. Vance as Trump’s running mate and the pote

Jul 17, 2024 • 23:20

Julián Castro on the Biden Problem, and What the Democratic Party Got Wrong

The panic that gripped Democrats during and after President Biden’s performance in the June debate against Donald Trump didn’t come out of nowhere. In January of last year, the Radio Hour produced an episode about President Biden’s age, and the concerns that voters were already expressing. But no nationally prominent Democratic politician was willing to challenge Biden in the primaries. After the debate, Julián Castro was one of the first prominent Democrats to say that Biden should withdraw fro

Jul 15, 2024 • 27:13

The Great Democratic Party Freakout of 2024

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss President Joe Biden’s struggle to retain voters’ confidence in his bid for reëlection and his animosity toward the “élites” he says are insisting that he step down. Plus, Donald Trump’s campaign strategy amid Democratic turmoil and ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.“The problem is the meta-narrative, which seems to be centered on: Will Biden faceplant or won’t he?,” Jane Mayer says. “And, so lo

Jul 13, 2024 • 42:37

The Case for Using the Twenty-fifth Amendment on Biden

The New Yorker contributor and Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a once obscure constitutional provision that allows Cabinet members to remove an unfit President from office. Gersen believes it’s time to use it on Biden. “The Twenty-fifth amendment was designed for a situation in which the President may not recognize his own impairment,” she says.    This week’s reading: “This Is What the Twenty-fifth Amendment Was Designed For,” by Jeannie Suk Gersen “The R

Jul 10, 2024 • 37:16

John Fetterman’s Move to the Right on Israel

Many Democrats saw John Fetterman as a progressive beacon: a Rust Belt Bernie Sanders who—with his shaved head, his hoodie, and the Zip Code of Braddock, Pennsylvania—could rally working-class white voters to the Democratic Party. But at least on one issue, Fetterman is veering away from the left of his party, and even from centrists like Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: Israel’s war in Gaza. Fetterman has taken a line that is not just sympathetic to Israel after the October 7th attack by Hamas; h

Jul 8, 2024 • 18:37

From “Inside the Hive”: How Steve Bannon’s Prison Sentence Could Help Trump Win

With the New Yorker office closed for the July 4th holiday, The Political Scene brings you a recent episode from Vanity Fair’s “Inside the Hive,” hosted by the special correspondent Brian Stelter. Tina Nguyen, a national correspondent for Puck, and the Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf, a national political reporter, join Stelter to discuss how Steve Bannon helped rehabilitate Donald Trump among Republicans after January 6th. Bannon’s popular “War Room” podcast has been galvanizing the f

Jul 3, 2024 • 30:45

The New Yorker’s Political Writers Answer Your Election Questions

At the beginning of 2021, it seemed like America might be turning a new page; instead, the election of 2024 feels like a strange dream that we can’t wake up from. Recently, David Remnick asked listeners what’s still confounding and confusing about this Presidential election. Dozens of listeners wrote in from all over the country, and a crack team of political writers at The New Yorker came together to shed some light on those questions: Susan B. Glasser, Jill Lepore, Clare Malone, Andrew Marantz

Jul 1, 2024 • 23:28

What Does Biden’s Disastrous Debate Mean for Democrats?

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss President Joe Biden’s flubs, and Donald Trump’s lies, in the first Presidential debate. Plus, how American politics arrived at this point and what is next for the Democratic Party. This week’s reading: “Was the Debate the Beginning of the End of Joe Biden’s Presidency?” by Susan B. Glasser “The Writing on Joe Biden’s Face at the Presidential Debate,” by Vinson Cunningham “Do the Democrats Have a Gen Z Problem?” by E.

Jun 29, 2024 • 34:26

What You Need to Know About 2024’s Most Significant Supreme Court Decisions

The New Yorker staff writer Amy Davidson Sorkin joins Tyler Foggatt to examine the biggest Supreme Court decisions of the year—those already decided and those yet to come. They discuss the Court’s attempt to moderate its radical rulings on guns and abortion, its politicized selection of which cases to hear, and its influence on the 2024 election. This week’s reading: “The Supreme Court Steps Back from the Brink on Guns,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “Yet More Donald Trump Cases Head to the Supreme Cou

Jun 26, 2024 • 40:41

Kevin Costner on “Yellowstone,” “Horizon,” and Why the Western Endures

Kevin Costner has been a leading man for more than forty years and has starred in all different genres of movies, but a constant in his filmography is the Western. One of his first big roles was in “Silverado,” alongside Kevin Kline and Danny Glover; he directed “Dances with Wolves,” which won seven Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture; more recently, Costner starred as the rancher John Dutton in the enormously successful “Yellowstone.” Perhaps no actor since Clint Eastwood is more a

Jun 24, 2024 • 31:51

What to Expect from the Biden-Trump Debate, with the Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss whether the debate  will affect the outcome of the November election. The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who is the author of “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s,” joins the conversation to look at what the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate can tell us about the upcoming event.This week’s reading: “Project Trump, Global Edition,” by Susan B. Glasser “Biden Is the Candidate Who Stands for Chan

Jun 21, 2024 • 32:32

Could the 2024 Election Be Decided by Memes?

The New Yorker staff writer Clare Malone joins Tyler Foggatt to analyze how President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are being skewered on social-media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. She discusses our shifting media habits, why the 2016 election is surfacing in new contexts online, and how both campaigns are relying on algorithms to gain momentum ahead of November.This episode originally aired on January 31, 2024. This week’s reading: “The Meme-ification of American Politics,”

Jun 19, 2024 • 32:16

Is Being a Politician the Worst Job in the World?

On July 4th—while the U.S. celebrates its break from Britain—voters in the United Kingdom will go to the polls and, according to all predictions, oust the current government. The Conservative Party has been in power for fourteen years, presiding over serious economic decline and widespread discontent. The narrow, contentious referendum to break away from the European Union, sixty per cent of Britons now think, was a mistake. Yet the Labour Party shows no inclination to reverse or even mitigate B

Jun 17, 2024 • 35:44

Hunter Biden’s Conviction and Trump’s Risk to the Justice Department in 2024

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos analyze the impact of Hunter Biden’s criminal conviction and how the trial turned the spotlight on the Biden family’s private struggles through grief and addiction. Plus, how Trump supporters are waging an attack on the justice system and making its integrity one of the core issues of the 2024 Presidential election.This week’s reading: “Happy Seventy-eighth Birthday, Mr. Ex-President,” by Susan B. Glasser “Is Hunter Biden a

Jun 15, 2024 • 36:49

Biden’s Executive Order on Immigration and the Politically “Toxic” Puzzle of the Border

The New Yorker writers Stephania Taladrid and Jonathan Blitzer join Tyler Foggatt to unpack President Biden’s stringent new executive order on asylum and the border. They discuss the strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico and the political calculations underpinning Biden’s decision, and imagine what negotiations between Donald Trump and Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum would look like. This week’s reading: “Will Mexico Decide the U.S. Election?,” by Stephania

Jun 13, 2024 • 38:19

Senator Raphael Warnock on America’s “Moral and Spiritual Battle”

When Raphael Warnock was elected to the Senate from Georgia in the 2020 election, he made history a couple of times over. He became the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the Deep South. At the same time, that victory—alongside Jon Ossoff’s—flipped both of Georgia’s Senate seats from Republican to Democrat. Once thought of as solidly red, Georgia has become a closely watched swing state that President Biden can’t afford to lose in November, and Warnock is a key ally. He dismisses po

Jun 10, 2024 • 21:38

A G.O.P. Strategist on the Republican Voters Who Could Abandon Trump

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser and Jane Mayer speak with Sarah Longwell, a longtime G.O.P. strategist and publisher of the Bulwark. Longwell has conducted focus groups across the country for the past eight years, and her research provides an unparalleled look at what motivates certain Republican voters to stay with Trump and what causes others to abandon him. She’s applying that research to persuade a segment of Republican voters to change their vote to Biden, now that Trum

Jun 8, 2024 • 34:49

What Do We Know About How the World Might End?

The New Yorker staff writer Rivka Galchen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a class at the University of Chicago with a tantalizingly dark title: “Are We Doomed?” It’s in the interdisciplinary field of existential risk, which studies the threats posed by climate change, nuclear warfare, and artificial intelligence. Galchen, who spent a semester observing the course and its students, considers how to contend with this bleak future, and how to understand the young people who may inherit it.

Jun 5, 2024 • 30:30

The Trans Athletes Who Changed the Olympics—in 1936

In “The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports,” the journalist Michael Waters tells the story of Zdeněk Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women’s sports. Koubek shocked the sporting world in 1935 by announcing that he was transitioning, and now living as a man. The initial press coverage of Koubek and another prominent track star who transitioned, Mark Weston, was largely positive, but Waters tells the New Yorker sports columnist Louisa

Jun 4, 2024 • 18:43

A “Stunningly Decisive” End to Donald Trump’s Trial

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the consequences of a major moment in American history and politics: the first-ever trial and conviction of a former President in a court of law. Will Donald Trump’s guilty verdict threaten his campaign, or will it only shore up support from his party? This week’s reading: “The Revisionist History of the Trump Trial Has Already Begun,” by Susan B. Glasser “Trump Is Guilty, but Voters Will Be the Final Judge,” by Davi

May 31, 2024 • 36:10

Sam Altman Dreams of an A.I. Girlfriend

Kyle Chayka, a New Yorker staff writer and the author of the Infinite Scroll column, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the latest ChatGPT release—which uses a voice that sounds, suspiciously, like Scarlett Johansson’s character in the dystopian sci-fi movie “Her.” Chayka has reported extensively on artificial intelligence, and he describes some recent blunders that tech companies, including OpenAI and Google, have made in trying to push their products through.This week’s reading: “Faux ScarJo and t

May 29, 2024 • 31:40

How the Reality-TV Industry Mistreats Its Stars

On the reality-TV dating show “Love Is Blind,” the most watched original series in Netflix history, contestants are alone in windowless, octagonal pods with no access to their phones or the Internet. They talk to each other through the walls. There’s intrigue, romance, heartbreak, and, in some cases, sight-unseen engagements. According to several lawsuits, there’s also lack of sleep, lack of food and water, twenty-hour work days, and alleged physical and emotional abuse. The New Yorker staff wri

May 27, 2024 • 26:36

Why Vladimir Putin’s Family Is Learning Mandarin

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss why global events—such as the death of Iran’s president, a recent meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, and the worsening situation for Ukraine—should not be overlooked in favor of domestic issues during the 2024 campaign.This week’s reading: “There Is Literally Nothing Trump Can Say That Will Stop Republicans from Voting for Him,” by Susan B. Glasser “What Raisi’s Death Means for the Future of Ir

May 25, 2024 • 32:58

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on Why He’s Running

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has never held elected office but is related to many people who have, is emerging as a potential threat to Democrats and Republicans in the 2024 Presidential race. “There’s nothing in the United States Constitution that says that you have to go to Congress first and, then, Senate second, or be a governor before you’re elected to the Presidency,”  he told David Remnick, in July, when he was running as a Democrat. Now, as a third-party Presidential candidate, his number

May 20, 2024 • 28:55

The Most Profoundly Not-Normal Facts About Trump’s 2024 Campaign

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss  the unusual and dangerous aspects of Donald Trump’s reëlection campaign, from his quid-pro-quo offer to oil executives to his daughter-in-law’s new leadership position in the Republican National Committee.This week’s reading: “On Trump and the Elusive Fantasy of a 2024 Election Game-Changer,” by Susan B. Glasser “Can You Believe What Michael Cohen Just Said at the Trump Trial?,” by Eric Lach “It’s a Climate

May 18, 2024 • 35:47

Stormy Daniels’s Biggest Role Yet

Naomi Fry, a staff writer and co-host of the New Yorker podcast Critics at Large, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss her impressions of Stormy Daniels’s testimony in the hush-money trial of former President Donald Trump. Having spent weeks doing a deep dive on the adult-film star’s life, Fry explains her understanding of Daniels’s motivations in accepting the hush money and what the sordid tale says about American culture today.This week’s reading: Stormy Daniels’s American Dream, by Naomi

May 16, 2024 • 29:38

The TikTok Ban Is “a Vast Overreach, Rooted in Hypocrisy,” Wired’s Katie Drummond says

David Remnick talks with Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired magazine, about the TikTok ban that just passed with bipartisan support in Washington. The app will be removed from distribution in U.S. app stores unless ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, sells it to an approved buyer. TikTok is suing to block that law. Is this a battle among tech giants for dominance, or a real issue of national security? Drummond sees the ban as a corporate crusade by Silic

May 13, 2024 • 20:41

Will Young Americans Tip November’s Election?

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza and the potentially decisive role that the youth vote will play in the Presidential election. Cyrus Beschloss, the C.E.O. of The Generation Lab, a company that studies trends among young people, joins the show to break down the latest polling data. This week’s reading: “Biden’s Public Ultimatum to Bibi,” by Susan B. Glasser “Israel’s Politics of Protest,” by R

May 11, 2024 • 37:04

The Pure Chaos Inside Donald Trump’s Criminal Trial

The New Yorker staff writer Eric Lach joins Tyler Foggatt to share a firsthand account of the bizarre stories coming out of the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. President. Lach explains why the former publisher of the National Enquirer testified about catch-and-kill schemes involving celebrities like Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and describes Trump’s real-time reaction as adult-film star Stormy Daniels testified in lurid detail about the alleged affair at the heart o

May 9, 2024 • 33:46

Randall Kennedy on Harvard Protests, Antisemitism, and the Meaning of Free Speech

In December, the presidents of three universities were summoned to Congress for hearings about whether a climate of antisemitism exists on campuses. Politicians like Elise Stefanik made headlines, and two of the presidents, including Harvard’s Claudine Gay, were soon out of their posts. The Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy wrote an essay for the London Review of Books about the reverberations of those events. “Folks were out to get Claudine Gay from the get-go,” he thinks, “and wer

May 6, 2024 • 15:32

Who Should Be More Worried about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.– Biden or Trump?

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the Presidential candidacy of the anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and explore the ways his run for the White House as an independent might spoil the election for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. “He’s not a serious threat in terms of being able to win,” says Jane Mayer, “but he is potentially a serious threat in being able to spoil this election for one side or the othe

May 4, 2024 • 30:53

Why Is Marjorie Taylor Greene Trying to Oust House Speaker Mike Johnson?

The New Yorker staff writer David Kirkpatrick joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Marjorie Taylor Greene’s call to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson from office, just seven months after her colleagues forced out Kevin McCarthy. Kirkpatrick explains why Greene’s likely doomed effort is potentially lucrative for her, and walks through the ways in which her strategy is influenced by her predecessors. This week’s reading: How Marjorie Taylor Greene Raises Money by Attacking Other Republicans, by D

May 1, 2024 • 25:02

Georgia’s Secretary of State Prepares for Another Election

Brad Raffensperger, who holds the usually low-profile office of secretary of state in Georgia, became famous after he recorded a phone call with Donald Trump. Shortly after the 2020 election, Trump demanded that Georgia officials “find 11,780 votes” so that he could win the state. The recorded phone conversation is a linchpin in the Fulton County racketeering case against Trump. Refusing that demand, Raffensperger—a lifelong Republican—received death threats from enraged Trumpists, and

Apr 30, 2024 • 14:23

Trump’s “Bonkers” Immunity Claim, with Neal Katyal

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss Donald Trump’s argument for Presidential immunity with former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal. Will the Supreme Court deliver Trump a legal victory in his fight against prosecution by the Justice Department ahead of the November election?This week’s reading: “King Donald’s Day at the Supreme Court,” by Susan B. Glasser “What Harvey Weinstein’s Overturned Conviction Means for Donald Trump’s Trial,”

Apr 27, 2024 • 42:02

A Student Journalist Explains the Protests at Yale

Anika Arora Seth, the editor-in-chief and president of the Yale Daily News, joins Tyler Foggatt to share what it has been like covering campus protests since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. Seth explains both the global and university-specific forces at play that led to the arrest of forty-seven protesters on Yale’s campus this week, and lays out how the university has responded to concerns over students’ safety during the protests. To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, v

Apr 24, 2024 • 36:40

Jonathan Haidt on “The Anxious Generation”

Both anecdotally and in research, anxiety and depression among young people—often associated with self-harm—have risen sharply over the last decade. There seems little doubt that Gen Z is suffering in real ways. But there is not a consensus on the cause or causes, nor how to address them. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes that enough evidence has accumulated to convict a suspect. Smartphones and social media, Haidt says, have caused a “great rewiring” in those born after 1

Apr 22, 2024 • 28:02

The Morality Play Inside Trump’s Courtroom

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos talk with the NPR reporter Andrea Bernstein about what has happened inside the courthouse during Donald Trump’s first week on trial. Plus, how the historic trial may factor into the 2024 race and whether President Biden should be talking about it on the campaign trail.“This idea of the old ‘Teflon Don’ is just finished,” Evan Osnos says. “The guy is now a creature of the court.”This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s T

Apr 20, 2024 • 40:52

Ronan Farrow on the Scheme at the Heart of Trump’s New York Trial

Ronan Farrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and contributing writer to The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the impact of rulings made this week by Judge Juan Merchan in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York, where he faces thirty-four felony counts for falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels around the time of the 2016 election. Farrow explains why two other hush-money payments, made to former Tru

Apr 17, 2024 • 34:46

A Bipartisan Effort to Carve out Exemptions to Texas’s Abortion Ban

Texas has multiple abortion laws, with both criminal and civil penalties for providers. They contain language that may allow for exceptions to save the life or “major bodily function” of a pregnant patient, but many doctors have been reluctant to even try interpreting these laws; at least one pregnant woman has been denied cancer treatment. The reporter Stephania Taladrid tells David Remnick about how two lawmakers worked together in a rare bipartisan effort to clarify the limited medic

Apr 15, 2024 • 18:11

Will an 1864 Abortion Law Doom Trump in Arizona?

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the revival of Arizona’s hundred-and-sixty-year-old abortion ban, what role the issue of reproductive freedom will play in the November election, and how the position of reproductive health care in politics has evolved over the decades.This week’s reading: “Donald Trump Did This,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Fight to Restore Abortion Rights in Texas,” by Stephania Taladrid To discover more podcasts from The New

Apr 13, 2024 • 39:03

From WIRED Politics Lab: How Election Deniers Are Weaponizing Tech To Disrupt November

Election deniers are mobilizing their supporters and rolling out new tech to disrupt the November election. These groups are already organizing on hyperlocal levels, and learning to monitor polling places, target election officials, and challenge voter rolls. And though their work was once fringe, its become mainstreamed in the Republican Party. Today on WIRED Politics Lab, we focus on what these groups are doing, and what this means for voters and the election workers already facing th

Apr 11, 2024 • 14:38

What to Expect from Trump’s First Criminal Trial

The New Yorker staff writer Eric Lach joins Tyler Foggatt to provide a preview of Donald Trump’s first criminal trial, which begins next week in Manhattan. Trump faces thirty-four felony counts for falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Lach and Foggatt discuss the features of the controversial case and what six straight weeks of court appearances could mean for Trump’s campaign. To discover more podcasts from The N

Apr 10, 2024 • 30:51

The Attack on Black History in Schools

Across much of the country, Republican officials are reaching into K-12 classrooms and universities alike to exert control over what can be taught. In Florida, Texas, and many other states, laws now restrict teaching historical facts about race and racism. Book challenges and bans are surging. Public universities are seeing political meddling in the tenure process. Advocates of these measures say, in effect, that education must emphasize only the positive aspects of American history. Ni

Apr 8, 2024 • 36:00

After the World Central Kitchen Attack, How Far Will Biden Shift on Israel?

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss how the Israeli strike on World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza could factor into a policy shift by the Biden Administration on Israel and the war. President Biden realized that he needed to “catch up to where the country was,” Osnos says. Then the British barrister Philippe Sands, a prominent specialist in international law who represents the state of Palestine in the case against the Israeli occupation bef

Apr 5, 2024 • 36:43

How Should Reporters Cover Donald Trump?

The New Yorker staff writers Jelani Cobb and Steve Coll joined Tyler Foggatt last May to discuss the ways in which Donald Trump maneuvers around facts and controls narratives when confronted by journalists. At last year’s CNN town hall, for example, Trump answered questions in front of a live and sympathetic audience—a setup that played to his strengths as a performer. For Cobb and Coll, who are Columbia Journalism School faculty members, the town hall raised some questions: Where is th

Apr 3, 2024 • 34:22

Kara Swisher on Tech Billionaires: “I Don’t Think They Like People”

Kara Swisher landed on the tech beat as a young reporter at the Washington Post decades ago. She would stare at the teletype machine at the entrance and wonder why this antique sat there when it could already be supplanted by a computer. She eventually foretold the threat that posed to her own business—print journalism—by the rise of free online media; today, she is still raising alarms about how A.I. companies make use of the entire contents of the Internet. “Pay me for my stuff!” she

Apr 1, 2024 • 26:31

Should Big Tech Stop Moderating Content?

The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the tension between protecting children from the effects of social media and protecting their right to free speech. Kang considers the ways in which social-media companies have sought to quell fear about misinformation and propaganda since Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election, and why those efforts will ultimately fail. “The structure of the Internet, of all social media,” he tells Foggatt, “is

Mar 27, 2024 • 34:52

Adam Gopnik on Hitler’s Rise to Power

In 2016, before most people imagined that Donald Trump would become a serious contender for the Presidency, the New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik wrote about what he later called the “F-word”: fascism.  He saw Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric not as a new force in America but as a throwback to a specific historical precedent in nineteen-thirties Europe.  In the years since, Trump has called for “terminating” articles of the Constitution, has marked the January 6th insurrectionists as po

Mar 25, 2024 • 29:08

The Political Books That Help Us Make Sense of 2024

The Washington Roundtable reflects on the books they’ve been reading to understand the 2024 Presidential campaigns and the state of international politics. Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos swap recommendations of works about all things political, from the anger of rural voters to the worldwide rise of authoritarian rule, including a fictionalized imagining of a powerful real-life political family. Read with the Roundtable: “America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with

Mar 23, 2024 • 34:56

Why Robert Hur Described Joe Biden as an “Elderly Man with a Poor Memory”

The New Yorker contributor Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss her interview with Robert Hur, the special prosecutor who caused a political uproar with his report on his investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report, which referred to Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” elicited a furious response from the White House—but, Gersen argues, its meaning and Hur’s motivations may have been misunderstood. Ge

Mar 22, 2024 • 38:01

Judith Butler on the Global Backlash to L.G.B.T.Q. Rights

Long before gender theory became a principal target of the right, it existed principally in academic circles. And one of the leading thinkers in the field was the philosopher Judith Butler. In “Gender Trouble” (from 1990) and in other works, Butler popularized ideas about gender as a social construct, a “performance,” a matter of learned behavior. Those ideas proved highly influential for a younger generation, and Butler became the target of traditionalists who abhorred them. A protest

Mar 18, 2024 • 26:17

How Gaza, Ukraine, and TikTok Are Influencing the Election

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss how foreign policy is shaping the 2024 campaign, such as a possible ban on Chinese-owned TikTok and the wars in Europe and the Middle East. The panel also considers Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s sharply conflicting views of America’s role in the world.This week’s reading:“I Listened to Trump’s Rambling, Unhinged, Vituperative Georgia Rally—and So Should You,” by Susan B. Glasser To discover more podcasts from

Mar 15, 2024 • 37:07

What Biden’s Budget Means for His Reëlection Battle with Trump

John Cassidy joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss President Biden’s “bold proposal” to shift the tax burden back to the wealthy and tackle inflation, both key concerns for voters in the run-up to Election Day. The pair also considers why companies continue to rake in “bigger profits than ever before,” even as the economic fallout of the pandemic recedes.To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com

Mar 13, 2024 • 34:33

Vinson Cunningham on His New Book, “Great Expectations”

Like most Americans, Vinson Cunningham first became aware of Barack Obama in 2004, when he gave a breakout speech at the Democratic National Convention. “Very good posture, that guy,” Cunningham noted. “We hang our faith on objects, on people, based on the signs that they put out,” Cunningham tells David Remnick. “And that’s certainly been a factor in my own life. The rapid and urgent search for patterns.” Although Cunningham aspired to be a writer, he got swept up in this historic camp

Mar 12, 2024 • 18:29

At the State of the Union, Biden Came Out Swinging

The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss President Biden’s energetic State of the Union address, the positive response among Democrats in the polls, and how press coverage is shaping the public’s perceptions of Biden’s campaign.“He wasn’t looking to convince anybody,” Glasser says. “What he was looking to do was to tell his side, ‘Stop freaking out. I’m in the fight.’ ”This week’s reading: “So Much for ‘Sleepy Joe’: On Biden’s Rowdy, Shouty State o

Mar 8, 2024 • 38:41

The Mood at Mar-a-Lago on Super Tuesday

Benjamin Wallace-Wells joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the results of Super Tuesday, and how a “general decay” in Biden’s support, on top of his tight margins, could be exploited by a third-party candidate. Plus, Antonia Hitchens takes us behind the gilded curtain at a Mar-a-Lago primary-night watch party. Read Benjamin Wallace-Wells on the primaries and Antonia Hitchens on experiencing Super Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago.To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcast

Mar 7, 2024 • 29:29

Biden Reveals His Thoughts on the 2024 Election

Despite hand-wringing among Democrats about Joe Biden’s age and his discouraging poll numbers, the President’s campaign for reëlection displays an “ostentatious level of serenity,” Evan Osnos says about the election. “This is a matter of great personal importance to Joe Biden. He feels almost, viscerally, this contempt for Trump and for what Trump did to the country,” Osnos tells David Remnick, after a rare private interview at the White House. “And let’s remember, he didn’t just try to

Mar 4, 2024 • 21:21

Why the Primary System Is “Clearly Failing”

The Washington Roundtable: In the Michigan primary on Tuesday, more than a hundred thousand Michigan Democrats chose “uncommitted” instead of voting for Biden, as a protest of his support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. In Dearborn, which is home to a large Arab American and Muslim population, fifty-seven per cent of the vote was “uncommitted.” And, while former President Trump has so far swept the Republican contests, Nikki Haley has seized on college-educated and moderate-to-l

Mar 1, 2024 • 32:08

With Navalny’s Death, Putin is Feeling More Confident than Ever

After a decade of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin through organized protest, anti-corruption investigations, and taunting social-media posts, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in a Russian prison, from what the Kremlin claims was a pulmonary embolism. The New Yorker staff writer Masha Gessen, who knew Navalny, calls his death “a shock, but not a surprise,” and says that, had Navalny been killed a decade ago, the incident might have led to even more widespread outr

Feb 28, 2024 • 38:11

Ty Cobb on Trump's Admiration for Putin

Ty Cobb represented the Trump White House during the height of the Mueller-Russia probe, so he has a unique insight into the former President’s admiration for all things Putin, and his refusal to condemn the dissident Alexey Navalny’s death in prison. Trump’s response, bizarrely, was to compare his own legal troubles to Navalny’s political persecution and likely murder.  Yet Cobb still feels certain that Russia has nothing concrete on Trump, which was the question of the Mueller investi

Feb 26, 2024 • 13:50

Does Impeachment Mean Anything Anymore?

Since Joe Biden’s earliest days in the Oval Office, some House Republicans have sought to remove the President and his Cabinet members from office. Last week, the Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, was impeached—on a second attempt—by a slight margin, in regard to the Biden Administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border crisis. Meanwhile, the House’s other impeachment investigation, into Biden, is on the verge of collapse, after its star witness was charged with prov

Feb 23, 2024 • 30:13

Why Matt Gaetz Keeps Getting Away with It

Representative Matt Gaetz is one of the most outspoken critics of the status quo in Washington, which he demonstrated most recently by playing a key role in removing fellow-Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. How was Gaetz able to pull off such a feat given his deep unpopularity in Congress, and the fact that he’s under a House Ethics Committee investigation for the sex trafficking of a minor? The New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins, who recently profiled Gaetz in the

Feb 22, 2024 • 28:53

“Pod Save America” ’s Jon Lovett on Biden’s Accomplishments

Jon Lovett had been deep inside politics, as a speechwriter in the Obama Administration, before he joined his colleagues Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau to launch Crooked Media, a liberal answer to the burgeoning ecosystem of right-wing news platforms. “There was too much media that treated people like cynical observers,” Lovett tells David Remnick, “and not enough that treated them like frustrated participants.” Crooked Media has gathered millions of politically engaged listeners—“nerds,”

Feb 19, 2024 • 30:25

Do Democrats Have a Biden Backup Plan?

The Biden campaign has come out in full force against a special-counsel report that refers to the President as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” But, as the staff writer Andrew Marantz points out, this “October-surprise-level political stumbling block” may require a more substantial response if Democrats hope to recapture the White House in November. Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt to outline the issues the Democratic Party is facing right now, and discuss why one lesson from Lyndon B. J

Feb 15, 2024 • 24:36

Can Joe Biden Squash Concerns About His Age?

The Washington Roundtable: The special counsel investigating President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, Robert Hur, released a report Thursday that describes the President as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden will not face charges for “willfully” retaining classified documents, but the report has reignited concerns about the President’s mental acuity. In a late-night press conference, Biden forcefully pushed back against the report’s findings, declarin

Feb 10, 2024 • 40:40

Why the Trump Ballot Case Is the Ultimate Test of Originalism

This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that has the potential to remove Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado, and possibly across the country. At issue is the Fourteenth Amendment provision that prohibits the leader of an insurrection from holding office, and whether the clause can be applied to Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore, along with other notable historians, wrote an amicus brief that

Feb 8, 2024 • 27:37

The Last Real Legislative Battle of 2024

The Washington Roundtable: Prospects for the passage of a long-negotiated aid package that includes funding for Ukraine and Israel, and policy changes for the U.S. southern border, rapidly shrank this week, after the deal met resistance from House Republicans and former President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, President Biden’s approval rating on immigration has sunk to eighteen per cent. Why are Republicans simultaneously concerned about the crisis at the border while also stymying bi-partis

Feb 3, 2024 • 35:33

Why You Keep Seeing Biden Falling on Instagram

If your Instagram Reels and TikToks are inundated with videos of President Joe Biden tripping or stumbling over his words, you’re not alone. Americans are increasingly tuning out the news and turning to social media for their political fix, and the online world is delivering an abundance of right-wing memes and misinformation. The New Yorker staff writer Clare Malone joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss our shifting media habits, why the 2016 election is surfacing in new contexts online, and

Feb 1, 2024 • 31:23

Introducing The Runaway Princesses, from In the Dark

The wives and daughters of Dubai’s ruler live in unbelievable luxury. So why do the women in Sheikh Mohammed’s family keep trying to run away? The New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake joins In the Dark’s Madeleine Baran to tell the story of the royal women who risked everything to flee the brutality of one of the world’s most powerful men. In four episodes, drawing on thousands of pages of secret correspondence and never-before-heard audio recordings, “The Runaway Princesses” takes liste

Jan 30, 2024 • 14:09

The Oscar Nominee Cord Jefferson on Why Race Is So “Fertile” for Comedy

The writer and director Cord Jefferson has struck gold with his first feature film, “American Fiction.” Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jefferson, the film is winning praise for portraying a broader spectrum of the Black experience than most Hollywood movies. It’s based on the 2001 novel “Erasure,” by Percival Everett, a satire of the literary world.  And Jefferson, who began his career as a journalist before branching out into e

Jan 29, 2024 • 25:51

Biden’s Dilemma in the Israel-Hamas War

The Washington Roundtable: After more than a hundred days, the Israel-Hamas conflict appears to be approaching an inflection point. Pressure has mounted on Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to reduce military activity in Gaza and plan for an end to the violence. Meanwhile, Netanyahu remains committed to “total victory” and the elimination of Hamas, and President Biden, reportedly frustrated behind closed doors, has been left to navigate the fraught politics of the conflict in

Jan 27, 2024 • 36:49

How “the Élite” Became the Most Convenient Straw Man in Politics

Everyone loves to rail against the élites. But to whom does the term refer? For right-wing politicians and pundits, it’s the mainstream media and the Ivy League-educated. For progressives, it’s corporate honchos. The malleable language of élite-blaming makes it easy for the American public to talk past one another without addressing an underlying grievance: entrenched income inequality. The New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos has written about this fraught concept in this week’s magazine

Jan 25, 2024 • 35:29

Pramila Jayapal on Biden’s Fragile Coalition

Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic representative and the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been sounding the alarm about President Joe Biden’s reëlection prospects. She fears that the fragile coalition that won him the White House in 2020—which included suburban swing voters, people of color, and younger, progressive-leaning constituents—is “fractured” over issues like immigration and Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Gaza in particular “is just a very difficult is

Jan 22, 2024 • 29:21

Polling, Money, Trump Fatigue: Your 2024 Election Questions

The Washington Roundtable: The 2024 election season has kicked off. Former President Donald Trump took the Iowa caucuses in a landslide, and the New Hampshire primary is just around the corner. In recent weeks, The Political Scene’s listeners have sent in questions about American politics. Some themes emerged: How should the media cover a potential Trump-Biden rematch? Are polls reliable? How will fatigue and dread influence this election? “It’s not just the candidates; it's who’s behin

Jan 19, 2024 • 36:03

Where Does Ron DeSantis Go From Here?

On Monday, Ron DeSantis lost the Iowa caucuses to Donald Trump by thirty points, despite dedicating a great deal of his campaign funds and time to the state. Yet the Florida governor still insists he is in the 2024 Presidential race for the “long haul.” Sarah Larson, a New Yorker staff writer, calls Tyler Foggatt from Des Moines to discuss the meaning of these results, and the challenges of covering this unusually uncompetitive election.

Jan 17, 2024 • 32:42

How Donald Trump Broke the Iowa Caucuses

This time last year, Republicans were reeling from a poorer-than-expected performance in the 2022 midterm elections; many questioned, again, whether it was time to move on from their two-time Presidential standard-bearer. But Donald Trump is so far ahead in the polls that it would be shocking if he did not clinch the Iowa caucuses. The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells and Robert Samuels have seen on the ground how much staying power the former President has despite some opposition fr

Jan 15, 2024 • 20:47

The 2024 Primaries That Weren’t

The Washington Roundtable: With former President Donald Trump dominating the polls in Iowa and other early-primary states, this primary season looks like it may be brief and uncompetitive. “We’ll see what happens when the voters actually get a say, but it’s fair to say already that the political story of 2023 was Donald Trump’s consolidation of the Republican Party behind him,” the New Yorker staff writer Susan B. Glasser says. Meanwhile, President Biden, despite his low approval rating

Jan 13, 2024 • 32:09

Is Nikki Haley the G.O.P.’s Trump Contingency Plan?

On Monday, with the Iowa Caucus, the 2024 Presidential race officially begins. A year ago, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Donald Trump, seemed like a longshot candidate. Now she appears poised to become the runner-up behind the former President. Antonia Hitchens, taking a break from her reporting in Iowa, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Haley’s unexpected rise and the unusual significance of second place in this Republican primary.

Jan 10, 2024 • 28:25

How the Journalist John Nichols Became Another January 6th Conspiracy-Theory Target

The veteran political reporter John Nichols was taking his daughter to the orthodontist on January 6, 2021, the fateful day when the transfer of Presidential power was temporarily derailed by a mob at the Capitol. On March 4th of this year, the former President Donald Trump is scheduled to stand trial for his actions on and around that day, and, in a court filing last November, his attorneys implied that the government is withholding information about whether Nichols, and others, had a

Jan 8, 2024 • 15:59

How Will January 6th Shape the 2024 Election?

The Washington Roundtable: Three years after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the fallout continues to shape American politics, both on the campaign trail and in the courtroom. With Donald Trump leading the Republican field, conservative media outlets and the political right are trying to rewrite the story of January 6th—what the New Yorker staff writer Susan B. Glasser calls “one of the most remarkable acts of historical revisionism in real time that any of us has ever seen

Jan 6, 2024 • 32:36

Ronan Farrow on the “Shadow Rule” of Elon Musk

One of the most read New Yorker stories of 2023 was Ronan Farrow’s investigation into Elon Musk—how the U.S. government came to rely on him, and why it’s now struggling to rein him in. With Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter (now known as X), Musk is deciding the future of the auto industry, the space race, and free speech. The reason for this, Farrow explains, is not Musk’s outrageous personality; it’s the structures of neoliberal capitalism that allowed a person like Musk to ascend. Read more

Jan 3, 2024 • 32:58

Dexter Filkins Reports on the Border Crisis

Dexter Filkins has reported on conflict situations around the world, and recently spent months reporting on the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. In a piece published earlier this year, Filkins tries to untangle how conditions around the globe, an abrupt change in executive direction from Trump to Biden, and an antiquated immigration system have created a chaotic situation. “It’s difficult to appreciate the scale and the magnitude of what’s happening there unless you see it,” Filkins

Jan 1, 2024 • 23:06

From Vanity Fair: How Donald Trump’s Lack of Faith Attracts Conservative Christians

Inside The Hive host Brian Stelter explores the fracturing of the evangelical church with Tim Alberta, an Atlantic staff writer and author of “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.” Alberta, the son of an evangelical pastor, charts the church’s rightward trajectory and embrace of Donald Trump, who is seen as a champion in an Us vs. Them political showdown. Stelter and Alberta also discuss how a steady diet of outrage on cable news, talk radio, and social media has helped radicalize the

Dec 27, 2023 • 35:20

Christmas in Tehran: Bringing the Holidays to Hostages

In 1979, as Christmas approached, the United States Embassy in Tehran held more than fifty American hostages, who had been seized when revolutionaries stormed the embassy. No one from the U.S. had been able to have contact with them. The Reverend M. William Howard, Jr., was the president of the National Council of Churches at the time, and when he received a telegram from the Revolutionary Council, inviting him to perform Christmas services for the hostages, he jumped at the opportunity

Dec 25, 2023 • 28:11

Was 2023 a Year of Denial?

The Washington Roundtable: For their final episode of 2023, the New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos search for a single word to encapsulate U.S. politics in 2023. It was a hard year to sum up: Donald Trump was criminally indicted four times; support for reproductive rights drove voters in elections across the country; and Republican primary hopefuls searched for solid footing in a crowded field. Glasser, Mayer, and Osnos explore the common threads in th

Dec 22, 2023 • 33:33

The Year in Getting “Chotinered”

In 2023, Isaac Chotiner conducted more than sixty Q&As for The New Yorker, on a wide array of international and domestic topics. He has gained a reputation for being a fearless interviewer, who does not flinch from confrontation. Chotiner joins senior editor Tyler Foggatt to look back on the year. They revisit a few conversations that stood out—about settlements in the West Bank, Henry Kissinger, and India’s economic growth—and discuss some questions Chotiner hopes to get answered i

Dec 20, 2023 • 32:23

Mosab Abu Toha’s Harrowing Detention in Gaza

Growing up in Gaza, Mosab Abu Toha wasn’t used to seeing Israeli soldiers in person. “You are bombed from the sky. You are bombed by tanks. You do not see the people, the soldiers who are killing you and your family,” he tells David Remnick. Abu Toha is a poet educated in the United States, who has contributed to The New Yorker from Gaza since Israel launched its bombardment after the October 7th Hamas attack. As Abu Toha and his family tried to flee Gaza, he was stopped by Israeli forc

Dec 18, 2023 • 20:39

How the American Right Came to Love Putin

The Washington Roundtable: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s requests for more aid from the United States got a frosty reception from many Republicans on the Hill this week. It’s the most recent expression of the American far right’s affinity for Vladimir Putin’s project in Russia, and, more recently, for Viktor Orbán’s consolidation of power in Hungary. The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins the Washington Roundtable to discuss his reporting on CPAC Hungary, where far-

Dec 16, 2023 • 36:30

Masha Gessen on the Holocaust, Israel, and the Politics of Memory

Last week, the U.S. Congress passed a nonbinding resolution that deemed any expression of anti-Zionism to be a form of antisemitism. This move closely follows the model set by the German government, which has created strict measures to combat antisemitism and a bureaucracy to enforce those measures. Sometimes, Jewish people are found to be in violation. In both Germany and the United States, many politicians championing similar protections are members of the right wing, some of whom are

Dec 13, 2023 • 36:30

Liz Cheney: Donald Trump Should Go to Jail if Convicted

Liz Cheney has been Republican royalty, and a conservative stalwart in Washington—a daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney and culture warrior Lynne Cheney. But after protesting Donald Trump’s election lies, and voting for his impeachment after January 6th, she found herself in exile from the G.O.P. Cheney is contemplating a Presidential campaign on a third-party line.  As she promotes her new book, “Oath and Honor,” she is raising the alarm that Americans across the political sp

Dec 11, 2023 • 24:03

Why Are House Republicans Leaving Congress?

The Washington Roundtable: Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced his resignation from Congress this week, not long after a coup by several of his Republican colleagues cost him the leadership. The lawmaker who had temporarily filled the Speaker position—Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina—also announced his departure from the lower chamber. But it’s not just former House Speakers who are leaving their positions. Dozens of members of the 118th Congress are not running for

Dec 9, 2023 • 37:27

The Post-Civil War Precedent for the Trump Trials

Donald Trump may be the first former President to be indicted for a crime, but he is not the first to lead an insurrection and then attempt to dodge the consequences. More than a hundred and fifty years ago, the U.S. government set out to try Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy, for treason. Those efforts failed. In this week’s New Yorker, Jill Lepore, a staff writer at the magazine and a historian at Harvard, writes an essay about the lasting consequences of that f

Dec 6, 2023 • 33:43

How Did Our Democracy Get so Fragile?

We’re in the midst of another election season, and yet again American democracy hangs in the balance, with a leading Presidential candidate who has threatened to suspend parts of the Constitution. How did the foundations of our political system become so shaky?  Jelani Cobb, the dean of the journalism school at Columbia University; Evan Osnos, a Washington correspondent for The New Yorker; and the best-selling author and historian Jill Lepore joined The New Yorker’s Michael Luo for a di

Dec 5, 2023 • 25:31

How Henry Kissinger Conquered Washington

The Washington Roundtable: Henry Kissinger, who died this week, at the age of a hundred, served in the Nixon and Ford Administrations as national-security adviser and Secretary of State; for a period, he was both at the same time. Kissinger fled Nazi Germany as a teen-ager, and went on to advise a dozen U.S. Presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden. He opened up relations between the U.S. and China with Richard Nixon, pursued détente with the Soviet Union, and made decisions that l

Dec 2, 2023 • 39:22

Geoffrey Hinton: “It’s Far Too Late” to Stop Artificial Intelligence

The American public’s increasing fascination with artificial intelligence—its rapid advancement and ability to reshape the future—has put the computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton in an awkward position. He is known as the godfather of A.I. because of his groundbreaking work in neural networks, a branch of computer science that most researchers had given up on, while Hinton’s advances eventually led to a revolution.  But he is now fearful of what it could unleash. “There’s a whole bunch of

Nov 29, 2023 • 31:39

What Draws Latino Voters to Trump

How is it that Donald Trump, who won the Presidency with racist rhetoric and a promise to build a wall along the southern border, has managed to make gains in the Latino community with each election cycle since 2016? Geraldo Cadava, a historian and New Yorker contributing writer, joins Tyler Foggatt to consider recent polling and the issues that may be driving voting trends. Trump, Cadava explains, appeals to conservative and evangelical Latinos by presenting himself as pro-business and

Nov 22, 2023 • 37:27

A Rise in Antisemitism, at Home and Abroad

Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt is a noted historian of antisemitism, and serves the State Department as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. Violence and threats against Jews have been surging for years.  “We’ve been seeing [antisemitism] coming from all ends of the political spectrum, and in between,” Lipstadt tells David Remnick. “We see it coming from Christians, we see it coming from Muslims, we see it coming from atheists.  We see it coming from Jews.”  In the aftermath o

Nov 20, 2023 • 16:24

Trump’s Vindictive Second-Term Agenda

The Washington Roundtable: In recent weeks, Americans have begun to get a clearer picture of what a second Donald Trump Administration could look like. Some clues have come from organizations like the Heritage Foundation, which has laid out policy proposals for the Trump campaign. Others have come from the former President himself. Trump has said he would appoint a prosecutor to “go after” Joe Biden and his family; on Veterans Day, this past weekend, he pledged to root out opponents and

Nov 18, 2023 • 35:04

We've Been Wrong to Worry About Deepfakes (So Far)

Deepfakes, videos generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence, allow people to create  content at a level of sophistication once only available to major Hollywood studios. Since the first deepfakes arrived seven years ago, experts have feared that doctored videos would undermine politics, or, worse, delegitimize all visual evidence. In this week’s issue of The New Yorker, Daniel Immerwahr, a professor of history at Northwestern University, explores why little of this has come to

Nov 15, 2023 • 28:47

Will the Government Rein in Amazon?

In a relatively short period of time, Amazon has exerted an enormous amount of influence over a broad spectrum of American life. From the groceries we buy to the movies and television shows we watch, Amazon has been setting the prices and driving potential competition out of business. Its prices may seem low, but “Amazon has actually quietly been hiking prices for consumers in ways that are not always clearly visible,” the Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, tells David Remnick,

Nov 13, 2023 • 20:30

The Issue That Will Decide the 2024 Election

The Washington Roundtable: In this past week’s off-cycle elections, Ohioans voted to enshrine the right to abortion access in their state constitution; Virginia Democrats took full control of their General Assembly blue; and deep-red Kentucky reëlected Democratic Governor Andy Beshear. Abortion is “an incredibly powerful issue that has the possibility to realign the parties,” the New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer says, and could make a big difference in 2024. Democrats who have made re

Nov 11, 2023 • 37:15

Inside the Democratic Party’s Rift Over Israel and Gaza

Andrew Marantz, who has reported extensively on the far right and far left of American politics, recently wrote a piece about how the different wings of the Democratic Party have responded to Hamas’s terror attack and to Israel’s war on Gaza. Whereas the majority of Congress joined on to a resolution to support Israel with no preconditions, members of the left-wing Squad introduced a bill demanding a ceasefire. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, called its advocates “r

Nov 8, 2023 • 33:00

Sybrina Fulton: “Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Anybody’s Son”

Sybrina Fulton was thrust into the national spotlight more than a decade ago for the worst possible reason: her son, Trayvon Martin—an unarmed teen-age boy returning from the store—was shot. Her son’s body was tested for drugs and alcohol, but not the self-appointed neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, who killed him, claimed self-defense, and was acquitted. “Trayvon Martin could have been anybody’s son at seventeen,” Fulton tells David Remnick. He was an affectionate “mama’s boy” w

Nov 6, 2023 • 13:39

Clarence Thomas’s R.V. Loan and Supreme Court Scrutiny

The Washington Roundtable: Justice Clarence Thomas is once again under the spotlight—this time, for a forgiven R.V. loan. In the nineties, a wealthy friend loaned Thomas more than a quarter of a million dollars to purchase a forty-foot motor coach. A Senate inquiry has now found that Thomas’s loan was later forgiven, raising questions about the ethics of the deal. Over the years, the conduct of Justices appointed by both Democratic and Republican Presidents has been in question, the sta

Nov 4, 2023 • 33:18

Tim Scott, and the Republican Party’s Vexed Relationship with Race

The South Carolina senator Tim Scott likes to point to himself as an example of racial progress in America. But in a recent story for The New Yorker, Robert Samuels looked into Scott’s personal story—in many ways a messier tale than the one he tells—and into the ways that the “​​concave mirror shaped by his own experience” distorts Scott’s view of politics. Samuels joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Scott’s Presidential run, and what he reveals about the Republican Party’s relationship to r

Nov 1, 2023 • 39:17

Is There a Path Forward for Israel and Gaza?

After returning from a week of reporting in Israel, David Remnick has two important conversations about the conflict between Israelis and Arabs both in and outside of Gaza. First, he speaks with Yonit Levi, a veteran news anchor on Israeli television, about how her country is both reeling from the October 7th terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas, and grappling with how to strike at Hamas as the country prepares for an invasion that would be catastrophic for Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Palesti

Oct 30, 2023 • 49:03

Is there a Path Forward for Israel and Gaza?

After returning from a week of reporting in Israel, David Remnick has two important conversations about the conflict between Israelis and Arabs both in and outside of Gaza. First, he speaks with Yonit Levi, a veteran news anchor on Israeli television, about how her country is both reeling from the October 7th terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas, and grappling with how to strike at Hamas as the country prepares for an invasion that would be catastrophic for Palestinians. Meanwhile, th

Oct 30, 2023 • 49:10

Mike Johnson and the Power of the Big Lie

The Washington Roundtable: It’s been a major week for the unfounded idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. First, House Republicans elevated Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who was formerly almost unknown on the national level, to be Speaker of the House. Johnson is a creationist and a climate-change denier, and he was a key figure in the effort to keep Trump in power—which certainly helped in his bid for leadership this week. On the other hand, as some of t

Oct 28, 2023 • 31:03

Mike Johnson and the Power of the Big Lie

The Washington Roundtable: It’s been a major week for the unfounded idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. First, House Republicans elevated Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who was formerly almost unknown on the national level, to be Speaker of the House. Johnson is a creationist and a climate-change denier, and he was a key figure in the effort to keep Trump in power—which certainly helped in his bid for leadership this week. On the other hand, as some of the former

Oct 28, 2023 • 30:58

Why Jim Jordan Is Still “the Man for the Moment”

Jim Jordan may have failed to become the Republican Speaker of the House, but he still remains the Party’s most influential insurgent. The former wrestling champion and current Ohio congressman first took office in 2007. Since then, he has not sponsored a single bill that has become law. Instead, he has made it his mission to expose what he calls “big-tech censorship” against conservatives, and to undermine the institutions that are investigating Donald Trump. Jonathan Blitzer, who wrot

Oct 25, 2023 • 28:56

Why Jim Jordan Is Still “the Man for the Moment”

Jim Jordan may have failed to become the Republican Speaker of the House, but he still remains the Party’s most influential insurgent. The former wrestling champion and current Ohio congressman first took office in 2007. Since then, he has not sponsored a single bill that has become law. Instead, he has made it his mission to expose what he calls “big-tech censorship” against conservatives, and to undermine the institutions that are investigating Donald Trump. Jonathan Blitzer, who wrote a piece

Oct 25, 2023 • 28:52

Spike Lee on His “Dream Project”

The director Spike Lee looked back at the length and breadth of his career so far during a sit-down with David Remnick at the New Yorker Festival. Although Lee’s storied filmography may be familiar to movie buffs, few are likely to know as much about his humble beginnings as the scion of a celebrated, but often unemployed, musician—the late Bill Lee. The young Spike Lee bore some resentment toward his father, an upright-bass player who eschewed countless gigs because he refused to play

Oct 23, 2023 • 24:09

Joe Biden’s Bear-Hug Diplomacy in Israel

The Washington Roundtable: President Biden embraced the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv this week, reiterating America’s support for Israel amid its war with Hamas. The President brokered a deal to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and warned Israelis not to be “consumed” by rage as they respond to Hamas’s October 7th massacre of civilians in the country. “It’s not clear yet what really has been accomplished by this extraordinary amount of personal diplomacy,” the New

Oct 21, 2023 • 32:21

Joe Biden’s Bear-Hug Diplomacy in Israel

The Washington Roundtable: President Biden embraced the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv this week, reiterating America’s support for Israel amid its war with Hamas. The President brokered a deal to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and warned Israelis not to be “consumed” by rage as they respond to Hamas’s October 7th massacre of civilians in the country. “It’s not clear yet what really has been accomplished by this extraordinary amount of personal diplomacy,”

Oct 20, 2023 • 32:26

What Is Hamas’s Strategy?

Earlier this week,The New Yorkerpublished aninterviewwith a senior Hamas political official, Mousa Abu Marzouk, about the group’s rationale behind the October 7th massacre in Israel. How did Hamas militants determine that now was the time for violence? And, given that Netanyahu’s deadly response was a sure thing, how did they weigh the cost of Palestinian lives? (This podcast episode was recorded on Monday afternoon, and since then civilian deaths in Gaza have continued to rise as Israe

Oct 18, 2023 • 32:47

What Is Hamas’s Strategy?

Earlier this week, The New Yorker published an interview with a senior Hamas political official, Mousa Abu Marzouk, about the group’s rationale behind the October 7th massacre in Israel. How did Hamas militants determine that now was the time for violence? And, given that Netanyahu’s deadly response was a sure thing, how did they weigh the cost of Palestinian lives? (This podcast episode was recorded on Monday afternoon, and since then civilian deaths in Gaza have continued to rise as Israeli ai

Oct 18, 2023 • 32:42

Rodrigo Duterte’s Deadly Promise

When Rodrigo Duterte ran for the presidency of the Philippines and won, in 2016, the Western press noted the similarities between this unconventional candidate and Donald Trump—who also liked to casually espouse violence on the campaign trail and beyond.  Duterte used provocative and obscene language to tap into the country’s fears about a real, albeit overstated, drug problem. “Every drug addict was a schizophrenic, hallucinatory, will rape your mother and butcher your father,” as reporter Patr

Oct 16, 2023 • 22:37

Rodrigo Duterte’s Deadly Promise

When Rodrigo Duterte ran for the presidency of the Philippines and won, in 2016, the Western press noted the similarities between this unconventional candidate and Donald Trump—who also liked to casually espouse violence on the campaign trail and beyond.  Duterte used provocative and obscene language to tap into the country’s fears about a real, albeit overstated, drug problem. “Every drug addict was a schizophrenic, hallucinatory, will rape your mother and butcher your father,” as repo

Oct 16, 2023 • 22:40

From Critics at Large: The Myth-Making of Elon Musk

In this bonus episode, the hosts of Critics at Large dissect Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk, asking how it reflects ideas about power, money, and cults of personality—from “Batman” to “The Social Network.” The critics examine how, in recent years, the idea of the unimpeachable Silicon Valley founder has lost its sheen. Narratives, such as the 2022 series “WeCrashed,” tell the story of startup founders who make lofty promises, only to watch their empires crumble when those promises

Oct 13, 2023 • 12:17

“It’s Just an Impossible Situation”: Tragedy in Israel and Gaza

On Saturday morning, Ruth Margalit, a contributor to The New Yorker who lives in Tel Aviv, awoke to air-raid sirens. It was a familiar sound, but as the day unfolded, it became apparent that Hamas’s latest attack on Israel was more severe than she had realized. “I mean, I’ve certainly never seen anything like this. My entire generation hasn’t,” Margalit says. Since then, she has been reporting on the incursion from Gaza—including a massacre of civilians at a music festival—and on its af

Oct 11, 2023 • 30:33

“It’s Just an Impossible Situation”: Tragedy in Israel and Gaza

On Saturday morning, Ruth Margalit, a contributor to The New Yorker who lives in Tel Aviv, awoke to air-raid sirens. It was a familiar sound, but as the day unfolded, it became apparent that Hamas’s latest attack on Israel was more severe than she had realized. “I mean, I’ve certainly never seen anything like this. My entire generation hasn’t,” Margalit says. Since then, she has been reporting on the incursion from Gaza—including a massacre of civilians at a music festival—and on its aftermath.

Oct 11, 2023 • 30:28

Al Gore on the Solution to the Climate Crisis

Despite months of discouraging news about extreme weather conditions, the former Vice-President Al Gore still believes that there is a solution to the climate crisis clearly in sight. “We have a switch we can flip,” he tells David Remnick. The problem, as Gore sees it, is that a powerful legacy network of political and financial spheres of influence are stubbornly standing in the way. “When ExxonMobil or Chevron put their ads on the air, the purpose is not for a husband and wife to say, ‘Oh, let

Oct 9, 2023 • 20:44

Al Gore on the Solution to the Climate Crisis

Despite months of discouraging news about extreme weather conditions, the former Vice-President Al Gore still believes that there is a solution to the climate crisis clearly in sight. “We have a switch we can flip,” he tells David Remnick. The problem, as Gore sees it, is that a powerful legacy network of political and financial spheres of influence are stubbornly standing in the way. “When ExxonMobil or Chevron put their ads on the air, the purpose is not for a husband and wife to say,

Oct 9, 2023 • 20:47

Inside Matt Gaetz’s Congressional Coup

The Washington Roundtable: The removal of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was a first in the history of the United States Congress. His tenure was so brief and attenuated that the staff writer Jane Mayer refers to him as “kind of the Scaramucci of Speakers.” This week’s chaos—and McCarthy’s humiliation—was instigated by Representative Matt Gaetz, of Florida. Gaetz, who comes from a family of politicians, joined the House in 2017 with an anti-establishment mentality. “He is sort of a TV mon

Oct 7, 2023 • 34:33

Inside Matt Gaetz’s Congressional Coup

The Washington Roundtable: The removal of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was a first in the history of the United States Congress. His tenure was so brief and attenuated that the staff writer Jane Mayer refers to him as “kind of the Scaramucci of Speakers.” This week’s chaos—and McCarthy’s humiliation—was instigated by Representative Matt Gaetz, of Florida. Gaetz, who comes from a family of politicians, joined the House in 2017 with an anti-establishment mentality. “He is sort of a TV monger with

Oct 6, 2023 • 34:28

Should Biden Push for Regime Change in Russia?

Throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, David Remnick has talked with Stephen Kotkin, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who is deeply informed on U.S.-Russia relations, and a biographer of Stalin. With the Ukrainian counter-offensive proceeding very slowly, Kotkin says that Ukraine is unlikely to “win the peace” on the battlefield; an armistice on Zelensky’s terms—although they may be morally correct—would require the defeat of Russia itself. Realistically, he thinks, Ukraine must co

Oct 2, 2023 • 22:07

Should Biden Push for Regime Change in Russia?

Throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, David Remnick has talked with Stephen Kotkin, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who is deeply informed on U.S.-Russia relations, and a biographer of Stalin. With the Ukrainian counter-offensive proceeding very slowly, Kotkin says that Ukraine is unlikely to “win the peace” on the battlefield; an armistice on Zelensky’s terms—although they may be morally correct—would require the defeat of Russia itself. Realistically, he thinks, Ukrain

Oct 2, 2023 • 22:10

Remembering Dianne Feinstein, and Biden Clashes With The Hard Right

The Washington Roundtable: Dianne Feinstein, who was the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, died on Thursday, at the age of ninety. The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos remember the Democrat from San Francisco, who leaves a legacy as an advocate for gun control and against the torture of detainees after 9/11. She fought to enable the release of the sixty-seven-hundred-page report of the C.I.A.’s interrogation program, though she worried about the

Sep 29, 2023 • 38:58

Remembering Dianne Feinstein, and Biden Clashes With The Hard Right

The Washington Roundtable: Dianne Feinstein, who was the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, died on Thursday, at the age of ninety. The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos remember the Democrat from San Francisco, who leaves a legacy as an advocate for gun control and against the torture of detainees after 9/11. She fought to enable the release of the sixty-seven-hundred-page report of the C.I.A.’s interrogation program, though she worried

Sep 29, 2023 • 39:04

Inside a Trump 2024 Rally in Iowa

Last week, Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who writes about politics for The New Yorker, went to Dubuque, Iowa, to attend a Trump rally. Wallace-Wells is now covering his third Trump campaign for President. This time, what stood out to him most was how much the rhetoric of the G.O.P. has shifted in the course of those three cycles. The former President, once an insurgent and inflammatory voice, now just sounds like an ordinary Republican. Wallace-Wells joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what he hea

Sep 27, 2023 • 32:46

Inside a Trump 2024 Rally in Iowa

Last week, Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who writes about politics for The New Yorker, went to Dubuque, Iowa, to attend a Trump rally. Wallace-Wells is now covering his third Trump campaign for President. This time, what stood out to him most was how much the rhetoric of the G.O.P. has shifted in the course of those three cycles. The former President, once an insurgent and inflammatory voice, now just sounds like an ordinary Republican. Wallace-Wells joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what he heard from v

Sep 27, 2023 • 32:41

Which War Does Washington Want?

The Washington Roundtable: Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, travelled to New York City and Washington, D.C., this week to request more support for his country. Before the United Nations General Assembly, Zelensky called Russia’s war an act of “genocide.” In Washington, the Ukrainian President met with senators, House members, President Biden, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rejected Zelensky’s request to address Congress, saying that there wasn’t enough t

Sep 23, 2023 • 38:27

Which War Does Washington Want?

The Washington Roundtable: Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, travelled to New York City and Washington, D.C., this week to request more support for his country. Before the United Nations General Assembly, Zelensky called Russia’s war an act of “genocide.” In Washington, the Ukrainian President met with senators, House members, President Biden, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rejected Zelensky’s request to address Congress, saying that there wasn’t

Sep 22, 2023 • 38:33

How New York, a City of Immigrants, Became Home to a Migrant Crisis

In the past year, more than a hundred thousand migrants have arrived in New York City. This particular chapter in the city’s immigration history began last August, when Governor Greg Abbott of Texas sent buses of Venezuelan asylum seekers north. The city welcomed these new arrivals, who used social media to encourage more migrants to make New York their destination, even as the city’s shelters—already overburdened by a growing homeless population—were at capacity. Eric Lach has recently

Sep 20, 2023 • 37:36

How New York, a City of Immigrants, Became Home to a Migrant Crisis

In the past year, more than a hundred thousand migrants have arrived in New York City. This particular chapter in the city’s immigration history began last August, when Governor Greg Abbott of Texas sent buses of Venezuelan asylum seekers north. The city welcomed these new arrivals, who used social media to encourage more migrants to make New York their destination, even as the city’s shelters—already overburdened by a growing homeless population—were at capacity. Eric Lach has recently publishe

Sep 20, 2023 • 37:30

Jennifer Egan Discusses a Solution for the Chronically Homeless

About  1.4 million people in the United States end up in homeless shelters every year, with many thousands more living on the street. You could fill the city of San Diego with the unhoused. The problem seems gigantic, tragic, and intractable. But there are proven solutions. For the chronically homeless, a key strategy is supportive housing—providing not only a stable apartment but also services like psychiatric and medical care on-site. The New Yorker contributor Jennifer Egan spent the past yea

Sep 18, 2023 • 18:02

Jennifer Egan Discusses a Solution for Chronic Homelessness

About  1.4 million people in the United States end up in homeless shelters every year, with many thousands more living on the street. You could fill the city of San Diego with the unhoused. The problem seems gigantic, tragic, and intractable. But there are proven solutions. For the chronically homeless, a key strategy is supportive housing—providing not only a stable apartment but also services like psychiatric and medical care on-site. TheNew Yorkercontributor Jennifer Egan spent the p

Sep 18, 2023 • 18:05

A Week of Chaos in Kevin McCarthy’s Washington

The Washington Roundtable: Congress has returned from summer recess to a hectic month of business. This week, as Kevin McCarthy sought to avoid a government shutdown, the House Speaker announced that he plans to initiate an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. McCarthy is feeling pressured by hard-right Republicans who forced fifteen rounds of voting to occur in order to elect him to his post in January. Now, just weeks before the end-of-September deadline to either fund the government

Sep 16, 2023 • 34:08

A Week of Chaos in Kevin McCarthy’s Washington

The Washington Roundtable: Congress has returned from summer recess to a hectic month of business. This week, as Kevin McCarthy sought to avoid a government shutdown, the House Speaker announced that he plans to initiate an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. McCarthy is feeling pressured by hard-right Republicans who forced fifteen rounds of voting to occur in order to elect him to his post in January. Now, just weeks before the end-of-September deadline to either fund the go

Sep 16, 2023 • 34:13

A Master Class with David Grann

David Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of two nonfiction books that topped the best-seller list this summer: “The Wager” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” from 2017, which Martin Scorsese has adapted into a film opening in October. Grann is among the most lauded nonfiction writers at The New Yorker; David Remnick says that “his urge to find unique stories and tell them with rigor and style is rare to the vanishing point.” Grann talks with Remnick about his beginnings as

Sep 11, 2023 • 33:16

A Master Class with David Grann

David Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of two nonfiction books that topped the best-seller list this summer: “The Wager” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” from 2017, which Martin Scorsese has adapted into a film opening in October. Grann is among the most lauded nonfiction writers at The New Yorker; David Remnick says that “his urge to find unique stories and tell them with rigor and style is rare to the vanishing point.” Grann talks with Remnick about his begin

Sep 11, 2023 • 33:21

Mark Meadows and the “Congeniality of Evil”

The Washington Roundtable: Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former right-hand man, took the stand in Georgia this week to argue that his actions in the election-racketeering case—in which he was indicted two weeks ago, alongside eighteen co-conspirators, including Trump—were taken in his capacity as a federal official. For that reason, he and his lawyers petitioned for the case against him to be moved from state to federal court. Meadows, who has been a significant and disruptive force in A

Sep 9, 2023 • 34:29

From “Amicus”: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas

The New Yorker presents a special conversation from Slate’s “Amicus” podcast, hosted by Dahlia Lithwick. Lithwick talks with Judge Margaret M. McKeown, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, about McKeown’s new book, “Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas―Public Advocate and Conservation Champion.” The Washington Roundtable will return next week.

Sep 8, 2023 • 54:03

From “Amicus”: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas

The New Yorker presents a special conversation from Slate’s “Amicus” podcast, hosted by Dahlia Lithwick. Lithwick talks with Judge Margaret M. McKeown, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, about McKeown’s new book, “Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas―Public Advocate and Conservation Champion.” The Washington Roundtable will return next week.

Sep 8, 2023 • 53:55

Washington’s Age-Old Problem

In January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell passed a career milestone: he became the Senate’s longest-serving party leader. Since then, McConnell has suffered a number of health setbacks. This includes a fall and subsequent concussion in March and, most recently, a medical episode at a press conference in which he abruptly froze while taking questions, standing silent and motionless for more than thirty seconds. At age eighty-one, McConnell is hardly the only politician showing his years:

Sep 6, 2023 • 35:27

Washington’s Age-Old Problem

In January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell passed a career milestone: he became the Senate’s longest-serving party leader. Since then, McConnell has suffered a number of health setbacks. This includes a fall and subsequent concussion in March and, most recently, a medical episode at a press conference in which he abruptly froze while taking questions, standing silent and motionless for more than thirty seconds. At age eighty-one, McConnell is hardly the only politician showing h

Sep 6, 2023 • 35:32

Bob Woodward Discusses His Trump Tapes

Bob Woodward has been writing about the White House for more than fifty years, going toe to toe with nearly every President after Richard Nixon. Woodward is every inch the reporter, not one to editorialize. But, during his interviews with Donald Trump at the time of the COVID-19 crisis, Woodward found himself shouting at the President—explaining how to make a decision, and trying to browbeat him into listening to public-health experts. Woodward has released audio recordings of some of their inte

Sep 4, 2023 • 23:04

Bob Woodward Discusses His Trump Tapes

Bob Woodward has been writing about the White House for more than fifty years, going toe to toe with nearly every President after Richard Nixon. Woodward is every inch the reporter, not one to editorialize. But, during his interviews with Donald Trump at the time of the COVID-19 crisis, Woodward found himself shouting at the President—explaining how to make a decision, and trying to browbeat him into listening to public-health experts. Woodward has released audio recordings of some of t

Sep 4, 2023 • 23:07

Mark Meadows and the “Congeniality of Evil”

The Washington Roundtable: Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former right-hand man, took the stand in Georgia this week to argue that his actions in the election-racketeering case—in which he was indicted two weeks ago, alongside eighteen co-conspirators, including Trump—were taken in his capacity as a federal official. For that reason, he and his lawyers petitioned for the case against him to be moved from state to federal court. Meadows, who has been a significant and disruptive force in American p

Sep 2, 2023 • 34:24

Does Diplomacy Have a Chance of Ending War in Ukraine?

It’s been eighteen months since Russia invaded Ukraine. In that time, Russia has annexed four Ukrainian territories; the mercenary Wagner Group staged a coup against Putin, and then its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a mysterious plane explosion; Ukraine mounted a successful counter-offensive, and then a less successful one, which is currently ongoing. All the while, the U.S. has engaged in what seems like a proxy war with Russia, imposing extensive sanctions and providing thirty billion dol

Aug 31, 2023 • 33:36

Does Diplomacy Have a Chance of Ending War in Ukraine?

It’s been eighteen months since Russia invaded Ukraine. In that time, Russia has annexed four Ukrainian territories; the mercenary Wagner Group staged a coup against Putin, and then its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a mysterious plane explosion; Ukraine mounted a successful counter-offensive, and then a less successful one, which is currently ongoing. All the while, the U.S. has engaged in what seems like a proxy war with Russia, imposing extensive sanctions and providing thirty bi

Aug 30, 2023 • 33:41

How Does Extreme Heat Affect the Body?

The Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut was named after an N.F.L. player who died of exertional heatstroke. The lab’s main research subjects have been athletes, members of the military, and laborers. But, with climate change, even mild exertion under extreme heat will affect more and more of us; in many parts of the United States, a heat wave and power outage could cause a substantial number of fatalities. Dhruv Khullar, a New Yorker contributor and practicing physici

Aug 28, 2023 • 15:29

How Does Extreme Heat Affect the Body?

The Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut was named after an N.F.L. player who died of exertional heatstroke. The lab’s main research subjects have been athletes, members of the military, and laborers. But, with climate change, even mild exertion under extreme heat will affect more and more of us; in many parts of the United States, a heat wave and power outage could cause a substantial number of fatalities. Dhruv Khullar, a New Yorker contributor and practicing phys

Aug 28, 2023 • 15:31

At a Trumpless G.O.P. Debate, Trumpism Dominates

The Washington Roundtable: In the first debate of the Republican Presidential primary, which took place in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, six of the eight potential nominees onstage raised their hands to indicate that, if Donald Trump is their party’s choice, they will support him—even if he is convicted in a court of law. Trump wasn’t present. The following day, the former President had his mug shot taken in a Fulton County jail. Trump was booked on thirteen charges, among them that he, along wi

Aug 26, 2023 • 37:09

At a Trumpless G.O.P. Debate, Trumpism Dominates

The Washington Roundtable: In the first debate of the Republican Presidential primary, which took place in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, six of the eight potential nominees onstage raised their hands to indicate that, if Donald Trump is their party’s choice, they will support him—even if he is convicted in a court of law. Trump wasn’t present. The following day, the former President had his mug shot taken in a Fulton County jail. Trump was booked on thirteen charges, among them that he,

Aug 25, 2023 • 37:14

Ronan Farrow on the Rule of Elon Musk

In this week’s magazine, Ronan Farrow has published a major story about the business practices of Elon Musk. Farrow, who has reported extensively on abuses of power for The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Musk has become an essential yet unofficial part of American governance, holding the keys to the green transition, the space race, and even the war in Ukraine. The reason for this, Farrow explains, is not Musk’s outrageous personality; it’s the structures of neoliberal capitalism

Aug 23, 2023 • 32:43

Ronan Farrow on the Rule of Elon Musk

In this week’s magazine, Ronan Farrow has published a major story about the business practices of Elon Musk. Farrow, who has reported extensively on abuses of power for The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Musk has become an essential yet unofficial part of American governance, holding the keys to the green transition, the space race, and even the war in Ukraine. The reason for this, Farrow explains, is not Musk’s outrageous personality; it’s the structures of neoliberal c

Aug 23, 2023 • 32:47

Talking to Conservatives About Climate Change: The Congressional Climate Caucus

Even in a summer of record-breaking heat and disasters, Republican Presidential candidates have ignored or mocked climate change. But some conservative legislators in Congress recognize that action is necessary. Their ideas about how to tackle the problem, however, depart from the consensus that is dominant among Democrats. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who represents Iowa’s first district, is vice-chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus and a former head of the Iowa Department of Public Health. “W

Aug 21, 2023 • 12:00

Talking to Conservatives About Climate Change: The Congressional Climate Caucus

Even in a summer of record-breaking heat and disasters, Republican Presidential candidates have ignored or mocked climate change. But some conservative legislators in Congress recognize that action is necessary. Their ideas about how to tackle the problem, however, depart from the consensus that is dominant among Democrats. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who represents Iowa’s first district, is vice-chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus and a former head of the Iowa Department of Public H

Aug 21, 2023 • 12:02

Will the Summer of Trump Indictments Shake Up the Election?

The Washington Roundtable: It has been a summer of history-making indictments against Donald Trump. This week, he received his fourth—this one from Georgia, where the former President and eighteen co-defendants are accused of conducting a “criminal enterprise” to reverse his 2020 defeat in the battleground state. Despite all of Trump’s legal troubles, he remains the overwhelming front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2024, and a rematch with Joseph Biden appears immi

Aug 18, 2023 • 31:34

Will the End of Affirmative Action Lead to the End of Legacy Admissions?

The practice of legacy admissions—preferential consideration of the children of alumni—has emerged as a national flash point since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in June. Even some prominent Republicans are joining the Biden Administration in calling for its end. David Remnick speaks with the U.S. Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona, about the politics behind college admissions. Cardona sees legacy preference as part of a pattern that discourages many students from applying

Aug 14, 2023 • 29:42

The One-Per-centers Pushing Democrats to the Left

Andrew Marantz, in the August 14th, 2023, issue of The New Yorker, wrote about Leah Hunt-Hendrix, a major donor to progressive causes whose grandfather was a politically conservative oil tycoon. Hunt-Hendrix’s use of her money and influence to support progressive social movements is remarkable in that the goals of these projects run counter to her class interests, and even aim to put her family’s company out of business: raising taxes on the rich, pushing for more corporate regulation,

Aug 9, 2023 • 38:29

Emily Nussbaum on Country Music’s Culture Wars

The New Yorker Radio Hour: Last month, the country singer Jason Aldean released a music video for “Try That in a Small Town,” a song that initially received little attention. But the video cast the song’s lyrics in a new light. While Aldean sings, “Try that in a small town / See how far ya make it down the road / ’Round here, we take care of our own,” images of protests against police brutality are interspersed with Aldean singing outside a county courthouse where a lynching once took p

Aug 7, 2023 • 35:32

“This is The Big One”: The Third Trump Indictment

The Washington Roundtable: This week, in a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to four charges in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in the January 6th insurrection. Those include counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States, to obstruct an official proceeding, and to oppress citizens’ rights to vote. This third Trump criminal indictment is the most serious and far-reaching yet, going to the heart

Aug 5, 2023 • 41:30

How the Wagner Group Became Too Powerful for Putin to Punish

On June 23, 2023, tanks rolled into Moscow and into the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and troops surrounded military and government buildings. They were fighters from the Wagner Group, a private battalion. The group’s leader is Yevgeny Prigozhin, who sold hot dogs and ran a restaurant on a boat where Putin liked to dine before he became the head of this mercenary outfit. On that June day, he was initiating the strongest challenge to the Kremlin since the fall of the Soviet Uni

Aug 2, 2023 • 37:23

How to Buy Forgiveness from Medical Debt

Nearly one in ten Americans owe significant medical debt, a burden that can become crippling as living costs and interest rates rise. Over the past decade, a nonprofit called RIP Medical Debt has designed a novel approach to chip away at this problem. The organization solicits donations to purchase portfolios of medical debt on the debt market, where the debt trades at steeply discounted prices. Then, instead of attempting to collect on it as a normal buyer would, they forgive the debt.

Jul 31, 2023 • 13:26

Hunter Biden and the Mechanics of the “Scandal Industrial Complex”

The Washington Roundtable: This week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy moved one step closer to calling for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against President Biden, on the grounds that Biden has used the “weaponization of government to benefit his family.” For years, Hunter Biden’s dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese companies have been the focus of Republicans’ efforts to undermine the President, although investigations in the House and Senate have found no evidence of wrongdoing

Jul 28, 2023 • 37:46

The Historic Battles of “Hot Labor Summer”

This summer, the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild are on strike together for the first time in sixty-three years. At the same time, hotel workers across Southern California are organizing coordinated rolling work stoppages. The Teamsters just successfully negotiated substantial wage increases and averted a strike for workers at UPS. But now the United Auto Workers, whose contract is up in September, are threatening to strike. What is behind all of this labor unrest?

Jul 27, 2023 • 34:40

Adapting Oppenheimer’s Life Story to Film, with Biographer Kai Bird

In making “Oppenheimer,” which opens in theatres this weekend, the director Christopher Nolan relied on a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 biography of the father of the atomic bomb, “American Prometheus,” by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. Bird is credited as a writer of Nolan’s movie, and he spoke with David Remnick about Oppenheimer’s life story—in particular, about the ambivalence that the scientist felt, and expressed publicly, about the use of the bomb, which led to a McCarthy

Jul 24, 2023 • 18:59

What Happens if Trump Is Elected While on Trial?

The Washington Roundtable: The midsummer Presidential campaign is full of surprises, including a deluge of upcoming legal battles for the G.O.P. front-runner, former President Donald Trump. Recent federal disclosures have painted a preliminary picture of the race to raise money taking place between Republican primary contenders. The campaign of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who was initially viewed as a powerful competitor to Donald Trump in the Republican primary, has spent much of

Jul 22, 2023 • 39:52

The Family Heritage That Led to Hunter Biden

Many Americans have been fascinated by the story of Hunter Biden, who has allegedly leveraged his father’s prominence for his own financial gain. Hunter’s spiral into alcoholism and drug addiction has been chronicled by the press. Recently, federal prosecutors announced a deal in which Hunter would plead guilty to two tax charges and be sentenced to two years of probation, bringing a five-year-long investigation into his business dealings to an end.  In July, 2019, The New Yorker publis

Jul 19, 2023 • 37:06

A Mysterious Third Party Enters the 2024 Presidential Race

No Labels, which pitches itself as a centrist movement to appeal to disaffected voters, has secured a considerable amount of funding and is working behind the scenes to get on Presidential ballots across the country. The group has yet to announce a candidate, but “most likely we’ll have both a Republican and Democrat on the ticket,” Pat McCrory, the former governor of North Carolina and one of the leaders of No Labels, tells David Remnick. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are rep

Jul 17, 2023 • 18:49

Will Record Temperatures Finally Force Political Change?

On Tuesday, July 4th, it was the hottest day ever recorded on Earth. That is just one of many heat-related records that have been broken this summer. Historically high temperatures have been recorded around the planet, causing fires, floods, and other extreme weather events. In a recent article for The New Yorker, Bill McKibben explained that, even as we enter a terrifying new era for our planet, there is still a brief window in which it's possible to avoid the worst effects of climate

Jul 12, 2023 • 32:45

The Conspiracy Theories of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of a former Attorney General and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, has announced that he’s running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He is nearly seventy years old, and has never held public office. “There’s nothing in the United States Constitution that says that you have to go to Congress first and then Senate second,or be a governor before you’re elected to the Presidency,” he tells David Remnick. With no prominent elected Democrat cha

Jul 10, 2023 • 32:00

What It Takes to Be White House Chief of Staff

The White House chief-of-staff role is the hardest gig in Washington, D.C. Dick Cheney blamed the job for giving him his first heart attack, during the Ford Administration. A hapless chief of staff can break a Presidency; an effective one was nicknamed the Velvet Hammer. In January, Joe Biden’s first chief of staff, Ron Klain, was replaced by Jeffrey Zients. In a conversation from last winter, the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos use Klain’s departure as a jump

Jul 7, 2023 • 29:26

Russia’s Accidental No-Good, Very Failed Coup

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow last weekend, which killed more than a dozen Russian soldiers, fizzled as quickly as it began, but its repercussions are just beginning. The Wagner Group commander issued a video from Belarus claiming that he did not attempt a coup against Putin but a protest against the Defense Ministry. Mutiny may be the more accurate description, but Prigozhin “was strictly staying within this mythology that Putin makes all the decisions in Russia, and if he makes

Jul 3, 2023 • 20:12

The Dark Money Supreme Court

The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos take a look at the political and financial forces behind the U.S. Supreme Court’s hard right turn. This term saw significant rulings on affirmative action in college admissions, election law, immigration, and environmental protection, all in the shadow of the decision just one year ago to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. Right-wing victories in those cases owe a lot to Leonard Leo, a conservative

Jul 1, 2023 • 39:00

What Comes After Affirmative Action

In October, the Supreme Court heard two cases—against Harvard and U.N.C.—that are expected to bring about the end of affirmative action at American colleges and universities. The practice rests on the Fourteenth Amendment: equal protection under the law. But the Court, under the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, is reëvaluating what “equal protection” really means, raising the idea that current methods of affirmative action are actually a thinly veiled form of racism. Jeannie Suk

Jun 28, 2023 • 36:51

A Year of Change for a North Dakota Abortion Clinic

A year ago, the staff writer Emily Witt visited Fargo, North Dakota, to report on the Red River Women’s Clinic—the only abortion provider in the state. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision had just come down, and the clinic was scrambling to move across state lines, to the adjacent city of Moorhead, Minnesota. This spring, Witt returned to talk with Tammi Kromenaker, the clinic’s director. Kromenaker says the clinic’s new home has had some notable upsides—a parking lot that shields patien

Jun 26, 2023 • 15:15

Why Ukrainians Targeted the Author of “Eat, Pray, Love”

Earlier this month, the writer Elizabeth Gilbert announced her next book. Readers who know her only as the author of “Eat, Pray, Love” might have been surprised by its subject: a group of Russians who hide in the Siberian wilderness as an act of resistance against the Soviet government. The announcement was met by harshly negative feedback from Ukrainian readers, who accused Gilbert of “glorifying” Russia, and she decided to halt the book’s publication. Free-speech advocates lamented th

Jun 21, 2023 • 29:25

Dexter Filkins on the Dilemma at the Border

Dexter Filkins has reported on conflict situations around the world, and recently spent months reporting on the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. In a recent piece, Filkins tries to untangle how conditions around the globe, an abrupt change in executive direction from Trump to Biden, and an antiquated immigration system have created a chaotic situation. “It’s difficult to appreciate the scale and the magnitude of what’s happening there unless you see it,” Filkins tells David Remnick.

Jun 19, 2023 • 22:34

Donald Trump’s Dangerous War on the Justice Department

The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos look at former President Donald Trump’s arraignment in Miami on thirty-seven federal charges, including obstruction of justice and the willful retention of national-security material. In a speech at his New Jersey golf club, the former President called the charges “fake and fabricated” and the prosecution “election interference” and “political persecution.” With few exceptions, congressional Republicans defended h

Jun 17, 2023 • 33:17

The Battle Over Presidential Records, from Nixon to Trump

In November of 2020, days after Joe Biden won the election, Jill Lepore examined how Presidential documents have historically been preserved, in a New Yorker essay titled “Will Trump Burn the Evidence?” The piece anticipated that, when Trump left the White House and archivists came to collect his papers, official materials would be missing. Now we know for a fact that Trump took documents with him. But he’s hardly the first President to stash or destroy records. Lepore, a staff writer f

Jun 14, 2023 • 35:27

In a Divided Era, the New York Times’s Publisher Makes a Stand

Over the past several years, as democratic institutions come under attack and authoritarians try to destabilize factual truth, some journalists have argued that the traditional principles of neutrality, or independence, are no longer adequate: they believe reporters need to state their beliefs, and defend threatened principles and peoples. “The traditionalists in the ranks have long believed that their long-standing view speaks for itself,” says A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the Ne

Jun 12, 2023 • 40:08

Trump’s Latest Indictment Is Also About the Future of the Country

On Friday, federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment against Donald Trump, revealing their case that the former President mishandled classified documents after leaving the White House. The indictment is Trump’s second in recent months, after the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, charged him with thirty-four felony counts in relation to hush-money payments to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels. Trump said that he has been summoned to the Miami federal courthouse on Tuesday, jus

Jun 10, 2023 • 36:57

The Flimsy Legal Theory That Could Upend American Elections

There’s a connection between Bush v. Gore, gerrymandering in North Carolina, and Donald Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election: they’ve all been justified by a dubious legal idea called the “independent-state-legislature theory,” or I.S.L.T. Its proponents argue that the Constitution gives state legislatures complete authority over elections, even the authority to override the popular vote. In a story by Andrew Marantz in this week’s magazine, Laurence Tribe, a law professor emer

Jun 7, 2023 • 34:21

The Creator of ChatGPT on the Rise of Artificial Intelligence

David Remnick sits down with Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, GPT-4, and other artificial-intelligence programs. A.I. is a tool, Altman emphasizes, that streamlines human work and quickens the pace of scientific advancement. But he claims to empathize with concerns about the emerging technology. “Even if you don’t believe in any of the sci-fi stories,” he tells Remnick, “you could still be freaked out about the level of change that this is going to bring society

Jun 5, 2023 • 18:58

Is the Debt-Ceiling Deal a Template to Fix Washington, or a Mere Blip?

Policymakers have avoided a financial catastrophe just days before the “X-Date,” when the U.S. Treasury would have run out of money to pay its bills. Despite some opposition from members of both parties, the House and Senate chambers passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act, a compromise by Speaker McCarthy and President Biden that will raise the debt ceiling until January of 2025. While the Hill was consumed by these negotiations, the judiciary continued to hold insurrectionists accountabl

Jun 2, 2023 • 30:25

How “Succession” Captured the Trump-Era Hangover

On Sunday, after four seasons, the HBO series “Succession” came to a close. More than good TV, it was an artifact of Donald Trump’s Presidency, and of the lingering feelings that have extended into the Biden era. Within the structure of a family drama, the show satirized corporate power, skewered the ultra-wealthy, and critiqued the media. And, notably, it successfully fictionalized Trump—or perhaps it imagined a kind of candidate who could ascend in a world in which Trump’s views had b

May 31, 2023 • 27:32

E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan on Defamatory Trump

Earlier this month, E. Jean Carroll won an unprecedented legal victory: in a civil suit, Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse against her in the mid-nineteen-nineties, and for defamation in later accusing her of a hoax. But no sooner was that decision announced than Trump reiterated his defamatory insults against her in a controversial CNN interview. Carroll has now filed an amended complaint, in a separate suit, based on Trump’s continued barrage. But can anything make him st

May 29, 2023 • 19:05

How Do You Interview Donald Trump?

Donald Trump has always presented a problem for journalists. His years as a reality-television star taught him to outmaneuver facts and control narratives. Now as Trump’s second Presidential run gets under way, these skills are proving useful yet again. At CNN’s recent town hall, Trump answered questions in front of a live and sympathetic audience—a situation that played directly to his strengths as a performer. For Jelani Cobb and Steve Coll, New Yorker writers and Columbia Journalism School fa

May 25, 2023 • 33:05

How Climate Change Is Impacting Our Mental Health

In June, a first-of-its-kind lawsuit will go to trial in Montana. The case, Held v. Montana, centers on the climate crisis. Sixteen young plaintiffs allege their state government has failed in its obligation, spelled out in the state constitution, to provide residents with a healthful environment. The psychiatrist Dr. Lise Van Susteren is serving as an expert witness and intends to detail the emotional distress that can result from watching the environmental destruction unfolding year after year

May 22, 2023 • 15:57

What Washington Doesn't Understand about China

President Joe Biden was set to make a historic tour through the Indo-Pacific over the next week, becoming the first sitting U.S. President to visit Papua New Guinea, an island state that declared a national holiday for his arrival. But negotiations over the debt limit back home forced the President to cut his trip short, and he’ll return to Washington immediately after the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Debate over the debt ceiling could not be postponed, the White House said, with as the U.S.

May 20, 2023 • 35:27

Jia Tolentino and Stephania Taladrid on a Year Without Roe v. Wade

Last June, after the Supreme Court reversed nearly half a century of legal precedent by overturning Roe v. Wade, the New Yorker writers Jia Tolentino and Stephania Taladrid joined Tyler Foggatt on The Political Scene to talk about the potential fallout. This week, almost a year later, they reconvened to discuss the changes that have occurred—and what they mean for reproductive rights, maternal mortality, and public attitudes toward abortion.  In March, Tolentino won a National Magazine Award for

May 18, 2023 • 39:08

Have State Legislatures Gone Rogue?

Just over a month ago, the story of two lawmakers expelled from the Tennessee legislature captured headlines across the country. Their offense wasn’t corruption or criminal activity—instead, they had joined a protest at the statehouse in favor of gun control, shortly after the Nashville shooting at a Christian school. Earlier this week, Representative Zooey Zephyr, of Montana, was barred from the House chamber after making a speech against a trans health-care ban. In the past few years, in Arizo

May 15, 2023 • 16:33

The Permanent-Scandal Phase of American Politics

This week, Representative George Santos, the New York Republican,  was indicted on thirteen counts of alleged financial crimes, including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. The congressman then took a page out of former President Donald Trump’s playbook by calling the prosecution a “witch hunt.” Trump himself was found liable this week for defamation and sexual abuse, in a Manhattan civil trial brought by t

May 12, 2023 • 39:48

The Existential Crisis at the Heart of the Hollywood Writers’ Strike

Screenwriting, once a solidly middle-class vocation in Hollywood, has become akin to a kind of gig work. In the past ten years, structural changes in the film and television industries have fundamentally altered the way that writers in Hollywood earn their livelihood. The rise of streaming has changed how TV seasons are aired, how residuals are paid, and the kinds of risks that networks are willing to take on new ideas. Shows hire fewer staff writers, and employ them for less time and less money

May 10, 2023 • 32:52

Joshua Yaffa on Evan Gershkovich, a Colleague and Friend

Joshua Yaffa first met Evan Gershkovich after Gershkovich arrived in Moscow as a young reporter in 2017. As their friendship grew, Yaffa was impressed with the energy and passion Gershkovich brought to his job. “He had a really deep and nuanced sense of Russia,” Yaffa tells David Remnick. As the regime moved toward authoritarianism and then war, “Evan was not sanguine or Pollyannaish or naïve about the context in which he was working. He understood this was a very different Russia than the one h

May 8, 2023 • 13:17

The Fugitive Princess Forced to Return to Dubai

In 2018, Sheikha Latifa of Dubai made a daring attempt to escape her home country. Her plan was to hide in the trunk of a car, launch a dinghy, reach a yacht, sail to India or Sri Lanka, and then fly to the United States to claim asylum. But, in the middle of the Arabian Sea, a team of armed men stormed the boat and forced Latifa back to Dubai. The commandos had been sent at the request of her father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and the r

May 3, 2023 • 39:48

What to Make of the Fall of Tucker Carlson

Formerly a Beltway neoconservative, Tucker Carlson came to embody a populist figure—the angry, forgotten-feeling white man, an archetype that Carlson inherited from Bill O’Reilly when he took over Fox News’s coveted eight-o’clock slot. “Unlike a lot of his colleagues at Fox News, he made news, he set the agenda,” Kelefa Sanneh, who profiled Carlson in 2017, says. “People were wondering, What is Tucker going to be saying tonight?” But though Carlson sometimes challenged Donald Trump more than oth

May 1, 2023 • 17:46

Joe Biden’s “Very Risky Choice” to Run Again Increases the Scrutiny on Kamala Harris

President Biden and Vice-President Harris are officially in the race for the Oval Office—again. For the past three years, strategists, members of the press, and voters have speculated that Biden might serve only one term in office, after he had described himself, during the 2020 campaign, as a “bridge” to future Democratic leaders. But Biden’s announcement this week of his bid for reëlection confirms that the bridge does not lead to Kamala Harris in 2024. With voters worried about Biden’s age—ei

Apr 29, 2023 • 36:52

Jane Mayer on the Ethical Questions About Justice Clarence Thomas

In theory, the Justices of the Supreme Court are immune to influence, with no campaigns to finance and no higher positions to angle for. But a cascade of revelations published by ProPublica concerning Justice Clarence Thomas—island-hopping yachting adventures underwritten by a right-wing billionaire patron, undisclosed real-estate transactions—raises questions about his proximity to power and money. Judges “are supposed to be honest, they’re supposed to be independent,” Jane Mayer tells David Re

Apr 24, 2023 • 18:20

With the Fox-Dominion Settlement We’re Still at the “Mercy of a Billionaire Dynasty”

At the eleventh hour, Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems resolved a defamation suit over the network’s coverage of the 2020 election, evading weeks of trial that would have brought the network’s biggest names, including Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity, to the witness stand. Although the court found that Fox aired falsehoods about Dominion, apologizing or retracting those falsehoods on air was reportedly not part of the settlement deal. Even as Fox was able to resolve its suit

Apr 21, 2023 • 39:34

The Political Fallout of a Tech Executive’s Murder

On April 4th, Bob Lee, a multimillionaire tech founder, was found stabbed to death in San Francisco, at 2:30 in the morning. Even before concrete details of the crime were revealed, some residents blamed Chesa Boudin—the former D.A., who was ousted last summer—for a general sense of lawlessness in the city. Boudin was one of the more high-profile district attorneys elected in a wave of candidates running on platforms of criminal-justice reform. But he became associated with rising crime and diso

Apr 19, 2023 • 34:50

How Did the TikTok Ban Become a Bipartisan Issue?

A ban of the Chinese social-media app TikTok, first floated by the Trump Administration, is now gaining real traction in Washington. Lawmakers of both parties fear the app could be manipulated by Chinese authorities to gain insight into American users and become an effective tool for propaganda against the United States. “Tiktok arrived in Americans’ lives in about 2018 . . . and in some ways it coincided with the same period of collapse in the U.S.-China relationship,” the staff writer Evan Osn

Apr 17, 2023 • 32:19

Abortion Heads Back to the Supreme Court

Ten months after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, access to abortion is once again before the United States Supreme Court, in a case that targets not only abortion medication but also the Food and Drug Administration. Last week, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, of the Northern District of Texas, invalidated the F.D.A.’s approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, which dates back to 2000, igniting a furor among pro-choice politicians and a backlash from biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The con

Apr 15, 2023 • 32:04

How Waco Became a Right-Wing Rallying Cry

Donald Trump recently staged the first major rally of his 2024 Presidential campaign in Waco, Texas. Thirty years ago, a botched federal raid on the compound of the Branch Davidians—a heavily-armed splinter group of the Seventh-day Adventist Church dominated by the charismatic David Koresh—led to a harrowing fifty-one-day siege. Just twenty miles from Waco, this standoff ended with federal tanks, tear gas, a fire, and more than seventy dead. Trump’s people claim the rally’s timing is coincidenta

Apr 13, 2023 • 33:23

Israel on the Brink

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed law changing the judiciary is described as a reform. To opponents, it’s a move to gut the independence of the Supreme Court as a check on executive power—and a move from the playbook of autocrats like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. The protests that followed are the largest in the country’s history, and are now stretching into their third month. Ruth Margalit, who is based in Tel Aviv, covered the protests for The New Yorker, and she tells David Remnic

Apr 10, 2023 • 32:01

As Trump Faces Charges, Who Is in Control of the Republican Party?

Donald Trump’s arraignment, on Tuesday, spurred a media frenzy that dominated the news. But the week also revealed a vacuum of leadership in the current Republican Party. Some G.O.P. members voiced wholehearted support for Trump. Some chose to only condemn the prosecution, in order to appease his followers. Some said nothing at all. One lawmaker who has offered no comment on the indictment so far is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been absent from the Senate since March 8th, when

Apr 7, 2023 • 35:23

The Mood Inside the Courtroom Where Trump Was Arraigned

Donald Trump made history on Tuesday as the first U.S. President to be arraigned. According to the indictment, brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.” The former President was charged with thirty-four felony counts—far more than many experts expected—and pleaded not guilty to all of them. E

Apr 5, 2023 • 27:05

Jon Meacham: Indictment Won’t Break Trump Fever

In 2018, at the midpoint of the Trump Presidency, the journalist and historian Jon Meacham wrote a book called “The Soul of America,” warning of the gravity of Trump’s threat to democracy. This was hardly a unique point of view, but Meacham’s particular way of putting things, steeped in a critical reverence for American history, hit home with one reader in particular: Joe Biden. In the years since, Meacham became an informal adviser to Biden, helping him recently with the State of the Union addr

Apr 3, 2023 • 20:30

Trump’s Indictment, and a Brief History of Election Dirty Tricks

A grand jury in Manhattan voted on Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump for his involvement in a hush-money payment, of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels. In the final days before the 2016 election, the payment was covered up. In the first part of this week’s political roundtable, the New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos look at what the unprecedented indictment means. “I think that banana republics are getti

Apr 1, 2023 • 47:30

The Hypocrisies of the TikTok Hearings

U.S. lawmakers have said that they are moving forward with a plan to ban TikTok, one of the most popular apps in the world. In hearings last week, Congress questioned TikTok’s C.E.O., Shou Zi Chew, about the platform’s addictive algorithm, its content, and whether it shares user data with the Chinese government. The hearings bore a resemblance to the questioning of Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook in 2018—not least because of the representatives’ incomprehension of how the technology works. This dé

Mar 30, 2023 • 33:09

Jia Tolentino on the Celebrity Obsession with Ozempic

The prescription drug Ozempic was designed to help people with Type 2 diabetes manage their disease, and, under the name Wegovy, to treat obesity. But it has been embraced recently as a tool for weight loss, and many celebrities are rumored to use it in order to shed pounds. Known generically as semaglutide, the drug gives users the feeling of satiation—even to the point of uncomfortable fullness. “One doctor I spoke to compared it to a turkey dinner in a pen,” the staff writer Jia Tolentino tel

Mar 27, 2023 • 16:25

Trump’s Potential Trials Are a One-Man “Stress Test of the Legal System”

It’s the end of a week in which former President Donald Trump said that he would be indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, for a hundred-and-thirty-thousand-dollar hush-money payment to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels—and still no charge. But just the prospect of an indictment has created a furor among Trump’s Republican allies in the House, who called Bragg’s investigation a “sham” and the District Attorney “radical.” Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee,

Mar 24, 2023 • 37:45

Donald Trump Braces for an Indictment in the Stormy Daniels Case

This week, reports circulated that the former President Donald Trump would be indicted for paying hush money to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. But on Wednesday—the day that the indictment was expected—the New York grand jury declined to meet. Still, whatever the outcome of the Stormy Daniels case, Trump faces significant legal trouble. Investigations are under way into his alleged attempt to overturn the election in Georgia, his role in the January 6th attack, and classified documen

Mar 23, 2023 • 27:38

What Happens if the Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action?

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears likely to strike down affirmative action, in a decision expected by this summer. The practice of considering race as a tool to counteract discrimination has been in place at many colleges and universities, and in some workplaces, since the civil-rights era. But a long-running legal campaign has threatened the practice for decades. David Remnick talks with two academics who have had a front-row seat in t

Mar 20, 2023 • 27:33

We’re Living in a World Created by the Iraq War

Reverberations of the global “war on terror”—launched by the Bush Administration following the attacks of September 11, 2001—have rippled throughout the world, taking hundreds of thousands of lives and costing trillions of U.S. dollars. This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, conducted on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos all spent time writing and report

Mar 18, 2023 • 33:45

Masha Gessen on the War Against Trans Rights

Masha Gessen has long written about Russia, and recently the war in Ukraine. But Gessen also has a deep background reporting on L.G.B.T.Q. rights. A dual citizen of Russia and the U.S., Gessen fled Russia when they were targeted by government repression of L.GB.T. people. Some of the same rhetoric that Vladimir Putin used is now appearing in bills that aim to criminalize transitioning. “All of these bills are about signalling, and what they’re signalling is the essence of past-oriented politics,

Mar 13, 2023 • 33:03

Introducing: “In The Dark”

We’re pleased to announce that “In The Dark,” the acclaimed investigative podcast from American Public Media, is joining The New Yorker and Condé Nast Entertainment. In its first two seasons, “In The Dark,” hosted by the reporter Madeleine Baran, has taken a close look at the criminal-justice system in America. The first season examined the abduction and murder, in 1989, of eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling, and exposed devastating failures on the part of law enforcement. The second season focuss

Mar 9, 2023 • 18:46

The “Woke History” Wars

James Sweet, a professor of African history and the former president of the American Historical Association, wrote an essay last year that sparked a significant clash in the world of academia about the role of politics in history and vice versa. He argued that historians have become compromised by politics—that they begin not with the evidence but with the contemporary social-justice concern that they want to speak to, in order to go viral on Twitter. This discussion may seem niche, but it is in

Mar 8, 2023 • 37:56

The Russian Activist Maria Pevchikh on the Fate of Alexey Navalny

Well before launching the horrifying campaign against Ukraine a year ago, Vladimir Putin had been undermining Russia as well: normalizing corruption on a massive scale, and suppressing dissent and democracy.  One of the darkest moments on that trajectory was the poisoning of the opposition leader Alexey Navalny with the nerve agent novichok.  Navalny and a team of investigators had illustrated the corruption of Putin and his circle in startling detail, and Navalny began travelling the country to

Mar 6, 2023 • 25:05

The Fox News Defamation Lawsuit: “Money, Ideology, Truth, Lies—It’s All Right There”

The Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News stems from the 2020 election and Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat. At stake is nearly $1.6 billion in damages. Filings released in the case contain a trove of e-mails and text messages from Fox hosts and executives. The documents reveal that many of the top decision-makers at the company didn’t seem to believe what their own network was saying about the 2020 election. Fox’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, admitted as much, in a deposi

Mar 4, 2023 • 32:27

How ChatGPT Will Strain a Political System in Peril

In November, Open AI introduced ChatGPT, a large language model that can generate text that gives the impression of human intelligence, spontaneity, and surprise. Users of ChatGPT have described it as a revolutionary technology that will change every aspect of how we interact with text and with one another. Joshua Rothman, the ideas editor of newyorker.com, joins Tyler Foggatt to talk about the many ways that ChatGPT may be deployed in the realm of politics—from campaigning and lobbying to gover

Mar 1, 2023 • 32:53

COVID-19 at Three: Who Got the Pandemic Right?

As the COVID-19 pandemic approaches its fourth year, we can begin to gain some clarity on which countries, and which U.S. states, had the best outcomes over time. In a conversation with David Remnick, Dhruv Khullar, a contributing writer and a practicing physician in New York, explains some of the key factors. Robust testing was key for public-health authorities to make good decisions, unsurprisingly. What also seems clear from a distance, Khullar says, is that social cohesion was a decisive und

Feb 27, 2023 • 17:50

Is Ukraine the Next Battle in American Politics?

This week, Joe Biden visited Kyiv to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, and promised more American support for Ukraine. Although the United States has approved tens of billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine, largely with bipartisan support, the war is increasingly a focus in U.S. domestic politics, with some congressional Republicans and the Florida governor Ron DeSantis raising objections. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly co

Feb 25, 2023 • 28:41

What Does It Mean to Be “Indigenous”?

In the past fifty years, a movement has formed to unite native and aboriginal peoples around the world under one umbrella term: Indigenous. But “indigeneity” is a slippery concept. Some groups qualify because they were the first people in their nation; some qualify even though they weren’t. Some have lost sovereignty over their land; some have regained it. As tribes face a variety of political crises, does this diverse global coalition create solidarity, or does it flatten complex problems? Manv

Feb 23, 2023 • 26:59

A Year of the War in Ukraine

In the year since Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians have shown incredible fortitude on the battlefield. Yet an end to the conflict seems nowhere in sight. “Putin’s strategy could be defined as ‘I can’t have it—nobody can have it.’ And, sadly, that’s where the tragedy is right now,” Stephen Kotkin, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a scholar of Russian history, tells David Remnick. “Ukraine is winning in the sense that [it] didn’t allow Russia to take that whole country. But it’s losing in the s

Feb 20, 2023 • 29:17

The Glass Ceiling, Still Intact: Women and Power in Washington

The California senator Dianne Feinstein announced her retirement this week. First elected in 1992, she became one of the most powerful senators in the chamber and was often spoken of as a possible Presidential contender, although she never ran. Also this week, Nikki Haley announced her bid to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican Presidential nomination. In Democratic circles, there have been new reports of hand-wringing over Vice-President Kamala Harris’s political prospects. That got the s

Feb 18, 2023 • 33:31

A Historic Earthquake in Turkey, and the Saga of a Spy Balloon

More than forty thousand people are dead after back-to-back earthquakes in Turkey and Syria last week. It’s a new level of disaster in a region that has been pummelled by violence and terrorism. As a Syrian refugee in Turkey told The New Yorker, “We’ve had eleven years of war in Syria . . . . But what happened in eleven years there happened in forty seconds here.” Meanwhile, a mysterious tale of espionage has been unfolding. After a Chinese spy balloon was seen over Montana, the United States id

Feb 15, 2023 • 24:57

Salman Rushdie On Surviving the Fatwa

Thirty-four years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of the novelist Salman Rushdie, whose book “The Satanic Verses” Khomeini declared blasphemous. It caused a worldwide uproar. Rushdie lived in hiding in London for a decade before moving to New York, where he began to let his guard down. “I had come to feel that it was a very long time ago and, and that the world moves on,” he tells David Remnick. “That’s what I had agreed with

Feb 13, 2023 • 49:08

What Biden Didn’t Say in the State of the Union

President Biden gave a boisterous second State of the Union address earlier this week, sparring with Republicans over Social Security and Medicare. Designed to advance the President’s agenda, a State of the Union address is always overstuffed. But there were several hot-button issues that Biden hardly discussed, including abortion rights, the United States’ relationship with China, and the war in Ukraine. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conv

Feb 10, 2023 • 31:23

A New Primary Calendar Changes the Race for the Presidency

This week, the Democratic Party upended its primary schedule for 2024. Instead of the Iowa caucuses, South Carolina will now go first, giving more deciding power to Black voters. Is this an attempt to realign the Democratic Party’s priorities—or a token of gratitude for the state that pushed Biden to the Presidency in 2020? Benjamin Wallace-Wells, a New Yorker staff writer and reporter who has spent a lot of time in Iowa, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the influence of the early primaries, and t

Feb 8, 2023 • 23:19

Chuck D on How Hip-Hop Changed the World

Forty years ago, Chuck D showed listeners how exciting, radical, and unpredictable hip-hop could be. His song “Fight the Power” became a protest anthem for a generation, and a Greek chorus in Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing.” The Public Enemy front man talks with the staff writer Kelefa Sanneh about his life in music. “I wanted to curate, present, navigate, teach, and lead the hip-hop art, making it something that people would revere,” he says. Now, at sixty-two, Chuck D is an elder statesm

Feb 6, 2023 • 19:45

An "Anger Olympics" Between Trump and the Rest of the 2024 Republican Field

The Republican Nikki Haley is widely expected to announce a Presidential run later this month. As a former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina governor, Haley brings strong credentials to a sparse Republican field. The defeated former President Donald Trump is making his third bid for the White House. Governor Ron DeSantis, of Florida, is expected to run, but is so far waiting in the wings. Mikes Pence and Pompeo, Trump’s former Vice-President and Secretary of State, respectively, are also rumore

Feb 3, 2023 • 29:03

How the Memphis Police Controlled the Narrative of Tyre Nichols’s Killing

Last Thursday, the Memphis Police Department announced that it was firing five police officers who beat a man named Tyre Nichols to death during a traffic stop. Shortly afterward, all five officers were jailed and charged with murder. Then the police department released body-camera and surveillance-camera footage of the incident. In the days that followed, the footage, and the question of whether or not to watch it, became the object of public preoccupation, superseding the violence it captured.

Feb 1, 2023 • 33:50

What Does “Woke” Mean, and How Did the Term Become So Powerful?

For years, many on the right have been lambasting a certain kind of progressive sensibility denoted with the term “political correctness”—endless fodder for Rush Limbaugh and others in the nineteen-nineties. But those semi-comic tirades were nothing compared with the serious political fight against “woke.” Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, for example, recently signed a so-called Stop Woke Act into law, and made the issue the center of his midterm victory speech. In Washington, there has been ta

Jan 30, 2023 • 16:03

Why Chief of Staff Is “the Hardest Job in Washington”

The White House chief of staff is the second most powerful but hardest gig in Washington, D.C. Dick Cheney blamed the job for giving him his first heart attack, during the Ford Administration. A hapless chief of staff can break a Presidency; effective ones get nicknamed the Velvet Hammer. On Friday, the Biden Administration announced that Ron Klain will depart as chief of staff, after two long years in the job. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekl

Jan 27, 2023 • 30:21

The Competing Narratives of the Monterey Park Shooting

Last weekend, a man shot and killed eleven people at a ballroom-dance studio in Monterey Park, California, an Asian enclave outside of Los Angeles. Then, less than forty-eight hours later, in Half Moon Bay, California, another man shot and killed seven Chinese farmworkers. Notably, both alleged killers were older men with Asian backgrounds. While mass shootings take place with mind-boggling regularity in America, these attacks also happened amid an alarming rise in hate crimes targeting people o

Jan 25, 2023 • 29:12

The Local Paper That First Sounded the Alarm on George Santos

George Santos is hardly the first scammer elected to office—but his lies, David Remnick says, are “extra.” Most Americans learned of Santos’s extraordinary fabrications from a New York Times report published after the midterm election, but a local newspaper called the North Shore Leader was sounding the alarm months before. The New Yorker staff writer Clare Malone took a trip to Long Island to speak with the Leader’s publisher, Grant Lally, and its managing editor, Maureen Daly, to find out how

Jan 23, 2023 • 22:18

Examining Biden's Second Year, and Tax Avoidance for the Rich

President Biden has faced remarkable challenges in his first two years in office, from the overturning of the national right to abortion and the management of the U.S.’s COVID response, to the invasion of Ukraine. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conversation to look at what the Biden White House has accomplished in the past two years, and what the forty-sixth President can hope to achieve before 2024. Plus, the roundtable talks about the pol

Jan 20, 2023 • 37:57

The Fraudster Mentored by New York’s Mayor

A few days before Christmas, the New York City pastor Lamor Whitehead—known to some as the “Bling Bishop”—was federally indicted for a number of alleged crimes. Among the charges was that Whitehead, a close friend of New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, tried to extort a businessman by claiming he had pull with City Hall. This is not the first time that friends of the Mayor have found themselves in legal trouble, or that Adams has faced questions about potential corruption. Eric Lach writes a regular c

Jan 18, 2023 • 26:37

Bob Woodward on His Calls with Trump

Bob Woodward has been writing about the White House for more than fifty years, going toe to toe with nearly every President after Richard Nixon. Woodward is every inch the reporter, not one to editorialize. But, during his interviews with Donald Trump at the time of the COVID-19 crisis, Woodward found himself shouting at the President—explaining how to make a decision, and trying to browbeat him into listening to public-health experts. Woodward has released audio recordings of some of their inte

Jan 16, 2023 • 23:05

House Republicans Launch Their Campaign Against the Bidens

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government was launched on Tuesday, with Representative Jim Jordan, a combative ally of Donald Trump and a co-founder of the far-right Freedom Caucus, at the helm. This powerful new committee has the authority to investigate the federal government and how it has collected, analyzed, and used information about American citizens. Its mandate includes access to sensitive documents and details about covert actions, all of which fall u

Jan 13, 2023 • 37:27

A January 6th for the “Trump of the Tropics”

On Sunday, a mob of protesters ransacked Brazil’s capital, claiming that the recent Presidential election had been rigged. The riots, eerily reminiscent of the United States Capitol attack, were carried out in the name of Brazil’s former President, Jair Bolsonaro, a political figure who has been described as the “Trump of the Tropics.” Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, was in Brazil during November’s election, when another former President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, defeated Bolsonaro.

Jan 11, 2023 • 37:15

Kevin McCarthy’s Week in “Purgatory”

By Thursday evening, Kevin McCarthy had lost eleven votes for Speaker of the House, the longest series of inconclusive ballots for the role since 1859. Until the next Speaker is selected, nothing can happen in the House of Representatives: no new legislation, no top-secret briefings, not even paychecks for lawmakers. McCarthy’s fate remained unclear when the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gathered for their weekly conversation, on Friday morning. Whatever the outcome,

Jan 6, 2023 • 34:49

In the Trenches with the Foreigners Fighting for Ukraine

Luke Mogelson, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, is one of the rare reporters who has seen the war in Ukraine from the front lines. He recently spent two weeks embedded with a group of fighters from around the world who had chosen to travel to Ukraine and join the war against Russia. In a new story in the magazine, he writes about the sophisticated and incessant violence of the war, and the mentality that keeps these volunteer soldiers there, fighting on behalf of a country that is not th

Jan 4, 2023 • 31:34

Did Black Lives Matter Change Broadway?

During the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd, Broadway theatres were among the many institutions to announce a commitment to equity and protecting Black lives. But for many Black performers, the promise rang hollow. Frustrated by what he perceived to be a lack of accountability, the actor Britton Smith and colleagues at Broadway Advocacy Coalition organized events that pointed to the industry’s failures and called for genuine change. BAC won a Tony Award for its work. But two yea

Jan 2, 2023 • 17:56

The Biggest Stories of 2022

2022 was the year that the contours of the post-pandemic world started to heave into view. Critical aspects of domestic and international politics were reordered. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conversation to consider the most important stories of 2022. They talk through the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, changing perceptions in Washington of the U.S.-China relationship, and the immense toll of the Russian

Dec 30, 2022 • 33:13

The Queer Children’s Books Targeted by Conservative Lawmakers

In 2022, three hundred and forty pieces of legislation in twenty-three states targeted L.G.B.T.Q. rights. The most high-profile was Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill—officially the Parental Rights in Education Act—introduced by Governor Ron DeSantis. The law limits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grade-school classrooms, including through the removal of books and other educational materials. DeSantis, of course, won a landslide reëlection contest in November, with parent

Dec 28, 2022 • 32:36

As Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith Hit the Road

Tracy K. Smith was named Poet Laureate in 2017, at the beginning of the fierce partisan divide of the Trump era. She quickly turned to her craft to address the deep political divisions the election laid bare, putting together a collection called “American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time.” Then she hit the road, visiting community centers, senior centers, prisons, and colleges, and reading poems written by herself and others for groups small and large. “It was exhausting, and exhilarating, and

Dec 26, 2022 • 19:00

The January 6th Report and Donald Trump’s Criminal Referrals

On Monday, the House select committee investigating January 6th voted unanimously to refer Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation over the attack on the Capitol, including a charge of insurrection. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conversation to talk about the committee’s eighteen-month probe and what’s next for the forty-fifth President.

Dec 23, 2022 • 35:03

David Remnick on the January 6th Committee’s Final Report

After a nearly eighteen-month investigation, which included televised hearings and more than a thousand interviews, the January 6th Committee is set to release its final report. As indicated by the executive summary, the report will lay bare who is to blame for the Capitol attack: Donald Trump, unambiguously. The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, authored the foreword to a publication of the full report being co-issued by the magazine and Celadon Books. He joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the co

Dec 22, 2022 • 31:03

Nancy Pelosi’s Legacy, and Kevin McCarthy’s Challenges

Nancy Pelosi has been one of the most powerful people in Washington for decades. As the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House, she shaped and passed monumental pieces of legislation—from Obamacare to the Inflation Reduction Act—often with slim majorities. She learned lessons as part of a powerful Baltimore political family and then went on to navigate sexism in Washington politics and stand up to Donald Trump. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their

Dec 17, 2022 • 45:37

Could Kyrsten Sinema's Party Switch Be Good for Democracy?

Last week, the Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema announced that she would be leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an Independent—a decision that seems especially dramatic given the Democrats’ slim majority. Yet Sinema is joining a growing bloc of about forty per cent of the electorate that does not identify with either party. Amy Davidson Sorkin joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the causes of this widespread dissatisfaction, and whether an Independent movement could energize electoral polit

Dec 14, 2022 • 30:47

Politico’s New Owner on the Opportunity for “Nonpartisan” Media

For Washington insiders and people in the media, Politico publishes some of the wonkiest reporting inside the Beltway. It’s not what you’d call a mass-market publication, but it’s highly influential—it was Politico that obtained and published Samuel Alito’s draft opinion of the Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade. The German news publisher Axel Springer, led by the C.E.O. Mathias Döpfner, acquired Politico last year for more than a billion dollars. “I believe that journalism h

Dec 12, 2022 • 16:29

Trump Calls to “Terminate” the Constitution, and Kyrsten Sinema’s Party Switch

It’s been a busy week in national politics: Raphael Warnock triumphed over Herschel Walker in the Georgia runoff, Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic caucus in the Senate, and the Democrats proposed a new calendar for the 2024 Presidential primaries. There are also the myriad investigations into Donald Trump, and criminal convictions of Trump Organization companies for tax fraud. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conversation, starting with Don

Dec 9, 2022 • 35:22

DeSantis vs. Trump: A “Fight to the Death” for Florida

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, won reëlection by a stunning nineteen-point margin. With that kind of popularity—in a state with twenty-nine electoral votes—he seems well positioned to run for President. To do so, he must win supporters away from Donald Trump, who has already announced a 2024 run, in a speech delivered from Mar-a-Lago. DeSantis has questioned the “huge underperformance” of Trump-endorsed Republicans in the midterms, while touting his own brand of politics. Could he be the next

Dec 8, 2022 • 33:07

A Supreme Court Case That Could Upend Elections

J. Michael Luttig is a retired judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals and a prominent legal mind in conservative circles, close with figures including Clarence Thomas and William Barr. On January 5, 2020, he got a call from Vice-President Mike Pence’s then-lawyer asking Luttig to publicly back Pence’s decision not to attempt to overturn the election the next day. Luttig tweeted that the Vice-President had no constitutional authority to stop the election, and suddenly the judge was thrust into the ce

Dec 5, 2022 • 18:56

The Historical Echoes of Trump’s Dinner with a White Supremacist

All week, Washington, D.C., has been talking about Donald Trump’s dinner with Nick Fuentes, a notorious white supremacist and Holocaust denier. A wave of prominent Republicans have repudiated the dinner and anti-Semitism, including Senators Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney. Trump’s former Vice-President, Mike Pence, condemned the meeting as well, with the caveat that he didn’t think his former boss was a bigot or an anti-Semite. But the issue goes beyond a single meal. The staff writers Susan B.

Dec 2, 2022 • 29:17

Do COVID Protests in China Pose a Threat to Xi Jinping?

Anger over China’s “Zero-COVID” policy erupted in protests this week. It’s a startling and nearly unheard-of challenge to President Xi’s power, a short time after he secured a third term in office. The anger over Zero COVID is unique, the staff writer Jiayang Fan tells the host Tyler Foggatt, because it has united disparate groups across China that transcend class and geography. But Fan cautions about concluding this moment is the start of a revolution: “These political wobbles are something tha

Nov 30, 2022 • 26:44

Can America’s Aging Leadership Deliver the Future?

Many of the most important and powerful people in Washington, D.C., are on the older side. Joe Biden turned eighty last week. Mitch McConnell is also eighty. Nancy Pelosi, who recently stepped away from a leadership position in her party, is eighty-two. All three of these leaders have delivered big victories for their respective parties. But there is a question of whether America is becoming a gerontocracy—a country ruled by the elderly. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan O

Nov 25, 2022 • 30:51

Hollywood’s Backlash to “Wokeness”

Supposedly, things in Hollywood have been changing for women and people of color. After the #MeToo, #OscarsSoWhite, and Black Lives Matter movements, leaders in the entertainment industry promised a lot: new kinds of stories were going to be told, by newly diverse writers, showrunners, and casts. In short, Hollywood’s long history of sexism and discrimination was going to be “reckoned” with. But, as studios have shifted with changing social expectations, there’s been talk of a backlash within Ho

Nov 23, 2022 • 38:31

How Qatar Took the World Cup

No self-respecting sports fan is naïve about the role that money plays in pro sports. But, by any standard, the greed and cynicism behind the World Cup are extraordinary. The cloud of scandal surrounding FIFA, the international soccer organization, has led to indictments and arrests on charges of wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering around the globe. Headlines have been filled with reports of the deaths of workers who constructed the facilities. “People are normally careful enough not

Nov 21, 2022 • 20:46

Trump Tries to Return, and Nancy Pelosi Steps Aside

Donald Trump announced his third bid for the White House this week. But the landscape is very different from when he glided down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015. He has lost the popular vote twice. He has been impeached twice. He is facing numerous criminal investigations, including for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. Many of his hand-picked candidates lost key midterm races. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos draw on their deep political reporting

Nov 18, 2022 • 45:45

Are We In Denial About the End of Election Denialism?

​​Nearly four hundred election deniers ran in the midterms, and not only did the highest-profile among them lose their races, they even willingly conceded. Does this mean that Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement has run out of political steam? Or is it merely shapeshifting for a new era? Rachel Monroe, who has been reporting from conspiracy-ridden Maricopa County, Arizona, and Sue Halpern, who has written extensively about the fragility of our voting machines, join Tyler Foggatt to discuss

Nov 16, 2022 • 33:24

Introducing The Political Scene

Today we’re unveiling The Political Scene, an expanded and reimagined version of our flagship politics podcast, showcasing the great political journalism of The New Yorker. We’re thrilled to announce four new hosts and a new weekly show. Tyler Foggatt, a senior editor at the magazine, is now the permanent host of in-depth conversations about the most pressing story of the week, featuring The New Yorker’s deep bench of writers and thinkers. New episodes will be released on Wednesdays. On Fridays,

Nov 15, 2022 • 16:14

The Man Who Escaped from Auschwitz to Warn the World

Rudolf Vrba was sent to Auschwitz at the age of seventeen, and, because he was young and in good health, he was not killed immediately but put to labor in the camp. Vrba (originally named Walter Rosenberg) quickly discovered that the scale of the killing was greater than anyone on the outside knew or could imagine, and Jewish communities were being deported without understanding their fate. Jonathan Freedland chronicles Vrba’s story in his new book, “The Escape Artist.” The young Vrba ha

Nov 14, 2022 • 33:21

How New York Became the Democrats’ Weak Link

On Tuesday, as results from the midterms came in, Democrats were pleased to see that a predicted red wave had not come to pass. That is, with one exception: in the bright blue state of New York. So far, Republicans have taken ten of New York’s twenty-six congressional districts, flipping four seats away from Democrats. The significance of this number can’t be overstated in an election where Republicans only needed to flip five seats, nationwide, in order to take control of the House of Represent

Nov 10, 2022 • 26:06

The Theologian Russell Moore on Christian Nationalism

Until recently, the Reverend Russell Moore held a leading position—president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission—in the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country. He left the S.B.C. last year after criticizing the Church’s response to scandals around sexual abuse and ongoing racism, which Moore describes as a sin. Moore, who now serves as the editor of Christianity Today, sits down with David Remnick to reflect on his connection with his faith, as

Nov 7, 2022 • 18:03

Judgment Day Appears Close for Affirmative Action

This week, the Supreme Court heard two cases—against Harvard and U.N.C.—that may very well bring about the end of affirmative action at American colleges and universities. The practice rests on the Fourteenth Amendment: equal protection under the law. But the conservative John Roberts court is reëvaluating what “equal protection” really means, raising the idea that current methods of affirmative action are actually a thinly veiled form of racism. Jeannie Suk Gersen, a New Yorker contributing wri

Nov 3, 2022 • 37:04

Mayor Francis Suarez’s View from Miami

Francis Suarez, the Republican mayor of Miami, is popular in the city he governs, and increasingly prominent beyond it. Conservative voices as disparate as Kanye West and George Will have floated him as a 2024 Presidential candidate. Suarez is a proudly dissident Republican: he loves tech companies, welcomes migrants, and thinks his party can lead the fight against climate change. He’s no culture warrior, and, though he shares a state with Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, he has kept both at

Oct 31, 2022 • 16:55

Are the Midterms Still Anyone’s Game?

We are two weeks from the midterms, and things aren’t looking good for the Democrats. It’s a difficult political environment to campaign in; inflation and gas prices are high, and President Biden’s approval rating is low. Far-right candidates are polling better than expected in races at every level of the government. Because the Democrats’ majority in Congress was already narrow, even a few flipped seats could dictate the future of reproductive choice, and of public trust in the electoral system

Oct 27, 2022 • 25:26

The Vulnerabilities of our Voting Machines, and How to Secure Them

The security of voting has become a huge topic of concern. That’s especially true after 2020, when it became an article of faith for Donald Trump supporters that the election was somehow stolen by President Joe Biden. J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, has been studying voting machines and software for more than a decade. “We made a number of discoveries, including that [voting machines] had vulnerabilities that basically anyone coul

Oct 24, 2022 • 16:11

Can Kanye West Buy Free Speech?

Earlier this month, the House G.O.P. account tweeted, “Kanye. Elon. Trump.”—a declaration of the Party’s new mascots. Since then, Kanye West has cemented this role, with a series of bizarre publicity stunts. First, he appeared at Paris Fashion Week wearing a T-shirt that read “White Lives Matter.” Then he started making incendiary comments on social media and in interviews. On one podcast, West alleged that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose—a claim that prompted the Floyd family to announ

Oct 20, 2022 • 33:23

After Roe, a New Abortion Underground

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the contributor Stephania Taladrid has been following a network of women who are secretly distributing abortion pills across the United States. The group has its roots in Mexico, where some medications used for at-home abortions are available at a lower cost over the counter. Volunteers—they call themselves “pill fairies”—are sourcing the medications at Mexican pharmacies and bringing them over the border. The work is increasingly perilous: in states like Texas

Oct 17, 2022 • 24:49

The Political Scene Live with Jamie Raskin: January 6th and Accountability for Donald Trump

Tomorrow marks the last expected public hearing of the Congressional January 6th Committee. The eight previous hearings have already revealed extraordinary information about just how close American democracy came to being overturned during the insurrection. But what has yet to be revealed? Will we learn what Trump was doing while the Capitol was stormed? Will action be taken? The New Yorker’s Washington bureau—Evan Osnos, Jane Mayer, and Susan B. Glasser—are joined at the New Yorker Festival by

Oct 12, 2022 • 47:24

Major Decisions Ahead for the Supreme Court

In its last term, the Supreme Court dropped bombshell after bombshell. We saw major conservative advances on gun rights, separation of church and state, environmental protection, and reproductive rights. “The Court is not behaving as an institution invested in social stability,” the contributor Jeannie Suk Gersen wrote in July. She joins David Remnick to preview the Court’s fall term, highlighting the likely end of affirmative action and a notable case on gerrymandering.

Oct 10, 2022 • 6:26

Pro-Life, with One Exception—for Herschel Walker

Herschel Walker, the Trump-endorsed Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, encountered not one but two “October surprises” this week, after an ex-girlfriend of his claimed that Walker quietly paid for her to get an abortion in 2009. Walker, who has called for a national ban on abortions, called his ex-girlfriend’s claim a “flat-out lie,” even though she provided both a receipt from the clinic and a personal check that Walker issued to her. Meanwhile, Walker’s son, Christian Walker, denounced hi

Oct 6, 2022 • 30:15

Joshua Yaffa on What’s Next for Ukraine

The contributor Joshua Yaffa, who was based in Moscow for years and has been reporting from Ukraine since the start of the war, speaks to David Remnick from Kyiv. There, Yaffa says, the latest news from Russia—including threats of nuclear attack and reports of political upheaval—has been treated with near-indifference. “Ukraine has been in the fight for its survival since the end of February, fully aware that Russia is ready to throw any and all resources at the attempted subjugation of the Ukra

Oct 3, 2022 • 13:14

Is Biden’s Student-Debt Relief Plan the Worst of Both Worlds?

Nearly two years into his Presidency, Joe Biden, with an executive order, announced a plan to forgive up to twenty thousand dollars in student debt for millions of borrowers. This plan, the first mass student-debt cancellation of its kind, will come at a big cost: an estimated four hundred billion dollars. This figure, released by the Congressional Budget Office, has fired up opponents, and, earlier this week, the first legal challenge to the policy was filed: a suit from a conservative law firm

Sep 29, 2022 • 25:00

Andy Borowitz on Our Age of Ignorance

Not only are we living in a time where people are proud of their ignorance, argues the writer and comedian Andy Borowitz, but some of our most educated politicians are now playing down their intelligence as a strategy to get elected. Borowitz, the author of the long-running satirical column The Borowitz Report, examines this phenomenon in his new book, “Profiles of Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber.” “When Trump was elected, a lot of us supposedly knowledgeable people were

Sep 27, 2022 • 13:20

The “Cynical, Disgusting” Migrant Flights to Martha’s Vineyard

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flew roughly fifty migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Some of these migrants said that they were actively misled about where they were being sent and what would await them when they arrived. They have since filed a lawsuit, accusing DeSantis and other state officials of executing “a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme” in which vulnerable people were used as political props. The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan

Sep 22, 2022 • 30:43

The Legal Fight for Democracy

Now seven weeks away, the midterms are often cast as a referendum on the President and his party. But, this year, some see democracy itself on the ballot. One of those people is the attorney Marc Elias, who has made the fight for voting rights his mission. The Supreme Court will hear two of his cases in its upcoming term, which starts next month. Earlier this year, the staff writer Sue Halpern profiled Elias for The New Yorker, and she spoke with him again recently about the legal fight ahead. “

Sep 19, 2022 • 18:56

Can King Charles III Capture the Queen’s Popularity?

Three quarters of a million people are expected to file past Queen Elizabeth II’s casket this week. After seven decades on the throne she was the only monarch most Britons have ever known. In that time she saw tremendous change within the United Kingdom and great turmoil within her own family. And yet, support for her among the British public barely wavered. In decades of polling, opposition to the monarchy in the U.K. has not risen above twenty per cent. The Queen accomplished something few pol

Sep 15, 2022 • 24:31

Keeping Score: A Year Inside a Divided Brooklyn High School

Nearly seventy years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, our public schools effectively remain segregated. And, by some measures, New York City has the most segregated system in the country. For a group of high schools in Brooklyn, change has long seemed impossible. But now those schools are putting their hopes in an unlikely place: sports. The John Jay Educational Campus in Park Slope, Brooklyn, houses four public high schools. Three of them have a student body with a Black-and-Lati

Sep 12, 2022 • 47:57

How Will Liz Truss Govern a Britain in Crisis?

This week, Liz Truss became the United Kingdom’s newest Prime Minister. She comes into office following a string of scandals in the Conservative Party under her predecessor, Boris Johnson, and faces a nation in the midst of a bleak economic forecast, including talk of a recession. Although she has proven popular with her party’s most loyal members, that doesn’t insure success with the wider British public. Sam Knight joined the guest host Susan B. Glasser on Wednesday—before Queen Elizabeth II p

Sep 8, 2022 • 26:13

Jill Lepore on Why Biden Is No F.D.R.

Joe Biden has had a remarkable reversal of fortune this summer. He signed three bi-partisan bills, and the Inflation Reduction Act, a multi-billion-dollar combination of climate and healthcare legislation, was surprisingly revived and passed by Congress. That was accompanied by a drop in gas prices and a slowdown in inflation.  Suddenly it seems like the Democrats could hold onto the Senate, and even the House, in the upcoming midterms. But, according to the Harvard historian and New Yorker staf

Sep 1, 2022 • 30:19

The Risk of a New American Civil War

Since the F.B.I. raid on former President Donald Trump’s home, Mar-A-Lago, the phrases “civil war” and “lock and load” have trended on right-wing social media. The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security are taking the threats seriously, and issued an internal warning that detailed specific calls for assassinating the judge and the agents involved in authorizing and carrying out the search. Where could this all be headed? David Remnick talks with Barbara F. Walter, the author of the new b

Aug 31, 2022 • 25:50

Could Engaging the Taliban Help Afghan Women?

This August marks the one year anniversary of American military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s swift return to power in Kabul. It has been an excruciating year for the war-torn nation, marked by economic collapse, famine, and drought. Yet much of the aid that Afghanistan used to depend on has been blocked by sanctions aimed at pressuring the Taliban into a less repressive rule. As a result, nearly half of the country is at risk of going hungry. The journalist Rozina Ali travelled

Aug 25, 2022 • 23:08

What’s Driving Black Candidates to the Republican Party?

The Republican Party is clearly no place for Black activism as most of us know it. Members of the Party inveigh against what they call critical race theory, and oppose efforts to redress racial discrimination in everything from school admissions to policing and public safety; in some quarters, simply acknowledging that racism exists is considered unpatriotic. And yet the Republican Party has recently attracted an almost unprecedented number of Black candidates to its fold—more than at any time s

Aug 22, 2022 • 18:04

Uncovering Biden Family Secrets

President Joe Biden’s political talents are inseparable from his folksy persona. In speeches, he emphasizes his modest upbringing and quotes aphorisms from his car-salesman father about dignity and honest labor. But this rendition of Biden’s upbringing, as Adam Entous puts it in this week’s magazine, is “woefully incomplete.” Entous has done a deep and groundbreaking investigation into the President’s family history, uncovering a previously untold rags-to-riches-to-rags story of how the Bidens l

Aug 18, 2022 • 36:10

Is the Historic Climate Bill Enough to Save the Planet?

Last week, after more than a year of drama and deal-cutting, the Senate passed a complicated piece of legislation called the Inflation Reduction Act. Its name notwithstanding,  it’s being celebrated as the most important piece of climate legislation in the history of this country. And that is “a pretty low bar,” the staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells David Remnick, “because they’ve never really passed a piece of legislation on climate change.” While far smaller than the proposed Build Back Bet

Aug 15, 2022 • 19:09

Trump’s and Biden’s Reversals of Fortune

The Senate’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act this week marks a turning point in the Biden Presidency. After more than a year of negotiations, the Democratic caucus agreed on a sweeping package, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, which includes many of the Party’s long-sought climate and healthcare initiatives. This was followed by the news that the F.B.I. executed a search warrant to look for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s primary residence. The staff writer Evan O

Aug 11, 2022 • 36:30

Jane Mayer on Ohio’s Lurch to the Right

Last month, the story of a 10-year-old rape victim captured national headlines. The young girl was forced to travel out of state because of Ohio’s draconian abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, which would have been nearly unthinkable until very recently. Jane Mayer took a deep dive into statehouse politics to learn how a longtime swing state—Ohio voted twice for President Barack Obama—ended up legislating like a radically conservative one. Its laws, she says, are increasingly out

Aug 8, 2022 • 24:00

Can Suing Gun Manufacturers Reduce Gun Violence?

Gun manufacturers are the only industry explicitly protected by federal statute from liability lawsuits. Carmakers and cigarette companies can be taken to court if their products or marketing endanger the public. But a 2005 law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (P.L.C.A.A.) has made it very difficult to sue a gunmaker. Jonathan Lowy has. He’s the chief counsel and vice-president of legal at Brady, one of the country’s oldest advocacy groups against gun violence. Faced with a h

Aug 4, 2022 • 34:34

Did the U.S. Miss the Chance to Stop Monkeypox?

The World Health Organization has declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency. There have been nearly twenty thousand cases worldwide and nearly thirty-five hundred in the United States, with New York City a major hot spot. As cases continue to rise, there are questions about whether the Biden Administration has missed a critical window to contain the virus. The New York Times recently reported that shipments of more than three hundred thousand vaccine doses were delayed for weeks

Jul 28, 2022 • 31:20

New Mexico Is a “Safe Haven” for Abortion Between Texas and Arizona

In New Mexico, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has declared the state a “reproductive safe haven” between Arizona to the west, and Texas to the east. Already, she says, New Mexico’s few abortion clinics are seeing an influx of patients from outside its borders. “When you are a safe-haven state,” she says, “you put real stress on [the] current provider system.” Lujan Grisham speaks with David Remnick about her executive order—issued days after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs—to prevent the ex

Jul 27, 2022 • 13:19

Trump’s Hundred and Eighty-seven Minutes of Inaction on January 6th

On Thursday evening, the committee charged with investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol presented what it has learned so far about President Trump’s behavior on that eventful day. As members of the President’s staff and family urged him to do something about the rioters, he watched television in the White House dining room. “He chose not to act,” as Representative Adam Kinzinger, a member of the committee, put it. The hearing featured testimony from military and security officials an

Jul 22, 2022 • 32:09

How White Christian Nationalists Seek to Transform America

The past few weeks have been full of unsettling indicators of the fragile state of our democracy. The January 6th committee has assembled a frightening account of how near the 2020 election came to being violently overturned. The Supreme Court has lurched rightward, striking down the constitutional right to abortion and issuing a series of momentous decisions on guns, environmental regulation, and the separation of church and state. Researchers have begun to view these  disparate political curre

Jul 21, 2022 • 29:17

The Queer Children’s Books Targeted By the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill

Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill took effect this month. Signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, it limits the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in grade school classrooms, in some cases banning it completely. It threatens the ability of teachers to affirm of the existence of LGBTQ students, and to share materials, including books, that depict or discuss queer lives. The legislation has inspired a number of copycat laws across the country, including in Texas, South Da

Jul 14, 2022 • 33:25

What Precedents Would Clarence Thomas Overturn Next?

Justice Clarence Thomas once was an outlier for his legal views. But Thomas is now the heart of the Court’s conservative bloc, and his concurring opinion in the recent abortion ruling calls out some other precedents the Court might overturn. Jeannie Suk Gersen teaches constitutional law at Harvard Law School and clerked for former Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court; she has been covering the end of Roe v. Wade for The New Yorker, and she spoke with David Remnick about Thomas’s concurrence

Jul 11, 2022 • 22:38

Abortion and the Potential “Criminalization of Pregnancy” in the U.S.

Last week, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Although this outcome had been anticipated for months—for years, even—it has had an immediate, visceral effect on abortion providers, those seeking abortions, and the nation at large. In some states, abortions stopped overnight; in others, there’s widespread confusion over what qualifies as legally acceptable circumstances for having an abortion. As states move to

Jun 29, 2022 • 39:09

Why Do Conservatives Love Hungary’s Viktor Orbán?

When the New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz first heard that the Conservative Political Action Conference, the flagship event of the American conservative movement, was being held in Hungary, he thought it might be a joke. “A lot of people have worried for a few years now that the Republican Party is becoming more ambivalent about certain bedrock norms of American democracy,” Marantz told David Remnick. “To openly state, ‘We’re going to this semi-authoritarian country’ . . .  I thought it wa

Jun 27, 2022 • 19:34

What the January 6th Committee Uncovered This Week

Two hearings this week laid out the stark implications of President Trump’s efforts to stay in office. On Tuesday, members of the House Select Committee on January 6th heard testimony about attempts to deliver “fake” slates of electors to Congress. State election officials and poll workers spoke, in powerful terms, about the intense vitriol and harassment they were subjected to by Trump supporters, simply for doing their jobs. On Thursday, the Committee explored President Trump’s pressure campai

Jun 24, 2022 • 30:43

Dexter Filkins on the Rise of Ron DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has shown himself uniquely skilled at attracting attention beyond the borders of his home state. Just this month, DeSantis blocked state funds for the Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium after players voiced support for gun control in the wake of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. He’s also continuing a fight to punish the Disney corporation for criticizing Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. An Ivy League-educated anti-élitist firebrand, he is willing to pick a fight wit

Jun 21, 2022 • 18:59

The Bombshell Moments at the Second Week of the January 6th Hearings

This week, the House select committee held two more hearings to review its astonishing findings on the events of January 6, 2021, featuring testimony from onetime enablers of President Donald Trump: Bill Barr, the former Attorney General, and Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign manager. These hearings are revealing the extraordinary drama that was unfolding that day, not just on the Capitol lawn but also in the top ranks of the government, where Vice-President Mike Pence was being coerced to o

Jun 17, 2022 • 26:24

Putting the Backlash Against Progressive Prosecutors in Perspective

A widespread view that cities have become less safe in recent months is transforming local politics. Eric Adams became Mayor of New York City on a tough-on-crime platform. Anxiety about public safety has also played a significant role in the ongoing Los Angeles mayoral race. In San Francisco, Chesa Boudin—a reform-minded district attorney—was recalled by voters by a significant margin last week. Boudin had instituted a number of progressive reforms, from liberalizing bail policies to reducing ja

Jun 16, 2022 • 31:52

Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos on the New January 6th Revelations

For months, the House Select Committee on January 6th has examined Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and cling to power. Roughly a thousand witnesses have been interviewed—including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Tens of thousands of documents have also been reviewed, such as text messages from the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The committee held its first public hearing last night and presented some of what it has learned. Representative Jami

Jun 10, 2022 • 26:14

UPCOMING: Tomorrow’s Episode on the January 6th Hearings

Today, after months of investigation into the January 6th insurrection and the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, the House Select Committee will hold the first public hearing to present its findings. Tomorrow, on a special episode of the Politics and More podcast, guest host Susan Glasser will be joined by Washington correspondents Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos, to discuss the revelations and their implications.

Jun 9, 2022 • 0:54

Sara Nelson on the Drive to Unionize Delta Flight Attendants

Before the pandemic, Sara Nelson had emerged as one of the most visible leaders in the labor movement. The Association of Flight Attendants represents some fifty thousand workers and nearly twenty airlines, and, as the union’s international president, Nelson made regular appearances on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Fox Business. During the pandemic, she became a critical voice amid reports of unruly and abusive passengers, urging Congress to pass greater protections for airline staff and pushing for res

Jun 6, 2022 • 13:41

Souvankham Thammavongsa Reads “Trash”

Souvankham Thammavongsa reads her story “Trash,” from the June 13, 2022, issue of the magazine. Thammavongsa has published four volumes of poetry and the short-story collection “How to Pronounce Knife,” which won the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Jun 6, 2022 • 21:09

Why a Weakened N.R.A. Still Gets What it Wants

The National Rifle Association has been one of the most feared groups in Washington, D.C., for decades. It profoundly reshaped the conversation around guns in America through a combination of financial prowess, lockstep messaging, and an ability to motivate its membership. But, in recent years, multiple lawsuits—including one from the New York State attorney general—have drained the organization's finances, and membership and revenue have declined precipitously. In light of this, and in the wake

Jun 2, 2022 • 24:49

What Makes a Mass Shooter?

In America, unthinkable violence has become routine.  In the wake of the Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings, David Remnick speaks with the researchers Jillian Peterson and James Densley, whose book “The Violence Project” is the most in-depth study of mass shooters. Pro-gun politicians may continue to block any measures to reduce violence, but we can understand better a different side of the equation: what motivates these crimes. David Remnick speaks with two criminal-justice researchers who have

May 31, 2022 • 19:01

Normalcy Returns to Kyiv as Russia Doubles Down in Eastern Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on into its third brutal month, with no end in sight. But, in ways large and small, the conflict has shifted. At the start of the war, the Russian military hoped to seize Kyiv and decapitate the Ukrainian government—but then quickly retreated in the face of sustained resistance. The fiercest fighting is now in the eastern Donbas region, but Russian troops have also occupied the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol since February, upending civilian life in othe

May 26, 2022 • 28:01

The Attack on Gender-Affirming Medical Care

Across the United States, conservative politicians are leading a backlash against L.G.B.T.Q. identity, framing legal restrictions as protection of children. Several states have introduced laws to ban medical treatments known as gender-affirming care—including hormones and puberty blockers—prescribed to adolescents. Major medical organizations have approved the treatments, but Rachel Monroe, who has been following efforts to ban gender-affirming care in Texas, found that doctors wouldn’t speak ou

May 23, 2022 • 27:16

The Other Kind of Racism in Buffalo

Last weekend, an eighteen-year-old white man killed ten people and injured three in a Tops grocery store located in Buffalo’s majority-Black East End. It was a deliberately planned attack, motivated by white-supremacist ideology; the gunman searched by Zip Code to find the highest concentration of Black people in his area, and then he drove two hundred miles to reach them. This segregation of Black people in an underserved neighborhood, in the third poorest city in the nation, is reflective of a

May 19, 2022 • 35:37

The Battle After Roe v. Wade

Assuming that Justice Samuel Alito’s final opinion in the Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization gets majority support, there will be profound social, political, and health-care implications across the United States. Margaret Talbot, Peter Slevin and Jia Tolentino assess the world after Roe. Opponents will surely not stop by leaving abortion at the state level but will try to ban it under federal law. Tolentino discusses fetal personhood, the legal concept that a

May 16, 2022 • 19:24

How COVID Strengthened Authoritarianism in China

China’s “zero COVID” strategy has brought the bustling metropolis of Shanghai to a standstill, with many of its twenty-five million residents sealed in their homes. These exceptionally strict measures are being met with some public resistance, but Xi Jinping’s government has largely doubled down on its approach. Peter Hessler has been in and out of China for twenty-five years. He recently returned from two years of teaching and writing in Sichuan Province. His experience led him to a conclusion

May 12, 2022 • 28:00

The Last Abortion Clinic in Mississippi: Rebroadcast

Last week, a draft opinion was leaked which suggests that a majority of Supreme Court Justices are ready to overturn the precedents of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey—the decisions that have guaranteed a right to abortion at the federal level.  The case in question is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which Mississippi officials seek to close the state’s last remaining abortion clinic under a law that bans performing an abortion after the fifteenth week of pregnancy—a

May 10, 2022 • 12:14

The Fate of Abortion After the Supreme Court Leak

For nearly fifty years, conservative groups have been laser focused on overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision which legalized abortion. In that time, they’ve made significant inroads, chipping away at access to abortion in a number of states. But now they seem on the cusp of near total victory. The recent leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, indicates that a majority of the justices seem ready to overturn Roe completely. It would be the biggest rev

May 5, 2022 • 30:53

A Ukrainian Diplomat on the Future of Russian Aggression

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters a third month, prospects of ending the conflict are still nowhere in sight, and there seems to be no end to the destruction that Vladimir Putin is willing to inflict. Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, tells David Remnick that he expects Russia to continue escalating its attack leading up to May 9th, a day of military celebration in Russia commemorating the German surrender in the Second World War. “They will esca

May 2, 2022 • 24:01

Can Liberal Democracy Survive?

The past fifteen years have been among the most tumultuous in our history. The tumult is driven by a question whose answer could determine our future: What kind of country do we live in? A buffeted but resilient democracy, or a nation increasingly known among its own citizens for its divisions rather than for its shared commitment to tolerance, equality, and freedom? Evan Osnos, Susan B. Glasser, and Jane Mayer join Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the past, present, and future of the democratic ide

Apr 28, 2022 • 40:03

Ronan Farrow on the Threat of Modern Spyware

Ronan Farrow has published an investigation into a software called Pegasus and its maker, NSO Group. Pegasus is one of the most invasive spywares known; it allows users—including law-enforcement officials or government authorities—to hack into a target’s smartphone, gaining access to photos, messages, and the feeds from a camera or microphone. NSO markets Pegasus as a tool to catch terrorists and other violent criminals, but once a surveillance tool is on the market it can be very difficult to c

Apr 25, 2022 • 18:40

Can Democrats Win Back Rural Voters?

In a few weeks, primary elections for the midterm races will be fully under way. The electoral map is stacked against Democrats, and the country is as divided than ever. But a new generation of progressive organizers and activists, spurning the advice of expensive consultants and the fund-raising tactics of seasoned politicians, are developing strategies to encourage accord within the Party, and to win over Independents and work with Republicans, from the ground up. Chloe Maxmin is a state senat

Apr 21, 2022 • 28:15

“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” and a Short History of Movies about the Internet

The Internet can be a scary place in real life, and far more so in Jane Schoenbrun’s film “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” which premièred at the Sundance Film Festival last year and is being released in theatres and streaming. It’s a horror movie centered on a lonely and bored teen-age girl named Casey, who spends most of her time being online and trying to figure out who she is. She undertakes a ritual that she’s read about—the so-called World’s Fair Challenge—which is said to cause unkn

Apr 18, 2022 • 17:01

How Biden Stumbled on Immigration Reform

This month, the C.D.C. announced plans to end Title 42, a public-health order, issued by the Trump Administration at the start of the pandemic, that gives the federal government broad authority to turn away migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. Public-health experts and some Democrats have pressured President Biden to repeal the order, but others, including several of his own top advisers, argue that the repeal will substantially increase the number of migrants at the southern bord

Apr 15, 2022 • 27:04

Anita Hill and Jane Mayer on Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the State of the Supreme Court

Ketanji Brown Jackson has been voted in as a Supreme Court Justice—the first Black woman to serve in that role. But, to reach this milestone, Jackson has faced enormous hurdles at every turn, including confirmation hearings that featured blatant political grandstanding and barely disguised race-baiting. Nominations have become so partisan that, on both the left and the right, the Court itself is commonly viewed as merely a tool of the party that picked its members, and several polls report a dec

Apr 11, 2022 • 16:49

Can Genocide Be Prevented?

Last week, Russian troops withdrew from Bucha, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Ukrainians returning to the city discovered the horrific aftermath. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, more than three hundred civilians in the city were killed. Investigators have found evidence of torture, rape, beheading, dismemberment, and the intentional burning of corpses. A mass grave was dug to accommodate the bodies. Zelensky has referred to the massacre as evidence of genocide. Philip Gour

Apr 7, 2022 • 23:58

Investigating January 6th

With a judge declaring that Donald Trump “more likely than not” committed a felony in his attempt to overturn the Presidential election, the congressional committee investigating January 6th is racing to finish its work before the looming midterm elections. Amy Davidson Sorkin and the legal scholar Jeannie Suk Gersen talk with David Remnick about the law and the politics of holding Trump accountable. But criminal conviction, they agree, does not equal accountability—and might only have inflammat

Apr 4, 2022 • 15:24

An Ivy League Student Accused of Lying About Her Past

Mackenzie Fierceton grew up in a middle-class suburb of St. Louis. Her mother was a doctor, and she attended a prep school. But she was allegedly abused at home, and she ended up in foster care, with no financial support from her family. She won a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, and a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. Then the father of one of Fierceton's high school peers contacted Penn, saying that the news coverage of Fierceton's past was inaccurate. Rachel Aviv, a Ne

Apr 1, 2022 • 23:35

Jill Lepore on Parents’ Rights and the Culture War

A wave of book bannings sweeping the country, along with conservative fury over titles like “Antiracist Baby,” seems like a backlash against the heightened racial consciousness of the post-George Floyd era. The historian and staff writer Jill Lepore sees these conflicts as the continuation of an old dynamic. She relates today’s “anti-anti-racism” movement to the anti-evolution campaign of the nineteen-twenties, which included the prosecution of a Tennessee teacher for teaching Darwin’s theory in

Mar 28, 2022 • 17:20

The Good News About Renewable Energy

Historically, the high cost of renewables has been one of the greatest hurdles in breaking our dependency on oil and gas. But recent research indicates that advances in renewable-energy production have made it cheaper than fossil fuels. Bill McKibben, a contributing writer to The New Yorker and the founder of the environmental group 350.org, joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the new economic realities of renewable energy, and how they could affect the global battle against climate change.

Mar 24, 2022 • 18:37

Radio Ukraine

Kraina FM is a radio station that broadcasts in Kyiv and more than twenty other cities, playing Ukrainian-language rock and pop. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it took on the mantle of “the station of national resistance,” airing news bulletins and logistical information like requests for supplies. The radio hosts began adding jokes about the invading Russians, and advice from a psychologist about talking to children about the war; a writer told fairy tales on air to occupy those kids during the s

Mar 21, 2022 • 15:56

How Do We Know When Someone Is a Spy?

In 2019, Franklin Tao, a professor of chemistry at the University of Kansas, was arrested on suspicion of spying for the Chinese government. Tao’s case was the first under a program called the China Initiative, a collaboration between the Justice Department, the F.B.I., and other federal agencies to combat what was perceived as a growing vulnerability to Chinese espionage, particularly in the realms of economics, technology, and academia. But Tao was never charged with espionage, and his became

Mar 17, 2022 • 27:22

Stephen Kotkin: Don’t Blame the West for Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

It’s impossible to understand the destruction and death that Vladimir Putin is unleashing in Ukraine without understanding his most basic conviction: that the breakup of the Soviet empire was a catastrophe from which Russia has yet to recover. Some experts, including John Mearsheimer, have blamed NATO expansion for the invasion of Ukraine, arguing that it has provoked Vladimir Putin to defend his sphere of influence. Stephen Kotkin, a professor of history and international affairs at Princeton U

Mar 14, 2022 • 18:43

The West Wages Economic War on Russia

Facing enormous pressure to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine but fearing the consequences of a hot war between Russia and the West, the European Union, the United States, and several other nations have levied heavy sanctions. These have caused the ruble to lose forty per cent of its value against the U.S. dollar and forced the closure of the Moscow stock exchange. But will the sanctions have any effect on Putin’s war? John Cassidy joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the Russian President’

Mar 10, 2022 • 20:35

Igor Novikov on Standing His Ground in Ukraine

The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has emerged as a potent and savvy communicator during the Russian invasion of his country. His emotional appeal to a recent E.U. meeting—videoconferencing from the battlefield—has been credited with spurring European leaders to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, such as banning Russian financial institutions from the international SWIFT banking system. Ukraine seems to be winning the information war, despite the Russian government’s previous focus on a

Mar 7, 2022 • 15:32

What Does China Think of Putin’s War?

In the week since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States and the European Union have effectively cut off Russia from the international banking system, frozen Russian assets abroad, and cancelled partnerships with Russian companies. The ruble is in free fall, and inside the country, opposition to the war is reportedly increasing. Chinese President Xi Jinping is a well-known admirer of Putin, and China and Russia share an autocratic world view, but China has neither condemned Russia’s

Mar 3, 2022 • 21:11

Hollywood’s Fraught History with Black Audiences

There has been an explosion of popular and acclaimed work from Black creators on film and television in recent years. This is no fluke—it’s the latest instance in a pattern that has repeated across film history. As the film scholar Aymar Jean Christian tells the Radio Hour’s Ngofeen Mputubwele, industry players “always use the Black audience to draw people back into theaters when they’ve lost the audience in some other way.” Christian points to Blaxploitation films, which in the nineteen-seventi

Feb 28, 2022 • 11:55

How Should President Biden Respond to Putin’s War?

Since last summer, Russian troops have been amassing on the Ukrainian border, and, in recent weeks, President Vladimir Putin warned that he intended a military takeover of Ukraine. This week, Russia began the war, with widespread attacks, including in the capital, Kyiv, aimed at crippling the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has called on civilians to enlist in the military to fight the invaders. The U.S. and nato are levying heavy sanctions against the Russians,

Feb 24, 2022 • 26:58

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Path Forward for the Left

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most prominent progressives in Washington. Her political ascent began with her shocking 2018 defeat of a longtime incumbent in a New York district that includes parts of Queens and the Bronx. She is a strong advocate of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. With her party’s razor-thin majorities now in peril, many of her priorities seem out of reach. Can the agenda she was elected to advance survive?  Ocasio-Cortez reflects on her time in Washington with

Feb 21, 2022 • 33:55

What Putin Is Really After in Ukraine

Since last summer, Russia has been heavily building up its military forces on Ukraine’s border. In the past few weeks, several countries have attempted to forestall military action, but U.S. officials have warned that a Russian invasion is imminent and have accused the Russian government of lying about its claim that it is drawing down its troops. Masha Gessen, a New Yorker staff writer, joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the recent history of Russian-Ukrainian relations, and what the Western me

Feb 17, 2022 • 20:52

Free Speech in Comedy Clubs and on Campus

The author William Deresiewicz, who formerly taught English at Yale University, describes what he sees as essential threats to free speech—and ultimately to the process of education—on campuses across the country. Students, he says, are afraid to speak their minds, in fear of a backlash. Deresiewicz sees the impact of cancel culture extending well beyond newsworthy cancellations of prominent people. “For every high-profile cancellation . . . there are a hundred, say, low-profile cancellations t

Feb 14, 2022 • 22:42

What the Beijing Olympics Reveal about China

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are often referred to as China’s “coming-out party”—presenting China to foreign visitors as a political, economic, and cultural superpower, committed to the rule of law and human rights. Fourteen years later, Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader, is using the Winter Olympics to make a different statement. Last week’s opening ceremonies projected a message of Chinese unity and strength at a time when the country’s relationship with the West is more antagonistic

Feb 10, 2022 • 23:07

Black Thought Takes the Stage

Tariq Trotter, best known in music as Black Thought, the emcee of the Roots, is regarded by many hip-hop fans as one of the best freestyle rappers ever. His work changed shape when the Roots became the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show, and again when he began performing standup comedy. “I’ve spent most of my career with my sunglasses and my hat pulled down low, very many layers of defense,” he tells Jelani Cobb. “You’re up there as a comedian, it’s just you and your ideas and a micr

Feb 7, 2022 • 19:09