The Washington Roundtable Answers Your Questions
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.2 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
The Washington Roundtable kicks off the 2026 election season by answering questions from listeners about the forces most likely to shape next year’s midterm elections. They discuss the ascendancy of Zohran Mamdani in New York City, bitter redistricting battles in the states, the high number of elected officials retiring, and much more. Plus, the hosts reflect on the legacy of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, who died on Monday.
This week’s reading:
- “America Begins Clapping Back at Donald Trump,” by Susan B. Glasser
- “California Strikes Back in the Redistricting War,” by Jon Allsop
- “How Far Can Donald Trump Take Emergency Power?,” by Jeannie Suk Gersen
- “A Next-Generation Victory for Democrats,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
- “The N.Y.C. Mayoral Election, as Processed in Therapy,” by Tyler Foggatt
- “What Zohran Mamdani’s Bid for Mayor Reveals About Being Muslim in America,” by Rozina Ali
- “Voting Rights and Immigration Under Attack,” by Jelani Cobb
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| 0:00.0 | I'm curious if you guys think Elon Musk is worth a trillion dollar pay package. What do you think? |
| 0:05.9 | I don't think anybody's worth a trillion dollar pay package. Well, can I say it might be worth |
| 0:11.7 | quite a bit to the other party as a target. Does it come with, you know, automatic sending him to |
| 0:17.4 | Mars at the end of it? Well, in a funny way, one way to interpret this is that this is |
| 0:22.5 | essentially the shareholders paying him to stay out of politics because the theory here is the |
| 0:28.8 | only way he makes these benchmarks is if he doesn't continue to tank the image of everything he's |
| 0:37.1 | associated with commercially. |
| 0:39.0 | So in a subtle way, they're basically saying, |
| 0:41.2 | we will pay you a trillion dollars to close your mouth. |
| 0:46.5 | I'd take that deal. |
| 0:52.5 | Welcome to the political scene from The New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. |
| 0:59.3 | I'm Susan Glasser and I'm joined today as ever by my colleagues Evan Osnos and Jane Merr. |
| 1:04.6 | Hey there, Evan. |
| 1:05.4 | Hey there, Susan. |
| 1:06.3 | Hi, Jane. |
| 1:07.1 | Hey, Susan. |
| 1:07.8 | Hey, Evan. |
| 1:11.0 | Well, what an eventful few weeks it's been. |
| 1:15.1 | We are now officially in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. |
| 1:19.6 | The first elections of Trump's second term have gone democratic in a big way. |
| 1:24.9 | And somehow, the midterm elections are now only a year away. To gear up for this |
| 1:30.6 | endless and high stakes election season, we thought we'd try something a little bit different today. |
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