The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker staff writer Clare Malone joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the changes that Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, is making at the paper. They talk about why Bezos decided to purchase the paper, in 2013, how his recent exertion of editorial influence has caused the paper to hemorrhage both staffers and subscribers, and the future of a news media dependent on the support of “benevolent” billionaires to support it. This week’s reading: “Is Jeff Bezos Selling Out the Washington Post?” by Clare Malone “How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump,” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson “How an Election Denier Became the U.S. Treasurer,” by Charles Bethea “Will the First American Pope Be a Pontiff of Peace?” by Paul Elie “Brazil’s President Confronts a Changing World,” by Jon Lee Anderson To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 14 May 2025

When Elissa Slotkin narrowly won her Senate seat in Michigan last fall, she was one of only four Democratic senators to claim victory in a state that voted for Donald Trump. It made other Democrats take note: since then, the Party has turned to her as someone who can bridge the red state–blue state divide. In March, Slotkin delivered the Democrats’ rebuttal to Trump’s speech before Congress, and she’s been making headlines for criticizing her own party’s attempts to rein in the President and the Republican Party. She thinks Democrats need to start projecting “alpha energy,” that identity politics “needs to go the way of the dodo,” and that Democrats should drop the word “oligarchy” from their vocabulary entirely. Slotkin prides herself on her bipartisanship, and she believes that Democrats must use old-school collegial collaboration in Congress. And, as different Democratic leaders have appeared on The New Yorker Radio Hour in the past few months, discussing what the next four years might have in store, Slotkin tells David Remnick about a different path forward. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2025

The New Yorker staff writer Katy Waldman joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Donald Trump’s fondness for A.I.-generated memes and what it tells us about our current political climate. They talk about how Trump uses these images to bend the cultural narrative to his will, why the MAGA aesthetic is tailor-made for the age of A.I., and how the proliferation of A.I. slop is damaging our brains. This week’s reading: “Trump Is the Emperor of A.I. Slop,” by Katy Waldman “My Brain Finally Broke,” by Jia Tolentino “How Is Elon Musk Powering His Supercomputer?,” by Bill McKibben “Is This the End of the Separation of Church and State?,” by Ruth Marcus “Twelve Migrants Sharing a Queens Apartment,” by Jordan Salama “How Russia and Ukraine Are Playing Trump’s Blame Game,” by Joshua Yaffa  To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 7 May 2025

For a long time, Republicans and many Democrats espoused some version of free-trade economics that would have been familiar to Adam Smith. But Donald Trump breaks radically with that tradition, embracing a form of protectionism that resulted in his extremely broad and chaotic tariff proposals, which tanked markets and deepened the fear of a global recession. John Cassidy writes The New Yorker’s The Financial Page column, and he’s been covering economics for the magazine since 1995. His new book, “Capitalism and Its Critics: A History,” takes a long view of these debates, and breaks down some of the arguments that have shaped the U.S.’s current economic reality. “Capitalism itself has put its worst face forward in the last twenty or thirty years through the growth of huge monopolies which seem completely beyond any public control or accountability,” Cassidy tells David Remnick. “And young people—they look at capitalism and the economy through the prism of environmentalism now in a way that they didn’t in our generation.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 5 May 2025

The Washington Roundtable discusses the unprecedented corruption of the federal government, including Trump Administration members’ self-enrichment through cryptocurrency schemes and the inaugural committee, and the gutting of parts of the government that are responsible for rooting out self-dealing from public life. It is a level of corruption so “outright” and “brazen,” the staff writer Evan Osnos says, that it constitutes “a new phase in American politics.”  This week’s reading: “Mike Waltz Learns the Hard Truth About Serving Donald Trump,” by Susan B. Glasser “How Donald Trump Is Expanding His Authority While Shrinking the Government,” by Jon Allsop “What Canadians Heard—and Americans Didn’t,” by Adam Gopnik “Trump’s Deportees to El Salvador Are Now ‘Ghosts’ in U.S. Courts,” by Jonathan Blitzer “Will the Trump Tariffs Devastate the Whiskey Industry?,” by Charles Bethea “A Life-Changing Scientific Study Ended by the Trump Administration,” by Dhruv Khullar “The Bureaucratic Nightmares of Being Trans Under Trump,” by Grace Byron “How Trump Is Helping Tycoons Exploit the Pandemic,” by Jane Mayer (July, 2020) To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 3 May 2025

In a new recurring series on The Political Scene, the staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt to assess the status of American democracy. How does one distinguish—in the blizzard of federal workforce cuts, deportations, and executive orders that have defined the first hundred days of Donald Trump’s second term—actions that are offensive to some, but fundamentally within the power of the executive, from moves which threaten the integrity of our system of government? Marantz applies the lens of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary to analyze where we may be in a potential slide toward autocracy, exploring ways in which Trump has even gone beyond the “Orbán playbook.” Marantz and Foggatt also discuss what it would take to reverse democratic backsliding. This week’s reading: “Is It Happening Here?,” by Andrew Marantz  “One Hundred Days of Ineptitude,” by David Remnick “The Bureaucratic Nightmares of Being Trans Under Trump,” by Grace Byron To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 1 May 2025

As Donald Trump continues to launch unprecedented and innovative attacks on immigrants, civic institutions, and the rule of law, the Democratic response has been—in the eyes of many observers—tepid and inadequate. One answer to the sense of desperation came from Senator Cory Booker, who, on March 31st, launched a marathon speech on the Senate floor, calling on Americans to resist authoritarianism. Booker beat the record previously held by Senator Strom Thurmond’s twenty-four-hour-long filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, in 1957, and he spoke in detail about Americans who are in desperate straits because of federal job cuts and budget slashing. “We knew . . . if I could last twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes, that we could potentially command some attention from the public,” Booker tells David Remnick. “That’s the key here . . . to deal with the poverty of empathy we have in our nation right now.” Yet Booker bridles as Remnick asks about Democratic strategy to resist the Administration’s attacks. Instead, he emphasized the need for “Republicans of good conscience” to step up. “Playing this as a partisan game cheapens the larger cause of the country,” he argues. “This is the time that America needs moral leadership, and not political leadership.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2025

The Washington Roundtable discusses the first hundred days of President Trump’s second Administration, and the fear, pain, and outrage reverberating through U.S. politics. The clinical psychologist and longtime Department of Justice official Alix McLearen is helping distressed government workers connect with service providers during this time. She joins the roundtable to discuss how a politics of fear is shaping the lives of federal employees and ordinary citizens alike, and strategies for coping when psychological forces like fear and trauma become governing principles.  This week’s reading: “Waiting for Trump’s Big, Beautiful Deals,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Conservative Lawyer Defending a Firm from Donald Trump,” by Ruth Marcus “The Immigrant Families Jailed in Texas,” by Jack Herrera “The Cost of Defunding Harvard,” by Atul Gawande “Donald Trump’s Deportation Obsession,” by Jonathan Blitzer “The Guerrilla Marketing Campaign Against Elon Musk,” by Anna Russell “The Supreme Court Finally Takes On Trump,” by Ruth Marcus To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 26 April 2025

Paul Elie, who writes about the Catholic Church for The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the life and legacy of Pope Francis, his feuds with traditionalist Church figures and right-wing political leaders, and what to expect from the upcoming papal conclave to determine his successor.  This week’s reading: “The Down-to-Earth Pope,” by Paul Elie “Pope Francis’s Tangled Relationship with Argentina,” by Graciela Mochkofsky “The Mexican President Who’s Facing Off with Trump,” by Stephania Taladrid “The Cost of Defunding Harvard,” by Atul Gawande “The Supreme Court Finally Takes On Trump,” by Ruth Marcus  Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2025

Elon Musk, who’s taking his chainsaw to the federal government, is not merely a chaos agent, as he is sometimes described. Jill Lepore, the best-selling author of “These Truths” and other books, says that Musk is animated by obsessions and a sense of mission he acquired through reading, and misreading, science fiction. “When he keeps saying, you know, ‘We’re at a fork in the road. The future of human civilization depends on this election,’ he means SpaceX,” she tells David Remnick. “He means . . . ‘I need to take these rockets to colonize Mars and that’s only going to happen through Trump.’ ” The massive-scale reduction in social services he is enacting through DOGE, Lepore thinks, is tied to this objective. “Although there may be billions of [people] suffering here on planet Earth today, those are miniscule compared to the calculation of the needs of the billions of humans that will one day ever live if we can gain escape velocity from planet Earth. . . . That is, in fact, the math that lies behind DOGE.”  Lepore’s BBC radio series on the SpaceX C.E.O. is called “X-Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

Elon Musk, who’s taking his chainsaw to the federal government, is not merely a chaos agent, as he is sometimes described. Jill Lepore, the best-selling author of “These Truths” and other books, says that Musk is animated by obsessions and a sense of mission he acquired through reading, and misreading, science fiction. “When he keeps saying, you know, ‘We’re at a fork in the road. The future of human civilization depends on this election,’ he means SpaceX,” she tells David Remnick. “He means . . . ‘I need to take these rockets to colonize Mars and that’s only going to happen through Trump.’ ” The massive-scale reduction in social services he is enacting through DOGE, Lepore thinks, is tied to this objective. “Although there may be billions of [people] suffering here on planet Earth today, those are miniscule compared to the calculation of the needs of the billions of humans that will one day ever live if we can gain escape velocity from planet Earth. . . . That is, in fact, the math that lies behind DOGE.”  Lepore’s BBC radio series on the SpaceX C.E.O. is called “X-Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

Ruth Marcus resigned from the Washington Post after its C.E.O. killed an editorial she wrote that was critical of the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos. She ended up publishing the column in The New Yorker, and soon after she published another piece for the magazine asking "Has Trump's Legal Strategy Backfired?" "Trump's legal strategy has been backfiring, I think, demonstrably in the lower courts," she tells David Remnick, on issues such as undoing birthright citizenship and deporting people without due process. Federal judges have rebuked the Administration's lawyers, and ordered deportees returned to the United States. But "we have this thing called the Supreme Court, which is, in fact, supreme," Marcus says. "I thought the Supreme Court was going to send a message to the Trump Administration: 'Back off, guys.' . . . That's not what's happened." In recent days, that Court has issued a number of rulings that, while narrow, suggest a more deferential approach toward Presidential power. Marcus and Remnick spoke last week about where the Supreme Court—with its six-Justice conservative majority—may yield to Trump's extraordinary exertions of power, and where it may attempt to check his authority. "When you have a six-Justice conservative majority," she notes, there is"a justice to spare." Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2025

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Mark Blyth, a professor of international economics and public affairs at Brown University, to discuss how the bond market forced Donald Trump to retreat on some tariffs, and the risks of the President’s escalating trade war with China. “Ultimately, they can take the pain more than you can,” Blyth says, of the Chinese government. “They have locked down their cities for a year or more. They can deliver food through the window through drones. They don’t care if you cut them off from certain things. So getting into that fight is very, very destructive.”This week’s reading: “Trump’s Do-Over Presidency,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Conservative Legal Advocates Working to Kill Trump’s Tariffs,” by Cristian Farias “At the Smithsonian, Donald Trump Takes Aim at History,” by David Remnick “The Trump Show Comes to the Kennedy Center,” by Katy Waldman “The Other Side of Signalgate,” by Rozina Ali To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 11 April 2025

The former senator Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the tumult that Trump’s tariffs have inflicted on the global economy, and why progressives should not merely oppose the President’s trade policy but offer a clear alternative. “I've heard economists talk about these tariffs upending the global order on trade. Well, to a lot of workers, anything’s better than the global order on trade. It’s our policy problem as a country, and it’s our political problem for Democrats,” Brown says. They also discuss his latest project, The Dignity of Work Institute, a think tank dedicated to advocacy for the working class.  This week’s reading: “‘I Am Seeing My Community of Researchers Decimated,’” by E. Tammy Kim “The Other Side of Signalgate,” by Rozina Ali “The Trump Show Comes to the Kennedy Center,” by Katy Waldman “At the Smithsonian, Donald Trump Takes Aim at History,” by David Remnick To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2025

The microchip maker Nvidia is a Silicon Valley colossus. After years as a runner-up to Intel and Qualcomm, Nvidia has all but cornered the market on the parallel processors essential for artificial-intelligence programs like ChatGPT. “Nvidia was there at the beginning of A.I.,” the tech journalist Stephen Witt tells David Remnick. “They really kind of made these systems work for the first time. We think of A.I. as a software revolution, something called neural nets, but A.I. is also a hardware revolution.” In The New Yorker, Stephen Witt profiled Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s brilliant and idiosyncratic co-founder and C.E.O. His new book is “The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip.” Until recently, Nvidia was the most valuable company in the world, but its stock price has been volatile, posting the largest single-day loss in history in January. But the company’s story is only partially a business story; it’s also one about global superpowers, and who will decide the future. If China takes military action against Taiwan, as it has indicated it might, the move could wrest control of the manufacturing of Nvidia microchips from a Taiwanese firm, which is now investing in a massive production facility in the U.S. “Maybe what’s happening,” Witt speculates, is that “this kind of labor advantage that Asia had over the United States for a long time, maybe in the age of robots that labor advantage is going to go away. And then it doesn’t matter where we put the factory. The only thing that matters is, you know, is there enough power to supply it?” Plus, the staff writer Joshua Rothman has long been fascinated with A.I.—he even interviewed its “godfather,” Geoffrey Hinton, for The New Yorker Radio Hour. But Rothman has become increasingly concerned about a lack of public and political debate over A.I.—and about how thoroughly it may transform our lives. “Often, if you talk to people who are really close to the technology, the timelines they quote for really reaching transformative levels of intelligence are, like, shockingly soon,” he tells Remnick. “If we’re worried about the incompetence of government, on whatever side of that you situate yourself, we should worry about automated government. For example, an A.I. decides the length of a sentence in a criminal conviction, or an A.I. decides whether you qualify for Medicaid. Basically, we’ll have less of a say in how things go and computers will have more of a say.” Rothman’s essay “Are We Taking A.I. Seriously Enough?” appears in his weekly column, Open Questions. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 7 April 2025

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Donald Trump’s invocation of emergency powers to enact sweeping tariffs and the ensuing global economic meltdown, in addition to how authoritarians have historically used economic control and coercion to strengthen their grip on power. The Roundtable also examines other spheres where Trump’s maximalist approach might make a mark, including immigration enforcement, the politicization of the military, and the potential seizure of Greenland.  This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Ego Melts the Global Economy,” by Susan B. Glasser “Pete Hegseth’s Secret History,” by Jane Mayer (December, 2024) “The Truth About Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day,’ ” by John Cassidy “Has Trump’s Legal Strategy Backfired?,” by Ruth Marcus “Fighting Elon Musk, One Tesla Dealership at a Time,” by Sarah Larson “How Trump Is Helping Tycoons Exploit the Pandemic,” by Jane Mayer (July, 2020) To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2025

Sarah Larson joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the Tesla Takedown movement, protesting Elon Musk and Donald Trump, along with the political efficacy of targeting an electric-car company and why some protesters are borrowing tactics from the AIDS activist group ACT UP.  This week’s reading: “Fighting Elon Musk, One Tesla Dealership at a Time,” by Sarah Larson “The Fired Student-Debt Relievers,” by E. Tammy Kim “What Marine Le Pen’s Conviction Means for French Democracy,” by Isaac Chotiner “How Donald Trump Throttled Big Law,” by Ruth Marcus “Why Benjamin Netanyahu Is Going Back to War,” by Bernard Avishai To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 2025

With congressional Republicans unwilling to put any checks on an Administration breaking norms and issuing illegal orders, the focus has shifted to the Democratic opposition—or the lack thereof.  Democrats like Chris Murphy, the junior senator from Connecticut, have vehemently disagreed with party leaders’ reversion to business as usual. Murphy opposed Senator Chuck Schumer’s negotiation to pass the Republican budget and keep the government running; he advocated for the Democrats to skip the President’s joint address to Congress en masse. Murphy believes that the Democrats have a winning formula if they stick to a populist, anti-big-money agenda. But, he concedes, some of his colleagues are playing normal politics, “where we try to become more popular than Republicans. People like me believe that it won’t matter if we’re more popular than them, because the rules won’t allow us to run a fair election.” By attacking democratic institutions, law firms, and other allies, he thinks, Republicans can insure that their party wins indefinitely, as in failed democracies around the world.  “If you think that democracy is the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 story,” Murphy tells David Remnick, “then you have to act like it. You need to show that you’re willing to take a political risk.”  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2025

The Washington Roundtable is off today, and will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy a conversation about the California governor’s new podcast venture, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” from Vanity Fair’s “Inside the Hive” podcast. Radhika Jones, the host and editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, talks with the magazine’s executive editor, Claire Howorth, and the “Hive” editor Michael Calderone about why Newsom is taking time off from running the world’s fifth-largest economy to talk to people such as Steve Bannon. Is he effectively reaching right-wingers and countering the MAGA media machine? And will the show help or hinder his chances of leading the Democratic ticket one day? To discover more from “Inside the Hive” and other Vanity Fair podcasts, visit vanityfair.com/podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 28 March 2025

The writer David W. Brown, who has long covered NASA and the space industry, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Elon Musk’s takeover of NASA, the agency’s increasingly complicated relationship with SpaceX, and whether Donald Trump’s interest in sending people to Mars will spare the space program from DOGE’s downsizing.  This week’s reading: “Inside Trump and Musk’s Takeover of NASA,” by David W. Brown “Don’t Believe Trump’s Promises About Protecting the Social Safety Net,” by John Cassidy “The E.P.A. vs. the Environment,” by Elizabeth Kolbert  “We’re Still Not Done with Jesus,” by Adam Gopnik “Is March Madness All Luck?,” by Tyler Foggatt To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 26 March 2025

Kaitlan Collins was only a couple years out of college when she became a White House correspondent for Tucker Carlson’s the Daily Caller. Collins stayed in the White House when she went over to CNN during Donald Trump’s first term, and she returned for his second. Trump has made his disdain for CNN clear—and he’s not a big fan of Collins, either. At one point during Trump’s first term, she was barred from a press conference; he called her a “nasty person” during a Presidential campaign interview. There’s never been a White House so overtly hostile to the press than the second Trump Administration, penalizing news organizations for not conforming to the President’s wishes. But, as Collins tells the staff writer Clare Malone, she believes that Trump is “someone who seeks the validation of the press as much as he criticizes them publicly. And so, you know, it doesn’t really bother me when he gets upset at my question.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 24 March 2025

The Washington Roundtable speaks with with Michael Waldman, the president and C.E.O. of the Brennan Center for Justice, at N.Y.U. Law, to discuss the escalating attacks on the judiciary by  President Trump and his allies. If the Administration ignores a legitimate order from a federal judge, as it has come close to doing, what can the courts do in response?  This week’s reading: “Donald Trump, Producer-in-Chief,” by Susan B. Glasser “Why ‘Constitutional Crisis’ Fails to Capture Trump’s Attack on the Rule of Law,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Trump Administration Nears Open Defiance of the Courts,” by Ruth Marcus To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 22 March 2025

The veteran courts reporter Ruth Marcus joins the host Tyler Foggatt to discuss the Trump Administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, why flights of Venezuelan deportees were sent to El Salvador, and how the defiance of federal court orders has set off a constitutional crisis.  This week’s reading: “The Trump Administration Nears Open Defiance of the Courts,” by Ruth Marcus “The Case of Mahmoud Khalil,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “The Long Nap of the Lazy Bureaucrat,” by Charlie Tyson “Hundreds of Thousands Will Die,” by David Remnick “The Felling of the U.S. Forest Service,” by Peter Slevin To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2025

Two weeks after the Inauguration of Donald Trump, Elon Musk tweeted, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into a wood chipper.” Musk was referring to the Agency for International Development, an agency which supports global health and economic development, and which has saved millions of lives around the world. “A viper’s nest of radical-left lunatics,” Musk called it. U.S.A.I.D.’s funding is authorized by Congress, and its work is a crucial element of American soft power. DOGE has decimated the agency with cuts so sudden and precipitous that federal workers stationed in conflict zones were stranded without safe passage home, as their own government publicly maligned them for alleged fraud and corruption.  Courts have blocked aspects of the federal purge of U.S.A.I.D., but it’s not clear if workers can be rehired and contracts restarted, or whether the damage is done. In January, 2022, Atul Gawande, a surgeon and leading public health expert who has written for The New Yorker since 1998, was sworn in as assistant administrator for global health at U.S.A.I.D. He resigned as the new administration came to power, and is watching in shock as Trump and Musk make U.S.A.I.D. a guinea pig for the government-wide purge now under way. U.S.A.I.D. was, he admits, a soft target for MAGA—helping people in faraway countries. Gawande calls U.S.A.I.D. “America at its best.” But with Trump and Musk, “there’s a different world view at play here,” he says. “Power is what matters, not impact.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2025

The Washington Roundtable discusses the ideological underpinnings of Elon Musk’s DOGE with the former Democratic operative and San Francisco-based journalist Gil Duran. Duran writes about the so-called cognitive élite, the right-wing Silicon Valley technologists who want to use A.I. and cryptocurrency to unmake the federal government, on his newsletter The Nerd Reich.  This week’s reading: “The Most Powerful Crypto Bro in Washington Has Very Weird Beliefs,” by Gil Duran (for The New Republic)  “Uncertainty Is Trump’s Brand. But What if He Already Told Us Exactly What He’s Going to Do?,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Felling of the U.S. Forest Service,” by Peter Slevin “Trump Is Still Trying to Undermine Elections,” by Sue Halpern “Who Gets to Determine Greenland’s Future?,” by Louise Bokkenheuser To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 15 March 2025

The staff writer John Cassidy joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the recent meltdown of the U.S. stock market, Donald Trump’s long-standing support for tariffs, and what the potential death of an American-dominated free-trade system could mean for the global economy.  This week’s reading: “Will Trumpian Uncertainty Knock the Economy Into a Recession?,” by John Cassidy “Who Gets to Determine Greenland’s Future?,” by Louise Bokkenheuser “What’s Next for Ukraine?,” by Joshua Yaffa  “Canada, the Northern Outpost of Sanity,” by Bill McKibben “Can Americans Still Be Convinced That Principle Is Worth Fighting For?,” by Jay Caspian Kang “Donald Trump's A.I. Propaganda,” by Kyle Chayka To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 12 March 2025

Recently, the former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to eleven years in prison for accepting bribes in cash and gold worth more than half a million dollars. He is the first person sentenced to prison for crimes committed in the Senate in more than forty years. Menendez did favors for the government of Egypt while he was the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and intervened in criminal cases against the businessmen who were bribing him. In New York, he broke down in tears before  a federal judge, pleading for leniency. Upon emerging from the courtroom, he made a thinly veiled plea to the man he had once voted to impeach. “President Trump is right,” Menendez declared to news cameras. “This process is political, and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system.”  WNYC’s New Jersey reporter Nancy Solomon explores how the son of working-class immigrants from Cuba scaled the heights of American politics, and then fell dramatically. But will he serve the time? Solomon speaks with the constitutional-law professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, who says, “It’s hard to know who Trump will pardon next. One of the more recent pardons was for the former governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. He was a Democrat. . . .  [Trump] seems much more  interested in undermining anti-corruption laws left, right, and center.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2025

The Washington Roundtable speaks with Jeffrey Rosen, the president and C.E.O. of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit, about how America’s founders tried to tyrant-proof their constitutional system, how Donald Trump’s whim-based decision-making resembles that of the dictator Julius Caesar, and what we can learn from the fall of the Roman Republic. Plus, how the Supreme Court is responding to the Trump Administration’s broad claims of executive power.  Rosen, a professor at George Washington University Law School, hosts the “We the People” podcast and is the author of “The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.”  This week’s reading: “Trump’s Golden Age of Bunk,” by Susan B. Glasser “Trump’s Disgrace,” by David Remnick “What Will Democratic Resistance Look Like?,” by Jay Caspian Kang “What Putin Wants Now,” by Isaac Chotiner To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 8 March 2025

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 Democratic Resistance Look Like?,” by Jay Caspian Kang “Trump’s E.P.A. Seeks to Deny Science That Americans Discovered,” by Bill McKibben “Growing Up U.S.A.I.D.,” by Jon Lee Anderson “A Ukrainian Family’s Three Years of War,” by Louisa Thomas  To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2025

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 one of many Democratic governors challenging the federal government. Walz joins David Remnick to offer his analysis of why Democrats lost the 2024 election, why the Party has been losing support from men, and what Democrats need to do now that Donald Trump is back in the White House. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 3 March 2025

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 “Growing Up U.S.A.I.D.,” by Jon Lee Anderson “Trump’s E.P.A. Seeks to Deny Science That Americans Discovered,” by Bill McKibben To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 1 March 2025

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 Blitzer “The New Trump-Family Megaphone,” by Jon Allsop “Month One of Donald Trump’s “Golden Age,” by Antonia Hitchens “Team Canada’s Revenge, Served Ice-Cold,” by Louisa Thomas  Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 26 February 2025

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 approval ratings, he lambasts the Administration for the “chaos” it is currently sowing in America. Fetterman sympathizes with voters’ widespread disgust with contemporary politicking. “Unlimited money has turned all of us in some way into all OnlyFans models,” he says. “We’re all just online hustling for money.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 24 February 2025

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 America,” by Susan B. Glasser “Pulling Our Politics Back from the Brink,” by Evan Osnos (2020) “Month One of Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Age,’ ” by Antonia Hitchens “We’d Never Had a King Until This Week,” by Bill McKibben “The Trump Administration Trashes Europe and NATO,” by Dexter Filkins “The Second Trump Administration’s New Forms of Distraction,” by Kyle Chayka To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2025

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 South Africa Great Again?,” by Isaac Chotiner “Elizabeth Warren Fights to Defend the Consumer Protection Agency She Helped Create,” by John Cassidy “A Fistfight Over Donald Trump at the Evangelical Version of Harvard,” by Emma Green To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 20 February 2025

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 arrived at a constitutional crisis. “We’re at the Rubicon,” Romero says. “Whether we’ve crossed it remains to be seen.” Romero has held the job since 2001—he started just days before September 11, 2001—and has done the job under four Presidents. He tells David Remnick that it’s nothing new for Presidents to chafe at judicial obstacles to implement their agendas; Romero mentions Bill Clinton’s attempts to strip courts of certain powers as notably aggressive. But, “if Trump decides to flagrantly defy a judicial order, then I think . . .  we’ve got to take to the streets in a different way. We’ve got to shut down this country.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 17 February 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 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor “The Fears of the Undocumented,” by Geraldo Cadava  “The Madness of Donald Trump,” by David Remnick “Elon Musk and Donald Trump Are Not Fixing U.S. Foreign Aid but Destroying It,” by John Cassidy “Elon Musk’s A.I.-Fuelled War on Human Agency,” by Kyle Chayka “What Happens if Trump Defies the Courts,” by Isaac Chotiner To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 13 February 2025

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 workplaces. In the Administration’s rhetoric, D.E.I. is discrimination pure and simple, and the root of much of what ails the nation. “D.E.I. is the boogeyman for anything,” Jelani Cobb tells David Remnick. Cobb is a longtime staff writer, and the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “If there’s a terrible tragedy . . . if there is something going wrong in any part of your life, if there are fires happening in California, then you can bet that, somehow, another D.E.I. is there.” Although affirmative-action policies in university admissions were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, D.E.I. describes a broad array of actions without a specific definition. “It’s that malleability,” Cobb reflects, that makes D.E.I. a useful target, “one source that you can use to blame every single failing or shortcoming or difficulty in life on.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 10 February 2025

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 Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump’s Madness on Gaza,” by David Remnick “How Donald Trump Is Transforming Executive Power,” by Isaac Chotiner “What Happened to the Trump Resistance?” by Brady Brickner-Wood “Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “Trump’s Trade War Is Only Getting Going,” by John Cassidy To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 8 February 2025

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.—it’s something new and it’s not healthy,” Wald says.  This week’s reading: “How to Understand the Reagan Airport Crash,” by Matthew L. Wald “How Donald Trump Is Transforming Executive Power,” by Isaac Chotiner “The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis,” by Dexter Filkins  “Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells  “Kash Patel’s Political-Persecution Fantasies,” by Tess Owen To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 6 February 2025

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 one of the largest nonprofits working on public health around the globe. That has made him the target of conspiracy theories by anti-vaxxers, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has asserted that Gates and Anthony Fauci are together responsible for millions of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gates views the rise of conspiracy thinking as symptomatic of larger trends in American society exacerbated by technology. “The fact that outrage is rewarded because it’s more engaging, that’s kind of a human weakness,” he tells David Remnick. “And the fact that I thought everybody would be doing deep analysis of facts and seeking out the actual studies on vaccine safety—boy, was that naïve. When the pandemic came, people wanted some evil genius to be behind it. Not some bat biology. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 3 February 2025

 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 what Democrats are doing is running around calling them chaotic and incompetent, that’s not going to win the day unless those charges are connected to actual harms happening to regular people.” This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Cabinet of Revenge,” by Susan B. Glasser “Trump’s Orders Sow Chaos Inside the Nation’s Enforcer of Equal Opportunity,” by E. Tammy Kim “Kash Patel’s Political-Persecution Fantasies,” by Tess Owen “Behind the Chaotic Attempt to Freeze Federal Assistance,” by Atul Gawande “The Junk Science of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” by Clare Malone “How Donald Trump Seizes the Primal Power of Naming,” by Jessica Winter “Trump’s Attempt to Redefine America,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 1 February 2025

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 contributor and Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Trump’s directives are testing how far a President can go.   This week’s reading: “Trump's Attempt to Redefine America,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “The Unchecked Authority of Trump's Immigration Orders,” by Jonathan Blitzer “Donald Trump Throws the Doors to the Patriot Wing Open,” by Antonia Hitchens “Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages,” by Susan B. Glasser “Britain’s Foreign Secretary Braces for the Second Trump Age,” by Sam Knight To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 30 January 2025

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 performing its functions? Plus, they discuss the Episcopal Bishop Marianne Buddy’s remarks at the interfaith prayer service, and the importance of speaking truth to power.  This week’s reading: “Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Unchecked Authority of Trump’s Immigration Orders,” by Jonathan Blitzer “The Big Tech Takeover of American Politics,” by Jay Caspian Kang “Why Is the Mastermind of Trump’s Tariff Plan Still Sitting at Home in Florida?,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “How Much Power Does President Trump Have?,” by Jeannie Suk Gersen “Donald Trump Invents an Energy Emergency,” by Bill McKibben “What Trump 2.0 Means for Ukraine and the World,” by Isaac Chotiner To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 25 January 2025

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 portend for the next four years. “[Trump] hasn’t changed one iota,” Remnick says, “except that his confidence has increased, and his base has increased, and the obedience of the Republican Party leadership is absolute.”This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Inaugural Day of Vindication,” by Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump Plays Church,” by Vinson Cunningham. “ ‘An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape,’ ” by David Remnick “What Trump 2.0 Means for Ukraine and the World,” by Isaac Chotiner “Donald Trump Returns to Washington,” by Antonia Hitchens “Donald Trump Invents an Energy Emergency,” by Bill McKibben To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2025

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 Trump Effect”: On Deal-Making and Credit-Claiming in Trump 2.0,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Pressure Campaign to Get Pete Hegseth Confirmed as Defense Secretary,” by Jane Mayer “Why the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Is Happening Now,” by Isaac Chotiner “ ‘An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape,’ ” by David Remnick “How Much of the Government Can Donald Trump Dismantle?” by Jeannie Suk Gersen “The Shock of a Gaza Ceasefire Deal,” by Ruth Margalit To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 18 January 2025

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 conditions to federal financial-assistance relief for California, something that Republican Congress members have already floated. The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what happens when disaster relief is swept up in the culture war.  This week’s reading: “The Insurance Crisis That Will Follow the California Fires,” by Elizabeth Kolbert “On the Ground During L.A.’s Wildfire Emergency,” by Emily Witt “An Arson Attack in Puerto Rico,” by Graciela Mochkofsky “Elon Musk’s Latest Terrifying Foray Into British Politics,” By Sam Knight “The Pressure Campaign to Get Pete Hegseth Confirmed as Defense Secretary,” by Jane Mayer To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 15 January 2025

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 dangerous than, ‘Hey, they just want to maximize their corporation's wealth,’ ”he tells David Remnick. “This is an ideology amongst some that rejects the role of the state.” Although he’s an ally of Bernie Sanders, such as advocating for Medicare for All and free public college, Khanna is not a democratic socialist. He calls himself a progressive capitalist. Real economic growth, he says, requires “a belief in entrepreneurship and technology and in business leaders being part of the solution.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 13 January 2025

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, lawsuits brought against the mainstream media, and how journalists will cover President Trump’s second Administration. This week’s reading: “King Donald and the Presidents at the National Cathedral,” by Susan B. Glasser “Why the MAGA Fight Over H-1B Visas Is Crossing Party Lines,” by John Cassidy “Lauren Boebert’s Survival Instincts,” by Peter Hessler Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 10 January 2025

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, Poilievre’s ascent, expectations for the upcoming parliamentary election, and what the future of Canadian politics may hold.  This week’s reading: “Why Justin Trudeau Had to Step Down,” by Adam Gopnik “How Much Do Democrats Need to Change?,” by Peter Slevin “Bourbon Street After the Terror,” by Paige Williams “How Sheriffs Might Power Trump’s Deportation Machine,” by Jessica Pishko “New Mexico’s Nuclear-Weapons Boom,” by Abe Streep  To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcribed - Published: 8 January 2025