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WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

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.

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Robert P. George is not a passive observer of the proverbial culture wars; he’s been a very active participant. As a Catholic legal scholar and philosopher at Princeton University, he was an influential opponent of Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage, receiving a Presidential medal from President George W. Bush. George decries the “decadence” of secular culture, and, in 2016, he co-wrote an op-ed declaring Donald Trump “manifestly unfit” to serve as President. Although George disagrees with the Administration’s tactics to change universities’ policies by punishment, he agrees with its contention that campuses have become hotbeds of leftism that stifle debate. He regards this not as a particular evil of the left but as “human nature”: “If conservatives had the kind of monopoly that liberals had,” George tells David Remnick, “I suspect we’d have the same situation, but just in reverse.” His recent book, “Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth: Law and Morality in Our Cultural Moment,” tries to chart a course back toward civil, functioning debate in a polarized society. “I encourage my students to take courses from people who disagree with me, like Cornel West and Peter Singer,” the latter of whom is a controversial philosopher of ethics. “Cornel and I teach together for this same reason. Peter invites his students to take my courses. That’s the way it should be.” 

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A Conservative Professor on How to Fix Campus Culture

The Washington Roundtable discusses how this week’s government shutdown can be best understood by looking at the background and influence of Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Vought is a Christian nationalist who served in the first Trump Administration. He was a chief architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and has written that the country is in a “post constitutional moment.” Amid the shutdown, Vought has threatened to lay off federal workers en masse and to withhold funds from Democratic-leaning states. The panel considers whether these moves are not just an expansion of Presidential power but a fiscal “partitioning” of America. 

This week’s reading:

“Donald Trump’s Shutdown Power Play,” by Susan B. Glasser
“Can the Democrats Take Free Speech Back from the Right?,” by Jay Caspian Kang
“Why Democrats Shut Down the Government,” by Jon Allsop
“Is Donald Trump’s Sweeping Gaza Peace Plan Really Viable?,” by Robin Wright
“Eric Adams Slips Out the Side Door,” by Eric Lach
“The Politics of Faith After Charlie Kirk,” by Michael Luo
“Grace and Disgrace,” by David Remnick 

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. 

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How Russell Vought Broke the U.S. Government

The New Yorker contributing writer Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the Supreme Court’s new term and the cases that could test the boundaries of executive authority and separation of powers. They talk about challenges to Presidential power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, disputes over voting rights and racial gerrymandering, and a First Amendment fight over state bans on conversion therapy. They also consider the Court’s increasing reliance on its emergency docket and what John Roberts’s twenty years as Chief Justice reveals about the conservative legal movement’s influence on the Court.

This week’s reading:

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Harvard’s Mixed Victory • ,” by Jeannie Suk Gersen

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Is Donald Trump’s Sweeping Gaza Peace Plan Really Viable? • ,” by Robin Wright

 • “
Why Democrats Shut Down the Government • ,” by Jon Allsop

 • “
Have Cubans Fled One Authoritarian State for Another? • ,” by Jon Lee Anderson

 • “
The Age of Enshittification • ,” by Kyle Chayka

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

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Will the Supreme Court Hand Trump Another Slate of Victories?

The author and podcaster Ezra Klein may be only forty-one years old, but he’s been part of the political-culture conversation for a long time. He was a blogger, then a Washington Post columnist and editor, a co-founder of Vox, and is now a writer and podcast host for the New York Times. He’s also the co-author of the recent best-selling book “Abundance”. 

Most recently, Klein has drawn the ire of progressives for a column he wrote about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, in which he praised the late conservative activist for practicing politics “the right way.” He’s also been making a case for how the Democrats can reëmerge from the political wilderness. But some of his other ideas have also invited their share of detractors. 

Klein tells David Remnick, “I try to take seriously questions that I don’t love. I don’t try to insist the world works the way I want it to work. I try to be honest with myself about the way it’s working.” In response to criticism that his recent work has indicated a rightward shift in his thinking, Klein says, “One thing I’ve been saying about the big tent of the Democratic Party is the theory of having a big tent doesn’t just mean moving to the right; it also means accepting in the left.”

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Ezra Klein’s Big-Tent Vision of the Democratic Party

The Washington Roundtable discusses how, in the wake of the reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel’s show, public resistance has a chance to turn the tide against autocratic impulses in today’s politics. They are joined by Hardy Merriman, an expert on the history and practice of civil resistance, to discuss what kinds of coördinated actions—protests, boycotts, “buycotts,” strikes, and other nonviolent approaches—are most effective in a fight against democratic backsliding. “Acts of non-coöperation are very powerful,” Merriman, the former president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, says. “Non-coöperation is very much about numbers. You don’t necessarily need people doing things that are high risk. You just need large numbers of people doing them.” 

This week’s reading:

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Donald Trump Keeps Finding New Ways to Shock the World • ,” by Susan B. Glasser

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Is Trump’s Attack on the Media Following Putin’s Playbook? • ,” by Joshua Yaffa

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Where Should the Democrats Go from Here? • ,” by Jon Allsop

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Donald Trump’s Firing of a Federal Prosecutor Crosses the Reddest of Lines • ,” by Ruth Marcus

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Seeing Enemies Everywhere • ,” by Jonathan Blitzer

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Can Progressive Mayors Redeem the Democratic Party? • ,” by Bill McKibben

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

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Jimmy Kimmel and the Power of Public Pressure

The New Yorker contributing writer Dhruv Khullar joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Donald Trump is transforming the nation’s approach to vaccines and immunization during his second term. They talk about the repopulating of federal agencies and advisory panels with skeptics, the politicization of once technical debates under the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, and what happens when people distrustful of the medical establishment end up running American public-health policy. They also examine how states are stepping in to fill the vacuum left by Washington, creating a patchwork of approaches to vaccines across the country.

This week’s reading:

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A New Era of Vaccine Federalism • ,” by Dhruv Khullar

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Can Progressive Mayors Redeem the Democratic Party? • ,” by Bill McKibben

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Donald Trump’s Firing of a Federal Prosecutor Crosses the Reddest of Lines • ,” by Ruth Marcus

 • “
What Trump Wants from a TikTok Deal with China • ,” by Clare Malone

 • “
Can Liberalism Be Saved? • ,” by Isaac Chotiner

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. 

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How MAHA Is Sowing Vaccine Confusion

“The Constitution gives the states the power to set the time, place, and manner of elections,” the election lawyer Marc Elias points out. “It gives the President no [such] power.” Yet, almost one year before the midterms, Donald Trump has called for a nationwide prohibition on mail-in voting, an option favored by Democrats, as well as restrictions on voting machines. The Justice Department has demanded sensitive voter information from at least thirty-four states so far, with little explanation as to how the information will be used. Will we have free and fair congressional elections in 2026? “I am very worried that we could have elections that do not reflect the desires and the voting preferences of everyone who wishes they could vote and have their vote tabulated accurately,” Elias tells David Remnick. “That may sound very lawyerly and very technical, but I think it would be a historic rollback.” Elias’s firm fought and ultimately won almost every case that Trump and Republican allies brought against the 2020 election, and Elias continues to fight the latest round of incursions in court. And while he rues what he calls “re-gerrymandering” in Texas—designed to squeeze Texas’s Democratic representatives out of Congress—Elias thinks states run by Democrats have no choice but to copy the tactic. “Before Gavin Newsom announced what he was doing, I came out publicly and said Democrats should gerrymander nine seats out of California, which would mean there’d be no Republicans left in the delegation. . . . At the end of the day, if there’s no disincentive structure for Republicans to jump off this path, [then] it just continues.” 

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Is The 2026 Election Already in Danger?

The Washington Roundtable is joined by the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Keren Yarhi-Milo, the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, to discuss why interpreting the psychology of world leaders such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping is essential to understanding global crises. Clinton also shares her thoughts on Gavin Newsom’s plan for redistricting in California, the Trump Administration’s free-speech crackdown in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, and ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air. “Jimmy Kimmel and all of the late-night comedians have certainly said a lot of things about me that I found painful, offensive, outraging. It never crossed my mind that I could call up and say, ‘Hey, get rid of this guy,’ ” Clinton says. “It’s all at the behest of the President, who wants to stifle and remove any opposition, and certainly anyone who makes fun of him.” Clinton and Yarhi-Milo’s new book, “Inside the Situation Room: The Theory and Practice of Crisis Decision-Making,” was published this week.

This week’s reading:

 • “
The Grave Threat Posed by Donald Trump’s Attack on Jimmy Kimmel • ,” by Isaac Chotiner

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Israel’s New Occupation • ,” by Ruth Margalit

 • “
J. D. Vance, Charlie Kirk, and the Politics-as-Talk Show Singularity • ,” by Andrew Marantz

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What the Video of Charlie Kirk’s Murder Might Do • ,” by Jay Caspian King

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

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Hillary Clinton on the Psychology of Autocrats

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt for the latest installment of “How Bad Is It?,” a monthly series on the health of American democracy. Their guest is the Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa, whose documentaries explore the country’s democratic backsliding. They discuss what the United States can learn from Brazil’s struggles with political violence and the rise of authoritarianism, and they respond to the recent conviction of Jair Bolsonaro for his role in a coup attempt. Tyler and Andrew also consider the possible ramifications of the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, including the Trump Administration’s threats to target liberal groups.

This week’s reading:

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“Charlie Kirk and Tyler Robinson Came from the Same Warped Online Worlds • ,” by Kyle Chayka

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What the Video of Charlie Kirk’s Murder Might Do • ,” by Jay Caspian King

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The U.S. Government’s Extraordinary Pursuit of Kilmar Ábrego García • ,” by Cristian Fairas

 • “
Donald Trump’s Assault on Disability Rights • ,” by E. Tammy Kim

 • “
How Jessica Reed Kraus Went from Mommy Blogger to MAHA Maven • ,” by Clare Malone

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

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How Bad Is It?: Political Violence in the U.S., and What We Can Learn from Brazil

For decades, the United States backed efforts to achieve a two-state solution—in which Israel would exist side by side with the Palestinian state, with both states recognizing each other’s claim to contested territory. The veteran negotiators Hussein Agha, representing Palestine, and Robert Malley, an American diplomat, played instrumental roles in that long effort, including the critical Camp David summit of 2000. But, in their new book, “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” they conclude that they were part of a charade. There was never any way that a two-state solution could satisfy either of the parties, Agha and Malley tell David Remnick in an interview. “A waste of time is almost a charitable way to look at it,” Malley notes bitterly. “At the end of that thirty-year-or-so period, the Israelis and Palestinians are in a worse situation than before the U.S. got so heavily invested.” The process, appealing to Western leaders and liberals in Israel, was geared to “find the kind of solutions that have a technical outcome, that are measurable, and that can be portrayed by lines on maps,” Agha says. “It completely discarded the issue of emotions and history. You can’t be emotional. You have to be rational. You have to be cool. But rational and cool has nothing to do with the conflict.” 

“What Killed the Two-State Solution?,” an excerpt from Agha and Malley’s new book, was published in The New Yorker. 

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. 

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How the “Dangerous Gimmick” of the Two-State Solution Ended in Disaster

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

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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 themail@newyorker.com with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on What Democrats Should Do Next

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