The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Why did Hillary Clinton lose the election? Why did Donald Trump win it? And why was the polling so completely wrong?No one digs deeper into the demographics, polls, and trends of modern American politics than the Atlantic's Ron Brownstein. Though he didn't predict Trump's win, his pre-election writing explained exactly how it could — and eventually did — happen. And it's a more complicated story than you've heard.In the week since the election, much has been made of Trump's strength among white working class voters — and properly so, as they were core to his victory. But the white working class wasn't the primary cause of Clinton's loss. Her real problem were groups that didn't turn out for her in the numbers her campaign expected — college-educated whites, African-Americans, and millennials. And that suggests a very different future for the Democrats. In this conversation, Brownstein goes through the math of the election in detail. We also talk about:-What Clinton’s campaign assumed, wrongly, about winning the middle of the country.-The two quotes that Brownstein thinks explain the entire election-How much James Comey influenced the election’s outcome-Why Trump was able to win the support of voters who thought him unqualified-What might have happened if Democrats had chosen Bernie Sanders as their nominee.-Whether the next Democratic nominee should be focused on winning back working-class whites or energizing the Obama coalition-The worrying signs the Republican Party will see if it compares Trump's win to Reagan's wins-Why Brownstein sees Trump as a political independent candidate who happened to run under the Republican banner (and why Ezra disagrees)-What will be hard and easy for a Trump administration to do while working with a Republican Congress.And much more. There's a lot of confusion about this election. Brownstein is here to clear it up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We’re bringing the Ezra Klein Show to you a little early this week because, well, there's an election coming in a few days. And we wanted to talk about it. The 2016 election is the product of profound failures on the part of different institutions in American life: the Republican Party, the media, the financial system. And few have tracked those failures as clearly, or closely, as David Frum.Frum is Canadian by birth — a perspective, he says, that helps him see American politics as the product of institutions, rather than just personalities. Since moving to the US in the 80s and finding himself inspired by Ronald Reagan, he's chronicled and commentated on conservatism in America. His book, Dead Right, is one of the key documents for understanding the Republican Party of the 1990s. He then did a stint as speechwriter in George W. Bush's White House, where he wrote the famous "Axis of Evil" line in Bush's 2002 State of the Union. More recently, he's written for the Atlantic, where he's been unsparing — and largely proven right — in his assessment of the Republican Party's institutional collapse.This conversation is an exploration of what has happened to the Republican Party — what it was, what it's become, and why. We talk about:-Why journalists need to account for governing institutions before turning to cultural explanations-How he thinks diversity and inequality are linked-How Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump differ-What he learned about inequality while working for the Wall Street Journal editorial page-The best-titled speech Newt Gingrich probably ever gave-His critique of the 1994 Republican Revolution and Newt Gingrich’s consolidation of the Speaker’s power-How Fox News and conservative talk radio echo chamber have harmed the Republican Party-The apocalyptic attitude conservatives rely on while campaigning -Why Trump was so successful running against the Bush family legacy-The role white nationalism plays in Trump's rise (This is an argument I found particularly valuable)-How Canada avoided the nationalist backlash that plagues the US-His best and worst-case scenarios for a Hillary Clinton presidencyEnjoy! And then go vote. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To understand the 2012 election, you had to ask a political scientist. To understand the 2016 election, you need to call a linguist.At least, I did. Deborah Tannen is a Georgetown University linguist who's done pioneering work in how men and women's communication styles differ. Her book You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, was on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years, including eight months as number one. But I got to know her earlier this year, as part of a reporting project to understand Hillary Clinton's leadership style, and the ways in which it's lost — and even a liability — on the campaign trail.Tannen's work has helped me understand not just Clinton and Trump's communication styles, but my own — her analysis of how men and women communication at home, and in the workplace, is useful no matter who you are. This episode, more than any other I've done, is full of practical insight into situations we all face daily. Among our topics:-How she became a linguist-Why everyone in her doctoral program was recording the conversations at dinner parties-The ways in which linguistics can solve the same problems as psychology-How cultural attitudes about interruptions and silence lead to miscommunication and frustration (I found this one *very* relevant)-The debate over African-American Vernacular English, and the crucial research that both powered it, and has been forgotten about it -The components of what she calls “conversational style” and how they vary depending on who you are-How gender roles can create conflict within relationships, even just in end-of-the-day check-ins with your partner-Why women are perceived to speak more than men, even when they're speaking less-How gendered forms of communication have changed perceptions of Hillary Clinton-Why she tries to never use the word "sexism" when discussing evaluations of Clinton and other female politicians-How expectations of good leadership are caught up in gendered ideas of what leaders look and sound likeAnd so, so much more. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week’s guest is a Nobel Prize winner. We like to sprinkle those in every so often. Joseph Stiglitz revolutionized how economists understood market failures (hence that prize), served as chief economist at The World Bank, led the Council of Economic Advisers under Bill Clinton, has written more great books and articles than I can count, and now leads The Roosevelt Institute. He's a pretty smart guy. Markets, Stiglitz argues, are man-made, and we need to make them a lot better. We often treat markets as natural phenomena, but they have rules, their rules create some winners and some losers, and, crucially, those rules can be changed. How to change those rules, and which rules to change, is where Stiglitz's recent work has focused — work that is known to have caught the eye of Hillary Clinton — and we talk about it at length, as well as:-Why he became an economist-The nature of the work that won him the Nobel prize-His basic explanation of “information asymmetry,” the term for which he’s probably most famous-His time as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors-The unintended consequences that can come from rewriting economic rules, even when it's being done with good intentions-Why we can’t use NAFTA to try to understand the Trans-Pacific Partnership-What a good trade deal would look like in this day and age-The difference between Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s economic priorities-Who he’d like to see working at the Treasury Department and on the National Economic Council in the future-What he thinks about a Universal Basic Income-What he learned from the economic failings of Venezuela and GreeceThe arguments you hear in this podcast are very likely to be things a Clinton administration will be thinking about as it tries to craft a post-Obama economic agenda. So there's a lot worth mulling over here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The overwhelming focus of this election has been Donald Trump — the things he does, says, tweets. But the next president is likely to be Hillary Clinton. And we've put a lot less effort into understanding her lengthy, detailed agenda for the country.So I sat down with one of my favorite journalists, The Huffington Post’s Jonathan Cohn, who has been doing that work, to talk through what Clinton's platform actually says, and what it all adds up to. We also discussed:-How the stereotype of her has gone from "radical liberal feminist" to "sell-out conservative Democrat," and what both miss-How childcare, work-life balance issues, and parental leave define Clinton's platform-How racial dynamics have changed since Clinton’s emergence as a national public figure in the 90s-The people who surround Clinton and shape her policy platforms-Jon’s evaluation of how Obamacare’s doing and what about it still needs work-The way geography’s complicating the way Obamacare works by creating so many healthcare marketplaces-Why Obamacare's specific struggles have made it so hard for Republicans to promote their own healthcare plansAll this and more. I hope you enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Francis Fukuyama is a political scientist, a public intellectual, and progenitor of the famed "End of History" thesis. But his recent work is his most important yet. Over two volumes, he's been studying how societies become safe, pluralistic liberal democracies — and then how those advanced democracies descend, and decay, into chaos.Sound familiar?This is a scary conversation that comes at just the right time. We discussed:-How American became a “vetocracy”-Why the representative democracy we have has calcified-Why the internet may be overwhelming our ability for government agencies to deal efficiently with public comment-What he thinks is stoking Trump supporters in the way we talk about diversity and pluralism-Why conversations about class are important-What he thinks about different models of government around the world, especially Denmark’s-How we overcompensate for what we’ve learned through past wars-How polarization is disrupting the way the public views government agencies like the Fed and NOAA-What he's learned from Samuel Huntington, from the Iraq War, and from the Black Lives Matter movement-What an agenda to reverse America's political decay would look likeEnjoy!We want you to tell us about the podcasts you enjoy, and how often you listen to them. So we created a survey that takes just a couple of minutes to complete. If you fill it out, you'll help Panoply to make great podcasts about the things you love. And things you didn’t even know you loved. To fill out the survey, just go to www.megaphone.fm/survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A number of you have asked that we turn the tables and have someone interview me for the show. So when Tyler Cowen — economist at George Mason University, blogger at Marginal Revolution, and generalized genius — invited me on his podcast Conversations with Tyler, I said yes, and asked if we could post the discussion here, too. Tyler — whose podcast you should listen to — asks some of the hardest, strangest, most provocative questions of anyone I know, and so this was a lot of fun. Among the topics we discussed:-What we do now that we will reflect on as kind of crazy or unethical in the next few decades-How my video team at Vox has taught me to think about visual stories-The value of making content that’s made to be re-discovered-Why identity as a driver of virality is important to the current online media landscape-The ethics of eating meat, and why I think those attitudes will change fast in the coming decades-My thoughts on how CEOs work and how the job of being a CEO has become its own profession-What I think I’m good at in leading Vox, and how I try to support my team in fostering the things they do-The importance of to-do lists-My biggest talent-spotting tip-Why the government doing clunky, difficult things is sometimes good-How you shouldn’t probably trust my taste in culture, like sports or music-The role of shame in the mediaAll this and so much more on this week’s episode. I hope you all enjoy.Panoply SurveyWe want you to tell us about the podcasts you enjoy, and how often you listen to them. So we created a survey that takes just a couple of minutes to complete. If you fill it out, you'll help Panoply to make great podcasts about the things you love. And things you didn’t even know you loved. To fill out the survey, just go to www.megaphone.fm/survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This election season has left pretty much everything I thought I knew about politics in doubt. Both parties nominated unpopular candidates, even when they had popular alternatives. One party's nominee isn't really running any ads, and has barely bothered to build a field operation. The same party's nominee says things on a regular basis that would've been — or would've been thought to be — disqualifying in any other year. So it's been weird.One of the best chroniclers of that weirdness has been the Atlantic's Molly Ball. In the latest edition of the magazine, she has a fantastic piece looking at whether Trump's candidacy is proving that most of what's done by campaigns — the ads, the microtargeting, the message-crafting, etc — is just a waste of money. We talk about that, as well as:-Whether there's actually a floor in American politics — if even Trump is remaining competitive, does that mean basically anyone can get 45 percent of the vote?-How Hillary Clinton’s experience within the political system has come hurt her in some ways-Whether we've been fooling ourselves by thinking elections are about policy rather than identity -The difference between Pat Buchanan in the 90s and Trump now-Why some voters are rooting for Trump even if they’re not always screwed by the economy in the way you might think -How current demographic trends are bearing out the anxieties of older white men-What might come after Trump for the GOP, and whether a candidate like him could be replicated in other races-Why high-information voters, especially educated Republican women, are often still undecided-What the liberalism of millennials coupled with the unpopularity of the major parties means for the future of politics in the US-Why Hillary Clinton has so much trouble ginning up enthusiasm among her base-What Molly's learned about human nature after doing a ton of reporting on this presidential campaign cycleThis really is the best conversation I’ve had with anyone about the election yet. Enjoy!We want you to tell us about the podcasts you enjoy, and how often you listen to them. So we created a survey that takes just a couple of minutes to complete. If you fill it out, you'll help Panoply to make great podcasts about the things you love. And things you didn’t even know you loved. To fill out the survey, just go to www.megaphone.fm/survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, I've turned over the mic to The Weeds' Sarah Kliff. She went to Capitol Hill to interview HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell about all things healthcare. They talked about how to pay doctors to provide better care, the current state of the Obamacare marketplaces, and what she's learned about management running the federal government's largest agency. I hope you enjoy this, and I'll be back next week! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are a couple of ideas that drive how I see policy and politics. One of them is that most of what drives health outcomes has nothing to do with what happens in doctor's offices. Another is that we overestimate the importance of the president national politics and underestimate the important of city officials and local politics.Dr. Leana Wen — and this episode — stands at the intersection of those two ideas.Wen is the Baltimore City Health Commissioner — a job she got when she was only 31, after a stint as an ER doctor, and a background as a Rhodes Scholar and medical activist. Her work in Baltimore coincided with the aftermath of Freddy Gray's killing, a brutal opioid epidemic, and a renewed focus on urban health disparities (there are counties in Baltimore that have higher infant mortality than the West Bank).In this conversation, we talk about all that and more. Here's some of the more:-Why her family moved to Utah after leaving China after the Tiananmen Square protests-Whether America's culture of sharing problems and working through pain is actually healthy-How she learned to deal with a serious speech impediment (and how I did)-What it was like growing up in Compton in the early 90s-How Bill Clinton’s autobiography changed her life-What motivated her to become a doctor-How she squares her idea of herself as an activist with being a government official-The unexpected process by which you get a job like Baltimore City Health Commissioner-How the medical community’s understanding of pain has changed, and how that led to the opioid crisis-The misunderstandings of outdated ideas that have made the opioid crisis so much worse-Why she prescribed a drug to treat heroin overdoses to everyone — yes, everyone — in Baltimore-Her thoughts on the paradox of Baltimore’s great health institutions and its huge health disparities-What disturbs her about the patterns that lead up to infant mortalityI particularly want to call out Wen's discussion of the opioid crisis, and what needs to be done about it. It's one of the clearest and most impassioned tours through that epidemic I've heard, and it's worth listening to this conversation just for that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I’ve been reading sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s writing for about a decade now. Her immersive projects have revolutionized how we understand labor, gender equity, and work-life balance. But her latest book, Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, is something new: she spent five years among tea party supporters in Louisiana, trying to bridge the deepest divide in American politics. It was, she says, an effort to scale the "empathy wall," to create an understanding of how politics feels to people whose experiences felt alien to her. In this conversation, we discuss:-How she approaches immersive sociology-The kinds of questions she asks people in order to get them to open up about their political feelings-What it takes to “turn off your alarm system” when you encounter oppositional ideas-What she describes as the “deep story” that explains how conservative Americans, particularly older white men, feel increasingly looked down on-Why she feels empathy on the part of people who disagree is an important part of creating dialogue-Whether empathy and respect are in tension with each other-Why many white men don't feel they're part of a privileged group-What she thought of Clinton's comments that half of Trump's supporters are a "basket of deplorables"And much more. This is a time when listening and empathy are in shorter supply than ever, at least in American politics. It's well worth listening to Hochschild's advice on how to bring both back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you came by the Vox office, you would find it oddly quiet. That's not because we don't like each other, or because we're not social, or because we don't have anything to say. It's because almost all our communication happens silently, digitally, in Slack.Slack is Stewart Butterfield's creation, and it's the fastest-growing piece on enterprise software in history. But here's the kicker: he didn't mean to create it, just like he didn't mean to create Flickr before it. In both cases, Butterfield was trying to create a new kind of game: immersive, endless, and focused on experiences rather than victories. The story of Butterfield's pivots from the game to Flickr and Slack have become Silicon Valley lore. But in this conversation, we go deep into the part that's always fascinated me: the game Butterfield wanted to create, the reasons he thinks gaming is so important, and the ways in which his philosophy background informs his current work. We also talk a lot about the nature of status, identity, and communication in online spaces, as Butterfield's company is now revolutionizing all three.This is a deep, interesting, and unusual conversation — we went places I didn't expect, and I left thinking about topics I'd never really considered. Butterfield is as thoughtful as they come, and I hope you get as much out of this as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

W. Kamau Bell is a comedian and a writer. But you probably know him from one of his podcasts(Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period and Politically Re-Active) or his CNN show The United Shades of America.In this conversation, Bell and I go wide. We begin with an inquiry into the nature of health food, transition into a discussion of how future historians will view our present (and, particularly, a discussion of which stories we're ignoring that they'll see as central), move into the lessons Bell has learned from parenthood and fame, dig into his decision to move to Northern California from New York, examine his path to comedy, talk through the opportunities presented by podcasting, and more. There's also a damn good Eddie Murphy story in here.Here's how good this conversation is: I spoke with Bell just a few days after getting my wisdom teeth out, and I still had a great time. You will too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Malcolm Gladwell needs no introduction (though if you didn't know the famed author has launched a podcast, you should — it's called Revisionist History, and it's great.).Gladwell's work has become so iconic, so known, that it's become easy to take it for granted. But Gladwell is perhaps the greatest contrarian journalist of his generation — he looks at things you've seen before, comes to conclusions that are often the opposite of the conventional wisdom, and then leaves you wondering how you could ever have missed what he saw. To see something new in something old is a talent, it's a process, and it's what we discuss, in a dozen different ways, in this episode. Among the topics we tackle:-How Gladwell got started at the Washington Post after being fired from another job for waking up late-Gladwell’s high school zine based on personal attacks and Bill Buckley-How Canadians are disinclined to escalate conflicts-The value and nature of boredom in childhood-How people reflexively pile on to convenient narratives -How the economics of media might be influencing its current tone-Why pickup trucks today are so much larger than they used to be-His insights about the current identity of journalists as a culture-Why podcasting is different from writing for the page/screen-Why talking about numbers can be difficult in audio-How the internet will one day seem like an experiment gone completely awry-Why you shouldn’t have satellite radio in your car-Whether more individualized education is a a good idea-The importance of people who are above average though not exceptionalThis is a fun conversation, but it's also a useful one. It's hard to look at something that is believed to be understood and realize it's been misunderstood. Hell, it's hard to look at something that is believed to be understood and take seriously the idea that it might have been misunderstood. This is Gladwell's great skill — it is the product of both a process and an outlook, and it's worth hearing how he does it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grant Gordon is a political scientist and policymaker who specializes in humanitarian intervention. He’s a fellow at the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, and has worked on humanitarian and development policy for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the UN Office of Humanitarian Coordination, the UN Refugee Agency, as well as the Rwandan Government, Open Society Justice Initiative and other organizations. All of that is a long way of saying he works on the some of the world's worst problems and conflicts, and tries to figure out which interventions will actually help. He’s embedded with the Congolese military to try to understand why soldiers attack citizens, he's used satellites to monitor and deter genocidal violence in Darfur, and he's studied the ways in which peacekeepers can win hearts and minds with local communities in Haiti. And over and over again, he's found that good intentions do not always make good policies. It's a valuable lesson — and Grant is a valuable voice — for anyone who thinks seriously about policymaking. Grant is also a good friend whose work has long fascinated me, and so it was great to get a chance to interrogate him on it for two hours. Among other things, we covered:- How to read academic literature efficiently- Grant’s path from being a kid in California to working in the Rwandan health ministry to hiding under cars in Congo- What his whiteness and Jewish heritage means in his work on humanitarian policy- How the politics around humanitarian intervention have changed since the 90s- How and why he got an internship, as a college student, in the Rwandan health ministry by cold emailing Rwanda's health minister- How randomized controlled trials do and don’t help humanitarian work- Why it's actually difficult for a fragile society to build an army strong enough to protect its citizens but not so strong it overthrows the government- How to care for yourself when you work in and out of conflict-torn placesAnd much more. Towards the end of the interview, Grant turns the tables and questions me for a bit, so keep an ear out for that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I first started working with Melissa Bell at the Washington Post. I was trying to launch a new product — Wonkblog — and I needed some design work done. Melissa wasn't a designer. She wasn't a coder. She didn't manage designers or coders. She was, rather, a blogger, like me. But somehow, no one would meet with me to talk Wonkblog unless Melissa was also in the room.It was my first exposure to Melissa's unusual talent for finding and connecting the different parts of a modern newsroom. We went on to start Vox together, and it's no exaggeration to say Vox simply wouldn't exist without Melissa's vision, her managerial brilliance, or her unerring sense of where journalism is going. She's also one of my very favorite people — working with her has been one of the highlights of my career. Melissa was recently named publisher for all of Vox Media — so if you're wondering what's next in journalism, she's someone you'll want to listen to, because she'll be building it. In this conversation, we discuss:-How Melissa started her journalism career in India-Her experience working near the World Trade Center on 9/11-What she learned from her time as a waitress, and how it was crucial to her development as a journalist-Her pending case before the Indian Supreme Court-How observing large institutions reveals how little information and control any one person really has-How she thinks about “mapping out” organizations and creating informal networks within those organizations to get things done-Why it’s hard to create new things in big organizations and how to create better systems for making those things-How the distinctions between "old" and "new" media have largely collapsed-What it was like starting Vox, and what we got wrong from the beginning-How Vox's brand identity emerged, and why it proved more important than either of us expectedAnd much more. I work very closely with Melissa, and I learned a lot about her in this discussion. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I've wanted to do this interview for a long, long time.Atul Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He's a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is executive director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He's a New Yorker writer. He's the author of some of my favorite books, including Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance and The Checklist Manifesto. He's a MacArthur Genius. Atul Gawande makes me feel like a slow, boring, unproductive person. What makes it worse is that he's a helluva nice guy, too. And he knows more new music than I do. There haven't been many conversations on this podcast I've looked forward to more, or enjoyed as much. Among many other things, we talked about:- How Atul makes time to do all of the writing, large-scale research, and surgery he does- His time working in Congress and in the White House- His writing process and how it’s evolved since his early days writing for Slate- Why he hates writing and likes being edited (and why I am the exact opposite)- His thoughts on ignorance, ineptitude, why we fail at things, and what hand washing has to do with it- How effective Medicaid coverage is in improving health outcomes- The ways we need to more effectively deliver existing knowledge and technology rather than always focusing on the next big discovery- What he thinks we’ve learned so far from Obamacare- How Rivers Cuomo from Weezer has applied lessons from Atul’s writing to his music- His work with the Clintons, Jim Cooper, and Al Gore and thoughts on their private versus public personas- How all the different parts of his life — the writing, the surgery, the policy work — come together into one single engine for actually making change- What new albums he thinks everyone should listen toAnd so much more. Talking to Atul was a real pleasure. I hope you enjoy it too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a serious conversation with a very funny man.Trevor Noah is the host of Comedy Central's the Daily Show. He's also a stand-up comic who grew up in apartheid South Africa, the son of a black mother and a white father. That was illegal in apartheid-era South Africa, so Noah grew up hiding his real parentage, only seeing his father in carefully controlled circumstances. Somehow, he managed to turn this into a very funny, very incisive stand-up act. Today, he occupies one of the commanding heights of American comedy, and when you talk to him, you can see why: he's funny, but he's also damn smart, with an outsider's perspective on America's very unique problems. In this conversation, we talk about:- What it was like growing up biracial in apartheid South Africa- Noah's experience watching South Africa’s post-apartheid truth and reconciliation commission, and what an American one might look like- Noah's thoughts on the right to be forgotten on the internet- How Donald Trump's superpower is his lack of shame- The ways in which Obama’s presidency changed – and sometimes inflamed — the conversation about race over the last eight years- What Obama does and doesn’t share with other Black celebrities in “transcending” race- The parallels between experiencing catcalling and experiencing racism- Noah's critique of both "objective" news sources, and biased ones- Why Noah was taken aback by the response he got criticizing Bernie Sanders- Noah's news diet, and why he doesn’t watch as much Fox News as you might think- How Noah develops a joke, from start to finishAnd much more. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yuval Levin has been called "the most influential conservative intellectual of the Obama era," and the moniker fits. As editor of National Affairs — in my opinion, the best policy journal going on the right — he's been at the head of the "reformicon" movement, and his work has had a heavy influence on top Republicans like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. If you had asked me a year ago to name the conservatives likely to set the agenda for the Republican Party in 2016 and beyond, Levin would've been atop my list. And then, of course, Donald Trump won the Republican nomination.In this atmosphere, Levin's new book, Fractured America, reads like a warning. Written before "Make America Great Again" became the rallying cry of the Republican Party, it argues that both Democrats and Republicans were trapped inside a dangerous nostalgia, and tried to propose a way out. We talk about that way out in this podcast, as well as:- How Levin defines the Republican Party, and how he thinks it’s changed with Trump- Why Republicans misunderstand their own voters- His distinction between the conservative movement and the Republican party- Why he views Brexit and Trump’s rise as a kind of “counter-cosmopolitanism” - The role of nostalgia in our current politics- Why a universal basic income is the most interesting idea on the left today- How the free market undermines cultural traditionalism- The way in which we have cultural/moral arguments under the guise of debates about how efficient/effective policies are- What Levin learned working for Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush- Why you’d have to be crazy to want to be presidentIf you want to understand the Republican Party today, you should listen to this interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My interview this week is with Hillary Clinton. You may have heard of her.I won't bore you with Clinton's bio. Instead, I want to say a few words about what this interview is, as it's a bit different than the EK Show's normal fare (though I do ask her for book recommendations!).I got about 40 minutes with Hillary Clinton. I wanted to use that time to try to answer a question I've had about Clinton for years: why is the candidate I see on the campaign trail so different from the person described to me by her staff, colleagues, friends, and even foes? I wanted, in other words, to try to see what Clinton is like when she's working her way through policy and governance issues. And so that's what we talk about. Among the topics we covered are:- Extreme poverty, welfare reform, and the working poor- Is it time for more deficit spending?- Would more immigration be good for the economy?- The difficulties of free college and universal health care- What skills does a president need that campaigns don't test?- What's on her bookshelf?- Why America stopped trusting elites — and what elites should do about itIf you want more on this discussion, I also reported out a long piece on how Clinton governs — you can find it on Vox.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Not long ago, I had the chance to eat a burger from a company called Impossible Foods. The burger was delicious. It was juicy, savory, and bloody. Oh, and it was made from plants.Yes, they've created a veggie burger that bleeds. Patrick Brown is the CEO and Founder of Impossible Foods. His company is the Tesla of plant-based meat: they are trying to create a burger that carnivores will prefer to the thing cut from the side of the cow. And they've got some big backers in that effort: Brown has hundreds of millions of dollars from investors including Bill Gates and Google.I sat down with Brown, a biochemist, to talk about the science and business of Impossible Foods. Among other things, we discussed:- Why meat tastes like meat- How to find the flavor of blood in plants - The ways in which the company is mimicking Tesla's strategy for electric cars- The environmental impact of meat, and how plant-based burgers compare- What happens when you break down the individual flavors of your favorite foods- What it means for a food to be "natural"- Why the market for plant-based proteins hasn't developed many premium productsAnd much more. This episode is interesting even if you love your animal protein and will never, ever give it up: we're really talking here about the science of flavor, the business of food, and whether you can combine technology and marketing to change the most entrenched consumer behaviors of all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Heather McGhee is the president of the think tank Demos, and one of the most interesting thinkers today on the intersection of racism and economic inequality.Among Heather's most interesting arguments is her belief that "the left will have to challenge its own orthodoxy that defines racism as something that wholly benefits whites and solely victimizes people of color." In this podcast, she explains why. We also talk about:- Why Heather, an African-American woman, worked for John Edwards rather than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in 2008- The lame presidency of The West Wing's Josiah Bartlet- Whether the wealthy are actually able to buy the political outcomes they want (spoiler: I'm skeptical)- How racism has been used as a tool to discredit government action- Whether Barack Obama's presidency has led to more racial division in AmericaAnd much more. This is a fascinating conversation about some genuinely tricky topics. It's left me with a lot to think about, and I believe it'll do the same for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest on this episode is Jesse Eisenberg — who you may know as Lex Luthor in Batman V. Superman, Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, or Daniel Atlas in the just-released Now You See Me 2.I was apprehensive about this interview. I haven't interviewed many movie stars. But this turned out to be one of the most natural, easy, and interesting conversations I've had for the show. Eisenberg is a cerebral Jewish writer who sees the world through the lens of sociolology and has a lot of trouble relaxing. So we had a lot to talk about, including:- Jewish humor and the dangers of assimilation- How it's different to write for the page than the stage- Whether Eisenberg has become happier as he's become more successful- What he learned backpacking through China- Why his family never takes vacations- How he turns the tables on fans who stop him in the street- Why he thinks it's easier to ask extremely personal questions of total strangers, and why it's worth doing- How his training as an actor helps him understand Donald TrumpAnd much more. So, so much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jessica Valenti is the founder of Feministing, a columnist at the Guardian, and the author of the new book "Sex Object." She's also a friend from the early days of blogging. In this podcast, we talk about the early days of blogging, as well as how the internet has changed as the conversation has moved from comment sections to the social web. Jessica's insight here — that in comment sections, trolling was something you did, while on Twitter, a troll is something you are — is powerful, and I've been thinking about it since our conversation. We also talk about:- How feminism was different when Jessica started her blog- How she sees the fights over trigger warnings and political correctness- What it's like to write a book where you reveal some of your deepest secrets to the whole world- The advice Jessica wishes she was given at 15- Whether perceptions of Hillary Clinton are influenced by sexism- Why she rereads the same few books over and overAnd, as always, there's much more. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Moby's new memoir, Porcelain, is a great read for policy wonks. Really.It's less a history of music than a history of New York in the 80s and 90s, and a reflection on how density, crime, racial and sexual marginalization, and lax zoning policy created the conditions for an explosion of creativity. No one would want to recreate those conditions today. But as a non-New Yorker, Moby has written one of the only tracts I've seen that helps explain why so many are nostalgic for that era in NYC history. Moby is, more broadly, a smart, thoughtful guy with a lot to say about art, science fiction, and animal rights. And his story carries a lot of hope for anyone trying to make it in a creative profession today: it's amazing how little he needed to get started in music, and as he explains, even less is needed now. If you're an aspiring artist, Moby's argument is definitely worth hearing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom Perez is President Obama's Secretary of Labor. He is also, according to the New York Times, on Hillary Clinton's shortlist for the vice presidency.I spoke with Perez about his path to the Labor Department, the powers of the Secretary of Labor, the push for a $15 minimum wage, the future of unions, a universal basic income, and much more. Perez sees his role as pushing a new contract between the government, employers, and workers, and in this episode, we delve deep into that vision.This is a policy-heavy conversation with arguably the most activist member of Obama's cabinet, and a leader who may be central to the next presidential administration, too. I think you'll enjoy it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last year, Andrew Sullivan quit blogging — the medium he had done so much to create. And you know what? He was pretty damn happy about it. He was taking walks, meditating, exercising, reading, and generally living the good life. Of course, then Donald Trump just had to go and drag him back into the fray...In this extremely, extremely fun conversation, I talked with Andrew about:- His 10-day silent meditation retreat- His central role pushing gay marriage from a fringe idea to a constitutional right- What it was like being an HIV-positive writer during the height of the plague, and how the experience deepened his faith- Why he believes in God- Whether you can build a media business based off of advertising- How his thinking on Obama has changed since 2008- What he thinks is so unusually dangerous about Donald Trump- Why a politics based on how people feel scares himAnd much more. This is one of the most fun conversations I've had for this show. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There is no budget wonk in Washington with a resume as thick as Alice Rivlin's. She was the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office. She was the director of President Bill Clinton's Office of Management and Budget. She was vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. She was a member of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. She's co-authored policies with Paul Ryan, served as president of the American Economic Association, and, in 2008, was named as one of the greatest public servants of the last 25 years by the Council for Excellence in Government.It's a helluva career.In this podcast, I talk with her about that career, including:- Why she became an economist in the first place- How economists think about problems- How a sexist senator almost blocked her appointment to the Congressional Budget Office, and how an angry stripper saved her nomination- What the Congressional Budget Office does, and why it's so quietly powerful- What she's learned working with Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Paul Ryan- Why Washington's policy discussion has become more sophisticated in recent decades, and whether that's even a good thingAnd, as always, much more. If you're interested in how policy is really made in Washington, you should listen to this interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Arianna Huffington is, of course, the editor and namesake of the Huffington Post, one of the true juggernauts of the new media world. But her path to that position has been a winding one. She was a prominent conservative — and a confidante of Newt Gingrich — in the 1990s. Her first web site was actually dedicated to persuading Bill Clinton to resign from the presidency. The Huffington Post came later, and the stress of it nearly destroyed her. After fainting from exhaustion and seriously injuring herself, she embarked on a quest to reevaluate both her and America's attitude towards work, towards sleep, and towards wellness. The result, she says, has made her a better leader — and a more well-rested one. Arianna and I also talk about:- How she launched the Huffington Post- Her strategy for persuading celebrities and experts to contribute to her site, often for free- What she learned launching versions of the Huffington Post in 15 other countries- How she knows when she's burnt out- How Huffington Post reinvented itselffor the age of social media- Why she doesn't believe in death- Her favorite books And much more. Enjoy!This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/EZRA to stream hundreds of courses for free! And by MeUndies. Visit MeUndies.com/EZRA for 20% off your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You could fill a podcast just reciting Robert Reich's biography. Rhodes Scholar. Assistant to U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork. Director of policy planning at the Federal Trade Commission under Carter. Secretary of Labor for Bill Clinton. Candidate for governor of Massachusetts. Co-founder of the American Prospect (where I got my first job in journalism!). Member of Barack Obama's economic transition team. Author of bestselling book after bestselling book. Professor. Viral video star. Documentary maker.More recently, Reich has emerged as perhaps the most persuasive (and, on Facebook, widely shared) surrogate for Bernie Sanders. It's a turn that likely would have surprised Reich's younger self — he worked with Hillary Clinton in college, was close friends with Bill Clinton at Oxford, and served Secretary of Labor during Bill Clinton's first term.Among the topics Reich and I cover:- His early relationship with the Clintons, including the time he went on a date with Hillary Clinton- His effort to create an experimental, participatory alternative to college at Dartmouth- The three policies he would change first to curb inequality- The story behind his co-founding of the American Prospect — the magazine that gave me my first job in journalism- What Bernie Sanders is like in person, and how that does or doesn't differ from his public persona- How to communicate effectively about public policy- Whether inequality or political polarization is the root cause of government dysfunction- His relationship with his mentor, John Kenneth GalbraithAnd there is, honestly, much, much more. Reich is, as you'll hear, an incredible storyteller, a sharp thinker, and a very fun guy to talk to, Enjoy!This episode of The Ezra Klein Show is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus. Visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/EZRA to watch hundreds of courses for free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When I first met Bruce Friedrich, he was running PETA's awareness campaigns. Yeah, those campaigns — the ones where naked people stuffed themselves in saran wrap and cages, and where wounded chickens limped outside KFCs.He was also one of the smartest, most informed, and most thoughtful experts I'd found on animal suffering. He had immersed himself in a subject most of us — myself very much included — would prefer to ignore, and he had learned some surprising things, including that vegetarianism was probably worse for animal welfare than cutting out eggs but keeping beef.Since then, Friedrich has become director of the Good Food Institute, as well as a founding partner in New Crop Capital, an investment fund that backs companies creating alternatives to animal-based protein. In this podcast, we talk at length about:- Why you can't trust the humane labels on eggs- Friedrich's path to becoming a food-tech investor- Why Bill Gates and the Google founders are investing in lab-grown meat- How the market for plant-based proteins has changed- Why the all-or-nothing frame around vegetarianism is counterproductive- Why eating eggs is much worse for animal suffering than eating beef- Whether we can really solve global warming without looking at our food choicesAnd, of course, much more. This was, for me, a fascinating conversation that is already changing the way I eat. I hope it does the same for you. This episode is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus. Visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/EZRA to stream hundreds of courses for free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Note: If you saw this twice, this is a reissue of a previous episode, with corrected audio.Since starting his site Stratechery in 2013, Ben Thompson has established himself as one of the smartest and most thoughtful analysts at the intersection of media, business, and technology. I’ve become addicted to his commentary, as have many of my colleagues.So getting to geek out with Ben on these topics is a lot of fun. In this conversation, we discuss a couple of issues very close to my heart, including:Whether you can still make it as an individual blogger — Ben is showing you can, but the path has really changed;How to make money as a modern media company;Ben's time working for Apple and Microsoft and what he learned about both companies and their cultures;Why the Innovator’s Dilemma is worth reading even if you think you already know what it says;Why so few companies advertise on podcasts;Why the most important piece of writing on your site is the second one a reader finds;And much, much more.I enjoyed this conversation tremendously, I hope you do too. As always, please do me a big favor and share this podcast with your friends, put it on Facebook, on Twitter, Snapchat, wherever. And please send me your feedback at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Note: There was a technical issue with the first upload of this show, please re-download if you got to it early.Since starting his site Stratechery in 2013, Ben Thompson has established himself as one of the smartest and most thoughtful analysts at the intersection of media, business, and technology. I’ve become addicted to his commentary, as have many of my colleagues.So getting to geek out with Ben on these topics is a lot of fun. In this conversation, we discuss a couple of issues very close to my heart, including:Whether you can still make it as an individual blogger — Ben is showing you can, but the path has really changed;How to make money as a modern media company;Ben's time working for Apple and Microsoft and what he learned about both companies and their cultures;Why the Innovator’s Dilemma is worth reading even if you think you already know what it says;Why so few companies advertise on podcasts;Why the most important piece of writing on your site is the second one a reader finds;And much, much more.I enjoyed this conversation tremendously, I hope you do too. As always, please do me a big favor and share this podcast with your friends, put it on Facebook, on Twitter, Snapchat, wherever. And please send me your feedback at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is an interview you all have been asking for since day one. Grover Norquist is the head of Americans for Tax Reform, the creator of the no-new-taxes pledge that virtually every Republican officeholder has signed, and the founder of the Wednesday meetings that bring together basically every group of note on the American right. Newt Gingrich has called him "the single most effective conservative activist in the country." MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell called him "the most powerful man in America who does not sleep in the White House."He’s also, in my experience, one of the savviest observers of American politics around — in a town where people tend to be tactical and reactive, he’s unusually strategic and forward-looking, which is something he talks a bit about in the discussion. Among the other topics we cover:- Norquist's time in Angola and Mozambique helping anti-communist rebels - Whether the rise of Trump shows the conservative base isn’t quite as committed to small government and low taxes as Norquist would hope - Norquist's strategy for building durable political coalitions- Why Norquist thinks Silicon Valley will eventually turn Republican, and what he's doing to make it happen- That time Norquist did stand-up comedy at Burning Man Whether you’re on the left or the right, you should understand how Grover Norquist thinks, and I’m grateful to him for taking so much time to let us into his worldview here. As always, please, if you’re enjoying this podcast, share it with your friends, put it on the Twitters, on Facebook, email it around — it means a lot to me, and it does a lot to help the show!This episode is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus. Visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/EZRA to stream hundreds of courses in subjects like photography, physics, and history for free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Neera Tanden is CEO of the Center for American Progress — perhaps the most influential left-leaning think tank in Washington. Before that, though, she was the policy director for both Hillary Clinton's Senate office and 2008 campaign, as well as a senior advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services during the drafting of Obamacare. She’s also someone many of you requested to hear on the program.Neera Tanden has had a unique vantage point on the Democratic frontrunner. Tanden is a Hillary supporter and a strong one, but she's worked for Clinton for a long time, and so has a perspective on her former boss that most people don't get to see. And that's something I'm interested in. There is, I think it's fair to say, a wide gap between Clinton's reputation as a campaigner as a politician and her reputation as a boss and colleague. And it's that gap that I Tanden is able to shine some light on. Among the topic we cover are:- What it was like for Tanden growing up on welfare, and whether she thinks welfare reform was good for the poor- How she met Hillary Clinton, and why she initially thought of herself as "a Bill Clinton person." - Why Clinton's public reputation confuses Tanden- Whether Washington is governed more by individuals or structural forces- What she thinks of criticisms of Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs- Why she thinks money has a more poisonous influence in Congress than in the White House- What her favorite think tank papers on both the left and the right are- What policy books she thinks everyone should readTanden is a Hillary Clinton supporter, and a proud one. And in this podcast, she talks about what it's like to actually work for and with Clinton. This episode is brought to you by The Great The Great Courses Plus is offering listeners a chance to stream hundreds of their courses-including The Fundamentals of Photography-free when you visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/EZRA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Chang has driven many of the most important food trends of the last decade. His Momofuku empire has put pork belly on your plate, ramen on your corner, and bagel bombs in your local coffee shop. He's received four James Beard awards, been named a GQ Man of the Year, and appeared on Time's 100 most influential people list.He's also just a smart, funny, thoughtful and profane guy. In this episode, Ezra and David cover a lot of ground, including:- Whether restauranteurs should be able to patent recipes- Why two weeks more in one of New York's best restaurants could have killed Chang's career- The first recipe Chang ever truly invented- Why his R&D lab is entirely vegan- Whether eating animals is ethical- Whether big farms can be humane- The joys of Buddhist temple cuisine- How Chang hired Momofuku's first employees, and what he looks for when hiring today- How nuns made the best potato chips Chang has ever had- The one recipe Chang thinks everyone should knowThis episode is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus. Visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/EZRA to stream Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries and hundreds of other courses for free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cory Booker is a United States senator from New Jersey, the only vegan in Congress, and the author of the new book "United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good". In this conversation, Ezra and Booker go deep on Booker's history and unusual approach to politics. Topics covered include:- How Booker's parents used a sting operation to desegregate a neighborhood, and why they did it- Why Ezra doesn't eat breakfast- Booker's disagreements with Ta-Nehisi Coates- How a 10-day fast led to a (temporary) peace with Booker's worst political enemy- How spirituality informs Booker's approach to politics- The lessons Booker took from his early losses in with elections and city council fights- What it's like to be the only vegan in Congress- Why Booker hates penguins- Whether it's cynical or simply realistic to doubt America's political institutions- Which books have influenced Booker mostAnd much, much more. Oh, and Ezra gives Booker some advice on productivity apps, drawn from the weird, possibly wrongheaded, way he lives his own life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Want to understand what's happened to the Republican Party? Then listen to this discussion.Michael Needham is the CEO of Heritage Action for America, where he's been one of the activists at the center of the fight between the Republican establishment and the conservative movement that's trying to overturn it. The Wall Street Journal called Needham "the strategist at the center of the shutdown" and the Washington Post wrote that "Before Donald Trump began terrorizing the Republican establishment, there was Michael Needham."But Needham is no fan of Trump, either. In this discussion, Needham talks with Ezra about the roots of Trumpism, whether the conservative insurgents have released forces they can't control, and what kinds of statesmen he thinks American politics has lost. Also, Ezra finds someone who is even more confident in the healing, unifying powers of public policy than he is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This was an amazing interview.Jim Yong Kim is the president of the World Bank — the massive, multilateral institution dedicated to eradicating poverty. But Kim is also a public-health legend: he was a co-founder of Partners in Health, which revolutionized how we treat the world's poor. He's won a MacArthur Genius award, chaired the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, led Dartmouth University, and been named one of the 50 most powerful people in the world by Forbes Magazine.It's a pretty solid resume. But solid resumes don't make for great conversations, and this was, to my delight, a truly great conversation. Kim talks in detail about the alienation he felt growing up Asian in America in the 1970s, his activism in college as he worked to find his own identity, the surprising lessons he learned when he returned to South Korea to reconnect with his roots, his genuinely world-changing partnership with Paul Farmer, how he's from being a doctor treating the world's poorest patients directly to the manager of a 15,000-person organization, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Political science is a misunderstood discipline. It's often laughed off by people who think it's ridiculous that something as human and contingent and unpredictable as politics can be called a science. Chemistry is a science. Politics is a hobby. Politics isn't chemistry. But it is something that can be studied rigorously, and understood using models, evidence and testable theories. In this episode, Theda Skocpol, a political scientist at Harvard (and a former chair of the American Political Science Association!) explains how political scientists learn about politics, what makes their work different both from pundits and from each other, and how it's helped her understand this insane election. She also talks through some of her research on what really drives the tea party and the ways in which the Koch Brothers are setting up an organization that's almost become a shadow political party of its own. Don't miss it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill Gates is one of those people for whom "needs no introduction" is actually true. The polymathic Microsoft founder now leads the world's largest and most important private foundation, and he's predicting that we're on the cusp of the energy breakthrough that's going to save the world. He also talks about the controversial idea that technological innovation is slowing down, assesses how close we are to true artificial intelligence, and explains why you really want to save being sick for 20 years from now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the New York Times profiled Tony Podesta, the headline was simply: "Tony Podesta, superlobbyist." Podesta is head of the Podesta group, and considered by many to be the most powerful, or at least one of the most powerful, lobbyists in Washington. Companies turn to him in their greatest time of need — he represented BP after the oil spill, and Bank of America after the financial crisis. Lobbying is not exactly the most popular profession. And yet, DC is full of lobbyists — they're a genuinely important part of how decisions get made, of how information is spread, of what policies end up happening. Podesta explains what it's like to be a lobbyist, what he actually does during the day, and in a world where his profession is a bit of a dirty word, why it feels to him like a good thing to do. It's an illuminating conversation about a profession that's widely loathed, incredibly important, and frequently misunderstood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Maddow is, of course, the host of MSNBC's top-rated, Emmy-award winning primetime news show and the bestselling author of "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power." But Maddow took a winding path to cable news — a path that included scheming to disrupt skinhead rallies, radical AIDS activism at the height of the plague, a gig as a sidekick on drivetime morning radio, and a stint at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar (where she, um, may have temporarily borrowed some very rare books).In this conversation, Ezra and Rachel talk about that path — and they also cover her favorite graphic novels, the best time to neuter a dog, and why part of Rachel's process of preparing for her show is to avoid reading op-ed columns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices