The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s address on the Iran war and the playbook that has defined his career in business and politics when confronted with a crisis: escalate and blame others. The panel discusses how that same playbook is being applied to the Iran conflict with potentially disastrous results. “He’s immune to any possibility of accountability,” the staff writer Evan Osnos says. “That became not just one of the ways he tells his own story but actually how he imagines history will unfold in his hands.”This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Case for War Fails to Mention How to Win It,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign,” by Kyle Chayka “He Helped Stop Iran from Getting the Bomb,” by David D. Kirkpatrick “How Pakistan Became a Major Player in Peace Negotiations Between the U.S. and Iran,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Spectacle of War and the Struggle to Protest,” by Jay Caspian Kang The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Thousands of federal prosecutors have been fired or have resigned from their roles since Pam Bondi took over as Attorney General. She has made no secret of weaponizing the Justice Department to pursue Donald Trump’s vendettas. One of those prosecutors is Troy Edwards, who quit a senior national-security position in the Eastern District of Virginia. As an assistant U.S. attorney in DC, Edwardshad won convictions against members of the Oath Keepers for January 6th-related offenses. Edwards is also the son-in-law of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, and, when the Justice Department indicted Comey on grounds widely seen as flimsy, Edwards knew he had reached his red line. (The charges were quickly dismissed, though without prejudice.) The New Yorker’s legal correspondent Ruth Marcus talks with Edwards about his decision to leave, how he broke it to his family, and why he thinks other prosecutors should not follow his lead. Further reading: “Pam Bondi’s Contempt for Congress,” by Ruth Marcus “The Flimsy, Dangerous Indictment of James Comey,” by Ruth Marcus “Pam Bondi’s Power Play,” by Ruth Marcus The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable examines the potential for a “Blue Wave” in the 2026 midterms. The hosts are joined by Morris Katz, a twenty-six-year-old Democratic political strategist for Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine. Katz argues that for the Party to win a historic majority in the next election, it needs to embrace outsider candidates who refuse money from corporate PACs and aren’t “apologetic” about the government’s role in people’s lives. “We can run a campaign that says, ‘Donald Trump said he’d end forever war and lower costs and he hasn’t’—that will be successful,” Katz says. “I think even more successful would be that we are going to end forever wars, and we are going to lower costs by taking on monopolies—by taking on price gouging, by raising wages, by taxing billionaires more.” This week’s reading: “​​Donald Trump Is Breaking Up with Europe,” by Susan B. Glasser “How the War in Iran Became a Race to Stabilize the Global Economic Order,” by Sudarsan Raghavan “A Former Prisoner of the Iranian Regime Watches Trump’s War,” by Jason Rezaian “The Distant Promise of Iran’s Would-Be King,” by Azadeh Moaveni The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The reporter Cora Engelbrecht joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what life is like for the people of Iran as war unfolds. They talk about Engelbrecht’s reporting, which is based on dispatches from a dissident in Tehran who maintained contact during an internet blackout, and about how his account reveals some of the challenges of daily life under bombardment from the U.S. and Israel—and under a government that continues to police dissent. They also explore how the conflict has complicated the hopes of many Iranians who once saw foreign intervention as a path to liberation, and the growing fear that, whatever the outcome of the war, everyday citizens will continue to bear the cost.This week’s reading: “What the War Has Done to Iranians,” by Cora Engelbrecht “A Former Prisoner of the Iranian Regime Watches Trump’s War,” by Jason Rezaian “How Donald Trump May Have Sabotaged His Chances for a Deal with Iran,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Distant Promise of Iran’s Would-Be King,” by Azadeh Moaveni “Is Cuba Next?,” by Jon Lee Anderson The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The staff writer Jon Lee Anderson has reported from Cuba for many years, and recently wrote about the deteriorating economic conditions on the island. His newest piece for the magazine dives into the potential outcomes of Donald Trump’s desire to pursue regime change. Anderson explores the economic impact of the United States blocking Venezuelan oil from reaching Cuba, which could be a death knell for the Communist government. Anderson and David Remnick discuss the current negotiations between the two countries, Marco Rubio’s strategy, and what cards the Cuban government might still hold. “They’re going to go into this,” Anderson suggests, “like maybe a canny poker player.”Plus, the historian Ada Ferrer won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2022 book, “Cuba: An American History,” and she has one of the clearest views of the long and vexed relationship between the island and its giant neighbor. Ferrer left Cuba as an infant, coming to the United States with her mother in 1963 when Fidel Castro’s regime was arguably at its peak. David Remnick talks with Ferrer about the impact of U.S. sanctions, the economic collapse of Cuba, and what Donald Trump’s threat of a “takeover” means to the Cuban people and to Cuban Americans in the U.S.The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable is off today, and will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy an episode of The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast about the FX series “Love Story,” which drops audiences into the lives of one of the most talked-about couples of the nineties: J.F.K., Jr., and the style icon Carolyn Bessette. The hosts Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, who are staff writers and critics at The New Yorker, discuss how the show re-creates the look and fashion of the era in granular detail while reducing the relationship itself to a generic fairy tale. “Love Story” ’s focus on style underscores how much the Kennedy legacy lives in aesthetics, which risks obscuring some of the darker chapters of its history. “It does seem like we have ever more efficiently stripped the Kennedys and their image, and their style, from any notions of political power,” Cunningham says. “The look of something and the sort of moral thrust of something are not always one to one working in parallel.”New episodes of “Critics at Large” drop every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the escalating standoff between the A.I. company Anthropic and the Department of War. They consider recent reporting on the use of Claude—Anthropic’s family of large language models—in military operations in Venezuela and Iran, and how that news has pushed the company’s relationship with the Pentagon to a breaking point. They also explore how the tech industry is responding to the conflict between the Trump Administration and Anthropic, and the thorny question of whether A.I. should be subject to greater safeguards and more oversight than previous technological innovations.This week’s reading: “The Pentagon Went to War with Anthropic. What’s Really at Stake?,” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus “Israel’s Gulf-State Gamble in the Iran War,” by Ruth Margalit “The Iran War Is Another Reason to Quit Oil,” by Bill McKibben “Trump’s Mass-Detention Campaign,” by Jonathan Blitzer “How Should We Remember the Hippies?,” by Jay Caspian Kang The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the book “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, argues that social-media platforms are detrimental to youths’ well-being, and that society needs to treat them as literally addictive. It has spent nearly a hundred weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and has helped galvanize a movement seeking limits to social media in legislatures, in school districts, and in the courts. David Remnick speaks with Haidt about an Australian law to verify the age of social-media users, the first of its kind in the world, and about lawsuits in California that are aiming to pin liability for harms on social-media companies themselves. Further reading: “World Happiness Report 2026,” featuring a contribution from Jonathan Haidt and other researchers “Mountains of Evidence,” by Jonathan Haidt The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable considers how the ideological commitments of Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, are at play in the conflict with Iran. Their guest, the journalist Katherine Stewart, has covered the MAGA right and is the author of “Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.” The panel discusses how Christian nationalism has moved from the fringes of the culture to the center of American military power, with Hegseth driving the shift. “This is a movement that at its core has never believed in democracy,” Stewart says. “It rejects the principles of equality and pluralism, and, frankly, the rule of law that represents the best of the American promise.”This week’s reading: “The War Trump Doesn’t Want to Talk About,” by Susan B. Glasser “Trump’s Inexcusable Unpreparedness for the Iranian Oil Crisis,” by John Cassidy “What the Selection of Iran’s New Leader Might Mean for the War,” by Robin Wright “War in the Age of the Online ‘Information Bomb,’ ” by Kyle Chayka “How Putin Views Trump’s War on Iran,” by Joshua Yaffa “The Limits of Iran’s Proxy Empire,” by Sudarsan Raghavan The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Kristi Noem’s removal from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security. They talk about the lead-up to her firing—which included accusations of fiscal mismanagement and self-promotion—and her controversial tenure as the head of one of the largest and most powerful departments during Donald Trump’s second Presidential term. They also explore the history and evolution of the Department of Homeland Security and how its founding in the wake of the September 11th attacks laid the groundwork for the sweeping—and, according to some legal experts, unconstitutional—powers it wields today. This week’s reading: “Kristi Noem’s Fireable Offenses,” by Jonathan Blitzer “How Donald Trump’s Iran War Is Destabilizing the Gulf,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Zombie Regulator,” by E. Tammy Kim “What the Selection of Iran’s New Leader Might Mean for the War," by Robin Wright “The G.O.P.’s Latest Voter-Suppression Plan,” by Sue Halpern The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

As Iran’s retaliation hit American allies throughout the Middle East this week, David Remnick was joined by two New Yorker writers with decades of experience reporting from the region. Robin Wright has reported from Iran extensively, and she met with Ali Khamenei before he became the Supreme Leader of Iran; Dexter Filkins covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has been reporting on the Pentagon and military readiness. Filkins and Wright discuss the possibilities for future leadership in Iran; the Administration’s chaotic statements in regard to its goals and time frame; and the economic impact of the war, which is already being felt around the globe. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses the war that the United States and Israel have started with Iran, how the conflict might evolve and affect the whole region, and the Trump Administration’s rationale for launching the strikes. “I don’t think we have yet heard a clear explanation of what this war is about, what they intend to achieve, what the strategic goals are, and how it’s supposed to end,” the staff writer Jane Mayer says. The group also reflects on the lessons that they learned while reporting on the Iraq War about how conflicts such as these can transform societies. This week’s reading: “Can Donald Trump Win a War with Iran If He Can’t Explain Why He Started It?,” by Susan B. Glasser “Do U.S. Presidents Have the Power to Declare War?,” by Jill Lepore “In the Texas Primaries, a Good Night for James Talarico, and a Bad One for John Cornyn,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “What Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Meant to Iran, and What Comes Next,” by Robin Wright “Has Trump Thought Through the Endgame in Iran?,” by Ishaan Tharoor 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.Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The foreign-affairs journalist Ishaan Tharoor joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the fallout from the United States’ joint military operation with Israel in Iran. They talk about the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—who was among the hundreds killed by drone and missile strikes—and how the country has retaliated against the U.S., Israel, and several of its Arab neighbors. Their conversation explores what comes next for the Iranian government and people, how the conflict fits into President Donald Trump’s broader foreign-policy vision, and whether this latest attempt at regime change in the Middle East is likely to succeed when past American interventions have failed. This week’s reading: “Has Trump Thought Through the Endgame in Iran?,” by Ishaan Tharoor “What Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Meant to Iran, and What Comes Next,” by Robin Wright “Trump’s Reckless Decision to Pursue Regime Change in Iran,” by Isaac Chotiner “Donald Trump Launches a War of ‘Epic Fury’ on Iran,” by Robin Wright “What Mehdi Mahmoudian Saw Inside the Iranian Prison System,” by Cora Engelbrecht The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor and self-proclaimed “Supreme Court nerd,” to examine President Trump’s increasing defiance of the Supreme Court. The panel discusses whether the Court’s strong rebuke of the President’s tariff policy obscures a broader pattern of expanding executive power through the use of emergency “shadow docket” rulings, a kind of shortcut for dealing with emergency requests. “I think that’s where the Justices have shown the most inclination to vote in ways that might be inconsistent as a matter of legal principle, but consistent as a matter of partisan political preference,” Vladeck says. Vladeck is the author of “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.” This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s State of the Union Was Long and Wrong,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Supreme Court’s Complicated Takedown of Trump’s Tariffs,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “The Right-Wing Nonprofit Serving A.I. Slop for America’s Birthday,” by Jessica Winter “The Media Merger You Should Actually Care About,” by Jon Allsop “Donald Trump’s Pantomime United Nations,” by Ishaan Tharoor The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Joshua Rothman joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the political and cultural fallout from the release of millions of documents from the criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. They talk about how years of institutional failures and scandals involving élites have shaped the way the material is being interpreted, why the sheer volume of information is raising more questions than answers, and how the fragmented and often chaotic flow of documents has left many Americans trying to make sense of the story for themselves. They also explore what the reaction to the files reveals about a growing belief that the powerful operate with relative impunity—and about the deepening cynicism toward institutions and powerful élites. This week’s reading: “Are We Living in the Age of Epstein?,” by Joshua Rothman “Donald Trump’s State of the Union Was Long and Wrong,” by Susan B. Glasser “James Talarico Puts His Faith in Texas Voters,” by Tad Friend “Donald Trump’s Pantomime United Nations,” by Ishaan Tharoor “The Supreme Court’s Complicated Takedown of Trump’s Tariffs,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Tucker Carlson has long been a standard-bearer for far-right views, such as the racist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement.” He recently did a chatty interview with the white supremacist Nick Fuentes, an admirer of Hitler. And yet, Carlson started out as a respected, well-connected, albeit contrarian, political journalist. Jason Zengerle, who recently joined The New Yorker as a staff writer, talks with David Remnick about his new book, “Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.” They trace how Carlson’s sense of personal resentment toward the establishment grew; how launching his own website radicalized his politics in the years before MAGA; and his political ambitions as a potential heir to Donald Trump. “I think, if Tucker Carlson concludes that J. D. Vance can’t get elected President, maybe he has to do it himself,” Zengerle says. “So much of politics now is just being a media figure and being an entertainer. And Tucker does those things very well. . . . I think our politics are at a place where that really doesn’t seem as outrageous as it would have even just a couple years ago.” This segment originally aired on January 23, 2025. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses the upcoming State of the Union address and the public’s shift against Donald Trump on two of his signature issues: the economy and immigration. What pitch might Trump make for himself and the Republican Party heading into the midterms? “On the economy, he’s in the same fix Biden was in,” the staff writer Jane Mayer says. “He's trying to yell at people and tell them, ‘You are better off than you think you are,’ and that, we know, doesn't work.” Plus, the group examines what the retirement of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress and what the Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s opposition to a wealth tax in California can tell us about ideological fissures within both parties. This week’s reading: “The E.P.A. Rescinds a Landmark Finding,” by Bill McKibben “The Chaos of an ICE Detention,” by Jordan Salama “​Presidents’ Days: From Obama to Trump,” by David Remnick “Trump Is Still Deporting People Wherever He Wants,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Jeffrey Epstein Files Are Peter Mandelson’s Final Disgrace,” by John Cassidy “Zohran Mamdani, the Everywhere Mayor,” by Molly Fischer The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In January, the Justice Department released over three million documents, including many redacted e-mails, related to Jeffrey Epstein. “Should we share the Julie Brown text with Alan [Dershowitz],” Epstein wrote in one note to a lawyer. “She is going to start trouble. Asking for victims etc.” Brown’s reporting on Epstein for the Miami Herald, and her revelations about the federal plea deal he received, had an enormous impact on public perception of Epstein and his ties to Trump. Brown joins David Remnick to discuss the latest tranche of redacted e-mails, which show, as she reported, that Trump knew about his friend’s crimes far earlier than he has admitted. Brown and Remnick also talk about Epstein’s relationship with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and why she does not believe that Epstein died by suicide. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s recent “explosion of the ego” and tendency toward megalomania, and they consider how the evolution of autocratic regimes in history can help us to predict how the rest of his Presidency may unfold. They are joined by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, who is the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” The group looks at how, as autocrats’ popularity decreases—as Trump’s has recently in the polls—these figures develop paranoia and entrench themselves in untenable positions, a phenomenon called “autocratic backfire.” “The key is that they end up constructing a kind of echo chamber. And so they overestimate their own abilities,” Ben-Ghiat says. “They start to believe their own propaganda.” This week’s reading: “ ‘If We Don’t Have Free Speech, Then We Just Don’t Have a Free Country,’ ” by Susan B. Glasser “Pam Bondi’s Contempt for Congress,” by Ruth Marcus “Is There a Remedy for Presidential Profiteering?,” by David D. Kirkpatrick “What Does Xi Jinping Want?” by Isaac Chotiner “Bad Bunny’s All-American Super Bowl Halftime Show,” by Kelefa Sanneh “Jeffrey Epstein’s Bonfire of the Élites,” by John Cassidy The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss his reporting on Anthropic, the artificial-intelligence company behind the large language model Claude. They talk about Lewis-Kraus’s visits to the company’s San Francisco headquarters, what drew him to its research on interpretability and model behavior, and how its founding by former OpenAI leaders reflects deeper fissures within the A.I. industry. They also examine what “A.I. safety” looks like in theory and in practice, the range of views among rank-and-file employees about the technology’s future, and whether the company’s commitment to building safe and ethical systems can endure amid the pressures to scale and compete. This week’s reading: “What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know, Either,” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus “Is There a Remedy for Presidential Profiteering?,” by David D. Kirkpatrick “Bad Bunny’s All-American Super Bowl Halftime Show,” by Kelefa Sanneh “Listening to Joe Rogan,” by David Remnick “What Do We Want from a Protest Song?,” by Mitch Therieau The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ben Shapiro, the host of his eponymous podcast and the co-founder of the conservative website the Daily Wire, has lambasted the left and the Democratic Party for decades. Recently, though, Shapiro has taken to criticizing some of the loudest voices in the MAGA universe, including Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. The rift is over the acceptance and promulgation of conspiracy theories and, in particular, the normalization of antisemitism. Shapiro discusses the Epstein files and what they show—and do not show—about the powerful people connected to Jeffrey Epstein. The belief in conspiracies of the élite reflects “people’s desire to abdicate control over their own lives,” Shapiro tells David Remnick. They discuss Shapiro’s adherence to the conservative value of personal responsibility, and how he squares that with MAGA and its champions. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s threats to “nationalize” elections in fifteen states, the recent F.B.I. raid to seize 2020 voting records at an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and the ways in which the Administration might meddle with a free and fair vote in 2026. Their guest, Richard Hasen, is the director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at U.C.L.A.’s School of Law. “I actually think that now is the time to be preparing for this,” Hasen says. “I think states and localities should think about getting injunctions from federal courts against Donald Trump to prevent him from interfering with the tabulation of ballots.”This week’s reading: “Donald Trump Already Knows the 2026 Election Is ‘Rigged,’ ” by Susan B. Glasser “Dan Bongino’s Podcast Homecoming,” by Jon Allsop “Why the D.H.S. Disaster in Minneapolis Was Predictable,” by Jonathan Blitzer “Is ICE Leading Us Into a Constitutional Crisis?,” by Isaac Chotiner “How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post,” by Ruth Marcus “ ‘Melania’ Is a Forty-Million-Dollar Journey Into the Void,” by Lauren Collins “How Trump Is Debasing the Dollar and Eroding U.S. Economic Dominance,” by John Cassidy “Russia Is Swarming Europe with Young Agents,” by Ian Crouch The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Lauren Collins joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a new documentary about Melania Trump, which chronicles her life during the twenty days leading up to Donald Trump’s second Inauguration. They talk about the film’s glossy yet superficial portrait of the First Lady, who served as an executive producer, as well as its troubled rollout and poor critical reception. They also explore Melania’s tenure as First Lady and the contradictions at the center of her political identity as an immigrant married to a President whose anti-immigration rhetoric and policies have come to define both his Administration and the moment of the film’s release. This week’s reading: “ ‘Melania’ Is a Forty-Million-Dollar Journey Into the Void,” by Lauren Collins “What a ‘Melania’ Cinematographer Hoped to Accomplish,” by Isaac Chotiner “How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post,” by Ruth Marcus “Why the D.H.S. Disaster in Minneapolis Was Predictable,” by Jonathan Blitzer “Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion,” by David Kirkpatrick The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The staff writers Emily Witt and Ruby Cramer discuss the situation in Minneapolis, a city effectively under siege by militaristic federal agents. “This is a city where there’s a police force of about six hundred officers [compared] to three thousand federal agents,” Witt points out. Cramer shares her interview with Mayor Jacob Frey, who talks about how Minneapolis was just beginning to recover from the trauma of George Floyd’s murder and its aftermath, and with the police chief Brian O’Hara, who critiques the lack of discipline he sees from immigration-enforcement officers. Witt shares her interviews with two U.S. citizens who were detained after following an ICE vehicle; one describes an interrogation in which he was encouraged to identify protest organizers and undocumented people, in exchange for favors from immigration authorities. Ruby Cramer’s “The Mayor of an Occupied City” was published on January 23rd. Emily Witt’s “The Battle for Minneapolis” was published on January 25th. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable is joined by the journalist and historian Garrett Graff to trace how post-9/11 immigration policy, which led to a surge in Border Patrol hiring, set the stage for today’s crisis in Minneapolis. The panel examines how ICE and C.B.P., created to protect Americans from outside threats, have been unleashed in America’s cities as what Graff calls "a fascist secret police." “The Border Patrol has never been intended to be a force that is routinely interacting with American citizens,” Graff says. “Full stop, period, let alone routinely patrolling American cities.”This week’s reading: “Operation Trump Rehab,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Green Monster,” by Garrett Graff for Politico, 2014 “Why Minnesota Can’t Do More to Stop ICE,” by Garrett Graff for Wired “The Schoolchildren of Minneapolis,” by Emily Witt “What ICE Should Have Learned from the Fugitive Slave Act,” by Jelani Cobb “Do Federal Officials Really Have ‘Absolute Immunity’?,” by Isaac Chotiner “Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis,” by Vinson Cunningham “The Cruel Conditions of ICE’s Mojave Desert Detention Center,” by Oren Peleg “Maybe the United States Can Be One of Mark Carney’s ‘Middle Powers,’ ” by Bill McKibben “Trump’s Greenland Fiasco,” by Joshua Yaffa “What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizing—and Infighting,” by Charles Duhigg The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Charles Duhigg joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss why Republicans have been more successful than Democrats at building durable political coalitions. They talk about the difference between short-term mobilization and long-term organizing, why large-scale protests often fail to translate into lasting power, and how conservative groups have quietly built local infrastructure that may sustain the MAGA movement beyond Donald Trump’s Presidency. They also examine how the left’s efforts are impeded by debates over ideological purity, and whether a renewed focus on community-based organizing and pragmatic coalition-building could reshape progressive politics in the coming years. This week’s reading: “What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizing—and Infighting,” by Charles Duhigg “Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis,” by Vinson Cunningham “Do Federal Officials Really Have ‘Absolute Immunity’?,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Battle for Minneapolis,” by Emily Witt “The Cruel Conditions of ICE’s Mojave Desert Detention Center,” by Oren Peleg The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last October, Bari Weiss—best-known as a contrarian opinion writer who launched the right-leaning Free Press—was appointed the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. Donald Trump has called her new regime “the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.” The New Yorker staff writer Clare Malone wrote about Weiss’s hostile takeover of CBS for the January 26, 2026, issue of the magazine. In a conversation with David Remnick, Malone discusses her reporting on Weiss: how resigning from the New York Times launched Weiss to prominence as a crusader against what she has characterized as woke groupthink; how Weiss gained the support of Silicon Valley titans who had their own political grievances; and the headlines about Weiss’s rocky beginning as head of a news network, including the on-air travails of her new anchor, Tony Dokoupil. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland and his subsequent retreat. At Davos this week, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, characterized the episode as “a rupture in the world order.” To analyze how Trump’s rhetoric has heightened concerns about the durability of the transatlantic alliance, the Roundtable is joined by Carl Bildt, the co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the former Prime Minister of Sweden. “I think what we need to do as Europeans is to do our own thing,” Bildt says. “We now have a United States that, from our point of view, is unpredictable.” This week’s reading: “It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea,” by Susan B. Glasser “An Unhappy Anniversary: Trump’s Year in Office,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “The Overlooked Deaths of the Attack on Venezuela,” by Oriana van Praag “The Ice Curtain,” by Ian Frazier “How Europe Can Respond to Trump’s Greenland Imperialism,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Congresswoman Criminalized for Visiting ICE Detainees,” by Jonathan Blitzer The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the role the church has played in sustaining protest movements—and whether effective political dissent in the United States is possible without involvement from religious institutions. They talk about how churches have historically provided moral authority, infrastructure, and community to movements for social change, why those qualities have been difficult to replicate in the age of social media and mass protest, and what is lost when dissent becomes sporadic or primarily digital. They also examine whether churches still have the widespread credibility and organizing capacity to anchor protest today, and what it would take for religious institutions to once again embrace a central place in modern political life. This week’s reading: "Can American Churches Lead a Protest Movement Under Trump?," by Jay Caspian Kang "Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News," by Clare Malone "An Unhappy Anniversary: Trump’s Year in Office," by Amy Davidson Sorkin "The Overlooked Deaths of the Attack on Venezuela," by Oriana van Praag "Why Trump Supports Protesters in Tehran but Not in Minneapolis," by Benjamin Wallace-Wells The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Before becoming a podcaster, Jennifer Welch had a successful career as an interior designer and co-starred in a reality show on Bravo. But, since 2022, she and Angie Sullivan, her co-host on the podcast “I’ve Had It,” have gained millions of fans as a sounding board for left-leaning political frustrations. These aren’t only concerns about MAGA but also about the Democratic establishment that she views as captive to a corporate agenda. Welch talks with David Remnick about her contentious interviews with Cory Booker and Rahm Emanuel, her belief in “dark woke,” and how a white Oklahoma woman in her fifties emerged as one of the most provocative voices on today’s left. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, for a conversation about the pressures facing American democracy, the security of elections, and how these domestic tensions interact with the collapse of international norms. Nearly a decade after his prescient 2016 column for the Washington Post, “This is How Fascism Comes to America,” Kagan contends that the U.S. has moved beyond the warning and into a full democratic crisis. “There is no chance in the world that Donald Trump is gonna allow himself to lose in the 2026 elections, because that will be the end of his ability to wield total power in the United States,” Kagan says.This week’s reading: “The Minnesota War Zone Is Trump’s Most Trumpian Accomplishment,” by Susan B. Glasser “What It’s Like to Be Trump’s Closest Ally Right Now,” by Sam Knight “A D.H.S. Shooting Puts Portland Back Under the Microscope,” by James Ross Gardner “Jay Powell, the Prepster Banker Who Is Standing Up to Trump,” by John Cassidy “How Donald Trump Has Transformed ICE,” Isaac Chotiner “How Colombia’s President Reached an Uneasy Détente with Donald Trump,” by Jon Lee Anderson “Iran’s Regime Is Unsustainable,” by Robin Wright “The Supreme Court Gets Back to Work,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “The Lights Are Still On in Venezuela,” by Armando Ledezma “How Marco Rubio Went from “Little Marco” to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler,” by Dexter Filkins The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Marco Rubio’s reëmergence as one of the most powerful, and most transformed, figures in Donald Trump’s second term. They talk about Rubio’s unlikely ascent to the dual roles of Secretary of State and national-security adviser, his journey from outspoken Trump critic to loyal enforcer, and what that evolution reveals about how power operates inside the Administration. They also examine Rubio’s central role in the U.S. abduction of the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, the dismantling of the State Department’s foreign-aid infrastructure, and the department’s growing reliance on coercion over diplomacy. This week’s reading: “How Marco Rubio Went from “Little Marco” to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler,” by Dexter Filkins “Denmark Is Sick of Being Bullied by Trump,” by Margaret Talbot “Iran’s Regime Is Unsustainable,” by Robin Wright “The Supreme Court Gets Back to Work,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “What Comes After the Protests,” by Jay Caspian Kang The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

U.S. intervention in other countries, whether overt or covert, is by no means new, and Daniel Immerwahr notes that the open embrace of expansionism by the President and associates such as Stephen Miller goes back to the nineteenth century. Immerwahr is a professor at Northwestern University and the author of the 2019 best-seller “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.” He discusses Trump’s disdain for international law; tensions between the U.S. and Russia and China; and the historical link between imperialism and appeals to masculine pride. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices