The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker
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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Join The New Yorker’s writers and editors for reporting, insight, and analysis of the most pressing political issues of our time. On Mondays, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, presents conversations and feature stories about current events. On Wednesdays, the senior editor Tyler Foggatt goes deep on a consequential political story via far-reaching interviews with staff writers and outside experts. And, on Fridays, the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the latest developments in Washington and beyond, offering an encompassing understanding of this moment in American politics.

  1. 2D AGO

    What Broke the U.S.-China Relationship?

    Michael Luo, an executive editor of The New Yorker, joins the show as guest host. He sits down with Peter Hessler, a staff writer who spent more than a decade living in and writing about China. They discuss the Sinophobic history behind the Trump Administration’s threats to revoke Chinese students’ visas, how the COVID pandemic reshaped the U.S.-China relationship, and how escalating tensions between the United States and China stand to change the global order.  This week’s reading: “The Victims of the Trump Administration’s China-Bashing,” by Michael Luo “The Uncertain Future of a Chinese Student at Harvard,” by Peter Hessler “Looking for the National Guard in Los Angeles,” by  Emily Witt “The Farmers Harmed by the Trump Administration,” by Peter Slevin “The Private Citizens Who Want to Help Trump Deport Migrants,” by Jessica Pishko “An Inside Look at Gaza’s Chaotic New Aid System,” by Isaac Chotine To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    44 min

  2. 4D AGO

    What Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Doesn’t Understand About Autism

    When Donald Trump made an alliance with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he brought vaccine skepticism and the debunked link between vaccines and autism into the center of the MAGA agenda. Though the scientific establishment has long disproven that link, as many as one in four Americans today believe that vaccines may cause autism. In April, Kennedy, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shocked the medical community and families across the country when he said that his agency would uncover the cause of autism—the subject of decades of research—once and for all. That news came even as Kennedy oversees drastic cuts to critical medical research of all kinds. Dr. Alycia Halladay, the chief science officer of the Autism Science Foundation, talks with David Remnick about the initiative, and the problems with focussing on environmental factors such as vaccines or mold. She also discusses why debunked claims and misinformation have such a powerful hold on parents. “You will do anything to help your child, so if it means a bleach enema”—referring to one extremely poisonous and falsely touted treatment—“and you think that’s going to help them, you’ll do it. It’s not because these people don’t love their children. It’s because they’re desperate.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    30 min

  3. JUN 7

    The Oligarchs Are Fighting

    The Washington Roundtable discusses the fallout from the messy rupture between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, how battles between maximalist rulers and the mega-wealthy have unfolded in history, and how this week’s fighting could portend a new, more combative phase of American oligarchy. They talk about America’s new Gilded Age, drawing on “The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich,” a new book by Evan Osnos, just out this week. This week’s reading: “The Musk-Trump Divorce Is as Messy as You Thought It Would Be,” by Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump’s Politics of Plunder,” by Evan Osnos “The Sublime Spectacle of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Social-Media Slap Fight,” by Jessica Winter “The Private Citizens Who Want to Help Trump Deport Migrants,” by Jessica Pishko “Can Public Media Survive Trump?,” by Jon Allsop Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    33 min

  4. JUN 5

    The Man Who Thinks Trump Should Be King

    The New Yorker staff writer Ava Kofman joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss her recent Profile of the iconoclastic right-wing blogger Curtis Yarvin. They discuss Yarvin’s desire to end American democracy by installing a monarch, whether his provocations can be seen as trolling, and how his writings have found a receptive audience among conservative politicians and the tech élite. “Obviously, Yarvin’s influence on the right is great, and maybe can’t be overstated,” Kofman says. “But, at the same time, a lot of these ideas he’s getting from having conversations with powerful people in Silicon Valley and with powerful people in Washington.” This week’s reading: “Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America,” by Ava Kofman “Democracy Wins a Referendum in South Korea,” by E. Tammy Kim “Josh Hawley and the Republican Effort to Love Labor,” by Eyal Press “Trump Makes America’s Refugee Program a Tool of White Racial Grievance,” by Jonathan Blitzer “Elon Musk’s Vanishing Act,” by Jon Allsop To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    38 min

  5. JUN 2

    Lesley Stahl on What a Settlement with Donald Trump Would Mean for CBS News

    Lesley Stahl, a linchpin of CBS News, began at the network in 1971, covering major events such as Watergate, and for many years has been a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” But right now it’s a perilous time for CBS News, which has been sued by Donald Trump for twenty billion dollars over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 Presidential campaign. Its owner, Paramount, seems likely to settle, and corporate pressure on journalists at CBS has been so intense that Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” and Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, resigned in protest. Owens’s departure was “a punch in the stomach,” Stahl tells David Remnick in a recent interview, “one of those punches where you almost can’t breathe.” And far worse could happen in a settlement with Trump, which would compromise the integrity of the premier investigative program on broadcast news. “I’m already beginning to think about mourning, grieving,” Stahl says. “I know there’s going to be a settlement. . . . And then we will hopefully still be around, turning a new page, and finding out what that new page is going to look like.” Although she describes herself as “Pollyannaish,” Stahl acknowledges that she is “pessimistic about the future for all press today. . . . The public has lost faith in us as an institution. So we’re in very dark times.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    27 min

  6. MAY 29

    Examining Trump's War on the Media, and a Warning from Hungary

    This is the second installment of “How Bad Is It,” a recurring series in which the staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt to conduct a health check on American democracy. They discuss how Donald Trump has bullied media companies, why it’s troubling that some outlets are seeking to settle lawsuits with the Administration, and how the role of social media in public discourse has changed during the second Trump Administration. Plus, an interview with the prominent Hungarian journalist Márton Gulyás, who’s on the show to discuss a new bill making its way through the Hungarian parliament which is designed to quell the free press, and what a potential crackdown may tell us about the future of American media.  This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Politics of Plunder,” by Evan Osnos “Donald Trump’s War on Gender Is Also a War on Government,” by Paisley Currah “The Criminalization of Venezuelan Street Culture,” by Oriana van Praag “J. D. Vance Warns Courts to Get in Line,” by Ruth Marcus “In Chicago, Will the Pope Bump Last?,” by Geraldo Cadava To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    48 min

  7. MAY 22

    How Experts Became the Enemy

    The Northwestern history professor and New Yorker contributor Daniel Immerwahr joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the ways in which the COVID crisis deepened Americans’ distrust of institutional experts and propelled R.F.K., Jr., to the height of political power in the Trump Administration. Plus, they talk about how Anthony Fauci’s clashes and eventual reconciliation with AIDS activists in the nineteen-eighties and nineties could serve as a guide to repairing the rift between Americans who are skeptical of experts and the officials who set public-health policy today. This week’s reading: “R.F.K., Jr., Anthony Fauci, and the Revolt Against Expertise,” by Daniel Immerwahr “Who Gets to Be an American?,” by Michael Luo “The Stakes of the Birthright-Citizenship Case,” by Ruth Marcus “Donald Trump’s Culture of Corruption,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Mideast Is Donald Trump’s Safe Place,” by Susan B. Glasser Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    41 min

  8. MAY 19

    Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on President Joe Biden’s Decline, and Its Cover-Up

    Nearly a year ago, a Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of CNN, began the end of Biden’s bid for a second term. The President struggled to make points, complete sentences, and remember facts; he spoke in a raspy whisper. This was not the first time voters expressed concern about Biden’s age, but his decline was shocking to many, and suddenly Trump seemed likely to win in a landslide. New reporting by Tapper and Thompson reveals that the debate was no fluke at all. In “How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump” (an excerpt from their new book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again”), they lay out a case that the latter half of Biden’s Presidency was carefully stage-managed by his top aides; Biden would often end the workday as early as four-thirty.  “What [aides and] others would say is, ‘His decision-making was always fine.’ The job of the President is not just decision-making. It’s also communication,” Tapper tells David Remnick. “If you are a President . . . and you’re not able to go into a room full of donors and speak extemporaneously for ten minutes, then there’s something wrong. And that was happening in 2023.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    50 min
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Join The New Yorker’s writers and editors for reporting, insight, and analysis of the most pressing political issues of our time. On Mondays, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, presents conversations and feature stories about current events. On Wednesdays, the senior editor Tyler Foggatt goes deep on a consequential political story via far-reaching interviews with staff writers and outside experts. And, on Fridays, the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the latest developments in Washington and beyond, offering an encompassing understanding of this moment in American politics.

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