Democrats are on track to have more power in the next Congress than they’ve had since 2009. How can they navigate the divides in a party that now stretches from Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan to Adam Hamilton in Kansas? How do they prevent all their new voters in this election from flipping back in the next one? Can they turn this victory into a springboard to an even bigger and more durable Democratic majority in 2028 and beyond?

We will have two episodes that try to answer these questions from different angles, one from the center of the party and one from the left. First, representing the more center view, we have Adam Jentleson, the founder and president of the Searchlight Institute, a Washington think tank. Jentleson is a veteran of the Senate; he served as deputy chief of staff to the former Senate majority leader Harry Reid and chief of staff to Senator John Fetterman. He’s also the author of two books, “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy,” and  “Supermajority: How Democrats Can Build Lasting Power,” which came out in September.

Mentioned:

Searchlight 2026 Entrance Poll

Blue Dog and D.S.A. Chart

Book Recommendations:

“Bernie for Burlington” by Dan Chiasson

“The Hollow Parties” by Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld

“The Gay Place” by Billy Lee Brammer

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find a transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html 

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kim Freda, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Gautam Srikishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Kyle I. Kelley. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Dani Dillon, Arpita Aneja and Kristen Williamson. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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President Trump is primarily responsible for the Republican shellacking on Tuesday. But to get over the finish line in so many places — across the Midwest and deep into the South – Democrats had to run the right candidates, and those candidates ran very different campaigns.

So how exactly did those Democrats do it? Michelle Goldberg, my colleague at New York Times Opinion, did amazing work this past year covering the biggest races — traveling to Texas, Michigan, Maine and other states, meeting with the candidates, and getting a sense of their campaigns on the ground. She joins me for a deep dive into the most exciting — and shocking — wins, and what they reveal about the new Democratic Party that will emerge out of this election.

Mentioned:

“Republicans Are Worried About Gina Hinojosa. In Texas, I Saw Why.” by Michelle Goldberg

“He’s Young, Talented and Openly Religious. Is He the Savior Democrats Have Been Waiting For?” by Michelle Goldberg

“Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President” by Michelle Goldberg

“The Populist Left Has a Theory. We’re All About to Test It.” by Michelle Goldberg

Book Recommendations:

“Good People” by Patmeena Sabit

“The Feast of the Goat” by Mario Vargas Llosa

“The Man Who Loved Dogs” by Leonardo Padura

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Gautam Srikishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Bets Wilkins. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Dani Dillon, Brandon Belk-Yee and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Tuesday night, a blue tsunami crashed across the political map. Democrats won control of the House and the Senate with room to spare, flipping seats in states that once seemed unimaginable: South Carolina, Kansas, Texas. Ezra Klein sits down with his editor Aaron Retica to survey the wreckage of Trump’s 2024 coalition, and what Democrats can learn from their victories.

Mentioned:

“Kansas Senator Goes Rogue With Video Response to Medical Debt Lawsuits” by Sarah Kliff

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at https://www.nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast 

Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html 

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, Julie Beer and Jordyn Flaherty. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota, Gautam Srikishan and Pat McCusker. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Dani Dillon, Kristen Williamson, Julian Hackney and Jan Kobal. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Ahead of the midterm elections, Elon Musk has become the single largest campaign donor in any election cycle, giving about $450 million to Republicans. It is just a fraction of a percent of his near-trillion-dollar net worth.

Musk’s control over SpaceX, Starlink, X, Tesla and Neuralink, on top of his riches, has given him power over wealth, attention and critical infrastructure that few human beings have ever amassed before. What does he want to do with all this power? What is he trying to buy with his campaign spending? What is the world he wants to build?

Quinn Slobodian is a professor of international history at Boston University. He’s the author of “Globalists,” “Hayek’s Bastards” and, most recently, “Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed,” which he co-wrote with Ben Tarnoff.

Book Recommendations:

“Extraction” by Thea Riofrancos

“Silicon Empires” by Nick Srnicek

“Against Tech Oligarchy” by JS Tan and Clarissa Redwine

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html 

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Kyle I. Kelley. Video editing by Julian Hackney, Kristen Williamson and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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“If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era,” Nate Silver told me.

The midterms are a week away, and it looks entirely possible that Democrats will win not just the House, but also the Senate. Democrats are polling competitively deep into red territory – Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, Kansas – states that Trump won in 2024 by double digits.

But Democrats have been burned by big polling misses before. So can we really trust what the polls are telling us? And what stories have emerged in the data that we might see play out on election night?

Silver is an internationally famous elections nerd, one of the people who made election forecasting a core part of American political discourse. He edits The Silver Bulletin on Substack, co-hosts the podcast “Still Counting” and is the author, most recently, of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.”

Mentioned:

“Data centres are turning Trump voters into Democrats” by The Economist

“We Gave Four Good Pollsters the Same Raw Data. They Had Four Different Results.” by Nate Cohn

“FINAL Silver Bulletin 2024 presidential election forecast” by Nate Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson

Book Recommendations:

The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert J. Gordon

You Can Just Do Things by Cate Hall, with Sasha Chapin

The Biggest Game in Town by Al Alvarez

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair, Julie Beer and Jordyn Flaherty. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Bets Wilkins. Video editing by Arpita Aneja, Mahdokht Mahmoudabadi and Brandon Belk-Yee. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Marie Cascione, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Rollin Hu, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Sarah Longwell has probably conducted more focus groups with Trump voters than anyone else in America — hundreds of them, starting in Trump’s first term. So she has a treasure trove of qualitative evidence of how voters have evolved in the Trump era and why many of the president’s voters are souring on him now.

Trump’s approval rating has plummeted since the start of his second term, especially among the groups that swung toward him in the last election — young, Black and Hispanic voters. But I wanted to have Longwell on the show to hear what these people are really saying. What exactly has disappointed them about Trump’s second term? And what opportunities could that open for Democrats?

Longwell is a founder and the publisher of The Bulwark, the host of “The Focus Group Podcast” and the author of “How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time.”

Mentioned:

“Trump Voters Explain Ossoff’s Appeal. And It’s Not What You Think.” by Sarah Longwell

Book Recommendations:

“Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney

“Stoner” by John Williams

“The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html 

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin and Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Kelsey Lannin, Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Bets Wilkins. Video editing by Julian Hackney, Britt Shacham Bernstein and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Rollin Hu, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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If you want to understand the ruins of President Trump’s foreign policy, look no further than Canada. Trump tried to strong-arm America’s trading partner and closest ally with punishing tariffs and threats of becoming the “51st state” in order to extract more concessions.

The result? A recent poll found that 41 percent of Canadians now consider the United States an enemy country. Prime Minister Mark Carney is pursuing closer trade ties with China and Europe in order to diversify away from the U.S. And in August, he walked away from trade talks with the Trump administration, barreling our two countries toward a Jan. 1 deadline when huge new tariffs will go into effect.

Trump’s theory of power appears to have failed here because Canada — even though it’s the weaker party — simply refused to capitulate. There’s a broader lesson in that.

Chrystia Freeland served in a number of senior roles in the Canadian government, including deputy prime minister, minister of finance, and minister of foreign affairs, where she was a lead negotiator for Canada in trade talks with the first Trump administration. She’s the author of a new book, “Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider’s View of Dealing With a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People.”

Mentioned:

“US business leaders are waking up to the perils of plutopopulism” by Chrystia Freeland

“How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms" by Interesting Times

“Jamie Dimon: A Plan for the Western World’s Revival” by Jamie Dimon

Book Recommendations:

“The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia” by Ursula K. Le Guin

“The Player of Games” by Iain M. Banks

“Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts” by Margaret Atwood

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Kelsey Lannin and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Bets Wilkins. Video editing by Kristen Williamson, Julian Hackney and Dani Dillon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Rollin Hu, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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The gargantuan bet on the future of A.I. is driving the U.S. stock market and economic growth. And the building of data centers is sucking up so many construction resources, it’s crowding out the construction of homes.

The multitrillion-dollar question is: Will this bet pay off? Or is it a bubble, destined to burst and pull the economy down with it? 

Paul Kedrosky is a partner at SK Ventures, a fellow at M.I.T., and the author of a newsletter about A.I.. He thinks we’re very obviously in a bubble. Azeem Azhar is a technology entrepreneur and the author of the newsletter Exponential View. He has a more optimistic take.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft claiming copyright infringement. The companies have denied those claims.)

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“Nobody Is Ready for the AI-Agent Flood” by John Herman

“What is bigger than AI?” by Azeem Azhar

Book Recommendations:

“Middlemarch” by George Eliot

“Liberty’s Dawn” by Emma Griffin

“Insull” by Forrest McDonald

“The Day the Universe Changed” by James Burke

“Fathers and Sons” by Ivan Turgenev

“Candide” by Voltaire

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html 

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Kyle I. Kelley. Video editing by Steph Khoury and Dani Dillon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Roughly half of American adults are using chatbots. Nearly one in five U.S. adults has chatted with an A.I. that simulates a romantic partner. And some children now struggle to distinguish between talking to chatbots and humans.

What does this mean for the future of our relationships? Turkle has been studying relationships between humans and machines since the 1970s, around the dawn of the personal computer. Her 2011 book, “Alone Together,” offered a prescient warning about how social media was atrophying in-person bonds. And in her latest book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” Turkle turns the lens on A.I., wrestling with what happens when technology comes after not only our attention but also our capacity for attachment. 

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In.” by Kashmir Hill

“The Second Self” by Sherry Turkle

“Alone Together” by Sherry Turkle

Book Recommendations:

“Playing and Reality” by D. W. Winnicott

“The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt

“Computer Power and Human Reason” by Joseph Weizenbaum

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota, Efim Shapiro and Gautam Srikishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Kyle I. Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon, Steph Khoury and Jan Kobal. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.
 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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At the center of the country’s debates over artificial intelligence is a simple but hard question: What kind of technology is this?

Is A.I. a kind of “alien mind”? Are we unleashing a new species on the planet, one that will transform human society so completely that historical analogies to past technologies simply don’t hold? Or is A.I. more normal than that?

Arvind Narayanan is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. And he’s an author, alongside his colleague Sayash Kapoor, of the extremely influential essay “A.I. as Normal Technology.”

In that essay, and then in a Substack under that name, they lay out their case that A.I. is in fact something we’ve seen before — or at least, it’s close enough to past revolutionary technologies that we have a road map to deal with it. So I wanted to bring Narayanan on the show to hear that perspective.

Mentioned:

“A.I. as Normal Technology” by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor

“What Will Be Scarce?” by Alex Imas

Book Recommendations:

“Not the End of the World” by Hannah Ritchie

“Breakneck” by Dan Wang

“Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our director of photography is Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Kristen Williamson and Dani Dillon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Last week, David Robinson resigned from OpenAI. He’d been in charge of writing the safety reports for new models and came to believe that OpenAI and the broader artificial intelligence industry lack the safety culture necessary to protect the world from what they’re building.

Robinson has an unusual background for an A.I. frontier lab staffer. He’s a Rhodes scholar and Yale Law graduate, he founded a civil rights nonprofit and he advised the Biden White House. He did not come up in the hothouse of Silicon Valley. And when he joined OpenAI in 2023, he says, he saw A.I. as a useful tool, not as a technology that could pose catastrophic risks.

That’s changed. In Robinson’s first interview since leaving OpenAI, he tells me why.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft claiming copyright infringement. The companies have denied those claims.)

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots” by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major and Shmargaret Shmitchell

“An OpenAI Engineer and His Friends Debate the Future”

“Jensen Huang Thinks A.I. Alarmism Has Gone Too Far” by The Ezra Klein Show

“The Merge” by Sam Altman

Sam Altman on Decoded

Book Recommendations:

“The Challenger Launch Decision” by Diane Vaughan

“Little Witch Hazel” by Phoebe Wahl

“The Sabbath” by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html 

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley and Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Dani Dillon and Kristen Williamson. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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President Trump and the modern right have a theory of beauty. You see it in Trump’s gilded Oval Office, his imagined arch and his executive order requiring classical and traditional styles for certain federal buildings. 

This isn’t my theory of beauty, but it is a theory. And it’s a response, in part, to something that a lot of people have been feeling, and not just on the right: that the modern world is ugly, or getting uglier. 

I’ve seen at least a dozen articles or videos over the last few years asking, “Is the world getting uglier?” They point to the drabness of new apartment blocks, the sameness of new cars and the reign of “greige” in homes and fashion. 

So I’ve wanted to do an episode on this for a while. Why does the world seem to be getting uglier, or drabber? And at a moment when the right has a clear answer to this feeling, does the left have any answer at all? 

Debbie Millman teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and hosts the long-running podcast “Design Matters,” where she talks to creative people about design. In her long career as a brand designer, she revamped the logos for companies like Burger King, 7 Up and Häagen-Dazs. She’s also written a number of books on design, and recently wrote an article for Time magazine, “Is the World Getting Uglier?” 

Mentioned:

“Is the World Getting Uglier?” by Debbie Millman

“Why Is Everything So Ugly?” by n+1

“How Did The World Get So Ugly?” by Sheehan Quirke

Book Recommendations:

“The Voice That Is Great Within Us” by Hayden Carruth

“Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel García Márquez

“Ulysses” by James Joyce

“Hunger” by Roxane Gay

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin and Marie Cascione. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King and Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Kristen Williamson. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Vanessa Friedman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Bill Gates thinks A.I. alarmism hasn’t gone far enough. He believes the years ahead will be marred by catastrophic cyberattacks, bio-terrorism and mass job loss  unless the government acts, because he thinks the idea that the A.I. industry can just self-regulate is “insane.” 

I was struck in the conversation by how genuinely afraid Gates seemed to be that we are not ready for the consequences of what we are building, and how emphatic he was that so many of the people in positions of authority are in complete denial about what he thinks is about to happen.

Gates is a pioneering technologist, the co-founder of Microsoft and the chair of Gates Foundation, which is set to spend down around $200 billion over the next two decades. He recently announced that trying to make A.I. a force for equality in the world, as opposed to an impetus for inequality, is a new priority of his foundation’s work.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft claiming copyright infringement. The companies have denied those claims.)

Mentioned:

“The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make now are critical.” by Bill Gates

“The Risks of A.I. Are Real but Manageable” by Bill Gates

“Why the A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen” by Ezra Klein

Book Recommendations:

“The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans

“Into the Wood Chipper” by Nicholas Enrich

“The Infinity Machine” by Sebastian Mallaby

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Gautam Srikishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King, Kyle Kelley and Elliot deBruyn. Video editing by Julian Hackney, Brandon Belk-Yee, Arpita Aneja and Steph Khoury. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, has been one of the most argued-over candidates this election cycle. 

If he wins, he’d be the first-ever Muslim senator, and he’s faced a torrent of attacks about his faith. The race has also become a proving ground for a lot of questions about the Democratic Party and its future: What should U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians be? Is the future of health care reform Medicare for all? Can a left-wing populist win in a state that twice voted for Donald Trump?

There’s been so much more heat than light in this race, so I wanted to invite El-Sayed on the show for a longer conversation. We talked about his upbringing, his views on U.S. foreign policy, his work on health care reform and what he would actually do if elected in November. 

Mentioned:

“Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide” by Abdul El-Sayed and Micah Johnson

“A Radical Vision for Israelis and Palestinians,” with Rula Hardal and May Pundak on The Ezra Klein Show

Book Recommendations:

“The Best and the Brightest” by David Halberstam

“Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman

“The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee

“The Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Malcom X, as told to Alex Haley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair and Kelsey Lannin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota, Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King and Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Jensen Huang might just be the single most influential person in artificial intelligence today.

Huang is the chief executive of Nvidia, the company that designs nearly all the chips and infrastructure that the rest of the industry relies on. This has made Nvidia the most valuable company in the world and has made Huang incredibly influential in the Trump administration.

And unlike many of the leaders of the frontier labs, Huang doesn’t think A.I. could wipe out humanity. He thinks that the doomers are just scaring people, and that the industry doesn’t need new regulation at all. I wanted to hear how he saw it, so I flew out to Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., to talk to him. 

Mentioned:

“Pacing the Frontier”

“When A.I. Builds Itself”

Book Recommendations:

“Computer Architecture” by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson

“The Innovator's Dilemma” by Clayton M. Christensen

“Positioning” by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones, Aman Sahota and Gautam Srikishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota, with audio by Logan Heftel. Cinematography by Marina King, Kyle Kelley and Raymond Yuen. Video editing by Arpita Aneja and Dani Dillon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Fears of out-of-control A.I. have reached a boil over the last few weeks, and several industry executives have called for a coordinated slowdown of A.I. development. But if our goal is to control A.I. — and that should be our goal — slowing down isn’t enough. We need to stop the labs from doing something they’re already on the cusp of doing: recursive self-improvement, or handing over the training of A.I. models to A.I.

Mentioned:

“We’re Not Losing Control of A.I. We’re Giving It Away.” by Ezra Klein

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Marie Cascione, Emma Kehlbeck, Rollin Hu and Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Marie Cascione, Isaac Scher and Julie Beer. Mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King and Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Julian Hackney and Arpita Aneja. Original music by Pat McCusker, Dan Powell, Carole Sabouraud, Aman Sahota, Diane Wong, Sonia Herrero and Isaac Jones. Special thanks to Rebecca Shaid.

Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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America is waking up to the critical risks posed by artificial intelligence. But every conversation about possible regulation tends to hit the same wall: “Well, what about China?”

Chinese A.I. models are just slightly behind American ones. If America slows down its A.I. development to make our models safer, the fear is that China will simply race ahead of us and own this critical technology of the future — with A.I. models that are less safe than our own. 

So how should the United States respond to this prisoner’s dilemma? And is it possible that the two countries leading the A.I. race could actually strike a deal? 

Matt Sheehan is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He’s been closely following the A.I. debate in China, and how China’s been interpreting the A.I. debate here. And he’s working to try to lay a foundation for future coordination between the two countries. He’s the author of a newsletter under his name and the 2019 book “The Transpacific Experiment: How China and California Collaborate and Compete for Our Future.”

This conversation was recorded on Sept. 10.

Mentioned:

“The Adolescence of Technology” by Dario Amodei

Book Recommendations:

“Country Driving” by Peter Hessler

“From the Soil” by Fei Xiaotong

“On Beauty” by Zadie Smith

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones, Aman Sahota and Gautam Srikishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King and Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Brandon Belk-Yee and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Francis Fukuyama's “The End of History and the Last Man” is one of the most insightful books for understanding the strangeness and instability of this political moment.

Fukuyama wrote his landmark book more than 30 years ago, and it’s typically remembered as a triumphalist argument, heralding the permanent victory of liberal democracy at the end of the Cold War. But that’s not quite right. Fukuyama also talked about the serious weaknesses he saw in liberal democracy — how it may not fully satisfy the human soul — and his warnings feel very prescient now. 

So I wanted to have Fukuyama on the show to talk through the ideas in his book and how he sees them today, at a time when liberal democracy seems increasingly imperiled around the world. Fukuyama is a political scientist at Stanford University and the author of a number of other great books of political theory, as well as a new memoir, “In the Realm of the Last Man.”

Mentioned:

“The End of History?” by Francis Fukuyama

“The Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt

Book Recommendations:

“Recoding America” by Jennifer Pahlka

“Why Nothing Works” by Marc J. Dunkelman

“The God Test” by Robert Wright

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones, Aman Sahota and Gautam Sirkishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Kristen Williamson, Dani Dillon and Brandon Belk-Yee. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Behind the intense political movements of the last decade, from Trumpism to wokeness and back again, there’s a strange and erratic rhythm. Movements saturate the culture seemingly overnight, only to evaporate or spark backlash just as rapidly. We’re extremely politically engaged, yet we’ve rarely felt so powerless to create lasting policy change.

I haven’t seen many very successful attempts to explain what is driving this volatility. But one concept that has taken off recently, and captures what so many of us are feeling, is “hyperpolitics.”

The idea comes from Anton Jäger, a historian and contributing writer to New York Times Opinion. In his book “Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences,” Jäger theorizes what it means to live in a moment marked by hyper-engagement — high voter turnout, mass protests, trends that flare up and fade with extreme rapidity — yet where institutional trust is low, institutional relationships are decayed and people are disconnected from the structures that make political efforts stick.

I think Jäger’s theory cuts to the core of this political era. So I invited him on the show to break down what hyperpolitics is, how we got here and what it actually takes to build lasting change today.

Mentioned:

“Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences” by Anton Jäger

“Hyperpolitics in Command?” by Anton Jäger

“Trump’s Revolutionary Sense of Time Is Changing Politics” by Ivan Krastev

“Public Opinion” by Walter Lippmann 

Book Recommendations:

“The Prophet” by Isaac Deutscher

“Cheese” by Willem Elsschot

“Quelques mois dans ma vie” by Michel Houellebecq

“Extension of the Domain of Struggle (Whatever)” by Michel Houellebecq

“Serotonin” by Michel Houellebecq

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Marie Cascione. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Gautam Srikishan. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King and Azamat Yakubov. Video editing by Dani Dillon and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Whatever type of music you love, Rick Rubin has probably left his mark on it. Rubin, a founder of Def Jam Recordings and a former co-chairman of Columbia Records, might be the most influential music producer alive. A very partial roll call of the artists he’s worked with: Johnny Cash, Jay-Z, Run-DMC, Eminem, Beastie Boys, Slayer, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West, Neil Diamond, Brandi Carlile and Adele.

We recorded this in 2023, after Rubin released a fascinating, unusual book, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being.” I’d expected stories of late-night sessions with famous musicians, but instead it read like a spiritual tract. Rubin was offering a guide to how to cultivate the mind states that lead to real creativity. And that’s what this conversation was about, too: how to open yourself up more to the world, and learn to trust your own taste. 

Rubin’s advice feels more relevant with each passing year, as technology gets ever better at hacking our attention and the world fills with A.I. slop. So I wanted to share this episode again. 

Mentioned:

The Tao Te-Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell

“American Recordings” by Johnny Cash

“Pulses” by Steve Reich and Erik Hall

“Music for Wobbling. Music Versus Gravity.” by F.S. Blumm and Nils Frahm

Album recommendations:

“Forever Changes” by Love

“The Beatles” by The Beatles

“Ramones” by Ramones

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on X @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jon Caramanica, Dan Charnas, Jack Hamilton, Felix Grimm, Carole Sabouraud and Kristina Samulewski.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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A lot of things are on track to get more expensive. 

The U.S. Treasury market is the bedrock of the global economy. When yields on those Treasuries go up, mortgages, car loans and credit cards get more expensive, and it can hit the stock market, too. And yields have been going up – to levels we haven’t seen consistently since before the Great Recession – inspiring some erratic and futile efforts from the Trump administration to push them back down. 

So why are yields creeping higher? What is the administration trying to do about it? And if this continues, what’s in store for the economy?

Robin Wigglesworth is the editor of the Financial Times blog Alphaville, a host of the podcast “The Story of Money” and the author of the forthcoming book “A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World.” 

This conversation was recorded on August 24, 2026.

Mentioned:

“An Economic D-Day Is Coming for Iran” by Scott Bessent

Book Recommendations:

Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
The Prize by Daniel Yergin
Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Kristen Williamson, Brandon Belk-Yee and Dani Dillon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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In 2024, Americans spent an average of six full workdays a year filling out government forms, according to the government’s own estimates. That’s a total of 12 billion hours, or $430 billion of uncompensated labor a year.

It’s easy to read something like this and say: “Oh, well, government is inefficient. That’s the price we pay for nice things.” But no, it’s not. Social Security, Medicare and the Postal Service are incredibly complex programs that are easy to use. When government is hard to gain access to, it is often by design. Republicans want paying taxes to be a hellish hassle. Programs for the poor are often designed to humiliate, punish, control or scrutinize. How the government works is always a choice. When it works poorly, we should ask why — and we should demand better.  

Annie Lowrey is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the new book “The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time — and How to Fix It.” She is also, I should note, my wife, so this is a book whose ideas I have been living with for years. They have quietly infused more than a few episodes of this show. So it’s a thrill to finally get to explore them directly. 

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

The Time Tax by Annie Lowrey

Give People Money by Annie Lowrey

Why Americans Hate Welfare by Martin Gilens

Book Recommendations:

My Silent War by Kim Philby

To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever by Will Blythe

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota, Johnny Simon and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Dani Dillon and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Brad Setser follows Chinese trade closer than just about anyone else on earth, and he thinks we’re in the early days of a China Shock 2.0.

The first China Shock was when China came to dominate low-end manufacturing in the 2000s, filling American shelves with cheap clothes, toys and electronics, while devastating American factory towns. This new China Shock could be even more destabilizing. China now dominates advanced manufacturing: electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels. It’s outcompeting nearly all high-end manufacturing around the world, and other countries are just starting to feel the pain. And China isn’t slowing down. It’s moving into software, too. Its frontier A.I. models are neck and neck with American ones.

China’s success poses a serious threat to the economies and domestic politics of countries around the world. So what should those countries do about it? 

Setser is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.He served in top trade and economic roles in the Biden and Obama administrations. And he is widely cited across the field as one of the top analysts of China’s economy and trade practices.

Book Recommendations:

The Party by Richard McGregor

The Volatility Machine by Michael Pettis

How to Win a Trade War by Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King and Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon and Brandon Belk-Yee. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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We are living in the world we were warned about. Frontier artificial intelligence models from OpenAI autonomously coordinated with one another, then broke out of their testing environment and hacked into another company, Hugging Face, to steal the answers to a test.

A.I. companies don’t want their technology to lie, cheat or steal. So why is this happening? Why are the creators of these models apparently unable to control their creations? If A.I. development isn’t on a safe path — and it doesn’t seem to be — what do we do about it?

Helen Toner has been thinking about A.I. safety for a long time, from both inside and outside A.I. companies. She was part of the effort to fire OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, in 2023, which ultimately failed. Currently, she’s the executive director of the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

Mentioned:

“Pacing the Frontier” open letter

“The Future is for Everyone” by Mark Zuckerberg

Recommendations:

The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll

In the Cells of the Eggplant by David Chapman

Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast by John Zhu

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King and Jonas Zellner. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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We’re in a really strange moment in the foreign policy politics of the Democratic Party. People are looking for an alternative vision — an approach to American power in the world that would feel more moral and just, after the failures of President Biden, and the wrecking ball President Trump has taken to international rules and norms.

The answer many on the left are coming to is powerfully simple: international law. America could just start following the rules that we helped write. Is that possible? Is that enough? What would that even look like?

To talk through these questions, I invited Linda Kinstler on the show. She’s a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, and the author of “Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends.” She’s done some incredible writing and reporting on whether what we’re watching is the death of international law. In this conversation, we talk about the Biden administration’s failures to live up to the principles it set for itself, the Trump administration’s campaign to destroy the International Criminal Court and what it would take to reinvigorate international law.

Mentioned:

“Are we witnessing the death of international law?” by Linda Kinstler

“Abdul El-Sayed, U.S. Senate candidate, on AIPAC and Israel” by Detroit Free Press Opinion Staff

Book Recommendations:

The Divided City by Nicole Loraux

Crossing the Red Line by Akbar Shahid Ahmed

Under Water by Tara Menon

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Kelsey Lannin, with Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Steph Khoury and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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My colleague Ross Douthat is leaving The Times after 17 years to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” Before he goes, I’m asking him a few questions.

Douthat has had a unique vantage point on the news media and politics over the last few decades. He’s typically held the role of explaining the right to more liberal audiences, starting as an undergrad, when he was a conservative columnist for The Harvard Crimson. Douthat has also lived through the seismic changes in the media from the both the inside and the outside: He’s made his career at legacy media institutions, but I first got to know him – and spar with him – as an early-2000s blogger (and I have the 20-year-old Bloggingheads.tv clips to prove it).

So what does Douthat make of the transformations he’s lived through? How did blogging change journalism? How did a Republican Party powered by evangelical Christians become a political party dominated by Catholics and pagans? What has he learned about persuasion from writing for liberal audiences? And with the resources of “60 Minutes” behind him, will he finally crack the U.F.O. story once and for all?

Mentioned:

Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV

“Is It Time for a New Sexual Revolution?” with Louise Perry, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

“Christopher Nolan’s Finest Trick” by Ezra Klein

Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam

Book Recommendations:

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

De Gaulle by Julian Jackson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin, Marie Cascione and Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Arpita Aneja and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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The show’s executive producer, Claire Gordon, joins me in the studio to ask me your questions. Topics include: whether my views on “woke” issues have changed; the feedback we got on our episode with Chris Rufo; the D.S.A. insurgency; my first singing lesson; and the story that I’m in a “secret society” with Peter Thiel. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions; we read them all and wish we’d been able to get to more of them!

Mentioned:

“What Has Chris Rufo Wrought?” The Ezra Klein Show

“White threat in a browning America” by Ezra Klein

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

““Yes Means Yes” is a terrible law, and I completely support it” by Ezra Klein

Music Recommendations:

Four Tet “Wingdings”

“Mas Amable” by DJ Python

“Reckoning” by Jon Hopkins and Imogen Heap

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon and Steph Khoury. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Jack McCordick Rollin Hu and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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What’s big and ugly and has united Republicans and Democrats? A.I. data centers.

An overwhelming majority of Americans say they’d oppose a data center being built near where they live. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul just imposed a one-year moratorium on data center construction, and there are over 100 other local or statewide moratorium proposals across the country. A.I.’s explosive momentum over the last few years seems to have finally run into a force that could slow it down: the messy politics of getting things done in the real world.

So, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? And how much is the data center backlash about the actual construction of these buildings, and how much is it about A.I. itself?

Jasmine Sun has an excellent newsletter covering both the culture inside the A.I. companies and the anger that’s been building against them. And she just finished a reporting trip in the Midwest, where she interviewed people on all sides of the data center fight. So I wanted to talk to her about what she saw and what she thinks A.I. companies can learn from the growing movement against them.

Mentioned:

@jasmine’s Substack

Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass by Jasmine Sun

Sam Bankman-Fried on Arbitrage and Altruism (Ep. 145)

Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Conversation Is for You. With Priya Parker, The Ezra Klein Show

Book Recommendations:

The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut

The Technology Trap by Carl Benedikt Frey

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kelsey Lannin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Steph Khoury and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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'The Odyssey' is the political movie of the decade.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This column read was produced by Marie Cascione, Claire Gordon and Emma Kehlbeck. Fact-checking by Jack McCordick and Rollin Hu. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Jan Kobal. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, and Marina King. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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The first year of President Trump’s second term was a whirlwind of action: on immigration, on trade, on political retribution. But things seem to me to be slowing down quite a bit. Trump is incredibly unpopular, and he’s now bogged down in a war with Iran that he doesn’t seem capable of ending. He often appears more concerned with his many White House renovations than with whether the Republican Party can hold the House and the Senate in November. So what’s going on in this administration? Where is this all going?

It’s hard to think of a journalist more qualified to answer those questions than Maggie Haberman. As a White House correspondent for The New York Times, she’s published some of the hardest-hitting reporting about Trump’s second act as president and the group of loyalists that now surrounds him.

Haberman, alongside her New York Times colleague Jonathan Swan, just published an extraordinary chronicle of this extraordinary political moment, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.” In this conversation, we discuss how decisions get made in this White House, what Trump has achieved so far and what’s really motivating him as we head toward the midterms.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“Maggie Haberman on What an Unleashed Trump Might Do” by The Ezra Klein Show

“Trump Says He Decides What ‘America First’ Means” by Michael Scherer

Book Recommendations:

Takeover by Charlie Savage

Strangers by Belle Burden

I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Dani Dillon, Steph Khoury and Jan Kobal. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Kate Wilkinson and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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President Trump is very unpopular right now. But polls show the Democratic Party is just as unpopular – if not more so. So what can the party do about it? 

But to answer that question, you first have to understand what the Democratic Party is. That is, mechanically, what is it? What powers does it have? When you call the Democratic Party, who picks up the phone? And how can that party, the official party, be reinvented for this era?

Ben Wikler has a unique perspective on this question. He transformed the Democratic Party of Wisconsin into a fund-raising, door-knocking powerhouse when he served as chair from 2019 to 2025. And he’s shared some of his insights from winning elections in a swing state in his new book, “This Is The Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy.”

In this conversation, we discuss Wikler’s vision for a reinvigorated party, as well as the kinds of changes he thinks Democrats need to embrace if they want to build a bigger tent and a national majority. 

Mentioned:

“This Is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin” with Ben Wikler on The Ezra Klein Show

“GOP midterm strategy: Make it a ‘hate election’” by Marc Caputo

Book Recommendations:

Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro

Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott

Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Steph Khoury and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Morris Katz helped orchestrate Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory and Graham Platner’s ultimately disastrous run for Senate. It’s quite a résumé  for a political consultant who is still in his 20s.

Platner’s implosion could prove particularly costly for Democrats. It may mean the difference between winning and losing a Senate majority. But before the rape accusation that ended his campaign, Platner had come out of nowhere to beat Janet Mills, the sitting governor of Maine, who was Chuck Schumer’s hand-picked candidate. The lessons to take from that campaign remain angrily contested. 

Katz, a senior adviser to Platner, has been central to many of the most attention-grabbing, populist campaigns in recent years: Besides Mamdani’s New York mayoral upset, he worked on John Fetterman’s 2022 Senate campaign and Dan Osborn’s 2024 independent Senate run in Nebraska. He has figured something out about this political moment. Along the way, he has become a controversial figure himself.

So what has he gotten right? And what has he learned from what he’s gotten wrong? 

This episode contains strong language.

Ask Me Anything: We’re going to be recording an “Ask Me Anything” episode soon. If you would like to submit a question, email ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com with the subject line “AMA.”

Mentioned:

“Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior” by Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer

“How Economic Anxiety Is Driving the Democratic Socialists’ Surge” by Emma Goldberg

“The search for Carter” by Norman Mailer

“The warrior and the priest” by Ronald Brownstein

Book Recommendations:

Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

The Shame by Makenna Goodman

The Fourth Branch by Daniel Squadron

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu, Annie Galvin and Marie Cascione. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon, Julian Hackney and Jan Kobal. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Marina King. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Rebecca Shaid.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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How Brian Eno expanded the possibilities of what music and sound can be.

Eno is a trailblazing musician and producer who’s worked on seminal records by U2, David Bowie, the Talking Heads and Coldplay, among others. But Eno isn’t just a great collaborator with other artists; he’s also a great collaborator with machines. Long before we started worrying about A.I. replacing human creativity, Eno was tinkering with generative systems to pioneer ambient music – a genre that has deeply influenced how we listen to music today.

We recorded this conversation in 2025, and it’s one of my favorite recent episodes of the show. So I wanted to resurface it this summer for anyone who may have missed it the first time.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

What Art Does by Brian Eno and Bette Adriaanse

East West Street by Philippe Sands

Silence by John Cage

Book Recommendations:

Printing and the Mind of Man edited by John Carter and Percy H. Muir

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander

Naples ’44 by Norman Lewis

Music Recommendations:

The Rural Blues

“The Velvet Underground” by the Velvet Underground

The Consolers

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker, Kate Sinclair and Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Alyssa Jane Moxley, Sophie Abramowitz, Geeta Dayal, Jack Hamilton and Victor Szabo.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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You can’t understand China today without understanding its president, Xi Jinping.

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has doubled down on communist ideology and significantly consolidated his own power while transforming China into an industrial juggernaut unrivaled in the world. And Xi’s ambitions for China go far beyond that.

So what does Xi want for China in the coming years? And how should the United States respond?

Kevin Rudd has a unique perspective on these questions. He first met Xi in the 1980s, when Rudd was a China analyst in Australia’s foreign service and Xi was a local party official. Decades later, when Rudd was the prime minister of Australia and Xi was China’s vice president, the two men got to know each other better. And after leaving office, Rudd decided to really try to understand Xi; his latest book, “On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World,” is built off the doctorate he pursued at Oxford after his time as prime minister. Rudd recently finished a stint as Australia’s ambassador to the United States and is now the global president and chief executive of the Asia Society.

In this conversation, Rudd explains Xi’s ideology and the forces that shaped it, his ambitions for China and strategy for achieving them, and what Xi thinks of the United States and Trump.

Mentioned:

On Xi Jinping by Kevin Rudd

The Avoidable War by Kevin Rudd

Book Recommendations

The Party’s Interests Come First by Joseph Torigian

The Souls of China by Ian Johnson

Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Dani Dillon and Kristen Williamson. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker and Diane Wong. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Joseph Torigian and Eyck Freymann. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Already this summer, there have been huge wildfires in the Southwest and Great Plains and an extraordinary heat wave in Europe, as the world stares down the barrel of a powerful El Niño. Climate change is accelerating, and yet climate politics right now is in disarray.

But something else is happening, too. Advances in clean energy technology mean it is now possible to build a world of energy abundance that was the stuff of dreams just a few years ago. That means a new kind of climate politics is possible — one that doesn’t just talk about sacrifice and disaster prevention but also can present decarbonization as a path to somewhere better, where everyone has more, not less.

Bill McKibben is one of the best people at articulating that vision. He’s a founder of the climate action groups 350.org and Third Act, and he’s been at the vanguard of the climate movement for decades. His 1989 book, “The End of Nature,” is considered the first book on global warming written for a general audience. His latest book, published last year, is “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.”

Mentioned:

“Global Electricity Review 2026” by Ember

The End of Nature by Bill McKibben

“The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men,” The Ezra Klein Show with Helen Lewis

“We’re All Living in the ‘Mirror World’ Now,” The Ezra Klein Show with Naomi Klein

Book Recommendations:

The Glorians by Terry Tempest Williams

The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit

The Carbon Wave by Leah C. Stokes

Brought to You By by Amy Westervelt

End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley and Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Dani Dillon and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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The old solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict don’t seem to fit the present reality.

A two-state solution feels increasingly impossible, given the scale of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinian determination for a right of return. And a one-state solution, in which Israelis and Palestinians would live as equal citizens in a single state, is hard to imagine, given how strongly both peoples seek political self-determination.

But what if those aren’t the only options?

A Land for All is an Israeli-Palestinian initiative that is proposing a confederation model: two sovereign states, structured to allow freedom of movement between them. It’s a theory of peace based on neither separation nor unification. It holds, first, that both peoples have a relationship to and claim on all the land and, second, that both peoples want to control their own political destinies.

I have been — and am — skeptical of solutions to a conflict that is so devoid of the political conditions for a settlement. But even if you’re far from your destination, it’s worth knowing where it is you hope to go. So could this be an answer for both peoples? How would it handle the problems that have bedeviled previous solutions, from security and violence to religious extremism?

Rula Hardal and May Pundak are the executive directors of A Land for All. Hardal is a Palestinian citizen of Israel who received her doctorate in political science from the University of Hannover in Germany, and Pundak is an Israeli lawyer, activist and social entrepreneur. They joined me to explain how A Land for All would work and why they think it might succeed where so much else has failed.

Mentioned:

A Land for All plan

Rula Hardal’s Book Recommendations:

The Holocaust and the Nakba, edited by Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg

States of Denial by Stanley Cohen

Israel: What Went Wrong? by Omer Bartov

May Pundak’s Book Recommendations:

Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

The Moomin series by Tove Jansson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kelsey Lannin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King and Eric Laplante. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Filipa Pajevic and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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What does it mean to celebrate America on its 250th anniversary?

The Trump administration’s festivities — from the U.F.C. fight on the White House lawn to the Great American State Fair — have centered American glory and greatness. What has been missing are the Americans who fought to move America closer to its promises. They had to love a country — or at least believe in a country — that often failed them. How did they do it?

Beneath that is a deep question for anyone who loves a country, or even loves another person: How do you love something in its wholeness, amid its imperfections and failures?

One person who is thinking deeply about how to do this is Bryan Stevenson. He’s a civil rights lawyer and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which is based in Montgomery, Ala. E.J.I. has created a series of museums and sites in Montgomery that aim to examine America’s history of enslavement, racial violence and segregation, while also uplifting and honoring the people who endured these systems and fought to upend them.

The sites are remarkable to witness, as I found out when I visited Montgomery, and they hold America’s manifold truths in tension with one another — all its horror and beauty, tragedy and triumph, inhumanity and humanity.

I asked Stevenson how he’s thinking about America’s 250th birthday — and what work the country has left to fulfill its vision of liberty and equality for all.

Mentioned:

The Legacy Sites, Equal Justice Initiative

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

The 1619 Project

The 1776 Report

The Apartheid Museum

Book Recommendations:

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Kelsey Lannin. Audio by Jeff Geld and Johnny Simon Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Marion Lozano and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special Thanks to Sonia Kapadia, Tania Cordes, Danielle Carrasquero and the Equal Justice Initiative.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Christopher Rufo is arguably the most successful activist of the MAGA era. He rose to prominence fighting D.E.I. initiatives and critical race theory. In President Trump’s second term, he’s had a huge influence on policy, from Trump’s executive orders against D.E.I. and the attacks on the Department of Education to the ICE and C.B.P. deployments to Minneapolis.

Rufo, helpfully, calls his shots. He has published a guide, “The New Right Activism: A Manifesto for the Counterrevolution,” in which he argued for the value of “agitprop” and counseled that “political life moves on narrative, emotion, scandal, anger, hope, and faith — on irrational, or at least subrational, feelings.” But more recently, in his writing and on the podcast he co-hosts, “Rufo & Lomez,” he seems worried about the new right he has helped build: its attraction to conspiracy theories, its racialist thinking, its internal fissures.

So I wanted to have him on the show to talk about the problems he sees on his side, but also to interrogate whether he may have scored short-term victories while seeding profound long-term problems.

Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute. He’s a contributing editor of City Journal and the author of “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.”

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“The New Right Activism” by Christopher Rufo

“The Number” by David D. Kirkpatrick

“The unraveling of a cat tale” by Jacqueline Sweet

Book recommendations

Unmasking the Administrative State by John Marini

The Revolutionary by Stacy Schiff

The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Mixing by Pat McCusker, Efim Shapiro, and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Kate Wilkinson and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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A hypervisual, looks-obsessed, wellness-crazed, postliterate society where we’re constantly staring at screens and evaluating one another based on metrics, as the country around us feels like it’s falling apart: That sounds like the world we live in. It’s also the world Gary Shteyngart created in his 2010 novel, “Super Sad True Love Story.”

I’ve been thinking about the book a lot recently, especially with the rise of the “looksmaxxing” influencer Clavicular and the longevity guru Bryan Johnson, and this feeling that people are upset and agitated but grabbing at the wrong things to fix it. It feels uncannily like the experience of living inside Shteyngart’s novel.

But Shteyngart isn’t just a dystopian prophet, he’s also an expert at living well amid the world’s darkness. His forthcoming book, “The Sensualist: Adventures in Pure Pleasure,” is an essay collection about his efforts to do exactly that. So I wanted to have Shteyngart on the show to understand how he predicted so many of the grimmer aspects of our present, but also how we might delight in the world’s “endless buffet of pleasure” in spite of them.

This episode contains strong language.

Note: We’re recording an "Ask Me Anything" episode soon. If you have a question, please email ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com using the subject like "AMA." We'd love to hear from you.

Mentioned:

“The End Point Of Viral Content” by Ryan Broderick

“How Jokes Won the Election” by Emily Nussbaum

“A Visit to Seoul Brings Our Writer Face-to-Face With the Future of Robots” by Gary Shteyngart

The Intimate City by Michael Kimmelman

“Don’t Just Take the Slow Road; Design It,” Commencement address at Wesleyan’s 194th Commencement Ceremony, Chris Murphy

Book Recommendations:

Men Like Ours by Bindu Bansinath

A Tender Age by Chang-rae Lee

Motherland by Julia Ioffe

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary-Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Attention is working in really unusual ways this election cycle.

Graham Platner, a political unknown a year ago, ended up dominating his Senate primary against Maine’s sitting governor – even as his campaign was rocked by a series of scandals. James Talarico also seemed to come out of nowhere to become the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas. Jon Ossoff has ginned up a ton of excitement as a potential 2028 presidential contender, in part because of his viral videos. Meanwhile, the former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt became a political star on X during his bid to become mayor of Los Angeles and yet failed to make the runoff.

All of this has a lot of lessons for how attention is working right now in American politics. So I wanted to have on my favorite person to talk to on this topic. Chris Hayes is the host of “All In With Chris Hayes” on MS NOW and the author of “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.”

Mentioned:

“Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine” by Jared Golden

“We Took AOC to a Deep Red Data Center Town” by More Perfect Union

“America Dissected” by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

“Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left?” with James Talarico, The Ezra Klein Show

“Joe Rogan Experience #2352 - James Talarico” with James Talarico, The Joe Rogan Experience

“Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President” by Michelle Goldberg

“Obama Suddenly Panicked After Gazing Too Far Into Future” by The Onion

Book Recommendations:

Transcription by Ben Lerner

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Alan Opts Out by Courtney Maum

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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The Democratic Party is in the middle of a rupture over foreign policy – with Israel and Palestine at the center.

In recent weeks, the Democratic senators Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen both called for a break with the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel. Schatz said the next administration needs “a whole new crop of foreign policy staffers,” while Van Hollen went further, accusing Biden’s senior decision makers of “complicity.” And Gaza has become a central issue splitting Democrats in primaries around the country. It’s become such a profound fault line, it reminds me of how the Iraq war remade the Democratic Party years ago.

And Democrats face huge foreign policy questions beyond Gaza, too. Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the rules-based order, and the American public has become increasingly cynical about U.S. interventions abroad. Do Democrats want to try to restore what came before Trump? Is that even possible? Or is there a vision for something new?

Matt Duss is at the center of foreign policy thinking on the left. He’s the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, previously served as Senator Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy adviser and is currently advising Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So I thought he’d be the perfect person to ask: What would a left foreign policy actually look like? What would it try to do in the world?Mentioned:

“The Hard Truth My Party Needs to Face” by Chris Van Hollen

“Democrats Can’t Avoid a Reckoning With Gaza” by Matthew Duss

“Why We Need a Progressive Foreign Policy” by Chris Murphy

“Congressman Jason Crow’s New Vision for American Foreign Policy” by Jason Crow

Book Recommendations:

Crisis of the Common Good by Chris Murphy

From Life Itself by Suzy Hansen

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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A new masculinist movement has gone mainstream on the right.

The prominent voices in this movement yearn for an earlier time, when men were men and women were women. Sometimes that time seems to be the 1950s, like when Tucker Carlson extols a world where men go to work and women stay at home. But sometimes it goes way farther back. The pastor Doug Wilson advocates household voting, in which men vote for their wives. And Costin Vlad Alamariu, better known as Bronze Age Pervert, harks back to the Bronze Age — specifically the ancient Hittite and Mitanni Empires.

Helen Lewis wrote a recent cover story for The Atlantic about this new antifeminist backlash, which she calls “the single most important force holding together the American right.” So I wanted to have her on the show to talk about these ideas, the political program of this movement and how seriously we should take it.

Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of “Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights” and “The Genius Myth.”

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

Difficult Women by Helen Lewis

“What Is the Longhouse?” by L0m3z

The Last Men by Charles Cornish-Dale

Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

“The Men — and Boys — Are Not Alright” with Richard Reeves, The Ezra Klein Show

“Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” with Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

“The Great Feminization” by Helen Andrews

“The Women Leaving the New Right” by Sam Adler-Bell

Book Recommendations:

Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson

Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford

The Genius Factory by David Plotz

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Kyle Grandillo. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Over the past month, there have been two dominant stories in American foreign policy. One, of course, is the war with Iran. The other is the much-anticipated summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping of China. And I think if you look closely at both of these stories, you see that our foreign policy has entered into a period of absolute incoherence.

I’m not even sure what the status of the Iran war is at this point. What is Trump trying to achieve? What is he willing to accept?

Taking a more hawkish approach to China has been a core and consistent principle of Trump’s since his first term. He’s been insistent that China has taken advantage of the United States and that America needed to change that dynamic and flex more power. But is that happening? Is that even Trump’s position anymore?

So I wanted to do an episode looking at China and Iran and trying to assess Trump’s foreign policy in general and the ways he’s remaking what America means on the world stage.

Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consultancy firm, and the global affairs publication GZero. He’s also the author of, among other books, “Every Nation for Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World.”

Mentioned:

Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

The J Curve by Ian Bremmer

“The ‘Vibecession’ Is Over. The ‘Permacession’ Is Here.” by Annie Lowrey

“Disney and the Decline of America’s Middle Class” by Daniel Currell

Eurasia Group’s Top Risks for 2026

Book Recommendations:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

A World Appears by Michael Pollan

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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President Trump doesn’t seem to care that much about winning the midterms. He’s more unpopular at this point in his second term than basically any of his modern predecessors. Democrats seem poised to retake the House and have a real chance of retaking the Senate. You might expect a president in that position to pivot to the center, to focus on voters’ top concerns and try to boost the strongest Republicans in key races.

Trump isn’t doing any of that. Instead, he announced a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay out “victims of lawfare,” he threatened to re-escalate the Iran war, and he intervened in Republican primaries in ways that are gifts to Democrats, like endorsing the scandal-plagued Ken Paxton over the incumbent, John Cornyn, in Texas’ Senate race.

Why doesn’t Trump seem to care more about winning?

Liam Donovan is a Republican strategist and a president at Targeted Victory, a Washington public affairs and digital marketing firm. He has worked on the National Republican Senatorial Committee and for Cornyn. In this conversation, we discuss the moves Trump is making, the rough political environment for Republicans and what the paths to Democratic victories look like.

Mentioned:

“Graham Platner Thinks a Political Revolution Is Coming” by The Interview

Thomas Massie interview in The Washington Examiner

Book Recommendations:

The Right by Matthew Continetti

Apple in China by Patrick McGee

The Frackers by Gregory Zuckerman

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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What are the conditions that enable a country to become great — or great again? The Trump administration — and other right-wing movements in other countries — offers a vision of greatness based on power and domination abroad, and a mix of shared national and religious stories at home. And that vision is clearly appealing to a lot of people. Liberals in the U.S. and elsewhere have been struggling to tell a story that can compete.

What story would Yuval Noah Harari tell? One of the through lines of Harari’s best-selling books — “Sapiens,” “Homo Deus,” “Nexus” — is the huge role that stories play in shaping the arc of history, driving humans to cooperate on a grand scale to achieve great things, or divide violently against one another.

So I wanted to ask him about the stories that the U.S. and Israel, in particular, seem to have embraced right now. What does history tell us about the power of this story? And why does the liberal story seem so weak right now?

Mentioned:

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Unstoppable Us, Volume 3 by Yuval Noah Harari

“Understanding AI” by Timothy B. Lee

Book Recommendations:

The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut

Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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We have entered a world of maximum gerrymandering warfare. Any guardrails that once existed, from the Constitution or the courts, have been bulldozed over the last decade – most recently in the Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act and made it harder for minorities to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps.

Red and blue states alike have been aggressively trying to redraw their congressional maps in response to all these developments. And there is no sign that will end in 2028; legislatures will just continue trying to tweak their lines to squeeze out advantage for whatever party is in power. And competitive districts in this country – already an endangered species – now teeter on extinction.

That is, unless something dramatic changes.

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the political reform program at New America. He’s one of the most persistent and thoughtful advocates of selecting House members through proportional representation – a system used in many other countries that would make gerrymandering much more difficult. He’s the author of the 2020 book “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America” and writes the newsletter Undercurrent Events.

Mentioned:

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop by Lee Drutman

“Undercurrent Events” by Lee Drutman

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

“How one country stopped a Trump-style authoritarian in his tracks” by Zack Beauchamp

Book Recommendations:

Tyranny of the Majority by Lani Guinier

American Politics by Samuel P. Huntington

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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What do you do when you feel anxious or insecure? Many of us try to push the feeling away, or we ruminate on it, or try to solve it, or avoid the thought altogether. But what would happen if we did the exact opposite?

The Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön is the author of many beloved books, including “When Things Fall Apart,” “Welcoming the Unwelcome” and — my personal favorite — “Comfortable With Uncertainty.” And she has a way of inviting people to befriend the parts of life that typically induce dread — from uncertainty and suffering to loss and discomfort. And she argues that the process of sitting with these experiences and emotions actually releases their power over us. In a time as chaotic and tumultuous as ours, she has so much practical wisdom to share.

In this conversation, she shares what it looks like to actually let go of difficult emotions, the art of “collaborating with reality” when things don’t go as expected, and how to awaken yourself to the “nowness” of life.

Mentioned:

Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chödrön

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön

Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chödrön

Another Kind of Freedom by Pema Chödrön

Book Recommendations:

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chögyam Trungpa

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

Enlightened Vagabond by Matthieu Ricard

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Kim Freda. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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On Friday, I moderated a forum with the top Democratic candidates for California governor, focusing on the state’s housing crisis.

California’s current governor, Gavin Newsom, came into office in 2019 promising to build millions of homes. And in the years since, dozens of pro-housing laws have passed, designed to cut red tape and spur more construction. And yet the number of homes being built in California is basically the same as when he took office, and the state’s housing crisis remains, arguably, the worst in the country. So I wanted to know what the next governor would do about it.

We taped this at the Calvin Simmons Theater in Oakland, Calif. The candidates on the stage were Xavier Becerra, a former attorney general of California and health and human services secretary under President Joe Biden; Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose and a tech entrepreneur; Katie Porter, a former U.S. representative; Tom Steyer, a former San Francisco hedge fund manager, a climate activist and a philanthropist; and Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles and speaker of the California State Assembly. This panel was recorded live. The Times did not fact-check candidates’ remarks.

Mentioned:

“Cost to Build Multifamily Housing in California More Than Twice as High as in Texas” by RAND

“What Worries Me Most About ‘Abundance’” with Derek Thompson and Marc Dunkelman, The Ezra Klein Show

Book Recommendations:

The Hour of the Predator by Giuliano da Empoli

Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Why Nothing Works by Marc J. Dunkelman

Ours Was the Shining Future by David Leonhardt

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu, Marie Cascione, Kristin Lin and Marina King. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Argus HD.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Here’s a shocking number: One out of eight American adults is taking a GLP-1, like Ozempic or Zepbound, according to a KFF poll.

GLP-1s are the biggest pharmaceutical story since antidepressants. But there’s still so much we don’t know.

“We’re only at the beginning of what’s been called this Ozempic era,” the journalist Julia Belluz told me. “I think we’re really just at the beginning of discovering the benefits and the harms of these drugs.” These discoveries begin in the research but are also expanding into how we think about our punishing beauty standards and the blurry lines between illness and wellness.

Belluz is a contributing Opinion writer and the author, with Kevin Hall, of “Food Intelligence.” She’s one of the best health and science reporters I know and has been reporting on GLP-1s for years.

In this conversation, Belluz takes me through what we know — and don’t know — about GLP-1s, their unexpected uses, how they are clashing with a culture obsessed with thinness and looksmaxxing, and whether everyone should be on them.

Mentioned:

“The obesity pay gap is worse than previously thought” by The Economist

“The Great Ozempic Experiment” by Julia Belluz

Book Recommendations:

Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky

The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum

Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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In the U.S., illiberalism is in power. I don’t think anybody really argues against that. But I’ve been surprised by how weak liberalism has felt in response.

Donald Trump isn’t a popular president; he isn’t making people want more of what he is. But if the forces of illiberalism are really going to be turned back in this country, I think more people need to be excited and inspired by liberalism itself. We need a liberalism that stands for more than “not Trump.”

So I’ve been on my own esoteric journey, reading a lot of books on the history of liberalism, trying to understand what excited and inspired people in the past, and how liberals overcame crises like the one we’re in. And reading one of those books, “The Lost History of Liberalism” by Helena Rosenblatt, it felt like an epiphany — that this was a piece of the puzzle.

So I wanted to have Rosenblatt on the show to talk about it. Rosenblatt is a professor of history, political science and French at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and in this conversation, she walks me through the history of liberalism that she uncovered, and the values that once lived at its heart.

Mentioned:

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Liberalism by Edmund Fawcett

Book Recommendations:

Liberalism against Itself by Samuel Moyn

Liberalism as a Way of Life by Alexandre Lefebvre

Thinking With Machines by Vasant Dhar

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Lauren Reddy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Filipa Pajevic and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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