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New York Times Opinion

The first draft of our future. Mapping the new world order through interviews and conversations. Every Thursday, from New York Times Opinion.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Matter of Opinion

Does America have a moral obligation to the world? The former Department of Government Efficiency staffer Jeremy Lewin, now deputy administrator for the United States Agency for International Development, explains how he is implementing President Trump’s foreign aid philosophy and what it means for humanitarian assistance going forward.

 • 01:59 - From the private sector to interviewing with Elon Musk
 • 09:18 - The rapid restructuring of U.S.A.I.D.
 • 19:44 - Lewin’s critiques of U.S.A.I.D.’s focus
 • 25:15 - The most controversial cuts: humanitarian aid 
 • 29:50 - America’s interests first, values-based interests second
 • 40:14 - What is the future vision for foreign aid?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The DOGE Alum Asking if Foreign Aid Is America’s Problem

U.F.O.s, fairies and abductions! This week, Ross talks to Diana Walsh Pasulka, a professor of religious studies, about how a deep dive into Catholic archives led her down a path to unravel the connections between religion, extraterrestrial encounters and government secrecy.

 • 01:53 - How Pasulka’s religious studies led to the U.F.O. debate
 • 06:08 - Modern U.F.O. encounters and telepathic communication
 • 13:29 - What are the actual beliefs of the U.F.O. community?
 • 19:28 - Whistleblowers and government contradictions
 • 31:35 - Angels, demons and “actual things in the sky”
 • 45:38 - Disclosure
 • 52:51 - “Amazing.”

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

 

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

What if the Government Believes in U.F.O.s More Than You Do?

Julie K. Brown thinks Jeffrey Epstein didn’t act alone. On this episode of “Interesting Times,” Ross talks to Brown, the investigative reporter whose work ultimately led to Epstein’s re-arrest, about what the government could release that it hasn’t and how the story is bigger than Epstein.

 • 2:32 - Brown's initial interest in the Epstein case
 • 5:26 - Discovering Epstein's crimes and the plea deal
 • 13:13 - Epstein's victims and the impact of Brown's reporting
 • 18:20 - Epstein's wealth and connections
 • 25:20 - Epstein's social circles
 • 35:01 - Certainty and unsolved mysteries
 • 45:25 - The role of government in the case
 • 51:04 - Trump and the political fallout

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

She Exposed Epstein, and Shares MAGA’s Anger

The conservative Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey joins Ross on “Interesting Times” this week to explain why “toxic empathy” has a stranglehold on politics, whether evangelical Christians have a red line President Trump could cross and why her commentary has echoes of Phyllis Schlafly.

 • 01:26 “The New Phyllis Schlafly”
 • 9:46 Untangling the web of Evangelical Protestants
 • 15:50 Female authority in the church
 • 22:12 What is “toxic empathy”?
 • 30:55 Toxic empathy and cruelty in American politics
 • 40:19 Do conservative christians have a red line?
 • 57:24 “The mushy middle”

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Is ‘Toxic Empathy’ Pulling Christians to the Left?

How has the war in Gaza reverberated throughout American politics? Opinion columnist Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat debate the implications of the Israel-Gaza conflict on antisemitism, the morality of war, and why “Monday morning quarterbacking” is not productive when taking stock of military actions in the Middle East.

 • 01:56 Israel actions in Gaza
 • 04:39 The moral baseline
 • 13:31 What is the end game?
 • 15:52 The role of Israel in American politics
 • 23:44 Can you criticize Israel without becoming antisemetic? 
 • 36:05 Does Israel have obligations to the Jewish diaspora?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Israel’s Moral Balance Beam

Happy Independence Day! We’ll be back next week with a new episode, but today we’re sharing the episode that started us on the path to “Interesting Times.” Ross Douthat talks to Reihan Salam, the president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Together they wrote the book “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.”

They review their George W. Bush-era prescriptions for the Republican Party to reclaim the working-class vote and the ways they were right (and wrong) about building a new Republican majority.

 • 03:47 George W. Bush era
 • 12:06 Rise and fall of the Tea Party
 • 18:19 Trump’s 2016 “blood and guts” message
 • 28:11 Trump’s effect on the right and left
 • 35:48 Trump’s first term economic agenda
 • 39:30 Elon Musk vs JD Vance
 • 46:50 Imagining an activist, conservative government

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Why Trump’s Blood-and-Guts Strategy Worked

The billionaire Peter Thiel is unimpressed with our pace of innovation. In this episode, he critiques artificial intelligence, longevity science and space travel — and warns that our lack of progress could lead to catastrophic outcomes, including the emergence of the Antichrist.

 • 01:19 - What does stagnation mean in 2025?
 • 06:30 - Peter Thiel's case for more progress and innovation
 • 11:30 - Does taking more scientific risk include life extension?
 • 15:14 - Peter Thiel's political history
 • 18:34 - Did Trump live up to Thiel's expectations?
 • 25:10 - Does Elon Musk still want to go to Mars?
 • 28:09 - How Thiel defines A.I.
 • 33:20 - Is A.I. Too Modest An Ambition?
 • 35:23 - How will the human race evolve? Should it?
 • 41:53 - Thiel's critique of Silicon Valley
 • 43:40 - Who is the real Antichrist?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

A Mind-Bending Conversation with Peter Thiel

Is the key to freedom a life without Amazon? This week, Ross talks to Lina Khan, former Chair of the Federal Trade Commission about how unchecked corporate power has limited choice in our day-to-day lives, and how her fight against Big Tech unites left and right.

 • 02:41 - What’s wrong with big business?
 • 09:27 - The political costs of corporate consolidation
 • 11:39 - How the 2008 financial crisis shaped Lina Khan's philosophy
 • 17:49 - The antitrust consensus from Reagan to Obama
 • 21:54 - How the left and right align against big business 
 • 26:12 - Khan's wins and losses at the FTC 
 • 36:53 - Is the Trump administration embracing or rejecting Khan's vision?
 • 42:32 - Is anti-monopoly policy the solution to our economic problems?
 • 48:38 - Can Big Tech be broken up?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.) 

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Progressive Regulator Winning Over the Populist Right

Has immigration become the new litmus test for the Republican Party? In this episode, Ross talks to Matthew Continetti, the author of “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism,” about the party’s shifting coalition, the defining role of immigration and how today’s right echoes its past.

 • 01:50 - What the Elon experiment (and fallout) tells us about the Republican Party
 • 06:55 - Is there a tech right beyond DOGE?
 • 10:09 - Is the “new right” really all that new?
 • 18:16 - Where Trump’s agenda fits within the larger conservative story
 • 25:16 - “Immigration is the biggest issue of our time”
 • 28:39 - How border control will define conservatism around the world
 • 34:05 - Is Silicon Valley out of step with Trump's immigration crackdown?
 • 39:43 - Will Trump's ideas outlast Trump?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.) 

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Trump’s Future Depends on His Immigration Crackdown

Does Hollywood have anything interesting left to say? In a world where franchises dominate and grown-up movies have fallen by the wayside, Ross talks to the showrunner Tony Gilroy, whose “Star Wars” spinoff “Andor” has, according to Ross, succeeded in being both original and smartly political in a Hollywood that is often neither.

 • 03:04 - The political world of ”Andor”
 • 08:36 - Tony Gilroy's syllabus for “Andor”
 • 10:40 - Is “Andor” a left-wing show?
 • 17:07 - What makes Hollywood progressive or liberal?
 • 24:22 - Debating the politics of “Michael Clayton”
 • 29:42 - Why aren't there more movies for grown-ups?
 • 32:56 - “There are no movie stars anymore.”
 • 35:55 - How A.I. changing the movie business
 • 39:28 - Tony Gilroy's advice for future filmmakers

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.) 

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Is ‘Toxic Empathy’ Pulling Christians to the Left?

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