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WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

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

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Washington Roundtable speaks with Jeffrey Rosen, the president and C.E.O. of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit, about how America’s founders tried to tyrant-proof their constitutional system, how Donald Trump’s whim-based decision-making resembles that of the dictator Julius Caesar, and what we can learn from the fall of the Roman Republic. Plus, how the Supreme Court is responding to the Trump Administration’s broad claims of executive power. 

Rosen, a professor at George Washington University Law School, hosts the “We the People” podcast and is the author of “The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.” 

This episode originally aired on March 7th, 2025

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Is Trump the Roman Tyrant America's Founders Feared?

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt for the latest installment of “How Bad Is It?,” a monthly series on the health of American democracy. Their guest is David D. Kirkpatrick, whose new investigation details the many ways President Donald Trump has profited during his second term—from a reported private jet gifted by Qatar to soaring valuations of Trump Media and a flood of crypto ventures. They discuss whether these attempts at self-enrichment amount to ordinary political corruption or whether they represent tools for consolidating power which could accelerate democratic backsliding in the United States, much like in kleptocracies and oligarchies abroad.

This week’s reading:

 • “
How Much Is Trump Profiting Off the Presidency? • ,” by David D. Kirkpatrick

 • “
Can Donald Trump Police the United States? • ,” by Christian Fairas 

 • “
Pam Bondi’s Power Play • ,” by Ruth Marcus

 • “
The Troubling Lines That Columbia Is Drawing • ,” by Eyal Press

 • “
The Texas Democrats’ Remote Resistance • ” by Peter Slevin

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

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How Bad Is It?: Trump’s Self-Dealing and the Question of Kleptocracy

Mohammed R. Mhawish was living in Gaza City during Israel’s invasion, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attack. He witnessed the invasion for months and reported on its devastating consequences for Al Jazeera, The Nation, and other outlets. After his home was targeted in an Israeli strike, which nearly killed him, he fled Gaza. In The New Yorker, he’s written about mental-health workers who are trying to treat a deeply traumatized population, while themselves suffering from starvation, the loss of loved ones, their own injuries—and the constant, remorseless death toll around them. “They were telling me, ‘We cannot wait for the war to stop to start healing—or for ourselves to heal—to start healing others,’” Mhawish relates to David Remnick. “I understood they were trying to heal by helping others heal.”

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

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A Palestinian Journalist Escapes Death in Gaza

The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Donald Trump’s second-term immigration agenda has shifted from border enforcement to an unprecedented campaign of interior deportations. They talk about the expansion of detention through military bases and state-run facilities, the changes to long-standing arrest protocols, and the strategic transfers designed to separate detainees from their families and lawyers. Plus, they examine how these tactics have eroded due-process protections, why Democrats have struggled to mount an effective response, and whether public outrage could slow the Administration’s most aggressive deportation measures.

This week’s reading:

 • “
Can Democrats Fight Back Against Trump’s Redistricting Scheme? • ,” by Jonathan Blitzer

 • “
How Much Is Trump Profiting Off the Presidency? • ,” by David D. Kirkpatrick

 • “
Can Donald Trump Run a Mile? • ,” by Zach Helfand

 • “
What Happens to Public Media Now? • ,” by Oliver Whang

 • “
What If A.I. Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This? • ,” by Cal Newport

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com.

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What Happens After Someone Is Arrested by ICE?

From the attempt to end birthright citizenship to the gutting of congressionally authorized agencies, the Trump Administration has created an enormous number of legal controversies. The Radio Hour asked for listeners’ questions about President Trump and the courts. To answer them, David Remnick speaks with two regular contributors: Ruth Marcus, who writes about legal issues and the Supreme Court, and Jeannie Suk Gersen, who teaches constitutional law at Harvard Law School. While the writers disagree on some significant questions—such as the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Trump v. CASA, which struck down the use of nationwide injunctions—both acknowledge the unprecedented nature of some of the questions from listeners. “They never taught you these things in law school, because he’s pushing on areas of the law that are not normally pushed on,” Marcus tells Remnick.

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. 

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Your Questions Answered: Trump vs. the Rule of Law

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt for the latest installment of “How Bad Is It?,” a monthly series on the health of American democracy. Their guest is Roy Wood, Jr., the host of the satirical program “Have I Got News for You,” on CNN. The group discusses the significance of CBS’s cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” a recent episode of “South Park” that is searingly critical of Donald Trump, and the President’s deployment of lawsuits and the administrative state to try to intimidate his critics in the media and entertainment industries. “There's always going to be these petty, ticky-tack battles that the Administration fights,” says Wood. “But I don't think that's gonna stop the comedians from doing what Trump hopes this would do, which is silence them.”

This week’s reading:

 • “‘
South Park” Skewers a Satire-Proof President • ,’ by Tyler Foggatt

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What the Cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Means • ,” by Vinson Cunningham

 • “
How the Israeli Right Explains the Aid Disaster It Created • ,” by Isaac Chotiner

 • “
Should Police Officers Be More Like U.F.C. Fighters? • ,” by Sam Eagan

 • “
Is Brazil’s Underdog Era Coming to an End? • ,” by Shannon Sims

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com.

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How Bad Is It?: Trump’s War on Comedians

The city of Los Angeles has declared itself a sanctuary city, where local authorities do not share information with federal immigration enforcement. But L.A.—where nearly forty per cent of residents are foreign-born—became ground zero for controversial arrests and deportations by ICE. The Trump Administration deployed marines and the National Guard to the city, purportedly to quell protests against the operation, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, spoke of the government’s intention to “liberate” Los Angeles from its elected officials. This week, David Remnick talks with the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, a former congressional representative, about the recent withdrawal of some troops, and a lawsuit the city has joined arguing that the Trump Administration’s immigration raids and detentions are unconstitutional. (A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the government.) “I’ve described L.A. as a petri dish,” Bass says. The Administration “wanted to . . . show that they could come in and do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and however they wanted. They were putting every other city in America on notice: ‘mess with us will come for you.’ ”

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Mayor Karen Bass on Marines in Los Angeles

The Washington Roundtable’s Evan Osnos interviews Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired, about the publication’s scoop-filled coverage of DOGE, and what Elon Musk’s experience in Washington taught Silicon Valley leaders. “They know that they can operate with relative impunity, and they are now lining themselves up next to a President who will allow that to continue to happen,” Drummond says. Plus, a discussion of how artificial intelligence will shape our society and democracy, and transform the workforce in the years to come.

This week’s reading:

 • “
Trump Redefines the Washington Scandal • ,” by Susan B. Glasser

 • “
Donald Trump’s Tariff DealmMaker-In-Chief • ” by Antonia Hitchens

 • “
Are the Democrats Getting Better at the Internet? • ,” by Jon Allsop

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

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Wired’s Katie Drummond on What the Tech Titans Learned from DOGE

The New Yorker contributor Jon Allsop joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how President Trump’s refusal to release the Epstein files has fractured his base, and how the Democratic Party has increasingly weaponized the Epstein conspiracy theory in its attempt to combat the MAGA movement. How do we proceed given that our country’s politics are increasingly defined by conspiratorial thinking?

This week’s reading:

 • “
Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Three Conspiracy-Theory Theories • ,” by Jon Allsop

 • “
Behind Trump’s Jeffrey Epstein Problem • ,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells

 • “
What the Cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Means • ,” by Vinson Cunningham

 • “
Coldplaygate Is a Reminder That There’s No Escaping Going Viral • ,” by Kyle Chayka

 • “
In an Age of Climate Change, How Do We Cope with Floods? • ,” by John Seabrook

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com.

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How the Epstein Conspiracy Theory Took Over Politics

The sense that the White House is covering something up about Jeffrey Epstein has led to backlash from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters. Even after the financier was convicted for hiring an underage prostitute, for which he served a brief and extraordinarily lenient sentence, Epstein remained a playboy, a top political donor, and a very good friend of the very powerful—“a sybarite,” in the words of the journalist Michael Wolff, “in that old -fashioned sense [that] ‘my identity comes from breaking all norms.’ ” Wolff got to know Epstein and recorded, he estimates, a hundred hours of interviews with him. After Epstein was arrested again, in 2019, and was later found dead in his jail cell in what was ruled a suicide, it has been an article of faith within MAGA that his death was a conspiracy or a coverup, and the Trump campaign promised a reveal. Attorney General Pam Bondi initially asserted that she had Epstein’s so-called “client list” on her desk and was reviewing it, but now claims that there is nothing to share. Do the Epstein files have something incriminating about the President? “The central point from which this grew is the [Bill] Clinton relationship with Epstein,” Wolff tells David Remnick. But the MAGA believers “seem to have overlooked the Trump relationship [with Epstein], which was deeper and longer.” The men were “probably the closest friend either of them ever had,” until they reportedly fell out over real estate in 2004. Now Trump is frantically trying to control the narrative, pretending that he barely knew Epstein. This, Wolff thinks, “may be the beginning of Donald Trump’s lame-duck years.”

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Michael Wolff on MAGA’s Revolt over Jeffrey Epstein

The Washington Roundtable discusses the surge of enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz campaign among Democrats in relation to Bill Clinton’s bid for the White House in 1992. They’re joined by the Democratic strategists James Carville and Paul Begala, whose work as architects of that Clinton campaign was portrayed in the 1993 documentary “The War Room.” Plus, a look ahead at next week’s Democratic National Convention.

This week’s reading:

 • “
Kamala Harris’s Best Campaign Surrogate Is Donald Trump • ,” by Susan B. Glasser

 • “
Tim Walz and the Lessons of High-School Football • ,” by Louisa Thomas

 • “
Kamala Harris’s Youth-Vote Turnaround • ,” by E. Tammy Kim

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

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What the Harris Campaign Needs to Win, with James Carville and Paul Begala

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