The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The term “culture wars” is most often associated with issues of sexuality, race, religion, and gender. But, as recent months have made plain, when Donald Trump refers to the culture wars, he also means the arts. He fired the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which Republicans want to rename for him. His Administration fired the national archivist and the Librarian of Congress, and pressured the director of the National Portrait Gallery to resign; it is reviewing the entire Smithsonian Institution, looking for what the President calls “improper ideology.” Some view these moves as low-hanging fruit for Trump, and a distraction from bad press about Jeffrey Epstein, the Putin meeting, and tariffs. But Adam Gopnik believes that interpretation is a misreading. The loyalty purge at institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery is a key part of his agenda. “Pluralism is the key principle of a democratic culture,” Gopnik tells David Remnick. Could we be following the path of Stalinist Russia, where a head of state dictated reviews of concerts, Remnick asks? “I pray and believe that we are not. But that is certainly the direction in which one inevitably heads when the political boss takes over key cultural institutions, and dictates who’s acceptable and who is not.” Gopnik recalls saying after the election that “Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert would be next.” “You would see them disappear,” he added. “Each time, we find a rationale for it or a rationale is offered. And it’s much easier for us to swallow the rationale than to face the reality.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Democratic strategist Lis Smith joins the guest host Clare Malone, a New Yorker staff writer, to discuss the state of the Democratic Party, and how a decade of reliance on anti-Trump rhetoric has left Democrats reactive and directionless. They consider why groups that Democrats once counted on—from young people to communities of color—are shifting rightward, and what new strategies politicians from Gavin Newsom to Zohran Mamdani are testing to prove that the Democratic Party stands for more than opposition to Trump.This week’s reading “The Trump Administration’s Efforts to Reshape America’s Past,” by Jill Lepore “How Former Biden Officials Defend Their Gaza Policy,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Endless August Recess,” by Antonia Hitchens “The Enormous Stakes of Trump’s Effort to Fire the Fed Governor Lisa Cook,” by John Cassidy “What’s Life Like in Washington, D.C., During Trump’s Takeover?,” by Margaret Talbot Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Since the end of the Cold War, most Americans have taken U.S. military supremacy for granted. We can no longer afford to do so, according to reporting by the staff writer Dexter Filkins. China has developed advanced weapons that rival or surpass America’s; and at the same time, drone warfare has fundamentally changed calculations of the battlefield. Ukraine’s ability to hold off the massive Russian Army depends largely on a startup industry that has provided millions of drones—small, highly accurate, and as cheap as five hundred dollars each—to inflict enormous casualties on invading forces. In some other conflict, could the U.S. be in the position of Russia? “The nightmare scenario” at the Pentagon, Filkins tells David Remnick, is, “we’ve got an eighteen-billion-dollar aircraft carrier steaming its way toward the western Pacific, and [an enemy could] fire drones at these things, and they’re highly, highly accurate, and they move at incredible speeds. . . . To give [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth credit, and the people around him . . . they say, ‘O.K., we get it. We’re going to change the Pentagon procurement process,’ ” spending less on aircraft carriers and more on small technology like drones. But “the Pentagon is so slow, and people have been talking about these things for years. . . . Nobody has been able to do it.”Read Filkins’s “Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War?”New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 “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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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.’ ” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable’s Jane Mayer interviews Leah Litman, a law professor at the University of Michigan, a co-host of the “Strict Scrutiny” podcast, and the author of “Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes.” Litman analyzes the wave of victories that the Court has given President Trump’s second Administration—on both its regular docket and its so-called shadow docket—and how outside influence seeps into the Court’s decision-making. Plus, how to parse the dissenting Justices’ language to understand what is happening behind closed doors at the Court.This week’s reading: “Trump Has a Bad Case of Biden on the Brain,” by Susan B. Glasser “Can Trump Deport People to Any Country That Will Take Them?,” by Isaac Chotiner “Sick Children Will Be Among the Victims of Trump’s Big Bill,” by Rachel Pearson “Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Three Conspiracy-Theory Theories,” 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In conservative economics, cuts to social services are often seen as necessary to shrink the expanding deficit. Donald Trump’s budget bill is something altogether different: it cuts Medicaid while slashing tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, adding $6 trillion to the national debt, according to the Cato Institute. Janet Yellen, a former Treasury Secretary and former chair of the Federal Reserve, sees severe impacts in store for average Americans: “What this is going to do is to raise interest rates even more. And so housing will become less affordable, car loans less affordable,” she tells David Remnick. “This bill also contains changes that raise the burdens of anyone who has already taken on student debt. And with higher interest rates, further education—college [and] professional school—becomes less affordable. It may also curtail investment spending, which has a negative impact on growth.” This, she believes, is why the President is desperate to lower interest rates; he has spoken of firing his appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, whom he has called a “numbskull” and a “stupid person,” and installing a more compliant chair. But lowering interest rates to further political goals, Yellen says, “are the words one expects from the head of a banana republic that is about to start printing money to fund fiscal deficits. … And then you get very high inflation or hyperinflation.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable’s Susan B. Glasser interviews the Russia expert Fiona Hill about Vladimir Putin’s long reign and Trump’s dismantling of American institutions. Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, previously served in the National Security Council and National Intelligence Council. She gained national attention as a star witness during the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, in 2019. Additionally, Hill, who is also a member of Harvard’s Board of Overseers, talks with Glasser about the Trump Administration’s war on academic institutions.This week’s reading: “Did Trump Really Just Break Up with Putin?” by Susan B. Glasser “Why a Devoted Justice Department Lawyer Became a Whistle-Blower,” by Ruth Marcus “Sheldon Whitehouse’s Three-Hundredth Climate Warning,” by Elizabeth Kolbert “The Supreme Court Sides with Trump Against the Judiciary,” by Ruth Marcus Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the damage that President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will cause in rural America. Beshear paints a picture of how Democrats can win back voters without compromising on issues such as abortion or trans rights, what the party can learn from Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral primary, and the importance of communicating with the public using everyday language. This week’s reading: “Donald Trump, Zohran Mamdani, and Posting as Politics” by Kyle Chayka “The Texas Floods and the Lives Lost at Camp Mystic,” by Jessica Winter “Is There Still Time to Be Hopeful About the Climate?,” by Daniel A. Gross “The War on Gaza’s Children,” by Isaac Chotiner “4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment,” by Bill McKibben To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Rivka Galchen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a class at the University of Chicago with a tantalizingly dark title: Are We Doomed? It’s in the interdisciplinary field of existential risk, which studies the threats posed by climate change, nuclear warfare, and artificial intelligence. Galchen, who spent a semester observing the course and its students, considers how to contend with this bleak future, and how to understand the young people who may inherit it.This episode originally aired June 5, 2024This week’s reading: “Donald Trump, Zohran Mamdani, and Posting as Politics” by Kyle Chayka “Do We Need Another Green Revolution?,” by Elizabeth Kolbert “What Therapists Treating Immigrants Hear,” by Geraldo Cadava Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The relationship between Fox News and Donald Trump is not just close; it can be profoundly influential. Trump frequently responds to segments in real time online—even to complain about a poll he doesn’t like. He has tapped the network for nearly two dozen roles within his Administration—including the current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host. The network is also seen as having an outsized impact on his relationship with his base, and even on his agenda. Most recently, it’s been reported that Fox News’ coverage of the Iran-Israel conflict played a role in Trump’s decision to enter that fight. And while the network’s right-wing commentators—from Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham to Mark Levin—tend to grab the most headlines and stand as the ideological coloring of the network, “Special Report,” Fox’s 6 P.M. broadcast, anchored by Bret Baier, is essential to the conservative-media complex. Baier draws more than three million viewers a night, at times surpassing legacy brands like “CBS Evening News,” despite being available in half as many homes. Baier insists on his impartiality, but his network’s reputation as an outlet for the right and its connection to President Trump himself can make his job representing the news arm of the network more challenging. And, when it comes to Trump and his relationship to the media, Baier tells David Remnick, “I think it is this cat-and-mouse game. You know, for all of the things he says about the media . . . he’s reaching out and doing interviews with the same people he says are nasty.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt for another episode of “How Bad Is It?,” a monthly series that examines the health of American democracy. They discuss whether the President’s recent strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities may threaten his “America first” coalition, how the threat of war may enable him to consolidate more power domestically, and whether Trump’s use of the National Guard to quell protest in Los Angeles is truly undemocratic.This week’s reading: “Zohran Mamdani’s New York City Miracle,” by Eric Lach “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Declaration of Independence,” by Ruth Marcus “A.I. Is Homogenizing Our Thoughts,” by  Kyle Chayka “Heir Ball: How the Cost of Youth Sports Is Changing the N.B.A.,” by Robin Wright “Can Ayatollah Khamenei, and Iran’s Theocracy, Survive This War?,” by Antonia Hitchens  To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices