David Remnick
Appearances
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
It was a one-sentence admission of guilt in which the first-person pronoun was dropped.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Because in a sense, in publicity terms, they got away with it. It didn't blow—and we should say also that Alice Munro in Canada— Her reputation was immense. People referred to her as the queen of the literary scene there. It was, you know, people here probably at that time knew other writers, Toni Morrison or John Updike, much more than Alice Munro somehow.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
But in Canada, it was a different story, no?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And so now Monroe's ardent readers, and there are a great many of us, are left with this terrible conundrum that a writer of such astonishing powers of empathy could betray her own child.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I'm speaking with Rachel Aviv, who's reported for The New Yorker on Alice Munro and her daughter, Andrea Skinner. We'll continue in a moment. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
You come to the New Yorker Radio Hour for conversations that go deeper with people you really want to hear from, whether it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo, Liz Cheney, or the godfather of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton, or some of my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at the New Yorker.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'm speaking today with staff writer Rachel Aviv.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
In a piece that you can find on newyorker.com called Alice Monroe's Passive Voice, Rachel Aviv probes with depth and sensitivity what happened in Alice Monroe's family after Monroe's partner sexually abused her youngest daughter. Andrea, the daughter, told members of her family about it when it happened, including her father, Jim Monroe. But nobody wanted to tell Alice Monroe.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Nobody wanted to upset her. And years later, when Jerry Fremlin admitted to the abuse, Alice stood by him. She gradually lost contact with her daughter, Andrea. Rachel, we spoke before the break about how the media ignored this story for many years, and it kind of mirrors the way Alice Munro's family dealt with it. You spoke with Andrea Skinner repeatedly and at great length.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
In one of the most astonishing pieces of reporting that the magazine has had the honor of publishing in recent years, Rachel Aviv explores the story of Alice Munro and her art, and the terrible secret of her life, and the lives of her family. I thought we should begin by talking about Alice Munro as a writer. She published 50 short stories at The New Yorker, at least.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Here's a recording she made for a survivor's group in Canada called The Gatehouse.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
So her siblings as well as her mother shut her out?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Now, you spoke with Robert Thacker, who's a biographer of Alice Munro. He knew about the abuse. What was his rationale as a scholar, as a biographer, to ignore this incredibly pivotal, on the criminal record piece of news?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I'm sorry, but how did you react to that when you heard that?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Or write an honest biography.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
What's amazing is how many stories in mid- and late-career are— haunted by, shadowed by, or even you could say about this situation, which is the story that in your mind is the most directly infested with this?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And there were people around the office for years who considered her in many ways, you know, the Chekhov of the 20th century. Tell me a little bit about her qualities as a writer.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Did Andrea go on reading her mother's stories as they came out in the magazine and in books?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
One of the striking things about this extraordinary piece is that Andrea... doesn't go to pieces. She continues living her life, and she has a life. What is it?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Even to her siblings who were deceived by that in some way.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
The sense of dissociation is incredible.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize. How did Andrea react to that news?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
How do you think this affects Alice Munro's literary legacy and how we'll read her in the future? I know lots of people that at first they said, I'm never going to read her again. Your colleague, Jiayang Fan, who was teaching Alice Munro, I just had lunch with her. It just rocked her in a most elemental way. How do you think that will affect Alice Munro's being read in the future?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
It felt like— And you see it that way?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Alice ignored her own mother.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
So there's a certain ruthlessness to it.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And you earlier in our conversation talked about trying not to be judgmental, but in fact, Writing, in no small part, is a collection of many judgments along the way, whether about sentences or how a story moves or the judgments you make. And in this story, the real crime is committed by the man, Gerald Fremlin. We shouldn't forget that. And I wonder in the end how you do judge Ellis Munro.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
What's the work about, really?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Do you think she thought of it in those stark terms?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Rachel Levive, thank you so much.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Alice Munro's Passive Voice is the title of Rachel Aviv's piece, and you can read it at our website, newyorker.com. And you can subscribe to The New Yorker for reporting like this every week, and that's also at newyorker.com.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
You know, I've been working at The New Yorker for a long time, for 30 years. And Alice died last year, right?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I think I met her once or twice, maybe. She very rarely seemed to come to New York. And when she did, it was like a stealth mission. She kept far apart from that so-called literary world, didn't she?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Now, I have a confession to make. So this past summer... like a lot of people, I read the piece in the Toronto Star by Alice's grown daughter, Andrea. And it was a short memoir in which she said that she had been sexually assaulted by Alice's husband when she was very young, nine years old, I think.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And his name?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I read this piece. My first reaction was one of, I was just startled. I mean, Alice Munro holds a great place in my mind as a reader and, frankly, as a citizen of The New Yorker. She's an important figure. And my second thought, not long thereafter, was that Rachel Levive should write about this. And before I even had a chance to call you and discuss this,
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I'd heard that you were also thinking the same thing. How did this news affect you? And then why did you decide to get on it as a piece of writing and investigations so quickly?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
The abuse against Andrea by Fremlin, the stepfather, began when she was nine years old. What exactly happened?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
So it went on and on for years. And Fremlin, Gerald Fremlin, had a very strange way of talking about this when he eventually did. He seemed to be obsessed with Nabokov's novel Lolita and much else. Tell me about Fremlin.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And how did Alice Munro initially react to this letter that she got from her daughter, Andrea, saying to her, sit down, go to a quiet place before you read this, and she gives her the news, how did Alice Munro react?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
How do you make sense of why she stayed? It can't just be I loved him and I was dependent on him.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Let's listen to Alice Munro.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Alice Munro was a master of the short story in our time, the Chekhov of her era. She published more than 50 stories in the New Yorker, and then in 2013, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
The resonant phrase for me there is to see what happens. As if the most essential thing is to see what will happen and by extension, I think, to see how it becomes the material of her art.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
To see what the human behavior will be, positive, negative, or otherwise.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
It's almost as if she never left her husband and reconciled with her daughters because the conflict was fruitful for her work. Is that unfair?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
She had been beaten badly by her father when she was growing up.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
What do you mean speaks to those wounds? To heal them?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
But shortly before her death, her legacy darkened when her youngest daughter, Andrea, revealed that she'd been sexually abused by Monroe's longtime partner. This began when Andrea was just nine years old, and it was kept secret in the family even after the man confessed to it in letters.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
You know, I went back and reread this piece in the New York Times magazine from 20 years ago by Daphne Merkin. It describes the relationship of Monroe and Jerry Fremlin. And it's not Merkin's fault. This was performed for her in a sense. But she described that relationship in very sporty, genial terms.
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
How did the police react to that report?
In The Dark
From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And what came out of that investigation?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
And... This is the first cover that was on The New Yorker. That's right. Ray Irvin was the artist, and they put it out, and it went on the newsstands. Harold Ross was the editor. Raoul Fleischman, a yeast fortune behind the magazine. Sure. And it sold nothing. It sold nothing. It didn't do very well at all. Even with all that yeast money behind it.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
And this is a... They almost closed the whole thing down after three months. Really? They almost gave up on the whole thing.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Was there a story? It was meant to be just a purely comic, jazz age, 1920s, pre-Depression thing. And they were going to close it down after three months. And then they had a good piece about the Scopes monkey trial, which you remember?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
sure who did what i watched it on court tv it's fantastic and then i swear to god what took off on the newsstand was a piece you're not going to believe this about cabarets and nightclubs and things like this and people were fascinated and it flew off the newsstand And the next thing you know, we were a big success.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Oh, it was purely little bits and pieces. The first profile that ever ran, and we're famous for longer pieces, as you know. The first piece that ever ran as a profile was a one-page profile of the head of the Metropolitan Opera. Showbiz.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
One page.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
And read more. What? You know, there aren't little dots in one-sentence summaries of world events. Son of a bitch. No, it's in... It is in defiance of every trend that we think is happening. But look, I think that people actually want to know. They want to know what's going on in the world. They want to know what's going on in Washington.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
They want to know what's going on with other people's lives and have some empathy for it. They want to laugh. And that's what we're trying to do. It's a pretty inclusive formula.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Well, I think there are more people than you think. I mean, a million two, million three people subscribe to the magazine. I hope it'll be more, especially after this night. I think all day long. There's nothing like shameless pandering.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
They're not interested. My first job, sports writer for the Washington Post. Really? Yeah. I didn't even know they had athletic teams. They have what's now called the Commodores. Oh, very nice.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
I think people want to find out more than just ridiculous tweets. And they want to know what's going on. And they want fairness and fact checking and a sense of decency. And they also want some media outlets that aren't knuckling under.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
And that's our promise to you. And, you know, I think that we're looking for another hundred years, but I'd like to get past the next four. Right. Frankly, yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
It's not even reminiscent of the first Trump term.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Immensely different. in a weird way more competent. I know that sounds very strange, but they seem to have come to the game very determined to do a ton of things fast and overwhelm you and overwhelm me and everybody here. And to some measure, they're succeeding.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
But there's a shrewdness to it. And part of the shrewdness is contingent on the weakness of the Democrats and the confusion of the Democrats at the moment. And the sport of the election, quite frankly, there are a lot of people behind them.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
And our job is to get it right and to get it fair and to get it factual and to not just be yelling and screaming and wagging our fingers with polemics, but to really describe these things with with some sense of seriousness. And I think people want that.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
I notice sometimes when I go out to dinner with this person or that person and meet friends, whatever, every once in a while, in fact, quite a lot, somebody will say to me, you know what? I've signed off on the news. I'm not watching it. I can't take it. I have to, you know, protect myself. It's too much. I understand that instinct. I understand it, but while you're doing that...
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Trump keeps going. Politics keeps going. The world keeps happening. And you may choose to protect yourself.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
But then you're part of the problem, I'm afraid.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
That's happening right now. Right now, the president is overstepping executive power, not once, not twice, but in multiple ways. And courts are going to have to stand up to do what courts need to do. The press needs to describe it in all its fullness and accuracy. Citizens need to do what citizens are capable of doing. And it requires everybody.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
And the Democratic Party, that Congressman Goldman did not exactly present the face of a warrior.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Chapter 12 in Profiles in Courage. Right? Yeah, yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
But that's a political battle. Some of that is a political battle that's natural over... over federal spending, for example, over culture wars. It's not a mystery that we have such... That's right. It's not constitutional. No, this is about breaking the norms of the Constitution and the law, and what are you going to do about it?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
I think CBS said 52, 53 percent, which for him is a landslide.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
So I think we're headed toward a big crisis. I really do. And I think we're in the midst of it. Right. Really do.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Yeah. Well, the opposition party is the Democratic Party that's licking its wounds. It's beating itself up for what happened, and rightly so, in terms of the Biden decision to run a second time or the decision to kind of have a willing suspension of disbelief on where Biden was in terms of popularity or his age. There's a kind of sense of injury, embarrassment, and withdrawal. But enough already.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Enough already. Sack up. Yeah. You hear that?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
But what you described, which is that you have a historical trend and then there's a reaction to it, and this has happened any number of times, I fully expect and hope that that will happen again in some form or another. Again, it is not the job of the press, and this may disappoint some of you, to be at the head of the barricades shaking the fist and leading the charge.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
It is to describe so that you're fully in possession of the facts.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
and points of view are expressed, and, you know, then you do what you will in a democracy. That is a really important function. Do you really think the Democrats' problem is a messaging problem?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
No, this is three weeks old. What is it, three, four weeks old? This is not a new feeling. People did not believe... I think people did not fully take on board that what Donald Trump was saying that he was going to do in all those speeches that we... either laughed about or disbelieved or, you know, kind of let fly by or foolish enough to believe that he would lose.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
They did not quite take on board the full reality, the fullness of what he was gonna do, how fast it was gonna come, and with what sense of diabolical organization. Because you have to say this, it is just coming so fast at people in terms of the press, in terms of public opinion, in terms of the Democratic Party, that people are on their heels. Right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
And I, you know, hope that doesn't last for... Because there's no time... If you keep ceding that to Trump, a lot of damage is going to be done very, very quickly.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
But the problem is that he's president and he's maximizing executive power as quickly and as fully as he possibly can. And unless you have a coherent reaction to that, whether it's in Congress, or the press, or the greater world, or on the street, you're going to lose a lot. Ultimately, he might get pushed back. Ultimately, in two years, there might be a midterm election that weakens him.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Ultimately, he may overplay his hand in this court case or that court case, and he loses. But a lot of damage is going to be done to a lot of human beings. And also, the one thing that we haven't mentioned the quality of cruelty to all this, not just illegality.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Yeah. I mean, just the cruelty about the description of trans people and our fellow brothers and sisters who are immigrants or have birthright citizenship. There is a tone of insult and the desire to damage.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
I can fully believe it, and any government agency, whether it's USAID or whatever it might be. Yes. But the notion of putting somebody in charge of the... HEALTH, THE PUBLIC HEALTH OF THIS COUNTRY, WHO IS A CONSPIRACY THEORIST AND A LIAR AND QUITE STRANGE.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
K Thank you very much. Thank you.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart & John Oliver on America's Trump Monarchy Era | David Remnick
Thank you very much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: James Taylor Will Teach you Guitar
That was Adam Gopnik on the guitar, accompanied by James Taylor and his wife Kim. I'm David Remnick. Please join me next week. And until then, have a great week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: James Taylor Will Teach you Guitar
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. If you're a James Taylor fan, what would you ask him? If you could ask him anything, the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik got his chance.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: James Taylor Will Teach you Guitar
James Taylor talking with Adam Gopnik at the New Yorker Festival. Ahead this hour, we'll hear a live performance from James Taylor. It's the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: James Taylor Will Teach you Guitar
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. James Taylor joined Adam Gopnik in conversation at the New Yorker Festival, and they talked there about how Taylor formed his very distinctive sound, which was so influenced by Brazilian music, and in particular, Antonio Carlos Jobim.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: St. Vincent’s Seduction
From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: Elvis Costello Talks with David Remnick
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: Elvis Costello Talks with David Remnick
This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Botin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Kala Leah, David Krasnow, Caroline Lester, Gophen Mputubwele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Allison McAdam, Mengfei Chen, and Emily Mann. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: Elvis Costello Talks with David Remnick
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
From the Archive: Elvis Costello Talks with David Remnick
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
What will prevail in the administration?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
And once inflation starts rising and recession kicks in.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Trump has been a longtime proponent of tariffs, and he seems to relish the prospect of a major trade war with the Chinese. Those positions reached their fruition with his highly chaotic tariff rollout recently, which of course tanked the stock market and put us near the brink of a global recession.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
On that splendid note, John Cassidy, thanks so much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Capitalism and Its Critics, A History. That's the title of John Cassidy's new book. And you can find Cassidy writing on the economy every week in his column, the financial page at newyorker.com. And of course, you can always subscribe to The New Yorker there as well at newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Even many Trump voters have told pollsters that they disapprove of this tariff policy, at least its chaotic nature. A new book by John Cassidy, our staff writer, takes a long view of these debates. It's called Capitalism and Its Critics, a History. Cassidy has been covering economics for The New Yorker for a long time, and he writes our weekly column called The Financial Page.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Now, John, I think most people in America think of capitalism almost... as the eternal natural order of the universe somehow, like the weather. But it has a real beginning, and that's where you start your book. So how did capitalism start, and what did it replace?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Adam Smith, of course, is often thought to be the godfather of capitalism, the philosopher of the free market. But you cite him as a critic of capitalism.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
And what compelled Adam Smith to come along and defend free trade? Was it purely technological invention?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
But that's the thing he critiqued as the godfather of capitalism. It's largely with monopoly power, isn't it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
When you look back on your reading of Marx, which began when you were very young and you've been thinking about Marx for a long time, early on in both of our careers at the New Yorker, you wrote a terrific piece about Karl Marx, and not for the last time either. What did Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels get right in your view and whatnot?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
I'm speaking with the New Yorker's John Cassidy. More in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
And what about now? We've seen in recent years, starting when Bernie Sanders was running for president, polls that showed declining support for capitalism in really significant ways. So, John, what would you say is happening?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
But at the same time, there's one socialist senator, Bernie Sanders, and he draws big crowds. What is his position in the Democratic Party firmament, the American firmament at this point?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Why is that particular to the United States? What are the roots of the resistance in the United States as opposed to Europe to social democracy as you describe it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. For decades, economic arguments in this country, in the broadest sense, were usually over taxes and spending. But for a long time, Republicans and most Democrats alike have been in favor of free trade, the idea that the global flow of goods and services should be as open as possible for the
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
John Maynard Keynes. And the Keynesian tradition from the economist John Maynard Keynes, what is that? What's the tradition in the history of capitalism?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
How would you describe that? It's because of the diminution of labor unions, the growth of monopolies, the increase in radical income disparities.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Now you have exactly that, Trumpian populism. And at the center of White House policy to combat globalization, to combat deindustrialization, is the use of high tariffs. And Trump rolled this policy out seemingly fairly chaotically. What is the theoretical impulse behind it? Why is Donald Trump so pro-tariff as he has been for decades? Right, that's a very good question.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Even if it hurt some workers, the prevailing economic wisdom was that free trade was a necessary aspect of capitalism. Now, this was and has always been contentious. Unions have fought agreements like NAFTA. Critics say that the globalized economy led to deindustrialization in much of the country and that that deindustrialization, as we know, gave real fuel to Donald Trump's populism.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Is there a logic to that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
So where do you see this policy of Trump's going? He's yanked back certain measures because he saw the markets tanking. And yet it seems one of the great own goals in the history of policy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Yeah, there's no public opinion is not playing a big part.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
John, there's a tension inside the Trump administration where economics are concerned. You've got the economic nationalism of the kind of Steve Bannon wing. And then you have Trump himself in some ways. And you've got, you know, somebody like the Treasury Secretary or the Commerce Secretary who are... big-time capitalists. They're not economic nationalists, strictly speaking.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
Here's Alan Cumming at the New Yorker Festival, speaking with staff writer Emily Nussbaum.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
And we had help this week from Chris Hegel.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
And wound up killing 20, 30,000 people or so before it was over with.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Plenty of actors light up a room, but Alan Cumming is more of a disco ball reflecting every possible angle of show business. That's how the critic Emily Nussbaum introduced Alan Cumming when they sat down at the recent New Yorker Festival. And he does seem to do it all.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
He acts in mainstream dramas like The Good Wife, as well as more indie projects like his one-man version of Macbeth. Cumming is a Broadway legend. He also owns a nightclub. He recorded a duet about Scottish independence with a Gaelic rapper. His memoir, Not My Father's Son, was a bestseller, and he stars in the Emmy-winning reality show The Traitors on Peacock.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
Alan Cumming, speaking with staff writer Emily Nussbaum at the New Yorker Festival. You can watch highlights from the festival at newyorker.com and subscribe to the New Yorker at newyorker.com as well. We've been interviewing actors, musicians, and writers and more since the New Yorker Radio Hour went on the air 10 years ago.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television
And we've gathered some of our favorite moments into three playlists for you. And you can hear all of it at harkaudio.com slash newyorker. That's harkaudio, one word, dot com slash newyorker. Hope you enjoy it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The New Yorker Celebrates a Hundred Years as a Poetry and Fiction Tastemaker
From the online spectacle around Leo the 14th Selection to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The New Yorker Celebrates a Hundred Years as a Poetry and Fiction Tastemaker
Yeah, that's not the right question. The question is, why would they do such a stupid thing? Yeah, that is the question, isn't it? Yeah, that's the question.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The New Yorker Celebrates a Hundred Years as a Poetry and Fiction Tastemaker
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Julianne Moore Explains What She Needs in a Film Director
Staff writer Michael Shulman sat down last month with Julianne Moore. The following is only a partial list of the directors she's worked with.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Julianne Moore Explains What She Needs in a Film Director
And wound up killing 20, 30,000 people or so before it was over with.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Brian Eno Knows “What Art Does”
This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. For decades, Brian Eno has been a hugely influential figure in the music business, particularly in the studio. He's produced hit after hit with U2, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Grace Jones, and many, many others. But he's also known as a kind of musical philosopher, a guru of the soundboard.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Brian Eno Knows “What Art Does”
Amanda Petrusich spoke with Brian Eno about two new records that have just come out and his new book, What Art Does.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Brian Eno Knows “What Art Does”
The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich speaking with Brian Eno. Eno's new records in collaboration with Beattie Wolfe are called Luminal and Lateral. And if you're interested in Eno's work, a terrific documentary came out last year simply called Eno. I'm David Remnick. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Brian Eno Knows “What Art Does”
Here's The New Yorker's music critic, Amanda Petrusich.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Brian Eno Knows “What Art Does”
Brian Eno, speaking with The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich. More in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The two movies facing off for the big holiday weekend at the box office are Wicked Part One and Gladiator Two. The New Yorker's critic Justin Chang reviewed both of them the other day, and his review is a terrific read.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
I'm really glad to hear that. I'm on team Colson Whitehead. You know, as much as I admired Underground Railroad as a novel, I wasn't completely sold on the film version. And to hear that Nickel Boys works and more, that's really uplifting. What's your second choice?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
But I wanted to hear from Justin what else I should be excited about in the crop of movies that comes out toward the end of the year.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
I have no problem with those lengths. I really don't when they're good. I just spent a Saturday watching straight through Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing. I think it was nine episodes, so there must have been seven hours of film. And I was one happy boy. And what's your third and final choice? Because you've got me twice into the theaters already.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
I think that's Michael A's wheelhouse. Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
Not at all. But if you want to break in between some of these tougher movies, there's always Elf.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
So your three picks, Nickel Boys, Hard Truths, The Brutalist. Yes. Justin, thanks so much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
You can read Justin Chang on the movies at newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Hope you had a great holiday. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
Well, since my kids are now too old for that, and I'm waiting impatiently, impatiently for grandchildren, I'm going to sit that one out. But meanwhile, you've got three picks for us this season that you think will, in some way or another,
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Historical Epic of the Chinese in America
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Historical Epic of the Chinese in America
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Dana Goodyear in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles. More in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Staff writer Dana Goodyear has reported on California, the entertainment industry, a deadly crime spree in Malibu, Kamala Harris' rise in politics, and the ever more fragile environment in the state. Dana has lived for a long time in Los Angeles, in the neighborhood of the Pacific Palisades.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
So Dana, you've been documenting the loss of your home while you're reporting on the effects of this immense catastrophe in Los Angeles. And that's gotta be beyond difficult. You told me you went back to the house again a few days later. So what did you find there?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
And recently, she and her family found their lives very much at the center of the story.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Well, Dana, all I can say is I send my love to you, love from Esther and to Billy and to the whole family.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Dana Goodyear is covering this year's wildfires in Los Angeles for The New Yorker. I'm David Remnick. That's The New Yorker Radio Hour for this week, and thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
Fenway Park in Boston is a lyric little band box of a ballpark.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934 and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between man's Euclidean determinations and nature's beguiling irregularities.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
I and 10,453 others had shown up, primarily because this was the Red Sox's last home game of the season, and therefore the last time in all eternity that their regular left fielder known to the headlines as Ted, Kid, Splinter, Thumper, T.W., and, most cloyingly, Mr. Wonderful, would play in Boston.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
My personal memories of Williams begin when I was a boy in Pennsylvania, with two last-place teams in Philadelphia to keep me company. For me, Williams' LF was a figment of the box scores, who always seemed to be going three for five. He radiated from afar the hard blue glow of high purpose.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
Whenever Williams appeared at the plate, pounding the dirt from his cleats, gouging a pit in the batter's box with his left foot, wringing resin out of the bat handle with his vehement grip, switching the stick at the pitcher with an electric ferocity, it was like having a familiar Leonardo appear in a shuffle of Saturday evening post covers.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
This man, you realized, and here perhaps was the difference greater than the difference in gifts, really intended to hit the ball. In the third inning, he hoisted a high fly to deep center. In the fifth, we thought he had it. He smacked the ball hard and high into the heart of his power zone, but the deep right field in Fenway and the heavy air and casual east wind defeated him. The ball died.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
Al Polarsik leaned his back against the big .380 painted on the right field wall and caught it. On another day, in another park, it would have been gone.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
It went over the first baseman's head and rose meticulously along a straight line and it was still rising when it cleared the fence. The trajectory seemed qualitatively different from anything anyone else might hit.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
The afternoon grew so glowering that in the sixth inning, the arc lights were turned on. Always a wan sight in the daytime, like the burning lights of a funeral procession. Aided by the gloom, Fisher was slicing through the Sox rookies and Williams did not come to bat in the seventh. He was second up in the eighth. This was almost certainly his last time to come to the plate in Fenway Park.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
and instead of merely cheering as we had his three previous appearances, we stood. All of us. Stood and applauded. Have you ever heard applause in a ballpark? Just applause. No calling, no whistling, just an ocean of hand claps, minute after minute, burst after burst, crowding and running together in continuous succession like the pushes of surf at the edge of the sand.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
It was a somber and considered tumult. There was not a boo in it. Understand that we were a crowd of rational people. We knew that a home run cannot be produced at will. The right pitch must be perfectly met and luck must ride with the ball. Three innings before, we had seen a brave effort fail. The air was soggy, the season was exhausted.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
Nevertheless, there will always lurk around a corner in a pocket of our knowledge of the odds, an indefensible hope. And this was one of the times which you now and then find in sports, when a density of expectation hangs in the air and plucks an event out of the future. Fisher, after his unsettling weight, was wide with the first pitch.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
He put the second one over, and Williams swung mightily and missed. The crowd grunted, seeing that classic swing, so long, smooth, quick, exposed naked in its failure. Fisher threw the third time. Williams swung again. And there it was. The ball climbed on a diagonal line into the vast volume of air over center field.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
From my angle, behind third base, the ball seemed less an object in flight than the tip of a towering, motionless construct, like the Eiffel Tower or the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was in the books while it was still in the sky. Brandt ran back to the deepest corner of the outfield grass. The ball descended beyond his reach and struck in the crotch where the bullpen met the wall.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
Bounced chunkily and, as far as I could see, vanished. Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran out the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs, hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
Though we thumped, wept, and chanted, we want Ted for minutes after he hid in the dugout, He did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is non-transferable. The paper said that the other players and even the umpires on the field begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
He never had, and he did not now. Gods do not answer letters.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Louisa Thomas on a Ballplayer’s Epic Final Game; Plus, Remembering the Composer of “Annie”
On the car radio as I drove home, I heard that Williams had decided not to accompany the team to New York. So he knew how to do even that, the hardest thing. quit.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
Now, first, let's talk about the other award show, the Oscars. So let's have Alex talk to The Brutalist. Why would The Brutalist be a favorite? Because you've written about it quite wonderfully for The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
I'm absolutely compromising from the word go.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
All right. Now, Richard, you put Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis as the third best movie of the year. That is not a universal.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
What Oscar nomination actually surprised you the most, Richard?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
pacing of it is literally get that at home the pacing is lugubrious the dialogue you know it's like written to fit into cartoon bubbles okay we'll come back to some of the oscar favors but let's get into the main event here the presentation of the brody awards our first category is best actor alex who was nominated
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
I have this sneaking suspicion... Timothy Chalamet is going to win for his Bob Dylan. And you're upset about it, aren't you, David? Look, he's a perfectly good actor, but he's too sweet. He's a sweetie pie. Bob Dylan is many things, but he's not a sweetie pie.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
Wait a minute. If we went back in time and we inspected, I don't know, the Polish accent in Sophie's Choice of Meryl Streep, would we get perfect, beautiful Polish?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
Yeah, I think the cutilist has a very good chance. If I have to hear one more time how in five years he learned how to play four chords, it's enough already.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
I'm talking about the year in movies with Richard Brody and Alex Schwartz. We'll continue in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
You don't get rid of the police. You keep the police. Like, what are they, nuts? You get rid of the bad guys, right? The bad people. You keep the good. That's the way it's always been and always will be. Because if not, chaos.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
When she went up to collect the Golden Globes, Demi Moore, she was not only overcome, but she said that she had been told... that she was essentially not a serious actress. I forget the phrase that she used for it. Popcorn actress. Popcorn, that's it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
So she had been diminished in some way, and then given the chance to have a quote-unquote serious role, she embodied it, she fulfilled it, and she won the award. What do you think of that narrative, Richard?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and it is that time of year again. It's awards season, and I'm joined by two of the New Yorker's critics, Alexandra Schwartz, co-host of our podcast, Critics at Large, and film critic Richard Brody. We're going to talk about the past year at the movies and the prospects for the Academy Awards.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
Richard Rimmel, Ross didn't even get nominated for Best Director. Didn't even get nominated. But this picture was really innovative, and not only for its use of point of view.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
I thought it was the most extraordinary new release I saw this year.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
Now, the Academy nominated 10 films again this year for Best Picture. We've talked about a few of them. Nickel Boys, Amelia Paris, A Complete Unknown, Psy. Let's add to that, Onora, The Brutalist, Conclave, Dune Part 2, and I'm Still Here. Any thoughts on any of those films before we give out the last Brody, Alex?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
One of the great enigmatic closing scenes of any film I've seen in recent years...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
But much more importantly, Richard Brody will pick the winners of the award we call the Brody. The Brodies are far more exclusive and more coveted than the Oscars, of course, though they don't have the little statue guy to go with it. This is an annual tradition here at the New Yorker Radio Hour. Richard, how many years have we been doing the Brodies? Seven, eight. Seven or eight years? My God.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
Richard, you're a mens amens on Anora, if I remember right.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
So The Brutalist is a contender at the Oscars maybe, but not at the Brodies. Let's get back to the nominees for the big prize of the day, the Brody Award for Best Picture.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
Ah, there's that. There's that. Alex Schwartz, Richard Brody, as always, it's a great pleasure. Thank you so much. You can find Richard Brody's column on film, The Front Row, and Alex's writing, all at newyorker.com. And you can hear her hosting the New Yorker podcast, Critics at Large. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards
And speaking of awards, not to brag, but documentary short films produced by the New Yorker have been nominated for two Academy Awards this year. Not bad. You can watch those films at newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Hope you'll join us next week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Nikki Glaser at the Top of Her Game
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Nikki Glaser at the Top of Her Game
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
The New Yorker's Doreen Sanfelix speaking with Danielle Deadweiler. The Piano Lesson is in theaters and streaming on Netflix later this month. I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today, and thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Denzel Washington, of course, is one of the great presences in American film, going back 40-plus years. But he's also made his mark as a producer. Specifically, Washington has set out to adapt for film 10 plays by the late August Wilson, the 10 plays known as the Century Cycle.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
It's five o'clock in the morning and you come in here with all this noise. You can't come like normal. She's got to bring all that noise with you. Oh, hell, woman, I was glad to see Dokey. I come 1,800 miles to see my sister. I figured she might want to get up and say hi.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
The brother, boy Willie, is played by John David Washington, who's of course Denzel's son. And Malcolm Washington, Denzel's other son, directed the film. Here's staff writer Doreen Sanfelix speaking with Danielle Deadweiler.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for 17 years.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
Play something for me, Bernice. Play something for me, Bernice, every day. I cleaned it up for you. Play something for me, Bernice. You always talking about your daddy, but you'll never stop to look at what his foolishness cost your mama. 17 years worth of cold nights in an empty bed for what? For a Peter Allen? For a piece of wood?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
Viola Davis starred in Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and now Danielle Deadweiler stars in The Piano Lesson. A couple of years ago, Deadweiler gave an amazing performance in the film Till as Emmett Till's mother, and she was profiled in The New Yorker by Doreen Sanfelix.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Danielle Deadwyler on August Wilson and Denzel Washington
Danielle Deadweiler speaking with Doreen Sanfelix. More in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
Digital Service, which has now been absorbed into Doge. Two of the site's creators are Kate Green, who recently left for a job in the private sector, and the man we'll call Milo, who's still employed in the government. He asked us to use an alias. They spoke with our producer, Adam Howard.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
Michael Cunningham speaking about Annie Proulx's story, Brokeback Mountain, which appeared in The New Yorker. Excerpts were read for us by Monica Weitsch. Michael Cunningham's novels include The Hours and most recently, Day. We're celebrating the New Yorker's centennial this year with a series called Takes, and you can find it at newyorker.com slash 100, the numeral 100.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
And you can also subscribe to The New Yorker at newyorker.com as well. Recently, we published a story in The New Yorker about birth rates plummeting around the world. It's a fascinating and troubling piece by staff writer Gideon Lewis Krauss. Gideon talks about his reporting on the new episode of Radiolab, which is about growth and how we shouldn't take it for granted.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
It's definitely worth checking out. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We heard in our last episode from Atul Gawande, who was a senior figure at USAID until days before the Trump administration began dismantling it and throwing it into a woodchipper. Across the federal government, the number of federal workers fired under Trump, this is reported by CNN, stands at over 100,000.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
Some of those workers have turned to a website called We the Builders. It's a resource for federal employees who've lost their jobs or who are afraid of losing them or who have a whistleblower complaint or who don't know how to follow conflicting instructions about Musk's email demands. We the Builders was created by federal workers associated with the U.S.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
Kate Green is a software engineer in the private sector, and Milo, he's using an alias to protect his identity, currently works in the federal government. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. There's more to come today, so please stick around.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Ang Lee's film of Brokeback Mountain came out 20 years ago, and it starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. It spurred any number of controversies, particularly whether homophobia had robbed the film of the Best Picture Oscar that year.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain”
Many moviegoers didn't know that Brokeback Mountain had originally appeared in The New Yorker as a short story by Annie Proulx in 1997. This year, which is The New Yorker's centennial year, we're revisiting some classics from the magazine's past. The novelist Michael Cunningham was already in his 40s when Brokeback Mountain was published, but it made a huge impression on him.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
One Environmental Journalist Thinks that the U.S. Needs More Mining
Vince Beiser's recent book is called Power Metal, and he spoke with Elizabeth Colbert, who's the author of Under a White Sky and many other books. Betsy recently reported from Greenland about the melting of the ice sheet there. It's a riveting piece, and you can find it along with all of her work at newyorker.com. And you can subscribe to The New Yorker there as well, newyorker.com.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
One Environmental Journalist Thinks that the U.S. Needs More Mining
I'm David Remnick. That's our program for this week. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
One Environmental Journalist Thinks that the U.S. Needs More Mining
Vince Beiser speaking with The New Yorker's Elizabeth Colbert. More in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
One Environmental Journalist Thinks that the U.S. Needs More Mining
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Given how much Donald Trump says he loves mining, you would think the blood of every environmentalist in the world is now running cold. One possible exception may be the journalist Vince Beiser.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
One Environmental Journalist Thinks that the U.S. Needs More Mining
Beiser's recent book is called Power Metal, and it's about what's called rare earth metals, elements you've possibly never heard of but that power every device you own. Vince Beiser spoke with The New Yorker's Elizabeth Colbert, herself an environmental journalist of great renown and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Percival Everett’s “James” Wins a Pulitzer
The novelist Percival Everett, speaking with staff writer Julian Lucas last year. Everett's novel, James, just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I'm David Remnick. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Percival Everett’s “James” Wins a Pulitzer
Julian Lucas talked with Percival Everett last year when the novel James had just come out.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Percival Everett’s “James” Wins a Pulitzer
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Percival Everett used to be a writer deeply admired by critics, but a relatively small number of serious readers. I put it in the past tense, Everett is very much alive, because a year ago he published his 24th novel, a book called James, and James just blew up.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Percival Everett’s “James” Wins a Pulitzer
Percival Everett, reading from his Pulitzer Award-winning novel, James. We'll continue in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Percival Everett’s “James” Wins a Pulitzer
It won the National Book Award, and last week it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Staff writer Julian Lucas is a very close reader of Percival Everett's novels.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Basel, you have been showing this film all around the world. What has been the result of your touring this film?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
And to understand what that reality is, particularly in the West Bank, there's a new documentary film that you should see called No Other Land. In one scene, Palestinians are protesting the demolition of their homes. They're walking down the road carrying balloons and banners.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
One of the difficult things for a film like this, and look, I feel it sometimes too, is that you're sometimes preaching to the converted, Yuval. You're showing your film to people who already are inclined to agree with you or in your political camp. And that to reach people whose mind you want to change most profoundly, they're not turning it on. They're not entering the theater.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
They're not clicking on your film. They're watching something else.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
I sometimes think that Israeli contact with the West Bank, much less Gaza, is almost solely through the military. I was once writing a piece about Haaretz, and I was talking with the owner of Haaretz, Amos Shachan, and I asked him about what his experience of the West Bank had been. He said, I've never been there. I read about it in Haaretz.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
And that is the owner of the most left-wing paper in Israel.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Basel, for many, it's very hard to imagine how things can get any worse in Palestine and Gaza and West Bank and in the political atmosphere of Israel as well. What do you hope that this film inspires in the people that take the time to see it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
But the protest is banned under Israeli law, and the army is at the ready alongside them with combat gear, rifles, and stun grenades. No Other Land is opening in just a handful of theaters around the country this week. It's been nominated as Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
How do you imagine the Academy Awards ceremony if you had that opportunity, very short opportunity before the music starts and they chase you off the stage? What would you like to say to the world in that brief time?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Basil Adra, Yuval Ibrahim, thank you so much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Thank you. No Other Land opened in New York, and it's coming to a few major cities this weekend. Also on the filmmaking team for No Other Land are Hamdan Balal and Rachel Zohr. The film has been nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, which are next month. I'm David Remnick. That's our show for today. Thanks for joining us. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Two Palestinian and two Israeli filmmakers collaborated to make No Other Land, and I spoke over Zoom with two of them, Basel Adra, who lives in the West Bank, and Yuval Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem. Because so few people have seen this film, I'd like to begin, first of all, this is, first and foremost, begins with Basel's life.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Tell me where you were born, and what was the impulse to make a film about your life and the circumstances of the people all around you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
And you wanted to make him film about your community, about the West Bank for a long time?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
And where were you sending this evidence?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
This is Yuval Abraham and Rachel Zor who were Israeli and started coming to the West Bank.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
is your ability to run really fast with a camera away from dangerous situations. Can you talk about that a little bit?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
And Yuval, when you started working on this film alongside Basil and the others, you came to this from what background? You're an Israeli citizen. Am I correct? Jewish?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
A lot of the footage that you gathered with your colleagues and a major focus of the film is on home demolitions conducted by Israeli military or Israeli crews. Could you explain what that's about, Yuval?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In a week of astonishing headlines, maybe nothing was more astonishing than Donald Trump's proposal that the United States take over Gaza, ethnically cleanse the region of Palestinians, permanently exiling a population already traumatized by war, and then turn the whole thing into what Trump calls the Riviera of the Middle East.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Yuval, what can an independent film like yours do? What kind of effect can it have?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Because what kind of narratives... were you raised on about Palestine and Palestinians as you were growing up?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
But do you extend that understanding to something like October 7th?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Was this a serious proposal? It certainly put a smile on the face of Benjamin Netanyahu, who's not only intent on obliterating Hamas in Gaza, but at the same time, making Israel's control of the West Bank irreversible. Even if Trump's proposal was merely part of his strategy of flooding the zone, the reality is no less troubling.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Yuval, do you feel like a stranger in your own land politically? Because the polls would suggest, my interviews would suggest, the Israeli press would suggest that the way you look at the situation now is utterly alien to israeli society my views are a minority view in israel i don't mean a minority i mean a vanishingly small minority no
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Basel, there's a very powerful scene in the film that shows a peaceful protest against the destruction of your village and other villages. Can you describe how dangerous peaceful protests can be in the West Bank? It's not really legal to protest, is that right?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elaine Pagels on the Mysteries of Jesus
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elaine Pagels on the Mysteries of Jesus
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
And it's not even the glamorous life that's in the show. It's like the secret one that was in the movie that no one ever talks about. Elizabeth Taylor. And it's, you know, kind of the inverse of Gypsy. It's, you know, not a stage mother driving her children. In show business, it's a child whose mother is a great star.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
And she kind of sings about how she wishes, you know, her mother's off living the glamorous life. But you can tell, even though she doesn't realize that she's you know, longing for her mom. Why did that song become your go-to song for so many things?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
I'm sure it's also a way of sort of projecting to them, like, I see you, I understand what this might be like, Yeah. To have, you know, not just a performing mom, but like, you know, it's a theater household.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
It's a two-parent theater household, actor household.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
So then once you talked to Stephen Sondheim about it, what was that conversation like? Was it like you needed his blessing? How does that work?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
We'll be there.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
You know, one thing that's always struck me about Gypsy is that she's lived this whole life before the show starts, and we don't know a ton about it. Like, she mentions that she's been married three times. Obviously, she has two kids. And Presumably she had some kind of like dreams that were thwarted because she's ranting and raving about them at the end.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
But like, do you, as part of this process, create a backstory for her? Is that important to you? Or is it just like, you know, curtain up and she's a moving train?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
When this show was announced earlier in the summer, there was this John McWhorter op-ed in the New York Times that, first of all, I can't think of another example of, like, a New York Times column sort of taking issue with a Broadway production like months before it's gone into rehearsal, but it was about this question of sort of rethinking Rose as a black character.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
He wrote, Rose isn't just being played by a black actress. She's being played, it seems, as a black character. This is off for a few reasons. One is historical. In 1920s America, when the show was set, racism and segregation remained implacable forces in popular culture, and the only stardom a black Rose would have realistically sought for her kids would have been among black audiences. He says...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
Colorblind casting has become common, even fashionable. And that's a wonderful thing. But then he says, recoding characters, at least historical characters, as black just because black people are playing them is just another kind of denial of racism. I mean, this is John McWhorter, the black intellectual, kind of like speculating about what it might be like.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
If you want to rebut this column, you are welcome to. But I'm sort of curious about what conversations have been sparked with George, with the people putting on the show about like, how do you sort of
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
Well, you know, you brought up Carousel, which I think was a moment when you really burst into a lot of people's awareness. How old were you when you did Carousel? I was 23. And it was right out of Juilliard. It was like a year or so? Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
It was such a rapid rise. You won a Tony Award very young. Had you been auditioning and stuff before then, waiting tables? What was like the moment before that like?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
Audra, thanks so much for being here. I know you're deep in rehearsal. Yeah, we're in week four of rehearsals right now. How's it going? What did you guys do, like, today?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
I mean, how much of a plan did you have? Because your career has in some ways been totally unprecedented in a couple ways. But like when you were a kid in Fresno doing like... you know, theater. Like, how much of a roadmap did you have for yourself about being a Broadway leading lady?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
That's intense.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
Wow. Has this been a long dream of yours, goal of yours to play Rose, or was it something that came up more recently? Like, how did this...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
And, you know, Gypsy is, among many other things, a show about motherhood, about being a parent. I'm curious about how your parents kind of guided your early interest in acting in theater. Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
And I believe there was a role that they actually told you not to take when you were little.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Audra McDonald on Stephen Sondheim, “Gypsy,” and Being Black on Broadway
There's a Sondheim song that you've kind of claimed over the years. Uh, the glamorous life on the night music, uh,
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
How did Bob Menendez, who voted to impeach Donald Trump, end up begging him for a get-out-of-jail card? We turn to WNYC's reporter, Nancy Solomon, who's been covering New Jersey politics for many years. So Nancy, ipso facto, knows a thing or two about corruption.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Robert Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He remains free so he can attend Nadine Menendez's trial. She also pleaded not guilty. There's more reporting on politics and crime from Nancy Solomon at deadendpodcast.org. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of TuneArts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Tarina Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In the through-the-licking-glass world of Donald Trump, he's the guy who drained the swamp of corruption, even as he orders the Department of Justice to drop corruption cases and stop investigating new ones. The situation with New York City Mayor Eric Adams is a case in point.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
A message from Nadine Arslanian to then-Senator Bob Menendez used by prosecutors as evidence. Our story continues in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
The Justice Department suggested they would drop serious federal charges if Adams would just assist the feds on the immigration issue. The mayor's attorney insisted there was never any deal, but even so, a pack of federal prosecutors quit their jobs in disgust. So this, too, is surprising, but maybe not too surprising.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
And wound up killing 20, 30,000 people or so before it was over with.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We're hearing the story today of Robert Menendez. He's the first senator or a former senator sentenced to prison for crimes in office in more than 40 years, which might tell you that political corruption is extremely rare, or in fact, it might tell you how rarely corruption is prosecuted.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
WNYC's reporter Nancy Solomon has been explaining Menendez's rise as a powerful New Jersey Democrat and then his fall. The evidence in the trial included gold bars, literal gold bars and heaps of cash that were squirreled away in the house he shared with his wife, Nadine, who is also being prosecuted in the case.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Weeks ago, Bob Menendez, the former New Jersey senator known as Gold Bar Bob for the gold and cash tucked away in his house, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on corruption charges. Menendez walked out of the courtroom and directly made a plea to guess who.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
She said identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo and that Democrats should drop the word oligarchy from their playbook. Senator Slotkin prides herself on bipartisanship. She believes that finding a path forward for the Democrats absolutely demands old school collaboration in Congress.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Fair enough. Now, you were in Iraq for the CIA, and just days ago, the Trump administration decided on some big cuts at the agency, around 1,200 people. What do you think of that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Tell me about your family members. Who was fired?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Do you view Donald Trump as a boon to or a threat to national security?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
And I think, honestly— Explain that specifically, if you don't mind.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
You're talking about the Europeans, the Canadians, Australians.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
So can you be specific about the way that's changed since January 20th?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
At what point do you think that at least some, at least some of the constituents that voted for both you and Donald Trump will say, you know what? I have lost faith in Donald Trump. I feel betrayed by Donald Trump. Donald Trump maybe didn't mean what he said when he said he was going to make life better for me.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Instead, he's made life better for what Bernie Sanders would call millionaires and billionaires.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
But wait a minute. Why is he still going to vote for Trump if it if it doesn't help him economically? What you're saying is the singular topic. The singular issue for those voters, what makes those voters continue to support Donald Trump if they're feeling betrayed in the most important way?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
One of the areas where you've been very critical of the Democratic Party in general is identity politics. You said that identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo. You said that on NBC. Tell me more about that. What do you mean precisely about that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
You said that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, should man up and resign. Pete Hegseth went before a Senate committee yesterday. And some of the Republicans, Joni Ernst being one of them, knew pretty darn well about the level of, I don't know, foolishness, all the flaws that we know only too well, and yet voted for him. And this carried through with any number of other appointees.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
This is an administration dominated by people who are above all obedient. Obedient. That's the quality they seem to share most of all. How do you talk to your Republican colleagues about that, especially since you're a great believer in bipartisanship?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
I spoke to Alyssa Slotkin last week. Senator, you won the Michigan Senate seat in a state that voted for Donald Trump. And given your own track record, what do you think those voters saw in both you and the person they voted for for president?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Why? Why is it so great to have a seat at a table that you don't believe in?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Senator Slotkin, I know you have a vote and I will leave you to it. Thank you so much for your time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Melissa Slotkin was elected to the Senate from Michigan in 2024. And before that, she served in Congress from a district around Lansing. I'm David Remnick. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. I want to send congratulations to all our staff members for three Pulitzer Prizes this year. Mossab Abutoa, Moises Simon, and the staff of In the Dark. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Just to be clear, and not to make a stereotype of anybody's position... It's what you're saying that if you stray from issues like high prices, just economic issues, bread and butter issues, that if you start talking about democracy, if you start talking about oligarchy or all the other issues or even corruption when it comes to Donald Trump, that in a place like Michigan, you're going to fail.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Do you think that Kamala Harris failed to address economic issues?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
More than anything, more than immigration even.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Senator, a number of your colleagues have come on our show recently. Cory Booker, Chris Murphy, John Fetterman. very different Democrats in temperament and sometimes ideology. And they've said, and they've spoken to the subject of what the Democrats have gotten wrong, both immediately and recently in the recent years. I'd like to hear from you what you think the Democrats should be doing right.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
You said they need, quote, as you said in more expurgated terms here, the goddamn alpha energy of Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell. So explain to Democrats non-NFL fans what this means and what it means more generally.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
So what sacred cows would you slaughter?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
When Alyssa Slotkin narrowly won her Senate seat in Michigan last fall, she was one of four Democratic senators to claim victory in states that also voted for President Trump. And it made other Democrats sit up and take some notice. Since then, the party has turned to her as someone who can bridge the red-blue divide.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
So regulation or over-regulation is one sacred cow that needs slaughtering in your view. What other sacred cows should be brought to the butcher?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
And in fairness, there was a bill that was sunk by the Republican Party.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
I'm speaking with freshman Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with Senator Alyssa Slotkin, a Democrat of Michigan. Now, the word oligarchy describes the concentration of political power by the ultra-wealthy. Many Democrats these days are using the term to critique how Donald Trump has transformed Washington, not to mention the influence of Elon Musk.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
She delivered the Democratic Party's response to Trump's speech before Congress back in March. And so the party is putting Slotkin front and center. But she's also giving the Democrats a dose of tough love. She thinks that they need to start projecting what she calls alpha energy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
But Alyssa Slotkin has taken issue with the term. We'll continue our conversation now. Senator, your fellow Democrats, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are now on a national tour called the Fighting Oligarchy Tour, and it's drawing big crowds in the tens of thousands. And you have said at the same time that Democrats ought to stop using the word oligarchy. Why?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
What's your difference, either in style or opinion, with that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
But just to not to put too fine a point on it, but oligarchy means something other than not just having a king. It means not elevating. Elon Musk or other billionaires to a degree of such power that they're interacting with government in a way that leaves the rest of us relatively impoverished by comparison.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
So it's the word.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Bernie Sanders responded to your criticism recently on NBC saying that you think the American people are dumb.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
What's your response to him?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
That's right. So, in other words, the outcome that's possible and that ends the meat grinder is like a divided Korea, a divided Ukraine.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
Over a week ago, Trump and J.D. Vance absolutely berated Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House. And then they announced a pause in military aid to Ukraine and a freeze on intelligence sharing. Those are moves that will surely hobble Ukraine's ability to defend itself. Zelensky is now trying to bolster more and more support from the leaders of Europe who met last week at a defense summit.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
What would be the nature of that argument? political pressure that you clearly think Biden administration failed to administer? And what would it be now?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
My understanding of political alternatives in Russia are the following. You have, on one hand, the kind of... dissidents, pro-democratic dissidents that were embodied by Alexei Navalny. And we know that story. And also, we have to admit how limited that is. It is small in number, and the willingness of the regime to crush it knows no ends.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
There's a different kind of dissent or alternative in Russia that's harder for, I think, Americans to see. And these are not Democrats. These are not Navalnyites. They're quite different, but maybe more in number and maybe more significant in some ways.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
How do we reach such people and who are they? In other words, they're embodied by who exactly?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
For more than 30 years, since I was a reporter for The Washington Post in Moscow, I've been talking about Russia over and over again with Stephen Kotkin. Stephen Kotkin is a biographer of Joseph Stalin and a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. Three years ago, when Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine, Steve was my first call.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
But wait a minute. Some would say, Steve, let's get back to real life here. Real life is Donald Trump is the president of the United States and his affections are almost personal toward Vladimir Putin. That when he speaks of Russia, he doesn't speak in the complexities that you've mapped out. He likes the guy. He has an affinity for the guy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
He feels much closer to him than not only Volodymyr Zelensky, but conceivably the leaders of Western European nations.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
That seems like an awfully optimistic reading of Trump's strategic wiles.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
You mentioned in passing what I think is a big theme of yours, and that is whether or not the United States is in decline. It's been axiomatic from time to time for decades now that the United States is in decline and that somebody else, most recently China, is the ascendant power. I want to ask about that, and I also want to ask about how China is watching the U.S.-Ukraine-Russia drama.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
And this is the third time that we're talking here on the Radio Hour since the war began. Steve, let's begin with the most obvious thing. What did you make of that dramatic Oval Office encounter between Trump and Zelenskyy?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
Following our behavior with Ukraine last week and not only last week, What signals does that send to China and how it might proceed with Taiwan?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
I don't quite understand that. why Xi Jinping, in the current circumstances, would not make a move on Taiwan. It's not entirely clear that the United States would rush to defend Lithuania or Estonia or Poland, NATO countries. Why would it... Intervene with Taiwan. So many thousands and thousands of miles.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
A final question. You, as a historian, Look at the United States through the lens, very often in our conversations, of institutions, its past, its resilience, and not through the lens of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. Fair enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
But in the real world that we're living in, both you and me and everybody else, you have a government leadership now that is staffed by, that is led by not only Donald Trump, who has his own character, but Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and on and on. Does your confidence in the stability and the resilience of the system survive that kind of leadership?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
Stephen Kotkin is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. And you can find coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine from Luke Mogelson, Joshua Yaffa, and many others at newyorker.com. You can also subscribe to The New Yorker at the same website, newyorker.com. That's The New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
You're hardly a fan of Donald Trump, but your tendency has been to try to look past or around his performances that you've compared to professional wrestling. When it comes to Ukraine and American policy, though, what's behind the performance? What do you think Trump actually wants in Ukraine? Or is that too hard to discern?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
Do you not share the view, and it's my view, that if taken to its logical or worst extent, that the events in the White House last week could... constitute a moral and strategic U-turn for the United States, which would be a disaster.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
What are those truths?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
You've written and talked extensively about the dimensions and resiliency of American power since as early as 1880. When you hear people, including me, say that the encounter between Trump and Zelensky in the White House... could really take us to a horrible place. Do you think that's alarmist then?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. From his emergence on the political scene a decade ago, Donald Trump displayed what you could call a curious admiration for the Russian president and dictator Vladimir Putin. It was baffling and it was ominous, too. It remains so. Trump's lean toward Russia was investigated and it was psychoanalyzed.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
I'm speaking today with Stephen Kotkin, whom I've known for a very long time. He's a superb historian of Russia, and he's a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
How is Vladimir Putin reading this situation? How is he watching Washington, and what does he want?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
And his affinity for Putin is as vivid as his disdain for Ukraine's democratically elected leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. So now we're reckoning with the distinct possibility that the leadership of the United States has taken a moral and a strategic turn that puts us all on the side of Russia and blames Ukraine for provoking the invasion in the first place. That's how the Kremlin sees it as well.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
You not only follow the statements and thinking of the Russian leadership, but you're reading every day sources like Signal in Russian. And what does that tell you?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
Everybody wants... Who is they, Steve?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
Then how does this end?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I.
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I.
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I.
Yeah, that's not the right question. The question is, why would they do such a stupid thing? Yeah, that is the question, isn't it? Yeah, that's the question.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
To understand what's really possible come January, I'm joined by staff writer Jonathan Blitzer, who's the author of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, a definitive account published this year of the immigration crisis in America. Jonathan, before we get into the prospect of the Trump administration and a potential deportation, I want to ask you if you think looking back on the now completed campaign,
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
You've just reported on people who are in the country on what's called humanitarian parole. So that means they're documented. What has Trump said about that program?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Thomas Homan, who's going to be the so-called border czar, said – and I'm quoting him here – It's not going to be a mass sweep of neighborhoods. It's not going to be building concentration camps. And he also said they'd focus on targeted arrests. So what does that represent? How much daylight is there between Homan and Stephen Miller in their stances?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Homan, as you know, was an architect of family separation policy during Trump's first term along with Miller.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
We talk a lot about guardrails. In other words, the idea is that in the first term, there were institutionalists in key positions at the Pentagon and State Department, and that to the great aggravation of the President of the United States to President Trump, there were guardrails against him going too far. That's one theory of the case.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
If the Democratic Party got immigration wrong, if the Biden administration ignored it for too long, as has been the critique all along from the Republicans.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
And now the theory of the case is this time around that there are no guardrails. What effect will that have on this issue?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
John, you've used the word unfettered. What does that mean in this context and what will that look like?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Jonathan Blitzer is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and you can find his article on humanitarian parole and much more reporting on immigration all at newyorker.com. And before I go, I want to tell you about something you're going to want to put in your queue.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
My colleagues at On the Media are starting a three-part series about the controversies that broke out on college campuses last fall around the protests against the war in Gaza and accusations of anti-Semitism, all of which led to the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay. The series is called The Harvard Plan. But it's not just a story about one campus.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
It has implications across the country. That's the new episode of On the Media. Give it a listen, and I'll see you next time on the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
I have so much to say on this subject.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Did it seem to you that this was partially responsible for the shift in votes in blue states like New York?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Are you saying it was merely a perception problem, not a reality problem?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Now, on January 20th, Donald Trump becomes president and he has promises about day one and deportation. What is the rhetoric and what is going to be the reality?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Immigration has been the cornerstone of Donald Trump's political career for nearly a decade now. His first presidential campaign was largely about building the wall to keep people out. In 2024, the focus has been on sending back immigrants who are already here.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
You should be looking over your shoulder. Here's Stephen Miller describing what he thinks is going to happen on the day of inauguration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Okay, Jonathan, maybe you should break down what Stephen Miller is saying.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Now, Stephen Miller mentions criminal gangs, rapists, drug dealers and monsters that have murdered our citizens and we're going to send them home. What is the level of criminality among undocumented immigrants? Is it any different from the rest of the population?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
He's promised the largest deportation in history — millions of people, potentially — And it starts on day one, according to Trump. Stephen Miller said the administration would A deportation policy on this scale would have enormous impact, not only on the lives of immigrants, but on their communities, on the U.S. economy, and much more.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
I'm speaking with staff writer Jonathan Blitzer and we'll continue in just a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
Yeah, that's not the right question. The question is, why would they do such a stupid thing? Yeah, that is the question, isn't it? Yeah, that's the question.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
I'm speaking with Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and he's been covering immigration for the magazine since the first Trump administration. Jonathan, is it legal to involve the military and law enforcement agencies at the local level when you're deporting people? And to add to that,
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Inside Donald Trump’s Mass-Deportation Plans
We've heard a lot of comparison of what might come and what happened in the 50s with so-called Operation Wetback during the Eisenhower administration. How do they jibe?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
And was that level of performance validated on a level that you would believe, much less Huang would believe?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Witt's new book on the subject is called The Thinking Machine. Stephen, in all the years we've been doing this show, I don't think we've ever sat down to talk about a microchip company and the CEO of that microchip company. And yet, NVIDIA is incredibly important to all of our futures in some way or another. Explain what NVIDIA is and why it's so important.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Is he ultimately interested in bolting Taiwan to avoid the potential specter of China taking over Taiwan in one form or another?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
But he doesn't fear losing out for this loyalty.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
What's the state of play about competition for NVIDIA? Even in the... uh, software realm of AI, you've got a pretty rich competitive, you've got open AI, you've got meta, you've got, you've got a number of huge players and the hardware system, it's just them.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Some people would say that the Chinese have been very successful in... And to be delicate about it, imitating or copying or to be indelicate about it, ripping off technology from abroad and replicating it at home. Why can't it be done with NVIDIA?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Steven, I've got to ask you in closing, what's the future for people who write books in the robotic world that you described earlier?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Steven, you're freaking me out here. But it could happen.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
But not even for research. Because I have a colleague the other day who said what he does is he asks AI a whole series of complicated questions. And then has to go away for an hour or two because it takes a, you know, it's not just a Wikipedia series of questions. Comes back, series of references, then asks more questions, digs deeper.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
There's almost like a conversation with a exceptionally talented research assistant. Yes, there's that. And it was quite valuable and no more or less, as it were, legit than using a good library.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I think it sounds like the box is already flying open as it is. Stephen, we'll have you back before any robots are doing my dishes, for sure. Okay, for sure. Thanks so much. Thank you. This was a great talk. You can read Stephen Witt on technology at newyorker.com. His book out this week is The Thinking Machine, Jensen Huang, NVIDIA, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Now, I often turn to my colleague Joshua Rothman on questions about AI. Josh is a staff writer who's absolutely fascinated by AI and deeply informed about it. A couple of years ago, Josh was on the program interviewing the man known as the godfather of AI, Jeffrey Hinton. Josh Rothman just came back to the topic with an essay in The New Yorker called, Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
So, Josh, you spoke with the computer scientist Jeffrey Hinton, and he's been expressing grave alarm about where AI is going. I think you're more optimistic than Hinton, generally speaking. What are some of his main concerns?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
We're seeing it on the killing fields of Ukraine.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
So then why do you have such equanimity about
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Because Sam Altman says it is?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Does that presuppose that we have to give the job of moral philosopher and futurist to the same people like Jensen Huang? who are making the technology possible, who are the scientists and the business people?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
We haven't tried because I think people feel both helpless and powerless in the faces of the complexity of these technologies. And the lack of any political agency where they're concerned.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Josh Rothman, thanks so much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Joshua Rothman's essay in The New Yorker this week is called Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough? You can find it at newyorker.com. And of course, you can always subscribe to The New Yorker there as well, newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's The New Yorker Radio Hour for this week. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
So what you're telling me, there would be no artificial intelligence, certainly not on this level, not on this mass level, even in its early days now, without NVIDIA and without the product they produce.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
So tell me about the origins of NVIDIA and its co-founder, Jensen Huang.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Second tier to whom?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
And Intel and Qualcomm weren't working on the possibility of AI the way NVIDIA was?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Does Jensen Huang's success come from his business acumen or from technical skills that he learned as an engineer?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I use ChatGPT like an idiot, right? I just play around with it, and I ask it a question as, you know... how much does this ballplayer make, or what happened in 1965? Very simple questions, and what spit back at me is kind of wiki-like answers. Obviously, there is much more sophisticated ways to use even ChatGPT, much less more sophisticated programs.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
What is NVIDIA anticipating, and does it own the market?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Okay, this is what we really have to break down, his vision of the world that he's seeing five years down the road. What is life going to be like in his terms? What is the world that he's seeing?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
The dishwashing robot?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Okay, fair enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
What else?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
So you're going to have robots like in the Jetsons. You're not old enough to remember it, but the Jetsons were a cartoon about the future. And it had a robot house cleaner and also dressed up like a French maid of long ago pre-feminism mythology. And that's what it looked like. But what you're describing isn't all that different except for the French maid bit.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. NVIDIA is a tech colossus. It's as potentially important to the way we live our lives in the near future as Apple or Google. Maybe even more so. NVIDIA makes microchips. In fact, it's all but cornered the market on the chips that are essential for the use of AI, for artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
That's where AI is going?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
And what jobs will be eliminated other than those?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I guess we'll play video games with little triangles.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Not just the amelioration of labor, the elimination of labor.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
We published a profile of Jeffrey Hinton, who is deep into the AI world. This is a piece by Joshua Rothman, who looks at this future that you're describing as a dystopia. And he's, you know, as a creator of AI, a godfather of AI even, he is extremely wary of this future. What you're telling me is that the head of NVIDIA is the absolute opposite.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
But it sounds like he's both an absolutist and a complete utopian thinker. Did he convince you, Stephen?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
That's a very winning approach to conversation.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
But it confirmed his own prejudices and vision.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Things don't end well in that movie, as I recall.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
He's not in that kind of right-leaning libertarian Silicon Valley camp.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Because he wants to avoid this or because he doesn't have politics at all?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
And just recently, it was rated the most valuable company ever. But this is not primarily a business story. It's a story about the United States and China, about who exactly is building the technology that shapes the future, our future. About a year ago, journalist Stephen Witt wrote a stunning portrait in The New Yorker of NVIDIA and its co-founder, Jensen Huang.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I'm talking with Stephen Witt. His new book about NVIDIA is called The Thinking Machine. We'll continue in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'm David Remnick. I've been speaking with Stephen Witt, the tech journalist who's just published a new book about NVIDIA and its CEO, Jensen Huang. NVIDIA makes the microchips that are powering the AI revolution. It's so integral to AI as we know it that NVIDIA is one of the most valuable companies on the planet, up there with Apple and Microsoft.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I'll continue my conversation with Stephen Witt. Now, NVIDIA's stock market value was just above $3.5 trillion at the start of the year. That's the highest valuation of any company ever. In January, it also saw the largest single-day loss in stock market history. That's a $600 billion loss. So what happened?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
So what actually happened? Because as I understand it, DeepSeq... It seems to be a cheaper AI option for one, but it also uses NVIDIA chips. So why was there such a panic about it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
I'm speaking with Bill Gates. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and we'll continue our conversation in just a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
The Gates Foundation is one of the largest nonprofits funding public health around the globe. And that's made him, maybe to his surprise, a divisive figure, particularly where vaccines are concerned. It's also put him in a tricky spot politically. The foundation needs to work closely with the federal government on public health.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft. Gates was 30 when Microsoft went public in 1986, and the IPO made him a billionaire. His business practices at Microsoft were often criticized as monopolistic, even ruthless.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
And make no mistake, it's still an immense conglomerate invested in cloud servers and AI and much more. But today, Gates seems generationally and dispositionally distinct from people like Elon Musk. A new memoir called Source Code talks about how he fell in love with computing. And it stays on Gates's early life, covering just through the founding of Microsoft.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
I'll continue my conversation now with Bill Gates. Now, when you were a kid, you've written, you told a therapist when you were very young that you were at war with your parents. How old were you then? And moreover, who were you at that time? What was that war all about?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
When did the penny drop? When did you come across the idea of that early computing would be your life's mission, obsession, possession. Forget about fortune. That's, in a way, a lot less interesting and much later.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
That's Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
And yet, Gates did not join Musk, Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos at the inauguration. And I should note here that Bill Gates and I talked just before the funding freeze last week had thrown so many agencies, including public health programs, into a state of chaos. You know, at a certain point, it emerged that you donated tens of millions of dollars to the effort to elect Kamala Harris.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Nothing happens in a complete vacuum. Why did Microsoft emerge early on to a certain degree as a kind of singularity and not somebody else and not something else?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
So it's business acumen and conquering the world acumen as well as scientific and mathematical acumen.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
At what point in your career and in your thinking did you not only take on board that you were changing the world in a profound way, in an incredibly positive way, but that there was also pitfalls to this. There are dangers to it, and that to this day we have on our minds when it comes to AI.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Donald Trump won, and we are now witnessing many of your... colleagues in the tech world at the highest level, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, flocking to Mar-a-Lago and want to be as close to power as possible. You're smiling, Riley, but what is the emerging picture here?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
So as AI is still – I don't know if you consider it in its infancy. People have been thinking about AI. The New Yorker has been writing about AI in one form or another for decades in a way. But it does feel like we're on this, at this hinge point in history. Tell me about Microsoft's role in this ecology and how you want to differentiate from all the other AI enterprises.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Look, I'm concerned about the euphoria of, gee whizness, where AI is concerned and not a close enough attention on what could go terribly wrong. Not to be a catastrophist, but to be realistic. When you look at AI now, what are your biggest concerns in their specificity?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Right. I'm assuming you don't approve of that firing.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Political pressure.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Microsoft's a partner of OpenAI. And I had an interview with Sam Altman, who's the CEO there, a couple of years ago. And when I asked him about the implications for the labor market, how people would make a living, who would be made redundant, his answer was kind of, it certainly didn't put my mind at ease.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
But do you have faith in politicians to be the arbiters of that kind of future in that kind of situation? You're smiling.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Maybe it's a sensitive question, but your book is largely about how you became you and a story of development in many ways. You're now, I think we're about the same age. We both recognize we're not on the front nine of the golf course of life. You think through your life and when you've made a contribution, when you've behaved well, when you've behaved badly, what are your deepest regrets?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Bill Gates, thank you very much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
I really appreciate your time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Good to talk to you. Bill Gates was the co-founder of Microsoft, and he's chairman today of the Gates Foundation, the largest nonprofit in the world. His new book is called Source Code, I'm David Remnick. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
And we had additional help this week from Jake Loomis.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
You're talking about the COVID-19 vaccines.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Do you worry that you might be in some way punished by being on the Democratic side in the election this last time around? It's not beyond Donald Trump in history shows for him to favor his allies and punish what he sees as his enemies.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Well, let's take that. What are your biggest concerns regarding vaccines on a global level when you've got the administration that you've got now and the influence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in office?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
But do you see an impulse either at your three-hour dinner with the president or whatever contact you had with the returning administration? Do you have confidence in them where that's concerned?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
There's a lot of talk now, more than ever, about oligarchic structures in the United States, far more than before. Is there an oligarchy growing in Washington?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
I'm talking about something else. I'm talking about the influence that somebody like Elon Musk will exert on I'm talking about the way Mark Zuckerberg has been behaving of late, talking about the influence on media barons. It's one of his interests is Jeff Bezos and his kind of reversals when it comes to The Washington Post. Does that not concern you?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Vaccine development has been a gigantic focus of the Foundation's work. And as a result, you've become the subject of a boatload of conspiracy theories, especially around COVID. One of the most amazing of these conspiracy theories was that you wanted to use a COVID-19 vaccine to implant, wait for it, microchips in people. Where does this come from? How do you explain vaccine skepticism?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
And where do you lay the blame for the way these theories and attacks come at you and whoever else believes in the vaccine?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Long before Mark Zuckerberg was toying with something called the Facebook as a Harvard student, and before Elon Musk ever dreamed of self-driving cars and conquering space, Bill Gates was running Microsoft. Windows established itself as the dominant operating system for most of the world's personal computers.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
It's been pretty clear for a while now that there's been a kind of ideological battle in the tech world and a new ethos began to take hold. Did you have DEI initiatives at the foundation or at Microsoft?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
To your distress or do you think it was a good thing?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
And particularly on, you're talking about cultural issues mainly. Mainly, yes. Tell me about your encounter with Bernie Sanders. I watched that conversation between the two of you on your Netflix series, What's Next.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
It wasn't unfriendly exactly. It wasn't rude. But I was watching two people on a hugely different plane of existence somehow.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Gates was the avatar of a new breed, the tech mogul. And for a long time, he was rated the world's wealthiest person. His new memoir, Source Code, explains just how he got there. Microsoft remains one of the world's most valuable companies. But for nearly 20 years since stepping back at Microsoft, Bill Gates has devoted himself almost entirely to philanthropy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
He thinks just the notion of being a billionaire is innately immoral.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
I guess what he's saying is something more than that, and you were quite patient with the whole conversation, as was Bernie Sanders, but he could not fathom, and I think it's probably near impossible for almost everybody to fathom why being a billionaire, one billion, is not enough, especially when we are saturated with images of
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
in the media of immense indulgence, yachts, planes, all kinds of almost phantasmagorical displays of wealth that are, I have to say, a bad look.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
You paid $14 billion in your working life.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Because in a sense, in publicity terms, they got away with it. It didn't blow it. And we should say also that Alice Munro in Canada... Her reputation was immense. People referred to her as the queen of the literary scene there. It was, you know, people here probably at that time knew other writers, Toni Morrison or John Updike, much more than Alice Munro somehow.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
In one of the most astonishing pieces of reporting that the magazine has had the honor of publishing in recent years, Rachel Aviv explores the story of Alice Munro and her art, and the terrible secret of her life, and the lives of her family. I thought we should begin by talking about Alice Munro as a writer. She published 50 short stories at The New Yorker, at least, and
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
But in Canada, it was a different story, no?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I'm speaking with Rachel Aviv, who's reported for The New Yorker on Alice Monroe and her daughter, Andrea Skinner. We'll continue in a moment. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'm speaking today with staff writer Rachel Aviv. In a piece that you can find on newyorker.com called Alice Monroe's Passive Voice, Rachel Aviv probes with depth and sensitivity what happened in Alice Monroe's family after Monroe's partner sexually abused her youngest daughter.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Andrea, the daughter, told members of her family about it when it happened, including her father, Jim Monroe. But nobody wanted to tell Alice Monroe. Nobody wanted to upset her. And years later, when Jerry Fremlin admitted to the abuse, Alice stood by him. She gradually lost contact with her daughter, Andrea.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Rachel, we spoke before the break about how the media ignored this story for many years, and it kind of mirrors the way Alice Monroe's family dealt with it. You spoke with Andrea Skinner repeatedly and at great length. Here's a recording she made for a survivor's group in Canada called The Gatehouse.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
So her siblings as well as her mother shut her out?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Now, you spoke with Robert Thacker, who's a biographer of Alice Munro. He knew about the abuse. What was his rationale as a scholar, as a biographer, to ignore this incredibly pivotal, on the criminal record piece of news?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And there were people around the office for years who considered her in many ways, you know, the Chekhov of the 20th century. Tell me a little bit about her qualities as a writer.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I'm sorry, but how did you react to that when you heard that come out of his mouth?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
What's amazing is how many stories in mid- and late-career— are haunted by, shadowed by, or even you could say about this situation. Which is the story that in your mind is the most directly infested with this?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Did Andrea go on reading her mother's stories as they came out in the magazine and in books?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
One of the striking things about this extraordinary piece is that Andrea doesn't go to pieces. She continues living her life and she has a life. What is it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Even to her siblings who were deceived by that in some way.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
The sense of dissociation is incredible.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize. How did Andrea react to that news?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
What's the work about, really?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
How do you think this affects Alice Munro's literary legacy and how we'll read her in the future? I know lots of people that at first they said, I'm never going to read her again. Your colleague, Jiayang Fan, who was teaching Alice Munro, I just had lunch with her. It just rocked her in a most elemental way. How do you think that will affect Alice Munro's being read in the future?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
It felt like— And you see it that way?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
So there's a certain ruthlessness to it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And you earlier in our conversation talked about trying not to be judgmental, but in fact, Writing, in no small part, is a collection of many judgments along the way, whether about sentences or how a story moves or the judgments you make. And in this story, the real crime is committed by the man, Gerald Fremlin. We shouldn't forget that. And I wonder in the end how you do judge Alice Munro.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Do you think she thought of it in those stark terms?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Rachel Levive, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Alice Munro's Passive Voice is the title of Rachel Aviv's piece, and you can read it at our website, newyorker.com. And you can subscribe to The New Yorker for reporting like this every week, and that's also at newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I want to close the program and begin the new year by thanking everyone at the Radio Hour and at The New Yorker. And thank you for listening, and a happy new year.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
You know, I've been working at The New Yorker for a long time, for 30 years. And Alice died last year, right?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I think I met her once or twice, maybe. She very rarely seemed to come to New York, and when she did, it was like a stealth mission. She kept far apart from that so-called literary world, didn't she?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Now, I have a confession to make. So this past summer... like a lot of people, I read the piece in the Toronto Star by Alice's grown daughter, Andrea. And it was a short memoir in which she said that she had been sexually assaulted by Alice's husband when she was very young, nine years old, I think.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I read this piece. My first reaction was one of, I was just startled. I mean, Alice Munro holds a great place in my mind as a reader and, frankly, as a citizen of The New Yorker, she's an important figure. And my second thought, not long thereafter, was that Rachel Levive should write about this. And before I even had a chance to call you and discuss this,
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
I'd heard that you were also thinking the same thing. How did this news affect you? And then why did you decide to get on it as a piece of writing and investigations so quickly?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
The abuse against Andrea by Fremlin, the stepfather, began when she was nine years old. What exactly happened?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
So it went on and on for years. And Fremlin, Gerald Fremlin, had a very strange way of talking about this when he eventually did. He seemed to be obsessed with Nabokov's novel Lolita and much else. Tell me about Fremlin.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And how did Alice Munro initially react to this letter that she got from her daughter, Andrea, saying to her, sit down, go to a quiet place before you read this, and she gives her the news, how did Alice Munro react?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Alice Munro was a master of the short story in our time, the Chekhov of her era. She published more than 50 stories in the New Yorker, and then in 2013, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
How do you make sense of why she stayed? It can't just be I loved him and I was dependent on him.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Let's listen to Alice Munro. talking to Joyce Davidson for the CBC. This is in 1979.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
But shortly before her death, her legacy darkened when her youngest daughter, Andrea, revealed that she'd been sexually abused by Monroe's longtime partner. This began when Andrea was just nine years old, and it was kept secret in the family even after the man confessed to it in letters.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
The resonant phrase for me there is to see what happens. As if the most essential thing is to see what will happen, and by extension, I think, to see how it becomes the material of her art.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
To see what the human behavior will be, positive, negative, or otherwise.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
It's almost as if she never left her husband and reconciled with her daughters because the conflict was fruitful for her work. Is that unfair?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
She had been beaten badly by her father when she was growing up.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
What do you mean speaks to those wounds? To heal them?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
You know, I went back and reread this piece in the New York Times magazine from 20 years ago by Daphne Merkin. It describes the relationship of Monroe and Jerry Fremlin. And it's not Merkin's fault. This was performed for her in a sense. But she described that relationship in very sporty, genial terms.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And so now Monroe's ardent readers, and there are a great many of us, are left with this terrible conundrum that a writer of such astonishing powers of empathy could betray her own child.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
How did the police react to that report?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
And what came out of that investigation?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
It was a one-sentence admission of guilt in which the first-person pronoun was dropped.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Lakota Playwright’s Take on Thanksgiving; Plus, Ayelet Waldman on Quilting to Stay Sane
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul and Ursula Sommer.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Lakota Playwright’s Take on Thanksgiving; Plus, Ayelet Waldman on Quilting to Stay Sane
With guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barisch, Victor Guan and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trerina Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Lakota Playwright’s Take on Thanksgiving; Plus, Ayelet Waldman on Quilting to Stay Sane
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Lakota Playwright’s Take on Thanksgiving; Plus, Ayelet Waldman on Quilting to Stay Sane
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Lakota Playwright’s Take on Thanksgiving; Plus, Ayelet Waldman on Quilting to Stay Sane
I'm David Remnick.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Lakota Playwright’s Take on Thanksgiving; Plus, Ayelet Waldman on Quilting to Stay Sane
The Thanksgiving Play is a play about the making of a play. It's also a very timely comedy about an awkward subject. The gap between the old story of the Thanksgiving holiday, the story we like to tell and grew up on,
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
You mentioned corruption, and we now have a situation where members of the Trump family are earn tremendous fees from foreign governments. Seems to me that that's a form of colossal corruption. And it's not something we don't know about. It's published all the time. And then it falls into a black hole. Why?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Senator Chris Murphy has emerged as one of the most vehement critics of what you might call the business-as-usual approach by the Democrats. Murphy says we have months, not years, before American democracy is damaged beyond repair. In other words, if there's an emergency, act like it's an emergency. I spoke with Senator Chris Murphy last week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Senator Murphy, is Chuck Schumer the right leader for the Democratic Party in the Senate for this moment?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
As you know, Chuck Schumer's argument about voting the way he did on the continuing resolution was that if you shut down the government, It gives the Trump administration carte blanche for a potentially boundless period of time to do whatever they like in terms of shutting down agencies. Not that they're not doing it to some degree now and to a great degree, but that it would be open season.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
The opposing point of view was let them do it, let them own it, which seemed to tumor a gamble that one couldn't take.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Senator, I wonder if we could try to define the crisis that we're in. I'm of the opinion that the Trump administration is intent on creating a kind of American-style authoritarian situation. Do you agree with me?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
You mentioned the possibility of public involvement, public demonstrations, people out on the street. What would bring them there?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
I think they reached 30,000 at one of the rallies.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Senator, you've been on TV a lot lately, to be frank. You've been out there quite a lot. Are you in the process of asserting yourself for national office?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
So just to be clear, you don't want to run for president ever?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Senator, thank you so much. Thanks a lot. Chris Murphy has been the junior senator from Connecticut since 2013. I'm David Remnick. Thanks so much for joining us this week. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Why do your Republican colleagues put up with this? Do they fess up to it when you talk to them in private?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
You know, I think this has only been going on for a couple of months. It's quite different from the first term. How bad is this? And where is it going in your estimation?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
That brings us to the real crux of our conversation today, and that is the Democratic Party. What is the Democratic Party going to do about it? Because every indicator that I see in terms of public opinion polls are a widespread dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party. What are the Democrats going to do in a concerted way in the Senate and the House?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
What's at the core of the brokenness, if we can be specific?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Well, let's break that down. How would that conversation and how would that process go about among the Democrats?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. As Donald Trump carries out a radical plan to slash the federal government to a nub, no matter what the cost or who's going to pay it, his most obvious accomplices are congressional Republicans, politicians who, with almost no exceptions, will not dare risk his wrath or risk a primary challenge.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
I get that, but here's the dilemma. If you read Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail, he is addressing centrist or center-left clergy and activists who are always counseling him, you have to wait a little longer, you have to wait longer, it's not time yet. And I think a lot of people, a lot of groups, and the most obvious one that Trump took advantage of in his ads were trans people.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
These are real, actual human beings who want their rights and who want their respect and they want to be able to exist in the world as easily as you and me. Are we asking them to wait?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
If we mention them.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Can you explain the split we're seeing between Democratic senior leadership and more junior members of the party?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
You believe that's a possibility?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
But also notable is the Democratic opposition or the lack thereof. In the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he won't swing at every pitch from the administration as though this were a baseball game. Chuck Schumer's vote to back the Republican budget in order to avoid a government shutdown enraged many in the congressional rank and file. So the Democratic Party now seems paralyzed.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Senator Chris Murphy, just after we spoke as if on cue, the president issued an executive order on voting that could disenfranchise millions of people. My conversation with Murphy continues in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I've been speaking today with Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. Earlier in our conversation, Murphy called the Democratic Party a broken brand.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
And in thinking about what ails his party, its approval ratings, its losses at the polls, its seeming lack of resolve, Murphy has joined the more radical wing of the party in castigating the influence of big money that corrupts our politics. That's not necessarily a popular position in Murphy's home of Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the Union. We'll continue our conversation.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
The Democrats ran in no small measure on the preservation of democracy, and that failed. Why do you have any confidence that the public would mobilize for democracy in the future, if not now?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking today with Tim Waltz, the governor of Minnesota. When Governor Waltz got the nod from Kamala Harris to be her running mate, he seemed to have it all, particularly in the regular guy department.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
He was bluff, friendly, a Midwesterner, a veteran of the Army National Guard, a history teacher in public high school, a football coach, a longtime congressman, and then governor of Minnesota. But it might have been one little phrase that put Waltz in the public eye. He called Trump and J.D. Vance weird. Weird. And for a hot minute, it stuck.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
They seem to have more leverage to oppose the federal government. Governor Tim Walz tweeted this in January. President Trump just shut off funding for law enforcement, farmers, schools, veterans, and health care. Minnesota needs answers. We'll see Trump in court. That's one of the many reasons that I wanted to speak with Tim Walz.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
You suddenly heard Democrats all over the country trying some variation on the weird theme. It seemed to resonate more strongly than scarier words like authoritarian or fascist. But you know the end of the story. The voters spoke in November. And here we are. I'll continue now my conversation with Governor Tim Waltz.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
It seems that one of the difficulties the Democrats had were on, and this sometimes is a euphemism, is on cultural issues. How did you react to the ad that said this? Kamala Harris is for they, them. Donald Trump is for you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Second thoughts or regrets about that confrontation?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
You were prepping for the J.D. Vance to get right up in your grill, huh?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
That, of course, and the election that brought Donald Trump back to the White House. I hear all the time from non-Trump voters two reactions to what's going on in the last month. One is... I don't want to watch the news. I want to shut it all out. It's too much. And the other thing is, where is the Democratic Party? Let's start with the inclination to shut things out.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Did the campaign end up relying too much on the message of defending democracy? Is that possible?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
You just announced that you won't be seeking the open U.S. Senate seat in your home state. First of all, why? And would you ever be open to running for a national race again after what you've just been through?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
And I think about the impact that I can make, especially now as you're saying you can make a greater impact as governor of Minnesota than senator from Minnesota. Oh, yes. In the Trump era.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
What's the inclination? What is the pattern you're seeing, whether Trump or the Trump family or his relationship to other business people tells you that he's corrupt?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Of all the appointments that Donald Trump has made, which ones trouble you the most?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
You nodded when I said that, and you hear the same thing.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Meaning to politicize the military. Let's put this all together, whether it's the Justice Department or the Pentagon, or all the other appointments that have been made and all the other moves that you've seen take shape over the last, what is it, five, six weeks. What is Donald Trump building in the aggregate? How is he changing America in systemic terms?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
And this is Janet Mills, who then turned and said, we'll see you in court.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
You're saying he's building an authoritarian government.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
The checks and balances are off, meaning I'm not quite— We don't have to listen to the courts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
I don't say this to further pain you, but it must eat at your guts every day to know that you lost by a point and a half. And the difference was between an administration led by Kamala Harris and yourself and this. Yes.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Who do you see in the Democratic Party as a possibility for 28? Because as we know, these dates come at us faster than we sometimes anticipate.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Have you talked to her much since the election?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
You've got a telephone. You can text. You can phone. Really, after that kind of experience, you just talk a couple of times?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Did the results of this last election tell you that a woman, and particularly a woman of color, cannot be president of this country?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Have you had it with national politics for yourself?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
When you read presidential history, you read American history, there are people that feel they are destined to do this.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Governor, thank you so much for your time. Pleasure to be with you. I really appreciate it. Be well. Thank you. Tim Walls is the governor of Minnesota, and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for joining us. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
And we had help this week from Chris Hagel.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
But you're suggesting a kind of parallel existence, a parallel opposition, a center-left Tea Party movement in a way.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
But did you, did you actually know? I mean, is the, the storm of the last four weeks exactly what you and Kamala Harris envisioned? Is there nothing that surprised you?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
But I think there's a lot of people that feel the Democratic leadership in Washington is too hesitant. For example, Hakeem Jeffries, who's the leader of the Democrats in the House. said that, you know, he's like Aaron Judge. Aaron Judge is a great hitter because he doesn't swing at every pitch. And that Hakeem Jeffries says, I'm not going to swing at every pitch.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
And there's a lot of things to swing at. And to many people, this seems exceedingly complacent.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Governors are starting to do this. Governor, you mentioned specific services that are not being delivered in your state and elsewhere. Can you boil that down? What are the specific services that have suddenly stalled in Minnesota as a result of what's happening in Washington?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
It didn't get anywhere. Governor, last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Senator John Fetterman, who said the following. I think that the Democratic Party made it increasingly difficult for men, specifically white men, to make that choice, meaning the choice for the Democrats. I think it's incredibly difficult sometimes.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Now, he wouldn't say exactly what made it hard, but the numbers suggest that there really is something to that. What is going on with Democrats and men?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Democrats in Washington have seemed almost paralyzed by the onslaught of far-right-wing appointments to the Trump cabinet and the wrecking ball that he's unleashed on his own government agencies. The Democrats register their opposition, but they seem lost in any attempt to organize themselves against the administration's firehose.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
I understand all those things. And yet they voted the way they voted. They see you in one way and they see Donald Trump in quite a different way. Yeah, they did in November of 2024.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
I think what you're telling me is that the rubber is going to meet the road on economics. Yes. That the popularity or unpopularity or the opposition or non-opposition to Trump will depend on the price of eggs, as it were, and many other economics.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Governor, as a person who started his career as a sports reporter, after a game, to me, the most interesting thing was never to go to the winning locker room, but to go to the losing locker room on a human level. Tell me what it was like to lose that election and what you felt in the days after.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, offered a baseball analogy recently, saying they're waiting for the right pitch. Last week on our program, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said this. How many years can you jump on cable and yell and scream that the world's on fire? In the states, though, Democratic governors seem much more determined.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
But what was the next morning like? Did you feel a sense of desolation or failure or an inability to understand what had just happened? Did you think you were going to lose going in?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets?
I'm speaking with Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I have a very important question to ask. When did Brussels sprouts go from being, as in my childhood, disgusting?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And to my adulthood, it's like, I can't wait to get more Brussels sprouts. What happened?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Funny, unpretentious, a shrewd businesswoman, and a master of every chicken recipe known in the history of chicken. When she goes on book tour, she doesn't come to a bookstore. She sells out the Kennedy Center. She's pretty successful. A couple of years back, Ina Garten published a book called Go-To Dinners, and I asked her to join me on the program.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
So on asparagus, too, you're pro-roasting rather than steaming or boiling.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Perfect. Now, this is not exactly a food question. How many scarves do you own? You always have one on. Sue Palmer.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I spoke with Ina Garten in 2022. Her recent book is a memoir called Be Ready When the Luck Happens. Be My Guest with Ina Garten on the Food Network is in its fifth season. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I'm David Remnick, and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour. The movie Baby Girl opened on Christmas Day. A pretty bold choice because, elf, this is not. It's a movie about an affair between a CEO, played by Nicole Kidman, and a much younger man at her company. And it's steamy. That might be the euphemism of choice.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And the New Yorker's Alex Barish just profiled the director of Baby Girl, Alina Rainn. And he spent some time educating himself as one must in the great tradition of erotic thrillers. Welcome, Alex. Thank you, David. Now, Alex, what made you want to talk to Alina Ray?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And what's the basic premise beyond the age difference is?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
With looks to kill. Looks to kill. Right. So it's an affair between the CEO and an intern?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Now, I have to start out by telling you the last time I had a famous cook on the show, I may have told you this, it was Jacques Pepin. And on the radio, with my laptop in the kitchen, I made crepes with him. Wow. Exactly. With my wife, Esther, laughing at me in the corner of the kitchen. So we're not going to cook. We're just going to talk.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
possibly the most famous cinematic orgasm of the last five years.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Nicole Kidman's expected to get an Oscar nomination for Baby Girl, am I right? Yeah. How unusual is it for an erotic thriller to get an award, you know, an Oscar?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
All right, so in the pick three sweepstakes, your contemporary pick is Baby Girl for erotic thrillers. What's your next pick?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And it was the leg crossing that launched A Thousand Ships.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I'm with you there. Now, your third pick...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Now, for those unlucky enough not to have seen Eyes Wide Shut 25 years ago, what was it about? Because it's about a lot.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
For the record, you and our esteemed colleague Richard Brody are aligned on this film.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Nicole Kidman starred in Eyes Wide Shut 25 years ago, and now here she is in Baby Girl. What keeps bringing her to these films?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
An hourly occurrence. Now, you write in the preface to this book, early in the book, you said that when you were growing up, you had dreaded dinner time. Why was it dreaded? Was the food so terrible? Was it your mom that was making dinner?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
So with all the attention that's being given to Baby Girl, are we in for a renaissance, God willing, of erotic thrillers?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Alex Barish is an editor for The New Yorker. And Baby Girl, starring Nicole Kidman, just opened. You can find Alex's profile of the director, Alina Rain, at newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today. Hope you had a great holiday. We'll see you in the new year, whatever that may bring.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Decat. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
What was dinner on the table? What was it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
When is the first time you picked up a frying pan in earnest? It wasn't just when you got married later on.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
In other words, you like to cook with people around, not by your lonesome in the kitchen.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Do you remember the first time you made a dinner in earnest for you and Jeffrey?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I get the feeling, and this is far from your first book. You've had many books before this. But Go To Dinners is a book. in a way made for Ina Garten back then. In other words, these are in some ways the least intimidating recipes you could imagine. You're almost telling the reader, you know, darling, I know you think you can't do anything, but even you can do this.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Now, I've admitted this to you before, but I'm now admitting it to everybody who's listening. To relax. I don't cook. I watch cooking videos. I watch you. I watch Jacques Pepin. I watch this Szechuan guy who's going 300 miles an hour making incredible food, but I can't cook. Hold my hand and tell me what I need to know initially.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
If I'm having four people over, six people, whatever it is, what do I need to know? What do I not need to be nervous about? And what would you recommend I start with?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
So you think this is the easiest thing. This is the point of entry.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I have to ask you, I'm lucky enough to know Jeffrey, but I think for most people who watch you, they see Jeffrey at the end of your show and he'll be saying something like, this is the best soup I've ever had or this chicken's unbelievable or something like that. And you think to yourself, he can't possibly be this nice and this brilliant at the same time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Ina Garten is not just a household name. She's beloved. With the help of her Food Network program, The Barefoot Countessa, not to mention all those viral videos, Garten has 14 million cookbooks in print. Her success doesn't come from pioneering recipes or being in the foodie avant-garde.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Now, you ran a store, you owned a store from 1978 to 1996, a long time, the Barefoot Contessa. And why did that hit the way it hit out in the Hamptons? It was an incredible success.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It seems impossible to imagine, but there was a time, Ina, that you were not as famous as you are now. You started publishing these cookbooks. And you were hesitant about doing a television show. I mean, you got offers, I think, more than once before you decided to go forward with it. What was your hesitation?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It always seemed to me that the most successful ones, there was some character involved. Julia Child was a big character. She had personality traits that we could easily list. Graham Kerr did, all kinds of people who've done it. How do you think about that in terms of the personality you put out there? Because I have to say, being lucky enough to know you, it seems like one and the same person.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It's got more to do with a confiding, authentic warmth that tells you that you too can make coq au vin, or a roast tenderloin, or some roast carrots even. Just follow the recipe. You can do it. Her approach to food is classic and, above all, accessible. I've known her for a while, and I must tell you that the person you see on TV is the one you get in person.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I have to say, though, I'm watching you cook and there's a move that you do. All of a sudden, the stick and a half of butter goes into the pan and you look up both with mischief in your eyes and a little guiltily and say, yeah, but it makes a lot of brownies. Okay.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Isn't that true? Yeah, we have... We have some questions sent by email to you. This comes from Julie Wilson and Maureen Tipping in Comer, Northern Ireland. And this question is from my neighbor Maureen and me, Julie. We're tuning in from Comer, which is a small village just outside of Belfast. During COVID, our neighborhood came together into a really lovely, supportive, and fun community.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
We went from being neighbors to being friends. This Christmas, we would like to co-host a party for our street. Our village is famous for potatoes, so we're really keen to know if Ina has any ideas on how to transform the humble spud into a delicious party food hors d'oeuvre. Potato hors d'oeuvres. Keep in mind you're giving potato tips to Ireland. That's a tall order.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Wow. And you have a great recipe for that, I should say.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Sounds delish. Is that a good one? From Alex Lewin in Berkeley, California. Dear Ms. Garten, about 10 years ago, I read a short story in Harper's about which I remember nothing, not the title, the author of the plot, except for a scene in which a character fishes a bay leaf out of a bowl of soup and flicks it away. And he tells his dining companion...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
bay leaves are BS ever since then I've been nagged by the question are bay leaves BS whenever I put them in anything I can't tell what effect they have am I using them wrong also is it true that they should be kept in the freezer
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Can I just say this is called making news. Ina Garten calls bullshit on bay leaves. I'm with that. Now, these are questions from New Yorker Instagram. What to make for two people while still making it feel like a holiday and a special meal? This is from Teresa Nobre.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking with Senator Cory Booker of my home state of New Jersey. Booker became active in local politics in the city of Newark, which had been long plagued by political corruption, poverty, and neglect.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
So in the face of this anguish, on March 31st, Cory Booker of New Jersey launched an epic protest on the floor of the Senate.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
He was elected to the Senate in 2013, and I spoke with Booker on this program in 2019 when he ran in the Democratic presidential primary. We'll continue our conversation. You mentioned Senator Schumer earlier. You've said that you would not want the job of minority leader in the Senate. Why not?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
In the budget negotiations.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
So you don't think Chuck Schumer's time has come? No. You think that's the case indefinitely for a while?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
I hear you may go to El Salvador yourself to look into the case of Kilmar Brejo Garcia. Is that going to happen?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
There was a lot of attention paid to Nayib Bukele, the El Salvadoran president, his trip to the Oval Office, and the way he paraded as a kind of fellow autocrat with the president. And when Bukele visited the White House earlier this month, Trump said this. Let's listen.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
I don't think he was kidding around there. You've got the president believes he can send American citizens, forget lawful immigrants, to foreign prisons. Are Democrats working on anything preemptively to protect American citizens?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Booker spoke for more than a day. He spoke for 25 hours, finishing in the evening of April 1st. It was a Jimmy Stewart moment, an extended rallying cry for decency and the rule of law.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Senator Booker, over the years, you have been a really clear opponent, maybe understates it, of anti-Semitism over and over again. But would you agree that anti-Semitism, to some extent, is being exploited in a political way by the Trump administration? How do you see that very complicated piece of business?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Now, I know you got a lot of positive reaction to your 25-hour-long speech. I wonder if you got the other thing, too. Lisa Murkowski has talked about threats that have come her way. Do they come your way as well?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Do you think that played a role in her, in the end, supporting Hegseth?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
But it must be scary.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
In fact, this wasn't Cory Booker's first piece of political theater. Years ago, when he was on the city council in Newark, New Jersey, he once went on a hunger strike to call attention to open drug sales. Booker became Newark's mayor, and he was elected a senator from New Jersey in 2013, and he ran for president in the 2020 election. We spoke last week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
I find that the conversation that we're having sounds like a conversation that would be born of 10 years of experience rather than 100 days. 100 days. And there are 1,300 days remaining or thereabouts. What do you expect to see happen?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Senator Booker, thank you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Cory Booker is a Democrat and a Senator from New Jersey. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for this week. Thanks for joining us. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
We are coming up on Trump's 100th day in office, and I was just reading the slew of pieces that were written eight years ago about the Muslim ban, Mike Flynn's appointment and rapid dismissal, the crazy midnight tweeting, the flirtations with Moscow and Pyongyang, the whole atmosphere of general alarm. Why is now different?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
What has been accomplished in 100 days that you think is particularly grave and particularly irreversible?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
You had the first term as evidence. You had a second campaign against Joe Biden that he lost as evidence. And then a third campaign in Project 2025 as evidence of intent. What, if anything, about the first hundred days of this administration has surprised you? I...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Well, bring me into the cloakroom. You're having a conversation. with a Republican colleague and you're discussing the situation in these terms, what is the ensuing dialogue like?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
April 30th marks 100 days of Donald Trump's second term. And in that short time, the administration has carried out an unprecedented series of attacks against legal immigrants, against civic institutions and universities, against the rule of law itself. The president's tariff policy and all its chaos has absolutely tanked the global economy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Is that he's succeeded in doing these things so quickly and in such profusion that Congress and the public can't keep up with it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
Do you see signs of that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
My understanding is is that you were hearing silence in your own party leadership. And the occasion for your 25-hour speech on the floor of the Senate was because you were hearing from a lot of your constituents. What were they saying and in what volume?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
many Americans who are anguished about the administration are looking for someone to lead the opposition. Because the Democratic Party has, with some exceptions, been very cautious. And congressional Republicans, in the words of Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, are all afraid to stand up to Trump.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership”
I'm speaking with Cory Booker, who's been a senator from New Jersey since 2013, and we'll continue in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with the singer Cecile McLaurin-Selvan. She's emerged as one of the great jazz artists of her generation. I interviewed in this room, in this studio at WNYC years ago, Rhiannon Giddens.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And she, to me, she does a lot of things, but she does two things at once in the sense that she's a great performer, but there's an element of her that she's also a scholar. She's a musicologist. She is an evangelist. For all kinds of music. It seems to me with different music, you're doing a similar thing that Rihanna and Giddens does, is that you're introducing all kinds of things to the stage.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
You're not just, of course you do standards and Broadway show tunes and things that we associate in our minds with what Sarah Vaughan did or Ella Fitzgerald. But so many other things are on your mind to give us.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Her first band. Her first band.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
But do you feel that you have that in mind too, that it ain't just by chance, that there's a project that you're building over time of introducing certain kinds of music to your audiences, whether it's in French or it's in English?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And yet we began our conversation or your being here with Don't Rain on My Parade.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Why do you want to do something that's so familiar and so associated with one singer?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
It's not enough that you sing across the centuries and so beautifully. You also write extraordinary songs.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Tell me about the beginning of – songwriting and how you went about it and what you were after.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And you're writing them with the piano, with not the lute, right?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Why do I have a feeling that that's coming?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And how does that inform the music?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I think I may be pressing my luck, but I'm hoping you'll sing Moon Song, which is on the album Ghost Song from, I think, two years ago, three years ago. Tell me about the song before we hear it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
So different than a 16th century lute-based song.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Yeah, they had desire in the 16th century. Okay.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I want to thank you so much for being here.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Cecile McLaurin-Salvon joined me in the studio at WNYC in May of last year, along with the pianist Sullivan Fortner. She's playing at the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina this week, and later this summer she'll be at the Newport Jazz Festival, the DC Jazz Festival, Springfield Jazz and Blues, and many other venues. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I am so excited to have you here today. And I have gone to see you at any number of places around New York and not enough. Because every time I go, I leave so happy and so surprised by what you've decided to sting on a given night. What goes into those decisions?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
This song is so associated with one singer in particular, maybe Barbra Streisand. And you take it on head on. Then on another night, I'll go see you and you're singing. I don't know how many verses that was. We were just discussing this before we came in. It must have been 40 verse long blues song that no one had probably heard.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Cecile McLaurin Salvant is a jazz singer, and she's one of the top singers around today. Someone on the level of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. But Salvant's repertoire and her approach to music are completely her own. A standard from the American songbook might be followed by a tune from hundreds of years ago. and across an ocean. I once went to see her expecting, you know, how high the moon.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I think it was like a half an hour long.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
A date night with a little murder involved.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Well, let's start from the beginning. You grew up where?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And what were you listening to at home and who was filling the home with music?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And that's all due to your mother.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And what was the lingua franca at home, English, French, or both?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Yeah. From what I understand, in fact, from a profile in The New Yorker some years ago, there was a time when you were a kid, you thought you were going to study law.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
In a beautiful place in Aix-en-Provence.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
So off you go as a teenager to the south of France to study law, politics, history, and then something happened.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Did you play an instrument?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
And you were playing classical, jazz, everything?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
But the first thing out of her was a century-old murder ballad, and it lasted about a half an hour long. Wynton Marsalis called her the kind of talent who comes along only once in a generation or two. Cecile McLaurin-Salvant is performing at jazz festivals all over the country this summer. I got a chance to talk with her last summer, and she came to perform at our studio at WNYC.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
So while you're studying in France, at a certain point you start performing as a singer, right? With a jazz quintet. How did that happen? And how did you have the skills and the nerve to do that all of a sudden?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Tell me about the first night. What'd you sing?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
So I get the feeling that you're... At a certain point early on, you're kind of like a magpie of different styles and voices that your teacher is giving you stacks of CDs to listen to. And one week it's Sarah Vaughan week, and one week it's Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday or whomever. This is all coming in as kind of information. And none of them wins out.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
You don't become an imitator of any one of them, do you think?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
So the failing is becoming yourself.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Now, my sources tell me that the song you're going to do next is pretty radically different. It's called Can She Excuse My Wrongs?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I want to know everything about it. It was written by an English musician who was born in the 16th century, John Dowland. Tell me about the song.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
Now, how did you learn about this song? Flipping around on Spotify? Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
In the 16th century. In the 16th century, lute. That's what they were playing at the Vanguard in the 16th century. Exactly, exactly. Gotcha, okay.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I screwed up some lyrics. We're good. Okay, this is what happens after each song. The recriminations begin.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Cécile McLorin Salvant Performs Live In-Studio
I'm speaking with the extraordinary singer Cecile McLaurin-Selvant, a three-time Grammy winner for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and Sullivan Fortner accompanies her on piano. Our conversation continues in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Kaitlyn Collins was only a couple years out of college when she became White House correspondent for The Daily Caller, the news and opinion site co-founded by Tucker Carlson. Professionally, she's pretty much only known the feverish Trump media environment. Collins went over to CNN during Trump's first term, and she's returned to the White House for his second term.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
I'm talking with CNN's Caitlin Collins. We'll come back to her time working for Tucker Carlson at The Daily Caller in just a minute. I'm Claire Malone, and this is The New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Claire Malone, sitting in today for David Remnick. I've been speaking with Caitlin Collins. Collins is the host of CNN's nightly program, The Source, and she's CNN's chief White House correspondent, too. When Collins was hired at CNN, the news attracted some attention.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
She was only 25 at the time, and she had been covering the White House for The Daily Caller, the news and opinion site co-founded by Tucker Carlson. It was described as a conservative answer to The Huffington Post. You got your start at Tucker Carlson's new site, The Daily Caller. How were you imagining your career at that time?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
The right-wing ecosystem in media is in some ways so much more hardcore and hard right than it was 10 years ago. And Tucker, in particular, I think exemplifies that. I'm sort of curious what you make of his career arc over the past decade.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Now, Trump, of course, disdains CNN, and he's not a big fan of Caitlin Collins.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
What was that transition like from explicit right wing media to, you know, CNN brands itself as neutral? I'm curious what that was like.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
But he says he was retaliated against. He called her nasty, and at one point, she was barred from a press conference. We've never had a White House so openly hostile to the press as we do now. And how journalists can actually report in this environment is something I want to talk about with Caitlin Collins. We spoke last week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Do you feel like your sourcing relationships with people on the right changed when you got to CNN? Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
You just described yourself as apolitical and you've done it before. You've said, and I'm quoting here, it's not like I have a point of view of what's right and what's wrong, what I think is bipartisan and doesn't have a political lens to it. And I'm curious, do you really hold no political opinions or do you just avoid them for the sake of objectivity?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
You're in regular communication with a lot of the same people Trump is. Your show is called The Source. I think it tips to that nature of reporting.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
How do you maintain those relationships, leverage those conversations into something useful to be reported when the administration is so publicly hostile towards media, when there's a little bit of like a sideshow that feeds social media about, you know, bashing reporters? Is it different behind the scenes with people?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Trump criticized you for asking why he was blaming DEI for the fatal D.C. plane crash earlier this year.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
What do you do when the president or the press secretary tries to make you specifically look biased against him?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
So Caitlin, you've said before that you have to get up before the tweets. And I'm kind of curious, you have essentially two jobs. What are all of the things that you're reading first thing in the morning to help you prep for a day at the White House?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Many outlets, including CNN, have seen layoffs. This is a little bit in the same point, but how does CNN stay relevant and how do you stay relevant in a time when there's a lot of talk about linear television falling apart, let alone with the political environment? How do you think through that changing medium?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Kaitlin, thank you so much for coming on.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
You can see Kaitlin Collins weeknights on CNN's The Source. She's the network's chief White House correspondent. And I'm Claire Malone, a staff writer at The New Yorker. David Remnick will be back next week. That's The New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for joining us.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Yeah, I was going to ask you what the biggest difference is reporting wise between the first Trump administration and the second Trump administration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
The White House briefing room in general, the back and forths, like, you know, an interaction between you and Carolyn Leavitt became, you know... A New York Post story, right? You know, an exchange between CNN's Caitlin Collins and Carolyn Leavitt. There is a confrontational edge to how she interacts with you, interacts with other reporters. Here's a clip from the other day.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
I'm curious how you think about strategically handling that kind of frisson between you and the White House press secretary.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
But I'm curious if from first term to second term, I guess the social media trickle down feels at all different when it comes back to you, right? The way that those clips are aggregated out. Does that tangibly feel different to you?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Threads is about middle school teachers being like, let me tell you a story about the worst student I ever had.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Yeah. Do you think the majority of Americans have an accurate understanding of politics based on the news they consume?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
The White House press pool and the way it's changed, obviously, the White House is now deciding who can travel with the pool. How has that changed how press briefings are, how even just like being in the pool is?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Claire Malone. I'm a staff writer and I cover politics and the media business. David Remnick is off this week. When I talk to longtime journalists about Donald Trump, I sometimes hear a kind of astonishment about how American politics changed so much so quickly. You're probably familiar with what I'm talking about.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
And you've been pretty involved with that organization, right? The WHCA.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Interviews for print and for broadcast are so different. The modes of them are so different in many ways. And I'm curious how you think about fact-checking in real time. Is it truly possible or reasonable to expect that you can fact-check everything someone says in your interview on air?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
Even 10 years into Trump's emergence in national politics, we are shocked that a president could threaten to annex Canada, for example, or blame DEI for a plane crash. Trump is not outside the box, to use the old phrase. He blew up the box. And it's instinctive for people who have covered politics for a long time to point out how far afield he's gone. Not to mention, it's also part of our job.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
You hosted a CNN town hall with Trump during his reelection campaign. This was in 2023. And there's a moment when he calls you a nasty person.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
I'm curious for your reaction in that moment, both as a person that's happening to you and also as a person who's hosting a live television program.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job
I'm curious for your take on what the best way for TV outlets, TV news outlets to cover Trump. Do we still not have a clear answer a decade later?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
I'm speaking with Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Our conversation continues in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
He voted to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney General, the only Democrat to do so, and that was after Bondi gave every indication that she would use the Justice Department to pursue Trump's political opponents. Fetterman also gave his support to Trump's notion that the United States could one day take over Gaza and develop it as a real estate project.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking today with John Fetterman, senator from Pennsylvania. Since the election, Fetterman has been highly critical of his own party, the Democrats, at certain times. Earlier, he told me that the Democratic Party has managed to discourage male voters, particularly white men.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
And Fetterman has really bucked his party in his fervent, nearly unqualified support of the Israeli government in its war in Gaza. In fact, some people have speculated that he might even switch parties, something that Fetterman denies, and we'll get to that. But he went so far as to embrace Donald Trump's suggestion that the United States might even take control of the Gaza Strip.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
One issue where I think I disagree with you, and I really want to hear you out on this, is that Donald Trump got up at a press conference standing next to Benjamin Netanyahu and
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
and talked about the possibility of the United States, and he used the word own, the United States owning Gaza, and for the people of Gaza to be sent elsewhere, Jordan, Egypt, wherever, and that this be made into a, and this was his term, not mine, the Riviera of the Middle East. You seem much more sympathetic to this possibility, certainly than any major Democrat that I've heard.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Is that what a president should do, just to provoke and not be serious on that kind of stage? That's...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Over time at the Radio Hour, we want to provide a deep as well as a rounded view of what's happening now in Washington. And Senator Fetterman, in both his ideas and his presentation, is an outlier among the Senate Democrats. So what is he doing and why? I spoke with John Fetterman last week. You went down to Mar-a-Lago to talk to Trump.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
One other foreign policy question. The United States has just held meetings with Russian representatives in Riyadh and Saudi Arabia. And presumably this is going to lead to, the hope is that it will lead to peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Pete Hex has already said that NATO membership for Ukraine is out of the question.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
And the Ukrainians are deeply, deeply worried that they will be left with losing 20% of their territory and that they will remain vulnerable to Russian attack again. Who do you sympathize with in this horrific situation?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
The Trump administration appears to be violating some court orders, and they've been shuttering government agencies without congressional approval. You've said, though, that this is not a constitutional crisis. If it's not a constitutional crisis, what is it? Where are we on this really vital issue? Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Do you think we're headed there?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Let's talk about politics ahead. What kind of politician is required by the Democrats to be more successful in the road ahead, whether it's 2026 or 2028? Because certainly something was missing.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
So tell me about your conversation with him in Mar-a-Lago and just as much, what was the reaction among your colleagues?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Are there any allies?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Where do you connect with Bernie Sanders? It seems in some ways you do.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
You describe it as a rushing broken pipe of raw sewage and you've got just a Dixie cup to deal with it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
You know, we've been talking for a while, and I can't tell— generally what you're recommending. On the one hand, you're very critical of all the various strands of the Trump administration. And then at the same time, you say we can't yell and scream about everything here because it's politically, you know, useless because Trump has done so well in elections.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
What I don't get is what the what one should do, you know, how to stand up for your principles and yet at the same time be successful politically.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Can I ask you a question? Is it depressing to work in the Senate? Yeah, 100%. It is. 100% it is. Tell me about that.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Do you think the Trump-Musk relationship is doomed to crack up?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Senator, I really appreciate your time. Thank you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. He took office in 2023. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Hope you'll join us next week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
A lot of your colleagues and a lot of a lot of people think that this is an exceptional thing, that Donald Trump is not what used to be called a conventional Republican and that this is something different, threatening and to. Visit him in Mar-a-Lago represented in and I'm representing the view of many people, not necessarily my own, but represented an accommodation to that reality.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Pam Bondi, tell me about your vote on Pam Bondi as opposed to your other ones. Why did you vote for her?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
If I get your views right, you were open to hearing about waste and fraud and abuse. But over the past few days, maybe you've been talking a lot about, for example, Musk's access to IRS data as a violation of privacy. Are you changing on Musk and his role in government?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
I think some people would say that chaos is exactly... what Donald Trump wants Elon Musk to carry.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. John Fetterman has cut a unique figure in American politics since he came to national attention. He's from a well-to-do Republican family, and he emerged as a progressive Democrat, a fighter on issues affecting the working class. He seemed a sort of Rust Belt Bernie Sanders, rocking a hoodie and cargo shorts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
There's a lot of worry out there, maybe even among your voters as well, about the creation of a kind of oligarchy that in which the president, together with Elon Musk and others like him, are creating a kind of oligarchic structure that's outsized, that's far more than ever before. Do you share that concern?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
You feel it yourself as a senator that you're a member of the kind of OnlyFans culture?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
You're in close touch with your voters. You go to Pennsylvania all the time. The president's approval rating by the standards of recent times is pretty high. And what is it that he's doing that. voters in Pennsylvania like and what are they more anxious about after a month of this presidency?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
And he won the Senate race in 2022 against Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was endorsed by Donald Trump. And that was despite Fetterman suffering a stroke during the campaign. More recently, though, Fetterman has come to stand out in some very different ways. After the election, he went to Mar-a-Lago and met with Donald Trump. He joined Truth Social.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
You've always been a huge advocate of the trans community, despite being kind of generally anti-woke, as a lot of people put it. I'd like to hear you talk about the human and political impact of what Trump's various trans bans have been in the military and sports and cutting off gender-affirming care. How do you feel about that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
An example.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
But that's that's what I'm asking you. What is it that the Democratic Party does or supports that makes it especially difficult for white men? Is it these cultural issues, economic issues? What are the specifics that you hear from your voters and that you agree with?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
Here's Kennedy recently in an interview with Sean Hannity that took place at a Florida burger chain.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
Marion Nessel is a nutrition researcher and the author of books including Food Politics, which is also the name of her blog. Dhruv Kular is a physician and a contributor to The New Yorker. Now, after they spoke, one of the NIH's top scientists studying ultra-processed food, Kevin Hall, left the agency. Hall says that he experienced censorship.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
He wasn't allowed to speak to the media about research results that did not support what he called preconceived HHS narratives. A spokesman for the department told CNN that this was a deliberate distortion of the facts. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
Kennedy has put ultra-processed food, or junk food, call it what you will, right into the political conversation. Now, you wouldn't necessarily expect this, given his boss's devotion to fast food chains. It's not probably healthy, but I'm not sure I believe in that. You know, you eat, who knows? You know, they say, don't eat this food, don't eat that. Well, maybe those foods are good for you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
David, name that band.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
I am at my kid's behest.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
They've been around. I mean... The Beatles had just broken up when they got together, Kraftwerk.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
Ah, yes. Ah, yes. I remember it well. The album was kind of a hit.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
The New Yorker's Dhruv Kular is a physician, and he's been reporting on the American diet for The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
Something else is creeping in here.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
That's absolutely true. In the subway, more often than not, when you'd see break dancers, when it first kind of popped up, Kraftwerk was not an uncommon music to be, you know, the backing track for that genre.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
Marion Nessel is a professor emerita at New York University, and her books include Food Politics. She spoke with Dhruv Kular.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
... ...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
And does the creativity and the innovation come to a halt at a certain point? Do they become an oldies band in a way?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
And the original members? One of the original members, yes. So everybody else is kind of a replacement along the way.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
That's a hard fake. Kelly, thanks so much. I'll see you next time. Kelly Fasana is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and you can find his work, of course, at newyorker.com. The Craftwork Tour is on to the UK and Europe in June. I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Last fall, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was angling for a position in the second Trump administration, he introduced the slogan, Make America Healthy Again. Maha. It riffed on MAGA, but focused on themes far more familiar in liberal circles, toxins in the environment, biodiversity, and healthy eating. So it's all kind of confusing.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk
At the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy is undermining public trust in vaccines, even during a deadly measles outbreak. And he's overseeing massive cuts to research across American science, ending critical diabetes studies, for example. But meanwhile, the FDA says it wants to curtail the use of certain food dyes, and Kennedy is talking about seed oils and processed food.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
We're talking the week, of course, that Harvard University decided to, in a sense, stand up to the Trump administration. It had some very difficult decisions to make. Jill, you've taught at Harvard for a long time, so I can't help but ask, what do you think Elon Musk makes of that situation?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
Jill Lepore is a professor of American history and of law at Harvard University. Her podcast about Elon Musk is called X-Man. And you can read her at newyorker.com on so many subjects. And you can also subscribe to The New Yorker at newyorker.com. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And we've been speaking today about Elon Musk. Earlier in the show, I spoke with historian Jill Lepore about the influence of science fiction on Musk, his business interest in space travel, and how it relates to his work in Doge, slashing federal government programs to the ground.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
But Musk's role in Doge and his support of far-right movements around the world are are now coming into conflict with some of his business interests, in particular with Tesla. The people who tend to buy electric cars are usually quite well-heeled and at least somewhat progressive. That had been the case for a long time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
But now Tesla sales seem to be dropping, and there are sizable protests at dealerships. And they're kind of getting under Donald Trump's skin.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
And yet the thing is, Elon Musk is not just a chaos agent, as he's sometimes called. He's driven by a distinct ideology, or at least a clear set of obsessions. And to find out more about this, I called up Jill Lepore, the best-selling author of These Truths and other works of history.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
That's great. That will stop it. Cold. One of these grassroots efforts goes by the hashtag Tesla takedown. Our producer Adam Howard spoke with an organizer about how she got involved with the movement.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
And I called her because she's written about Elon Musk for The New Yorker, and she's also produced a podcast about him called X-Men. She's a professor at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. We spoke last week. Jill, Elon Musk is only recently a MAGA figure. He supported Obama. He supported Biden in 2020. He was strong on climate change and the shift away from fossil fuels.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
Patty Hoyt is an organizer in the movement known as Tesla Takedown. And she spoke with the Radio Hour's Adam Howard. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
So to what degree do you understand him as a self-interested agent where Trump is concerned, or is he really sincere in his turn to the right?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
Before he gets to anything ideological, what Musk encounters first and takes very seriously is the pop culture that he's immersed in, the science fiction, the comics. Talk to me a little bit about that immersion in pop culture. And in fact, you compare Musk at one point to Batman himself. Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
This isn't a reference that I'm intimately familiar with, to be honest, but some of our listeners will be. And you say this is critical to understanding Elon Musk. Let's listen.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
Zaphod Beeblebrox now knows himself to be the most important being in the entire universe, something he had hitherto only suspected. It is said that his birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, firestorms, the explosion of three neighboring stars. However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself. And there are several possible theories to explain this.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
But wait a minute, is this all about world historical genius who's going to usher humanity into a new era, isn't it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
And you're saying Musk missed the irony of the entire book.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. It may take us many years to understand fully what's happening in America right now. This attempt by Donald Trump, as well as Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, the authors of Project 2025, and so many others to radically reshape this country and its institutions as quickly and as brutally as possible.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
But how did Musk— respond to the apartheid all around him.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
How did he come to be so enraged by what he called the woke mind virus? Was that out of personal experience with his kids?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
You know, Jill, you mentioned these existential crises that Musk wants to solve, and one of which is getting human beings off the planet and settling in space. This motivates his interest in privatizing space travel and, of course, the creation of his company, SpaceX, even the name of which seems to be ripped out of an old science fiction paperback.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
We've been talking a lot on the radio hour about the colossal upheaval of the first hundred days of the Trump administration and what could be more important. But today, the subject that we're going to drill down on is an appraisal of Elon Musk and his vision of our future.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
But I think a lot of Trump voters, traditional Republicans, think of Doge, think of Musk's efforts purely as cost-cutting. In a way, I think what you're suggesting is that the ideological component here, which is far darker, is being snuck in through the back door.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
To what degree do they overlap in their interests?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
I understand that Trump loved getting hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign, but when it comes down to what you just explained about the way Elon Musk sees the world and the future and what the interests of the government should be or should not be, I wonder how much it overlaps or not with what a guy whose background is not Musk's but is in fact in New York real estate and reality television...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
You know, how do they overlap at all?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
Of the many politicians who have tried to position themselves as Trump's heir and closest advisor, really only Elon Musk rivals the boss. And in some ways he exceeds him. There's that astronomical untold wealth. There's his delight in trolling his enemies and his contempt for government and its rules. And there's a deep belief in him that what's good for Elon Musk is precisely what matters.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
And I know that historians don't like to predict the future any more than halfway decent journalists wouldn't, but Musk and Trump are going to break up fairly soon, either for reasons of conflict or because Musk's attention will wander elsewhere. Where will Musk go next?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
In your speech, you gave a lot of time and credibility to and hope for the Palestinian authorities' role in this situation going ahead, which is, you know, oh, were it so, but it's extremely weak and even more unpopular, as you well know. And on the Israeli side, Bibi Netanyahu continues to dominate the Israeli political scene.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Anybody that's risen up as a potential challenger to him, either within his party or outside of his party, has the half-life of a loaf of bread. And so the prospects for what you're hoping seem to be extremely far off.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
That at least is the position of Antony Blinken, the outgoing Secretary of State. He's been President Biden's chief partner in attempting to manage the many global crises of the past four years. including the invasion of Ukraine and China's continuing threats toward Taiwan.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
I'm speaking with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. We'll continue our conversation in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. At the New Yorker, we're reporting this week on the horrific fires in Los Angeles and the conditions that produced them. In fact, a couple of our writers lost their homes. We've looked at the dangers faced by a private fire crew, the crisis of housing in the region, and a lot more. You can find all of that reporting at newyorker.com.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Our thoughts are with our listeners in or near Los Angeles and anyone who's been affected by this terrible disaster. I'll return now to my conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He's finished his work with the Biden White House, and he's turning the reins over to a new administration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
We spoke about all of that last week as Secretary Blinken was on the verge of turning over the State Department to Marco Rubio and the Trump administration, and just before the announcement of the ceasefire deal. Secretary Blinken, thanks for coming to the New Yorker Radio Hour. And this turns out to be your absolute exit interview. That's right.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Donald Trump's State Department will almost certainly be led by Marco Rubio of Florida, who seems at this point a shoe-in for confirmation. How do you feel about the decision makers that are coming in? You've got Tulsi Gabbard in intelligence. Pete Hegseth in defense seems likely to be to make his way to the top. At home, domestically, Kash Patel.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
How will this team serving under President Trump, who President Biden has in no uncertain terms and everybody in your administration has described as everything from Dangerous to unstable to authoritarian. What is that spell in your mind for the future when it comes to a national security issue as enormous and as complex and as dangerous as the Middle East?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
I want to switch to Russia, if you don't mind. I know you have limited time. Do you think Zelensky is inclined to or can sell to his people the notion of a Ukrainian future in which they lose 20-odd percent of their territory for the foreseeable future
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
And can Putin reconcile himself to that future in which Ukraine, the heart of it, the remaining 80% or whatever it is, is in fact free, sovereign, and aligned with the West?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Do you think the Russians and the Chinese are thrilled to see a second Trump administration?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
I think we can acknowledge that in the position that you have, that sometimes you have to stick to talking points or formal language. But with all due respect, I'm hoping that we can peel aside some of that, at least some of that caution, and confront some serious and even contentious questions more directly than before.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
So we've got to see how that plays out. If China were to move to seize and occupy and take over Taiwan, how would the Biden administration have behaved and how do you think the Trump administration will behave? It seems very different on this issue.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
First, of course, look, I think from China's perspective- But I'm saying if they had invaded, would you have sent American troops to Taiwan?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
That may be true, but soon to be President Trump has made it plain that his view of China's relationship to Taiwan is of minimal concern to him.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
We're roughly the same age. We lived in the post-Soviet era when there was the illusion, I think it was an illusion, of American singularity. And now every year or so, there's another article about how Pax Americana is over. Is it true?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
So let's start with the Middle East, which is always a good place to begin. Before October 7th, your colleague, the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, wrote a 7,000-word essay for Foreign Affairs magazine titled, And he wrote, although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is far quieter than it has been for decades.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
What's the greatest danger of this new era?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Well, Mr. Secretary, I assume you're going to give yourself a week off at least after the inauguration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
And maybe you'll write a book. And you've been working with Joe Biden for a very long time, a very long time. And I don't know anybody in government that's closer to Joe Biden. And you've spelled out here and in other venues his virtues and what you see as your successes and your analysis of the administration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
We are, though, ending this era when even very friendly commentators feel that this administration is ending with a central tragedy in that Joe Biden is doing what he never wanted to do, which is to hand the presidency back to to his historical foe, who he considers a deep danger to matters domestic and foreign.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
He even congratulated the administration for having what he called de-escalated the crises in Gaza. Now, this went to print on October 2nd. How did the Biden administration, seemingly before October 7th, get things wrong?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
And it's quite likely that had he decided not to run a second time, we might not be in this position, and that he made a perhaps understandable human decision, but born of some denial of the human condition and mortality, Do you wish that he had made a very different decision and not run a second time? And do you think that his aging was to some degree overlooked or even covered up?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
And I know you said this both sincerely and elsewhere.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
But do you really think he had the capacity to not only finish out this term, But to be president of the United States at the highest level for another four years.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
You'll forgive me, and I say this with genuine respect. When I'm hearing... mainly is loyalty. And maybe, and it's a very hard thing to grapple with, specifically at this time. Am I right?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
So when you saw that debate with Trump, it was an aberration and a shock?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
To the degree where he performed the way he did in that debate?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Secretary Blinken, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Antony Blinken served as Secretary of State throughout Joe Biden's term in office. Confirmation hearings began last week for his likely successor, Senator Marco Rubio. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Only one other president was ever elected to two non-consecutive terms. The first was the ever-memorable Grover Cleveland.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
For the world encountering a second Trump administration, it's a kind of whiplash, a radical break from American foreign policy in 2017 and then in 2021, an attempt to restore the old rules. And now there are jokes about annexing Canada from the next president. Earlier in the program, I spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the complicated world of 2025.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
And I'm joined now by staff writer Evan Osnos. Evan reported for years from China, and he's based now in Washington. He covered the Biden administration closely. Evan, earlier in the program, we heard an exit interview with Antony Blinken as he has one foot out the door of the State Department. Now, what you heard from Blinken there, how does it match up with your view of Biden's foreign policy?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Every time there's a new administration. The president and his circle leave the White House complaining about Benjamin Netanyahu, how difficult it is to deal with him. I, needless to say, asked that question. I got a very, I don't know, measured discipline response.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
So what's the real story among people in the White House or the Biden administration as we now historically call it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
What is it? Fury, rage. What's the reason for it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
But wait a minute. This goes to the question that I believe it was Bill Clinton who first asked about Netanyahu in his frustration. Wait a minute. Who's the superpower here?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Does this apply to our relations with China in the last four years as well?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
What is the passage that we're about to make in historical terms for American foreign policy? What's going to be the main differences?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
What does Antony Blinken fear going forward and what could he not say? I asked him, for example, does he think that Taiwan will now be swallowed up by China? And he kind of danced around that.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
So why wouldn't Xi Jinping? Why wouldn't Xi Jinping seize the moment in the next four years and do what he's long wanted to do? and take Taiwan. What's the risk?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
If the United States is uninterested under Donald Trump in defending Taiwan...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Why is it hard? You look at the map and you think, my God, that
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
He went to pains, Blinken did, to... paint a picture of the incoming Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who will almost certainly be, you know, win confirmation in the Senate. He went to great lengths to paint him as a kind of normal, serious foreign policy thinker. Okay. Well, what is Donald Trump thinking when he nominates Marco Rubio? What was behind that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Obviously, it's somebody who he's expressed contempt for many, many times over time, but, you know, join the club.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Everything about that sentence rings a bell.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Such are the qualifications of modernity. Evan Osnos, thanks so much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Evan Osnos is a staff writer, and you can read him at newyorker.com, where you can also subscribe to The New Yorker. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening today, and please join us next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
was that it was missing a very vital piece, and that was what to do with the Palestinian question.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Are you saying that the Israelis were prepared to make a very serious accommodation?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
I understand that, but he sits up and takes notice when the Saudi question comes up with normalization. How does his body language change when the Palestinian question comes? Because it seems his interest in normalization there is quite something else.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Now, it's hard to count the number of former American presidents and diplomats who've left their posts infuriated by their experience when dealing with Benjamin Netanyahu. This has been going on for a very long time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
In Bob Woodward's most recent book, a book that I think if I learned how to read, has the imprints of the administration's highest level security and foreign policy voices as sources, President Biden is quoted as saying, "'That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he's a bad guy. He's a bad fucking guy.'" This was in the spring of 2024. What is your honest assessment of working with Benjamin Netanyahu?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The announcement earlier this week of a ceasefire deal in Gaza is maybe the most hopeful news from this terrible conflict since the October 7th attack. Now, it has to be said that even with the possibility of a ceasefire, there are many reasons for caution here, not least that far-right elements in Israel may well try to undermine the deal.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
I get that, but what I'm asking you is, does he deal with you truthfully?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Why are you laughing? In the moment. Then what happens when your airplane door slams shut and you leave?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
A lot of people are dying in the meantime.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Now, you've said more than once that what's happening in Gaza is not a genocide. You were asked this by the New York Times, and you simply said no. You didn't really elaborate. So I wonder what your... Definition of genocide is when the State Department has classified what's gone on in Sudan and with the Uyghurs as genocide.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
I more than realize how powerful a charge that is, maybe not least when it comes to Israel, considering its history and the history of the Jewish people in the 40s.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Do you think such charges are anti-Semitic?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Secretary Blinken, you gave sort of a farewell speech at the State Department today addressing the Middle East in particular, and you said something curious. You said that too few people, if any, have focused much on the Hamas regime in Gaza and its horrific actions on October 7th.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
With respect, I don't see that, and not in this publication, not in the best newspapers that I could name, plenty of publications, even as they document the destruction and death in Gaza, have gone a long way toward describing the nature of Sinwar and Hamas. Do you disagree with that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
After the initial and horrific attack on October 7th, the war in Gaza has left tens of thousands dead, and Gaza itself a near ruin. Israeli hostages remain in captivity, We'll see if they're released soon. Hezbollah has been decimated. Iran is weakened and isolated. So maybe, after so much suffering, this is a moment when change is possible.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
Look, you've heard deafening, I mean, I don't mean to be defensive, but even as somebody who's written a 10,000-word profile of SINWAR, deafening silence on Hamas?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview
At the same time, the politics are such that the chorus for annexation of the West Bank... For potentially resettling, putting settlements back into Gaza, if not expelling more people from Gaza, has grown louder and more prevalent in Israeli politics and not just on the far, far, far right.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on President Joe Biden’s Decline, and Its Cover-Up
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on President Joe Biden’s Decline, and Its Cover-Up
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Atul, on another subject, I understand that you've been called in to testify in a lawsuit. What's the case and what's at stake there?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Who's filing the suit?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
But the damage can't easily be undone. Atul Gawande was a senior leader of USAID during the Biden administration. He ran critical health programs all over the world. Gawande is a surgeon, an author, and my longtime colleague writing for The New Yorker. He's been watching in absolute horror as the agency has been summarily pulped. We spoke last week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
How did the Supreme Court get involved?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
You know, I had the feeling that you, even in a short time, loved fraud. being in the federal government, which always sounds funny to people's ears because the federal government and bureaucrats and pointy heads and all that are made fun of constantly in political rhetoric. But what I hear in our conversation is a sense of tragedy that is not only public, but that is felt very intimately by you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
I assume all of them could have made more money elsewhere.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Atul, President Biden appointed you as the assistant administrator for global health at USAID, and you stepped down on Trump's inauguration day. And he immediately began targeting USAID with an executive order that halted all foreign aid. Did you know or did you intuit that Trump would act the way he has?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Atul, if you could tell Elon Musk and Donald Trump directly what you're telling me about lives saved, good works done, the benefits of soft power to the United States and to the world, and so on, do you think it would have any effect on them at all?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Well, a final question then. Is it irreparable? Is this damage done and done forever?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
This is a foreign minister of health.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
It's tragic and outrageous, no?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Atul Gawande, thank you. Thank you. Atul Gawande was assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development until January. He's a surgeon, a professor of health policy, and a longtime contributor to The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Well, tell me a little bit about what you were in charge of, what the good that was being done in the world was.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Well, let's pause on that. Yeah. Your part of USAID was responsible, demonstrably, for saving 1.2 million lives.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
What in the world was the case against this kind of work? What could possibly be the case against it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Where would he get this idea? Where does this mythology come from?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Now, the overall agency, as I understand it, had about 10,000 people working for it. How many are working at USAID now?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
A lot of people are going to die as a result of this. Am I wrong?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
I'm sorry, Atul, I have to stop my cool journalistic questioning and say this is nothing short of outrageous. And how is it possible that this is happening? Obviously, these facts are filtering up to Elon Musk, to Donald Trump and to the administration at large, and they don't care.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Two weeks after the inauguration of Donald Trump, the new president's chief campaign funder, his consigliere, and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, tweeted in a tone of glee, Musk was, of course, referring to the Agency for International Development, an agency that has saved millions of lives.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
So the National Institute of Health, Center for Disease Control, and other such bureaucracies who do equal medical good will also get slammed.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
From the outside, at least, Atul, and maybe from your vantage point as well, this looks like absolute chaos. I've been reading this week that staff posted overseas are stranded, fired without a plane ticket home. From the inside, what does it look like?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Where is the agency most active? Who is it helping? And what's been the reaction in these countries, in the governments and among the people? I mean, the sense of abandonment must be intense on all sides.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
What you're describing, beyond simple human compassion, is soft power. Describe what that is, why is it so important to the United States and to the world, and what will squandering it, what will destroying it mean?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
If the power of the United States means something positive around the world, the efforts of thousands of foreign aid workers in USAID, doctors, nurses, logistics experts of all kinds, have a lot to do with that. But Musk and Trump see it otherwise, and they have decimated the agency. Into the wood chipper it has gone. Now the courts have blocked aspects of the federal purge of USAID.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
I'm speaking with Atul Gawande. More in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Now, what about Secretary of State Marco Rubio? What's his role in all of this? Back in January, he issued a waiver to allow for life-saving services to continue. That doesn't seem to have been at all effective.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw”
Atul, we're talking about public health, and here at home, we've got a measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico. RFK Jr., whose views I think our listeners are familiar with by now, has advised some people to use cod liver oil. Where could the United States be in a couple of years from a health perspective? What worries you the most about what's going on?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And you had to check the Clinton effort to say, hey, I'm not... But I can just hear the listener's mind saying, okay, that was Bill Clinton and that was bad enough. This is a person, an executive, a politician of a very, very different world.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Since Donald Trump's second inauguration, the ACLU has filed suits to block executive orders ending birthright citizenship, defunding gender-affirming health care, and much more. I spoke with Anthony Romero last week. Let's begin with the most essential question, legal and political.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And when you say shut the country down and take to the streets... Who's doing that? What does that mean?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Haven't the courts, though, changed in recent years? I mean, Donald Trump had a healthy long time to install a lot of— 28% of the federal judges are Trump appointees. And have you sensed that difference in your cases? Sure, sure.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Have you looked at the polls on how people favor deportations?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Now, we've already seen ICE scoop up U.S. citizens and immigrants not convicted of crimes. What's the legal path to protect... People in schools, in churches, daycare centers from the threat of deportation.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
I mean, for instance, one of the things that Trump— You find that they're feeling their sense of authority or are they backing off?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Are we less than a month into the Trump administration, the second Trump administration, on the brink of a constitutional crisis?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
You talk about a firewall of freedom, a firewall of freedom using state and local laws to protect people from federal actions that might violate their rights. So what legal protections need support?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Let's talk about that. You're suing the Trump administration for his executive order forcing passports to reflect gender assigned at birth, which is laid out a very narrow binary definition. Right. of gender, as many people understand it. What's the point of Trump making that claim? And how do you form a legal case against it and him?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Where are you on gender affirming care for trans youth?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Is the ACLU for gender-affirming care for minors without permission of parents?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
The ACLU has fought for the free speech of leftist students on campus as well as somebody like Ann Coulter. Your traditional defense of the First Amendment is bipartisan. But when a gazillionaire like Elon Musk buys a social media platform and brings Nazis back to it, how does the ACLU absorb that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Were you comfortable with the way Facebook and Twitter barred certain people from— No.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
So are you pleased that, say, Mark Zuckerberg has changed his policy on Facebook?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
I think there are some people that would argue that within the ACLU, there was a sense of argument and conflict over essential matters having to do with free speech, platforming, not platforming. Would the ACLU today defend the right of American Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
How does the ACLU feel about cases at, say, universities where protesters shut down a speaker?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
What do you think of as your biggest legal victory and what was your biggest legal defeat?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Do you sense in the political and public world any politicians who are forcefully, clearly, and effectively speaking up for what you're talking about? I'm looking.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Let me ask you a question. If they're not going to stand up Now, when will they stand up and for what?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
This is the Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
One of the characteristics of the moment we're living in and the weeks that we're living in is the absolute speed and volume of what's coming out of the White House. What Steve Bannon called, you know, flood the zone with shit. That's the strategy and it's being enacted with real efficiency and real skill as compared to the first. But the zone is responding.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
One of the seminal texts that's been published in the last— past decades certainly about the warning about authoritarianism as Timothy Snyder's on tyranny and he warns against knuckling under in advance yeah and warning against exhaustion Do you see that or do you see the opposite?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
How do those conversations begin? With a long moan?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
I mean, it's—when you're talking about the health or even the existence of the Constitution and rule of law—
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Anthony Romero has been the executive director of the ACLU since 2001. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us and see you next week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Now, you have the vice president of the United States saying the following. Judges are not allowed to control the executive's legitimate property. power, right? What say you as the head of the ACLU?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
We've seen the Republican Party become the party of Trump, and its awareness that if they defy Trump in any way, they're going to lose their seat doesn't give you a lot of confidence, does it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
So what stands between us and the ruination of the Constitution is... The conscience of good people.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
If birthright citizenship goes the direction that the Trump administration wants to, which is to say get rid of it—
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
What are the repercussions and what are the actions that could follow?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Do we have any sense of the number of people that would be in jeopardy?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
So siblings would be potentially rent apart and parents and children would be rent apart as well.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And describe the First Circuit and the potential fate of this case.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Who else has filed birthright citizenship cases?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Okay, but if you lose, that court could then send it—it would then be sent to the Supreme Court? It would go up.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And knowing what you know about the Supreme Court, ideologically, politically— I think we win. You win anyway?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And you don't think your heart will be broken again?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In Donald Trump's first term in office, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, filed 434 lawsuits against the administration. They included suits against the so-called Muslim ban and family separation at the border and many more. There is no telling how many lawsuits they will file in a second Donald Trump administration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Is your confidence specific to birthright citizenship or is it across the board with executive power?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Where else could you locate a constitutional crisis that's now happening or in the process of happening?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
What happens when and if there is a constitutional crisis? What happens if a White House refuses to obey a court order? A federal judge called out the Trump administration for blatantly ignoring an order to resume federal funding for the Office of Management and Budget. Yeah.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
that have been frozen, what can you do if Trump simply ignores the judges and doesn't want to listen to anybody and just directs his people to keep doing what they're doing? What possible authority or power does anyone have in this, much less the ACLU?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And it also includes the President of the United States?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
Anthony Romero is the director of the American Civil Liberties Union and will continue our conversation in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And wound up killing 20, 30,000 people or so before it was over with.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I'm speaking today with the director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony Romero. The ACLU is one of the oldest civil rights organizations in the country. It dates back to 1920.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
And when it comes to issues of free speech, the ACLU has defended the Ku Klux Klan, and more recently, the organizers of the 2017 Charlottesville rally in the Westboro Baptist Church, which is often called a hate group. But the ACLU is closely associated as well with liberal causes. It's fought the Trump administration and state officials tooth and nail on issues like immigration.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
The executive director of the ACLU is Anthony Romero. Romero has held the job since 2001, September 2001 to be exact. He started in the role just a few days before the September 11th attack. Romero has done the job under four presidents.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
So I'll continue my conversation now with the ACLU's Anthony Romero.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0
What's the historical precedent for that anywhere?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
But first, I'm joined by Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Middle Eastern and Arab studies, and to my mind, the best historian of Palestinian history in English. Recently, President Biden was seen coming out of a bookstore in Nantucket, carrying Khalidi's 2020 book, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, to which Khalidi remarked, it's four years too late.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
But a national group where?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Now, I hardly need to tell you that a lot of people would say, well, look what happened to the Jews in Europe. And coming to Palestine and creating the State of Israel, which was a much smaller entity in 1948 than it is now, was a kind of salvation.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Now, let's talk about the term that's much in use now, settler colonialism. Your book is... And your work has helped bring that framing into common use. You hear it all the time. It's not only students who use it. It's common parlance in political debate and scholarship. How do you define what you see as settler colonialism? And why is this, in your view, the right way to see this conflict?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
What's curious to me, though, is that it's lumped in by a lot of people, not you, but it's lumped in with a lot of people with other colonial projects like Algeria. Right. How do you differentiate or not between the Zionist movement... And all these other colonial enterprises.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
So let's start from not the beginning of things. Obviously, this is a story that's been going on and on and on. But how do you go about writing a history of this period? Would you even attempt it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Which is entirely different from the American experience in the way you describe it. It seemed that the American experience and many of the other ones that you named are entirely more pernicious.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
But in Palestine, there have been any number of attempts to divide the land. Do you think that that has run its course?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Some form of division between Palestinians and Israelis. Your problem is you have now two peoples and you have one country. And neither are going anywhere.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Tell me about the Palestinian polity, and then we'll get to the Israeli.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And the Israeli polity, I think we've seen the rightward march in Israeli politics for years and years. There's no question about it. But when you describe The trauma of the Palestinian peoples, there's no question about that either. But there's also trauma in the Israeli society. And one of the things that October 7th managed to do was to shatter, shatter the sense of security in Israel.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
The most common figure you hear from Gaza is around 45,000.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Rashid, your book offers three pathways to how colonial conflicts end. You say it's one of these three things. And I'm paraphrasing. The elimination or subjugation of native people is in North America. The expulsion of the colonizer, like the French in Algeria, or compromise and reconciliation. And here you mention South Africa, Zimbabwe.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And Ireland, of course, which you're working on now as your latest scholarly project, as I understand it from our last conversation. Yeah. Do you think compromise and reconciliation is still possible despite everything we've seen in the last 14 months and the last 25 years or more?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Rashid Khalidi, thank you so much. Thanks, David. Rashid Khalidi is a professor emeritus recently retired from Columbia University, and his many books include The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And wound up killing 20, 30,000 people or so before it was over with.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And we will talk about all of that, but I want to ask you what you think, looking back, Hamas intended to happen. They certainly, its leadership seemed to be intent on some kind of cataclysm in the region and not just on the border with Israel. What do you think was planned?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I spoke earlier with Rashid Khalidi, whose work has helped bring the term settler colonialism into wide use, especially on the left, at least as it applies to Israel. In a recent book called On Settler Colonialism, Adam Kirsch takes a very different view of that idea.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Kirsch is an editor at The Wall Street Journal, and he's also a critic who's written about philosophy and poetry for The New Yorker. We spoke last week. So you've written a short book about the concept of settler colonialism, particularly as it pertains to Israel, or in your view, doesn't pertain to Israel. What is the concept?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
But Rashid Khalidi, who is a historian... uses the term settler colonialism where Israel is concerned, and at the same time acknowledges that Jews have roots in that area, that he acknowledges the complexity of it. What's wrong with that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
I think some people at this late date, 14, 15 months after October 7th, would say, who cares about this? There are 45,000 dead people in Gaza, dead Palestinians. There are hostages still in Gaza from Israel. There was a massacre. And all the other ramifications that came out of it, all the tragic ramifications Why does it matter?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Why did you set pen to paper to write about the concept of settler colonialism, particularly where it pertains to Israel and Palestine?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And you view that as eliminationist. Definitely. Here's what I would argue, or certainly many people would argue, yes, there were people at demonstrations who engaged in that kind of rhetoric. But that was the a very vocal, perhaps, but tiny minority. In the large majority, protesters on college campuses were engaged in justifiable horror at seeing the amount of death taking place in Gaza.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And the notion that There needs to be justice for Palestinian people, that annexationist policies in the West Bank and what seems to be, in the words of the former defense minister Moshe Ya'alon, ethnic cleansing in the north of Gaza is a moral catastrophe.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
You contest Khalidi's claim that Zionism is a classic 19th century European colonial venture in a non-European land. Why do you take issue with that characterization, and how would you characterize it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
I mean, Jabotinsky and other Zionist leaders used the word colonialism to describe themselves. And it's true. Jabotinsky in particular said... This is Vladimir Jabotinsky, who is the godfather, in essence, of the Herod party, which became now Likud and...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
So you're saying the Zionist sin is by being too recent.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And what is the answer you come to? We're now sitting in a moment that I don't know the situation has been more dreadful in my lifetime.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
With so many dead around, with so much destruction in Gaza, with the politics of Israel now reaching a point where talk of annexation of the West Bank and even resettlement in Gaza is now quite common currency on the right. I just don't see for some long time to come, although history happens when it happens... a resolution here.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Yugoslavia.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
You had two questions. diverging aftermaths to European antisemitism. One was nationalism in Israel. And here, in this country, was joining a pluralistic state. Each have their own problems. Tell me why in the modern world, pluralism isn't the better option.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
I think they're rejecting it not only because of the violence they've witnessed and the politics that you've seen in the last couple of decades or more, but also the notion of having a state where one people is supreme to the other. It has the legal status of being so.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Matthew Feeney, Jr. : And you include the West, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
What sort of cataclysm, though?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
You can find some of Adam Kirsch's work at newyorker.com and on the Wall Street Journal's site. Kirsch's recent book is on settler colonialism. Now, I've been following and reporting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict for a very long time, and our two guests today, Rashid Khalidi and Adam Kirsch, obviously disagree on many things.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
But it's quite clear that they both recognize one essential and deeply painful fact. Save for the most catastrophic development, the erasure of the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, or the fall of the Israeli state, these two peoples are not going anywhere together. And they are destined to find some form of reconciliation in the future. The question is, how will they ever reconcile?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And when? How much more suffering is ahead before that can happen? The horrific events of the past 14 months certainly pushed that reconciliation, or even the idea of it, far into the future. Far more than any of us would have imagined in the 90s, the days of the Oslo peace process.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
I've reported from the region for a long time, and like many of you, I try to read widely and listen to the voices of Palestinians and Israelis and people of all politics and faiths in that region. And I recently saw two documentaries that I want to recommend to you, though they may be a little tricky to find. Neither will provide any easy assurance, and nor will they indulge in false optimism.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
The Bibi Files, directed by Alexis Blum, centers on the corruption investigations directed at the Israeli prime minister, and it features police testimony, filmed police testimony, from members of the Netanyahu family and their circle.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
of a leader whose commitment to saving his political future often outweighs any other political or human imperative. And you can find it streaming on the site jolt.film. The other film is called No Other Land. It's a remarkable documentary that still lacks an American distributor.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Filmed on the run and in difficult conditions by a team of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, it vividly portrays the slow erasure of small Palestinian villages in the southern West Bank, near Hebron. On a profound human level, it shows the effect that policy and the bulldozers that enact it have on the lives of the displaced and on history itself.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
In one of the film's most moving scenes, toward the end, we hear a young Israeli and a young Palestinian in dialogue, and mainly the Palestinian talking about the impossibility of imagining a future. So for now, keep an eye out for No Other Land at film festivals and the like, and I do hope it finds a distributor here soon.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
It's not easy to watch, but anyone who has any interest in the conflict will gain something from it, I'm sure. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. I want to thank you for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Rashid, where has this left the Palestinian cause?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Were they using the Palestinian cause in some sense?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Then why did they join it at all if they weren't interested?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Recently in Israel, the leadership of the settler movement from the West Bank had a conference where they talked openly about not only annexing the West Bank, but also resettling Gaza. Israeli settlements in Gaza were abandoned in 2005. But they're talking about putting them back in. Netanyahu is not necessarily supporting this, but he's allowing it to have real voice. It's normalizing the idea.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
And there are people in his cabinet who support annexation of the West Bank and resettling Gaza as policy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Moshe Ya'alon, the former defense minister, who's nobody's lefty, has described what's going on in northern Gaza as ethnic cleansing. So I ask you, where is the Palestinian movement now? What are its prospects?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The situation in the Middle East remains beyond complicated. It's volatile and it's deadly. The fall of Assad's regime in Syria removes a brutal tyrant from the region and also removes one of Iran's key allies. Israel greatly damaged another Iran ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon before they agreed to a ceasefire.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
You're not in the business of recommending policy decisions to the Israelis, but what should Israel have done after the massacre of October 7th?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
I'm confused because you have not been without criticism of Hamas and Hamas's decision on October 7th. And so I'm not clear. You've been critical of Hamas to what extent?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Rashid Khalidi is a professor emeritus at Columbia. We'll continue our conversation in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I've been speaking with Rashid Khalidi, a historian of the Middle East, specifically Palestinian history, and he's recently retired from Columbia University. In his work, Khalidi has applied the concept of settler colonialism to Israel's founding and history.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
In other words, the idea that Zionism is somehow comparable in some ways to the European conquest of North America, and the conquest of Australia as well. That analysis has become very influential on the left, and not surprisingly, it's strongly disputed by, among others, supporters of Israel.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
How these developments will affect the war in Gaza is impossible to predict. But today I'm going to talk to two people who have thought very deeply about the conflict and the way it resonates around the world. Later this hour, I'll speak with Adam Kirsch of The Wall Street Journal.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinian Cause in a Volatile Middle East, and the Meaning of Settler Colonialism
Khalidi himself was born in New York to a distinguished Palestinian family known in Jerusalem for centuries. One of his ancestors, a great, great, great uncle, was an influential figure in the modern history of Palestine.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
It used to be that a chief justice of the Supreme Court would have influence beyond his own vote, that there was also the power of persuasion that the chief justice might have. Is that all gone? Are those days long gone?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Meaning the court's composition is different or Chief Justice Roberts is weak?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
The mythology, or maybe it was the fact at one point, is that the justices would argue things out in private. Is that fiction at this point?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Marcus was a columnist for The Washington Post until last month. She resigned after an executive killed a piece that she wrote that was critical of the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos. In fact... Ruth Marcus ended up publishing that column in our pages, in The New Yorker, and she's continued covering Trump in the courts for us. I spoke with Ruth Marcus last week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
How do you know? How do you do it with the Supreme Court, which at least presents to the world as Vatican-like in its level of secrecy?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Let's talk about another major subject attached to the law in the Trump administration, and that's the campaign against big private law firms, which I think is without precedent, isn't it?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Explain the executive order that targeted the law firm Paul Weiss.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
I don't mean to be naive, but why couldn't Paul Weiss with $2.6 billion a year in income stand up? Show some spine. And why did they fold?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
So Paul Weiss and Skadden Arbs, for example— came to agreements with the government, if to put it very politely. I call them plea bargains. Yeah. But other firms decided not to, decided to fight these orders. What was their rationale?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Now, Ruth, we just recently published a piece by you, and it said that Trump's legal strategy had been backfiring. That was just a while ago. Are you still right?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Ruth, both as somebody who knows a hell of a lot about the law, but also a lot about politics and Donald Trump, when you hear him talking about running for a third term, how much should we actually stress out about something like that? Is this a business of trolling, part of his kind of political rhetorical game, or is it something that should be taken very seriously?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
That's interesting. He's always asking, where's my Roy Cohn? Where's my Roy Cohn? He always wants stronger lawyers who play by Roy Cohn rules. Has he found his Roy Cohns? It seems he has.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
These people seem like Louis Brandeis in retrospect.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Now, you've been out of law school for a little while.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
But I have a final theoretical but practical question. We have three supposedly co-equal branches of government, but only the executive branch has real enforcement authority. That is, people who carry out its orders, armed if necessary. Is that a flaw in the Constitution? Could it have been done and written better?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Ruth Marcus, thanks so much.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
The take-home exam can be difficult. I don't think with AI, though, you get take-homes anymore. It's all blue book and in the room.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Ruth Marcus is a contributor to The New Yorker, and you can read her piece, Has Trump's Legal Strategy Backfired? at newyorker.com. And of course, you can subscribe to The New Yorker there as well, newyorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for this week. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Parrish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
And we had additional help this week from Jake Loomis.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Tarina Endowment Fund.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
You're referring to James Boasberg who ordered these deportation flights turned around.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
So we've all seen the spectacle of these government flights full of people accused of being members of gangs. What's the legal recourse for innocent people who get caught up in all of this? The Supreme Court just weighed in on it this week.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
One of the cases we've heard a lot about this week involves a Salvadoran man who was sent to the Supermax prison there. The government conceded in court that it was wrong to deport him to Salvador in the first place, but refused to bring him back. So where does that case stand as of now?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
We keep talking about whether or not we're in a constitutional crisis, and we imagine, or some imagine, that this will come to a head somehow, that a case will come to the Supreme Court And either the Supreme Court will rule against Donald Trump or it won't. And if it does rule against Donald Trump, will the president obey the court?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
So are we headed toward that or is that too simple to imagine as our near future?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Federal courts across the country are weighing that question in a huge number of lawsuits. Will judges ratify Trump's view of his own power as effectively limitless? And if they do not, will Donald Trump bother to listen?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
We've seen in a number of cases where ICE has made arrests of legal residents, students here on real visas. What is the legal justification for that? Or is it just pure politics? And again, the administration doesn't care.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Will these students be able to stay in the country? Will the government's case against them be dismissed?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Pam Bondi was on Fox News Sunday this weekend, and she was bemoaning the 170 or so lawsuits that had been filed against the administration. And she said this.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
I'm talking today with Ruth Marcus. She's covering the Trump administration's legal cases for the New Yorker of late and will continue in a moment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, and we've been speaking about the Trump administration and its various fights in the court. As in Trump's first term, he came out blazing, firing off executive orders and taking some actions that seemed to be firmly against the law.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
He's called for the impeachment of judges who rule against him, which is shocking, yet somehow entirely predictable if you read Project 2025. People in Trump's cabinet, like Attorney General Pam Bondi, will say that, quote unquote, unelected judges shouldn't be able to constrain the president, even though that's exactly, exactly how the Constitution intended things to be.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
So I'll continue my conversation with columnist Ruth Marcus, who's been covering Trump and the courts for The New Yorker. So many of these cases are eventually going to end up in the Supreme Court. How are you gaming out or any clues about where the court is going to come down eventually in terms of helping Trump or getting in his way?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Now, his defenders in the Republican Party will argue that Trump is just pushing at the limits of his power, as many presidents do. But ultimately, he'll obey court orders. So far, the Trump administration doesn't show a lot of evidence of respecting the authority of courts. Ruth Marcus is the author of Supreme Ambition, a book about Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump?
Should we assume that Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch are completely reliable for Donald Trump?