The New Yorker Radio Hour
Episodes
For Brontez Purnell, “Memoir Is Fiction—I Don’t Care What Anyone Says”
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brontez Purnell is a Renaissance man. He’s a musician, a dancer, a filmmaker, and the author of a number of books. His latest is “Ten Bridges I’...
“Pod Save America” ’s Jon Lovett on Trump: “The Threat of Jail Time Sharpens the Mind”
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Lovett had been deep inside politics, as a speechwriter in the Obama Administration, before he joined his colleagues Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau ...
Jacqueline Novak Is Giving Audiences “Everything She’s Got”
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The comedian Jacqueline Novak wasn’t well known before her Netflix début “Get on Your Knees.” The show was a big swing in her career, an ambiti...
Can Memes Swing the 2024 Election? Plus, Michelle Zauner on “Crying in H Mart”
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a Presidential race with two leading candidates who are broadly unpopular, any small perceived edge can make a tremendous difference. According to ...
Sheila Heti Talks with Parul Sehgal About “Alphabetical Diaries”
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The writer Sheila Heti is known for unusual approaches, but her latest work is decidedly experimental. Heti “is one of the most interesting novelist...
Jonathan Blitzer on the Battle over Immigration; and Olivia Rodrigo Talks with David Remnick
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the shadow of another election year, Democrats and Republicans are at a bitter crossroads over immigration, as the system becomes increasingly unma...
From In the Dark: The Runaway Princesses
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The wives and daughters of Dubai’s ruler live in unbelievable luxury. So why do the women in Sheikh Mohammed’s family keep trying to run away? The...
For Journalists, “Gaza Is Unprecedented,” and Deadly
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Journalism has often been a dangerous business, and many reporters have lost their lives reporting the news from conflict zones. But the rules that ...
The Oscar Nominee Cord Jefferson on Why Race Is so “Fertile” for Comedy
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The writer and director Cord Jefferson has struck gold with his first feature film, “American Fiction.” Nominated for five Academy Awards, includi...
Pramila Jayapal: Biden’s “Coalition Has Fractured”
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic representative and leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been sounding the alarm about President Joe Biden...
E. Jean Carroll on Trump Defamation Cases: “Money Is Precious to Him”
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After winning the Iowa caucuses by a historic margin, Donald Trump made his way to a courtroom in New York, where a jury was selected in a second defa...
Danielle Brooks Comes Full Circle in “The Color Purple”
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“I think of ‘The Color Purple’ as the epic of our time,” Doreen St. Félix said in a conversation with the actress Danielle Brooks. While St...
How Donald Trump Broke the Iowa Caucuses and Owns the G.O.P.
12 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This time last year, Republicans were reeling from a poorer-than-expected performance in the 2022 midterm elections; many questioned, again, whether i...
From “Talk Easy”: Sam Fragoso Interviews David Remnick
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As host of The New Yorker Radio Hour, David Remnick asks a lot of questions, and recently he had to answer quite a few himself, sitting for a long int...
Ava DuVernay Wants Her Film “Origin” to Influence the 2024 Election
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The filmmaker Ava DuVernay has a reputation for tackling challenging material about America’s troubled past. She depicted the bloody fight to achiev...
How the Journalist John Nichols Became Another January 6th Conspiracy-Theory Target
05 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The veteran political reporter John Nichols was taking his daughter to the orthodontist on January 6, 2021, the fateful day when the transfer of Presi...
The Poet John Lee Clark’s “How to Communicate” Brings DeafBlind Experience to the Page
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Although many hearing and sighted people imagine DeafBlind life in tragic terms, as an experience of isolation and darkness, the poet John Lee Clark’...
Dexter Filkins Reports on the Border Crisis
29 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dexter Filkins has reported on conflict situations around the world, and recently spent months reporting on the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. I...
From Critics at Large: The Year of the Doll
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This bonus episode comes from The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast.In the highest-grossing movie of 2023, Barbie, a literal doll, leaves the co...
Bruce Springsteen Has a Gift He Keeps on Giving
22 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At seventy-four, Bruce Springsteen has been cementing his status as a rock-and-roll legend for almost fifty years: he released his widely heralded, bu...
Christmas in Tehran: Bringing the Holidays to Hostages
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1979, as Christmas approached, the United States Embassy in Tehran held more than fifty American hostages, who had been seized when revolutionaries...
A Harrowing Detention in Gaza
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in Gaza, Mosab Abu Toha wasn’t used to seeing Israeli soldiers in person. “You are bombed from the sky. You are bombed by tanks. You do...
Brandy Clark: Grammy-Nominated Album Is “Authentically Me”
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As an aspiring artist, Brandy Clark found herself in love with the craft of songwriting, as some of her peers were working on their image and presenta...
Liz Cheney: Donald Trump Should Go to Jail if Convicted
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Liz Cheney has been Republican royalty, and a conservative stalwart in Washington—a daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney and culture warrio...
How Did Our Democracy Get so Fragile?
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’re in the midst of another election season, and yet again American democracy hangs in the balance, with a leading Presidential candidate who has ...
Dolly Parton “Busted a Gut” Reaching for the High Notes on “Rockstar”
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After six decades as an icon in country music, it’s hard to imagine Dolly Parton had anything to prove. But when she was inducted into the Rock & ...
“Maestro” is the “Scariest Thing I’ve Ever Done”
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a child, Bradley Cooper would mime conducting an orchestra, and he asked for a baton from Santa. Decades later, as a filmmaker, he fulfilled his ch...
Geoffrey Hinton: “It’s Far Too Late” to Stop Artificial Intelligence
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The American public’s increasing fascination with artificial intelligence—its rapid advancement and ability to reshape the future—has put the co...
A Rise in Antisemitism, at Home and Abroad
17 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt is a noted historian of antisemitism, and serves the State Department as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism....
Emerald Fennell’s Anatomy of Desire
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the follow-up to her acclaimed and controversial début feature film, “Promising Young Woman,” the writer and director Emerald Fennell (also w...
Will the Government Put the Reins on Amazon?
10 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In a relatively short period of time, Amazon has exerted an enormous amount of influence over a broad spectrum of American life. From the groceries we...
From “On the Media”: David Remnick Talks with Brooke Gladstone About Reporting in Israel
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As Israel marks one month since the deadliest terrorist attack in its history, David Remnick sits down with Brooke Gladstone, the host of the podcast ...
Is a “Win-Win” Still Possible in Policing?
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the Black Lives Matter movement brought sustained national attention to police shootings of unarmed Black people, there have been many efforts made...
Sybrina Fulton: “Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Anybody’s Son”
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sybrina Fulton was thrust into the national spotlight just over a decade ago for the worst possible reason: her son, Trayvon Martin – an unarmed tee...
From On the Media: We Don’t Talk About Leonard Leo
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In a new miniseries from “On the Media,” “We Don’t Talk About Leonard,” the ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Marr...
Is there a Path Forward for Gaza and Israel?
27 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After returning from a week of reporting in Israel, David Remnick has two important conversations about the conflict between Israelis and Arabs both i...
”Fellow Travelers”: A Showtime Series Explores a Forgotten Witch Hunt
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Much of the peril and persecution of the McCarthy era is well-trodden territory in historical dramas, but the burden that the Red Scare placed on the ...
Spike Lee on His “Dream Project,” a Joe Louis Bio-Pic
20 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The director Spike Lee looked back at the length and breadth of his career so far during a sit-down with David Remnick at the New Yorker Festival. Alt...
Rodrigo Duterte’s Deadly Promise
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Rodrigo Duterte ran for the presidency of the Philippines and won, in 2016, the Western press noted the similarities between this unconventional ...
Werner Herzog Defends His “Ecstatic” Approach to the Truth
13 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The renowned German filmmaker Werner Herzog has become known for many things: his notoriously ambitious film productions like “Fitzcarraldo” and “...
Rubén Blades Wasn’t Supposed to Be a Salsa Star
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For roughly half a century, the singer Rubén Blades has been spreading the gospel of salsa music to every corner of the globe, but his status as an m...
Al Gore on the Climate Crisis: “We Have a Switch We Can Flip”
06 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Despite months of discouraging news about extreme weather conditions, the former vice-president Al Gore still believes that there is a solution to the...
Introducing Critics at Large: The Myth-Making of Elon Musk
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this bonus episode, the hosts of Critics at Large dissect Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk, asking how it reflects ideas about power,...
Should Biden Push for Regime Change in Russia?
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, David Remnick has talked with Stephen Kotkin, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who is deeply info...
Olivia Rodrigo Talks with David Remnick
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Being called the voice of a generation might seem a little off to someone born after the millennium. But Olivia Rodrigo’s songs clearly hit home for...
Hernan Diaz’s “Trust,” a Novel of High Finance
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The daughter of eccentric aristocrats marries a Wall Street tycoon of dubious ethics during the Roaring Twenties. That sounds like a plot that F. Scot...
Kelly Clarkson on Writing About Divorce
22 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years after her breakout on “American Idol,” Kelly Clarkson released an album called “Chemistry” that deals with the long arc of a rela...
Naomi Klein Speaks with Jia Tolentino about “Doppelganger”
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For twenty-some years, Naomi Klein has been a leading thinker on the left. She’s especially known for the idea of disaster capitalism: an analysis t...
A Solution For the Chronically Homeless, and Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison
15 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
About 1.2 million people in the United States experience homelessness in a given year—you could nearly fill the city of Dallas with the unhoused. Bu...
Richard Brody Makes the Case for Keeping Your DVDs
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of this month, after more than two decades, Netflix is phasing out its DVD-rental business. While that may not come as a surprise given the...
A Master Class with David Grann
08 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of two nonfiction books that topped the best-seller list this summer: “The Wager” ...
Alone and on Foot in Antarctica
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Henry Worsley was a husband, father, and an officer of an élite British commando unit; also a tapestry weaver, amateur boxer, photographer, and colle...
No More Souters
01 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Souter is one of the most private, low-profile Justices ever to have served on the Supreme Court. He rarely gave interviews or speeches. Yet his...
How Does Extreme Heat Affect the Body?
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut was named after an N.F.L. player who died of exertional heatstroke. The lab’s main res...
The Origins of “Braiding Sweetgrass”
25 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Robin Wall Kimmerer is an unlikely literary star. A botanist by training—a specialist in moss—she spent much of her career at the State University...
Tessa Hadley on What Decades of Failure Taught Her About Writing
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The New Yorker first published a short story by Tessa Hadley in 2002. Titled “Lost and Found,” it described a friendship between two women who had...
Talking to Conservatives about Climate Change
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Even in a summer of record-breaking heat and disasters, Republican Presidential candidates have ignored or mocked climate change. But some conservativ...
The Novelist Esmeralda Santiago on Learning to Write After a Stroke
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The author Esmeralda Santiago has been writing about Puerto Rico and questions of immigration and identity since the early nineties. But, in 2008, she...
Will the End of Affirmative Action Lead to the End of Legacy Admissions?
11 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The practice of legacy admissions—preferential consideration of the children of alumni—has emerged as a national flash point since the Supreme Cou...
James McBride on His New Novel, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”
08 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
James McBride’s new novel, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” centers on the discovery of a skeleton at the bottom of a well in a small town in...
Emily Nussbaum on the Culture Wars in Country Music
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, the country singer Jason Aldean released a music video for “Try That in a Small Town,” a song that initially received little attention...
A Trip to the Boundary Waters
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Kotlowitz is known as a chronicler of Chicago, and of lives marred by urban poverty and violence. His books set in the city include “An America...
Regina Spektor on “Home, Before and After”
28 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years ago, Regina Spektor was yet another aspiring musician in New York, lugging around a backpack full of self-produced CDs and playing at lit...
Colson Whitehead on “Crook Manifesto”
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Colson Whitehead is one of the most lauded writers working today. His 2016 novel “The Underground Railroad” won the National Book Award and the Pu...
Adapting Robert Oppenheimer’s Story to Film, Plus Greta Gerwig on Becoming a Director
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In making “Oppenheimer,” which opens in theatres this weekend, the director Christopher Nolan relied on a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 biography of...
Donovan Ramsey on “When Crack Was King”
18 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“When people think of the crack epidemic, they think of crime,” the journalist Donovan X. Ramsey tells David Remnick. “But they don’t necessar...
A Mysterious Third Party Enters the Presidential Race
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
No Labels, which pitches itself as a centrist movement to appeal to disaffected voters, has secured a considerable amount of funding and is working be...
How to Buy Forgiveness from Medical Debt
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly one in ten Americans owe significant medical debt, a burden that can become crippling as living costs and interest rates rise. Over the past de...
The Conspiracies of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
07 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of a former Attorney General and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, has announced that he’s running for the De...
Beyoncé Takes the Stage
04 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This summer, the most anticipated tour (in close contest with Taylor Swift) is Beyoncé’s tour for her seventh studio album, “Renaissance,” whic...
Russia’s No-Good, Very Failed Coup, and Jill Lepore on Amending the Constitution
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow last weekend, which killed more than a dozen Russian soldiers, fizzled as quickly as it began, but its repercuss...
Jonathan Mitchell, a Prominent Anti-Abortion Lawyer, on Restraining the Power of the Supreme Court
27 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, the attorney Jonathan Mitchell has become a crucial figure in the anti-abortion movement. Advising a Texas state senator, Mitchell de...
A Year of Change for a North Dakota Abortion Clinic, and the Composer John Williams
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A year ago, the staff writer Emily Witt visited Fargo, North Dakota, to report on the Red River Women’s Clinic—the only abortion provider in the s...
Singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun, Plus Bryan Washington
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun recently released her fourth album, called “Proof of Life.” Raised near Phoenix, Oladokun had aspirations of be...
Dexter Filkins on the Dilemma at the Border
16 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dexter Filkins has reported on conflict situations around the world, and recently spent months reporting on the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. I...
From “On the Media”: Seditious Conspiracy
13 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On January 6th, 2021, “On the Media” reporter Micah Loewinger recorded the secret communications of the Oath Keepers on a walkie-talkie app called...
The New York Times’ Publisher on the Future of Journalism, and the Poet Paul Tran
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past several years, as more democratic institutions and norms have come under attack, many journalists have raised the question of whether it...
A Gay Russian, Exiled in Ireland
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Evgeny Shtorn and Alexander Kondakov were living together in St. Petersburg when Vladimir Putin began his crackdown on the L.G.B.T.Q. movement in Russ...
Should We, and Can We, Put the Brakes on Artificial Intelligence?
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, says that AI is a powerful tool that will streamline human work and quicken the pace of scientific a...
The Director Rob Marshall on Halle Bailey as “The Little Mermaid”
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The live-action remake of Disney’s classic “The Little Mermaid” is out this weekend. The performance of Halle Bailey as Princess Ariel has been ...
E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan on Defamatory Trump, and Dexter Filkins on Ron DeSantis
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, E Jean Carroll won an unprecedented legal victory: in a civil suit, Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse against her in ...
Jill Lepore on the Joy of Gardening
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the time of year when many people feel an overpowering urge to dig—to plant their back yard or vegetable garden, or even the flowerpots on th...
Behind the Scenes with Tom Hanks
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Hanks has been a constant presence on the American movie screen for forty years. He has played a mermaid’s boyfriend, an astronaut, a soldier on...
How Climate Change Is Impacting Our Mental Health
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In June, a first-of-its-kind lawsuit will go to trial in Montana. The case, Held v. Montana, centers on the climate crisis. Sixteen young plaintiffs a...
Michael Schulman on the Writers’ Strike, and Samantha Irby with Doreen St. Félix
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The last time the Writers Guild of America hit the picket line was fifteen years ago, with a strike that lasted a hundred days and cost the city of Lo...
Germany’s Traumatized Kriegskinder Speak Out
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A troubling question looms over the Kriegskinder, Germans who were children during the Second World War: Was my father a mass murderer? These innocent...
Have State Legislatures Gone Rogue? And Joshua Yaffa on Evan Gershkovich
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Just a month ago, the story of two lawmakers expelled from the Tennessee legislature captured headlines across the country. Their offense wasn’t cor...
King Charles III Takes the Throne
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On May 6th, King Charles will become the oldest person to ascend the throne of the United Kingdom. He is a bit of an odd duck to be the king, Rebecca ...
Harry Belafonte, the Pioneering Artist-Activist
30 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We take it for granted that entertainers can—and probably should—advocate for the causes they believe in, political and otherwise. That wasn’t a...
The Fall of Tucker Carlson, and the Making of Candace Owens
28 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Once a Beltway neoconservative, Tucker Carlson came to embody the angry, forgotten white man—railing at “the élites” and propagating racist con...
The Bipartisan Effort to Rein in Presidential Military Power
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Just three days after 9/11, Congress authorized a major expansion of executive power: the President could now wage war against terrorism without prior...
Jane Mayer on Justice Clarence Thomas, and the Music Critic Hanif Abdurraqib on Concert Merch
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The cascade of revelations published by ProPublica concerning Justice Clarence Thomas—the island-hopping yachting adventures underwritten by a right...
The Playwright Larissa FastHorse on “The Thanksgiving Play,” Broadway’s New Comedy of White Wokeness
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“The Thanksgiving Play” is a play about the making of a play. Four performers struggle to devise a Thanksgiving performance that’s respectful of...
What’s Behind the Bipartisan Attack on TikTok?
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A ban of the Chinese social-media app TikTok, first floated by the Trump Administration, is now gaining real traction in Washington. Lawmakers of both...
The Country Singer Margo Price Talks with Emily Nussbaum
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Margo Price moved to Nashville from rural Illinois at the age of nineteen. After struggling for years to break through in the country-music scene, she...
Israel on the Brink: Understanding the Judicial Overhaul, and the Protests Against It
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed law changing the judiciary is described as a reform. To opponents, it’s a move to gut the independenc...
Brooke Shields on the Sexualization of Girls in Hollywood
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the late nineteen-seventies and into the eighties, Brooke Shields was one of the most famous and most controversial people in America. At age eleve...
Jon Meacham on How the Trump Fever Breaks
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2018, at the midpoint of the Trump Presidency, the journalist and historian Jon Meacham wrote a book called “The Soul of America,” warning of t...
Who Was H. G. Carrillo? D. T. Max on a Novelist Whose Fictions Went Too Far
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
H. G. Carrillo was a writer’s writer—not a household name, but esteemed in literary circles. He began writing later in life, and was in his mid-fo...
Jia Tolentino on the Ozempic Weight-Loss Craze
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The prescription drug Ozempic was designed to help people with Type 2 diabetes manage their disease, and, under the name Wegovy, to treat obesity. But...