The New Yorker Radio Hour
Episodes
Atul Gawande on the COVID-19 Resurgence
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For a few brief moments this summer, in places where the vaccination rate was high, we could imagine life after COVID-19: restaurants and theatres wer...
Jack Antonoff on Growing up Jersey
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Antonoff has had a busy pandemic. Sought out by Taylor Swift as a producer, he ultimately made two records for her—one of which, “Folklore,”...
John Kerry on the Battle Against Climate Change
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With the world overheating, glaciers melting, and landscapes in flames, it’s difficult to think of a harder or more important job than John Kerry’...
An Iranian Plot Grew in Brooklyn, and the Revelations about Pegasus
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The indictment reads like a not-so-great spy novel: the operatives would kidnap the dissident from her home in Brooklyn, deliver her to the waterfront...
Eric Adams Talks with David Remnick
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The New York City mayoral primary, which culminated in a vote held in June, was full of surprises, including the introduction of ranked-choice voting ...
Helen Rosner’s Summer Drinks, Plus an Anxious Future in Afghanistan
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the co-founder of Afghanistan’s only all-girls boarding school, and she is anxiously waiting to see if the Taliban—which b...
The Golden Arches in Black America
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Marcia Chatelain, a historian at Georgetown, recently won the Pulitzer Prize for History for her book “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America...
Gillian Flynn, Akhil Sharma, and Alison Bechdel on Their Most Memorable Jobs
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. economy seems to be showing real signs of life, and lots of people are finally returning to the labor force—eight hundred and fifty thousan...
Bon Iver Live at the New Yorker Festival
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the winter of 2007, a songwriter by the name of Justin Vernon returned to the Wisconsin woods, not far from where he grew up. Just a few months lat...
Janet Mock Finds Her Voice
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Janet Mock first heard the word “māhū,” a Native Hawaiian word for people who exist outside the male-female binary, when she was twelve. She had...
Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino Investigate Britney Spears’s Conservatorship
03 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Britney Spears has been one of the world’s most prominent pop stars since her début, in the late nineteen-nineties. But, since 2008, she’s been u...
A Family Divided Over the COVID-19 Vaccine
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Across the country, COVID-19 vaccines are becoming available for teen-agers. But most states still require parental consent for minors to receive the ...
The Newspaperman Who Championed Black Tulsa
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the years leading up to the horrific Tulsa massacre of 1921, the Greenwood district was a thriving Black metropolis, a city within a city. Buoyed b...
Naftali Bennett and the New Hard Line in Israeli Politics
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, David Remnick published a profile of Naftali Bennett. He wrote that Bennett was something new in Israeli politics, a man who would “build...
A Rift over Racism Divides the Southern Baptist Convention, Plus, the Fallout from Gamestop
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The largest Protestant denomination in America is in crisis over the group’s reluctance to acknowledge systemic racism; our reporter talks with the ...
Jon M. Chu on “In the Heights”
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s easy to see why the director Jon M. Chu was adamant that the release of “In the Heights” wait until this summer, when more people could see...
Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax on Beethoven’s Politics of the Cello
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax have both been playing Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major for over forty years. But it took a global pandemic for the...
A Vaccinated Day at the Ballpark, and Sarah Schulman on ACT-UP
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The staff writer Patricia Marx checks out the new vaccinated sections at New York’s Major League Baseball parks. The author and activist Sarah Schul...
Looking Back at the Year of Protest Since the Death of George Floyd
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We look back on the year since the murder of George Floyd galvanized the nation. David Remnick talks with Vanita Gupta, the No. 3 official in the Just...
Spike Lee on the Knicks’ Resurgence
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Spike Lee is one of the most passionate and committed fans of the New York Knicks—not to mention one of the most celebrated filmmakers of our time. ...
Can We Finally End School Segregation?
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
By many accounts, American schools are as segregated today as they were in the nineteen-sixties, in the years after Brown v. Board of Education. WNYC’...
“Fire in Little Africa,” A Rap Album about a Historical Tragedy
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Tulsa massacre of 1921 was a coördinated assault on and destruction of the thriving Black community known as Greenwood, Black Wall Street, or Lit...
The Post-Pandemic Dress Code, Plus Hilton Als on Alice Neel
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When a very long year of doing business from home—in sweatshirts and pajamas and slippers—is over, how much effort will people be willing to expen...
Atul Gawande and Siddhartha Mukherjee on the State of the Pandemic
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After a year of battling COVID-19, parts of the United States are celebrating a gradual turn toward normalcy, but the pandemic isn’t over—and it m...
Thomas McGuane Reads “Balloons”
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas McGuane reads his story from the May 10, 2021, issue of the magazine. McGuane has published more than a dozen books of fiction, including the...
Three Women Who Changed the World
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“The Agitators” is a book about three women—three revolutionaries—who changed the world at a time when women weren’t supposed to be in publi...
Are U.F.O.s a National Security Threat?
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In June, the director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense are expected to deliver a report about what the government knows on the su...
A Surge at the Border, and the Children of Morelia
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly a century ago, during the Spanish Civil War, a group of parents put five hundred of their children on a boat and sent them across the ocean to ...
Jelani Cobb on Derek Chauvin’s Conviction and the Future of Police Reform
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The murder of George Floyd galvanized the public and led to the largest protests in American history. Even Donald Trump said of the videos of Floyd’...
What Is Happening in the Internment Camps in Xinjiang
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a special episode on the crisis in Xinjiang region of China, the staff writer Raffi Khatchadourian investigates Xi Jinping’s government’s sever...
Rickie Lee Jones’s Life on the Road
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rickie Lee Jones emerged into the pop world fully formed; her début album was nominated for five Grammys, in 1980, and she won for Best New Artist. O...
The Brody Awards, and Louis Menand on “The Free World”
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Oscars, schmoscars! Richard Brody is a critic of wide tastes and eccentric enthusiasms. His list of the best films of the year rarely lines up with th...
David Fincher on “Mank,” and Daniel Alarcón’s Favorite Children’s Books
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Fincher made his name in Hollywood as the director of movies that pushed people’s buttons—dark thrillers like “Fight Club,” “The Game,...
Race and Taxes, and Jane Mayer on How to Kill a Bill
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The investigative reporter Jane Mayer recently received a recording of a meeting attended by conservative power brokers including Grover Norquist, rep...
The Complex Story of Being Trans in Africa, and Derek DelGaudio on Deception
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our producer talks with the South African scholar Dr. B Camminga, whose essay “Disregard and Danger” deconstructs the viewpoints of so-called TERF...
Will the Most Important Voting-Rights Bill Since 1965 Die in the Senate?
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
No sooner had Joe Biden won the Presidential election than Republican state legislatures began introducing measures to make voting more difficult in a...
Remembering a City at the Peak of Crisis
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
April 15, 2020, was near the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, which was then its epicenter. On that day, a crew of New Yorker writers t...
“2034,” and Torrey Peters on the Taboo of Detransitioning
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The retired admiral James Stavridis teamed up with Elliot Ackerman, a journalist and former Marine, to imagine how, in the shadow of an increasingly t...
Can the Royal Family Withstand Oprah’s Scrutiny?
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan and Harry, the Duchess and Duke of Sussex, was riveting celebrity television, but it may also be a significant...
Bonus Episode from La Brega: Basketball Warriors
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Despite being a U.S. colony, Puerto Rico competes in sports as its own country on the world stage. Since the 70s, Puerto Rico’s national basketball ...
Living in the Shadow of Guantánamo
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Mohamedou Salahi arrived at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, in August of 2002, he was hopeful. He knew why he had been detained: he had cross...
Clubhouse Opens a Window for Free Expression in China
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Clubhouse is an audio-only social-media platform offering chat rooms on any subject, allowing thousands of people to gather and listen to each other. ...
Anthony Hopkins on “The Father,” and Patricia Lockwood’s First Novel
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At an age when many actors are slowing down or long retired, Anthony Hopkins has kept up a feverish pace, with recent roles including Pope Benedict XV...
Atul Gawande on the COVID Vaccine, and Daniel Kaluuya on “Judas and the Black Messiah”
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Atul Gawande, the staff writer and public-health expert, talks with David Remnick about the progress of the vaccine rollout, the new strains of the co...
Congressman Jamie Raskin on Impeaching Donald Trump—Again
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tommy Raskin, a twenty-five-year-old law student, took his own life on New Year’s Eve, after a long battle against depression. His family laid him t...
The People Who Will Decide Donald Trump's Fate on Facebook
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Facebook created the Oversight Board to adjudicate high-level claims about what can and can’t be posted, independent of the company’s leadership. ...
The Supreme Court of Facebook
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Facebook is at the center of the hottest controversies over freedom of speech, and its opaque, unaccountable decisions have angered people across the ...
Amanda Petrusich Talks with the Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Amanda Petrusich describes herself as a “diehard fan” of folk music, but not when it feels precious or sentimental. That’s why she loves the Wea...
Trump Closed the U.S. to Asylum Seekers. Will Biden Reopen It?
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Immediately after Inauguration, the Biden Administration began trying to unwind some of Donald Trump’s most notorious policies on immigration. But, ...
Kurt Vile Talks with Amanda Petrusich
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kurt Vile—that’s his real name—helped found the rock band the War on Drugs. But he left that band shortly after its début to make records of hi...
William Barber, and the Question of Faith and Politics
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The North Carolina pastor William Barber, who spoke at the inaugural prayer service at the start of the Biden Administration, wants politics to be gui...
Unearthing Entombed
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Now that we are some sixty years into the digital era, the early days of modern computers are growing distant and mysterious to us. The field of game ...
Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos on the Balance of Power at the Start of the Biden Administration
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With Donald Trump rated the least popular President in the span of modern polling, President Biden might feel confident in claiming a mandate to advan...
How Far Has the F.B.I. Gone to Protect White Supremacy?
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s work on civil rights is celebrated as bringing about one of the turning points of the twentieth century in America...
Donald Trump’s American Carnage Comes to Washington
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Luke Mogelson and Susan B. Glasser report on the convulsions of Donald Trump’s final days in office, an unprecedented second impeachment of a Presid...
Questions about the Variant Virus, and Posthumous Albums by Pop Smoke and others
12 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A new variant of SARS-CoV-2 is making its way around the world; in the U.S., it has been found in at least three states: California, Colorado, and Ne...
Democrats Take the Senate, and a Mob Storms the Capitol
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On January 6th, pro-Trump fanatics stormed the Capitol, galvanized by the President’s claims that the 2020 election had been stolen. That day, Rapha...
Bruce Springsteen Talks with David Remnick
01 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bruce Springsteen, an American music legend for more than four decades, published his autobiography, “Born to Run,” in 2016. David Remnick calle...
Atul Gawande and Andrew Bird Discuss the Art and Science of Cancer
29 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Atul Gawande is a New Yorker staff writer, a practicing surgeon, and an indie-music fan, and he loves the work of the songwriter, multi-instrumentalis...
Lawrence Wright on How the Pandemic Response Went So Wrong
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine mark what we hope will be the beginning of the end of the global pandemic. The speed of vaccine development ha...
Looking Back at an Unimaginable Year
25 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a cliché now, but by no means an overstatement, that the past twelve months have been unimaginable. This week, we’ll hear four short reflect...
Bryant Terry “Blackifies” Fennel, and Ian Frazier Says Goodbye to 2020, in Verse
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bryant Terry is a chef, educator, food-justice activist, and cookbook author. He joined Helen Rosner virtually to cook a dish from his recent book, “...
The Republican Rift in Georgia, and the Protests Sweeping Nigeria
18 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the past month, a fracture has opened up in the G.O.P. between those who grudgingly accept Joe Biden’s win and those who falsely claim that the e...
The “Times Square Two” Fight to Clear Their Names
15 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As teens, in the nineteen-eighties, Eric Smokes and David Warren were arrested for the robbery and murder of a tourist near Times Square on New Years ...
Ayanna Pressley and Abigail Spanberger on the Rift in the Democratic Party
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In November, when the Democratic Party lost seats in the House and a hoped-for victory in the Senate fizzled, centrist Democrats were quick to blame l...
Steve McQueen Comes Home
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Steve McQueen is the director of four feature films, including the Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave.” His new series, “Small Axe,” which is str...
Atul Gawande on Taming the Coronavirus
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Can a vaccine be distributed fairly? What will be the impact if a large number of people don’t take it—as they say they won’t? Atul Gawande, a N...
Live at Home Part II: Phoebe Bridgers
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Phoebe Bridgers’s tour dates were cancelled—she was booked at Madison Square Garden, among other venues—so she performs songs from her recent al...
Live at Home Part I: John Legend
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Like everyone in the United States, John Legend has spent much of the past year in lockdown. He has been recording new music (via Zoom), performing on...
A Novel About a Secret Family, and Adam Gopnik on Being Old
24 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sanaë Lemoine’s début novel, “The Margot Affair,” is about a seventeen-year-old high-school student whose father, a high-ranking official, doe...
The Fight to Turn Georgia Blue
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This month, Georgia flipped: its voters picked a Democrat for President for the first time since Bill Clinton’s first-term election. To a significan...
Steve Martin and Jerry Seinfeld, and Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Between the two of them, Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Martin have nearly a century of experience in the delicate art of telling jokes. In a conversation w...
Jane Mayer on the G.O.P.’s Post-Trump Game
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The President’s fantastical allegations about “illegal ballots” are being indulged by quite a number of prominent Republicans in Washington, who...
Jill Lepore on Democracy in Peril, Then and Now
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the nineteen-thirties, authoritarian regimes were on the rise around the world—as they are again today—and democratic governments that came int...
A Chaotic Election Ends—Maybe?
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
No matter the vote count, legal challenges and resistance in Washington continue to make this election historically fraught. David Remnick speaks abou...
Trump in Review
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Presidency of Donald Trump has been unlike any other in America’s history. While many of his core promises remain unfulfilled, he managed to res...
Driving Through the Pandemic
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It feels like a lifetime since the coronavirus pandemic transformed Americans’ daily lives, seven months ago, and fatigue is setting in even as the ...
The Future of Trumpism
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nicholas Lemann’s “The Republican Identity Crisis After Trump” explores what will happen to the movement Donald Trump created among Republicans....
Elvis Costello Talks with David Remnick
20 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Elvis Costello’s thirty-first studio album, “Hey Clockface,” will be released this month. Recorded largely before the pandemic, it features an u...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren on the State of Our Democracy
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At the 2020 New Yorker Festival, earlier this month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Elizabeth Warren joined Andrew Marantz to tal...
The Battle Over Portland
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
During the Presidential debate in September, Donald Trump was asked to denounce the white supremacists who were battling anti-racism protesters in Por...
Anthony Fauci Then and Now, and the Writer-Director Radha Blank
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At the moment that Donald Trump was leaving Walter Reed Hospital, not yet recovered from a case of COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down with Michael S...
Marilynne Robinson on Faith, Love, and Politics
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Marilynne Robinson’s new novel, “Jack,” is the fourth to be set among the world and people of a fictional town called Gilead, Iowa. The novelist...
The Election, as Seen from Swing States
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden leads the Presidential race in Pennsylvania by around ten per cent, according to most polls, but Eliza Griswold says you wouldn’t know i...
Keith Knight of “Woke,” and Jia Tolentino Picks Three
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“Woke,” a new comedy on Hulu, is inspired by the life of its creator, Keith Knight. The show, which blends reality and animated fantasy, follows K...
Can a Newcomer Unseat Lindsey Graham? Plus, Carlos Lozada on “What Were We Thinking”
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jaime Harrison may seem like a long shot to become a South Carolina senator: he is a Black Democrat who grew up on food stamps in public housing, and ...
Miranda July’s Uncomfortable Comedies, and a Toast to Roger Angell
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Miranda July’s third feature film is “Kajillionaire,” a heist movie centered on a dysfunctional family, and her first with a Hollywood star like...
An Election in Peril
18 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This Presidential race is a battle for the soul and the future of the country—on this much, both parties agree—and yet the pitfalls in the electio...
The Composer Richard Wagner and the Birth of the Movies
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The German composer Richard Wagner had an enormous influence not only on modern music but on artists of all stripes, and on political culture as well....
What to Do with a Confederate Monument?
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Across the South and well beyond, cities and states have been removing their Confederate monuments, recognizing their power as symbols of America’s ...
N. K. Jemisin on H. P. Lovecraft, and Jill Lepore on the End of a Pandemic
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
N. K. Jemisin has faced down a racist backlash to her success in the science-fiction community. But white supremacy in the genre is nothing new, she t...
Bette Midler and the Screenwriter Paul Rudnick on “Coastal Elites”
04 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This segment contains adult language. In the new film “Coastal Elites,” Bette Midler plays a New Yorker of a certain type: a retired teacher who l...
Rick Perlstein on Goldwater, Reagan, and Trump
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“Reaganland” is the new volume in Rick Perlstein’s long chronicle of the American conservative movement; the four books, which he began publishi...
Everyone Knew Who Shot Ahmaud Arbery. Why Did the Killers Walk Free?
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It has been six months since Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man, was shot by three white men while he was out for a Sunday jog near his childhood home. ...
Will This Be Joe Biden’s F.D.R. Moment?
23 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden has been playing it safe during the coronavirus pandemic, but Evan Osnos got the chance to sit down with the nominee in person. It was too h...
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on HBO’s “Watchmen”
21 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
HBO’s “Watchmen” was nominated for twenty-six Emmy Awards—more than any other show this year—including two for the music by Trent Reznor a...
Sarah Paulson, the Star of Netflix’s “Ratched”
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The actor Sarah Paulson has appeared in “12 Years a Slave,” “The People v. O. J. Simpson,” and eight seasons of Ryan Murphy’s “American Ho...
Samantha’s Journey into the Alt-Right, and Back
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2016, Andrew Marantz has been reporting on how the extremist right has harnessed the Internet and social media to gain a startling prominence in...
Isabel Wilkerson on America’s Caste System
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this moment of historical reckoning, many Americans are being introduced to concepts like intersectionality, white fragility, and anti-racism. But ...
The Documentary ICE Doesn’t Want You to See
07 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been given a broad mandate to round up undocumented immigrants. The agency is infamously unwelcoming to journ...