The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Whiplash of the U.S.-Iran Peace Talks

27 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker contributing writer Robin Wright joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the state of peace talks between the U.S. and Iran. They talk about the...

The U.F.C. President, Dana White, on Donald Trump: “He’s Not a Racist”

25 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

There will be a variety of celebrations to honor America’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary this year. Much of it is to be expected: fireworks, ...

Is Washington Up to the Challenge of A.I.?

22 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses the growing political backlash to artificial intelligence, especially among young Americans, and asks whether Wash...

What Is Hakeem Jeffries’s Plan for the Midterms, and After?

20 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Jason Zengerle joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss his Profile of Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader. They talk about h...

The History Wars and America at 250, with the Historian Jill Lepore

18 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence arrives during intense disputes about American history, as the Trump Admin...

A Member of the “Seditious Six” on Reviving the Democratic Party

16 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Representative Jason Crow, of Colorado, an Army Ranger veteran, member of the House Intelligence and Armed Serv...

Hungary Avoided Democratic Collapse. Can We?

13 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Péter Magyar, the new Prime Minister of Hungary, whom Marantz recently inte...

Barack Obama in the Trump Era

11 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The contributing writer Peter Slevin met with Barack Obama at the new Obama Presidential Center, which opens next month, in Chicago, and asked him the...

Have Billionaires Gone Too Far?

09 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The über-rich have enjoyed a remarkable degree of sway in Donald Trump’s Washington—but they may now be facing a backlash. The Washington Roundta...

Kash Patel’s Strategic, Frivolous Lawsuit Against The Atlantic

07 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker’s general counsel, Fabio Bertoni, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Kash Patel’s two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar lawsuit against ...

How a Trump-Endorsed Republican Could Become California’s Next Governor

04 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the governor’s race in California, the leading Republican candidate appears to be Steve Hilton, a British-born political consultant and former Fo...

An Assassination Attempt and a Royal Visit to Washington

30 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Antonia Hitchens joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a surreal week in Washington: the attempted assassination of Donald Trump ...

Why Senator Rand Paul Voted to Limit Donald Trump’s War Powers

27 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

One of Donald Trump’s few critics within his party is the libertarian-leaning senator Rand Paul, from Kentucky. Paul was recently the sole Republica...

Donald Trump’s Economic Warfare Abroad Comes Home

25 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses the global consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz with Edward Fishman, a senior fellow at the Council...

What Pro Wrestling Taught Linda McMahon About Politics

23 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Zach Helfand joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss his Profile of Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education. They talk about the ...

A Genocide Scholar Asks “What Went Wrong” in Israel

20 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Omer Bartov is an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. He grew up in a Zionist home and served as an officer in th...

Corruption Toppled Viktor Orbán. Could Donald Trump Be Next?

17 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses how the anti-corruption candidate Péter Magyar brought down Hungary's autocratic Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, a...

Is Zohran Mamdani’s “Sewer Socialism” Resonating?

15 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Molly Fischer joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Zohran Mamdani’s first hundred days as mayor of New York. They talk about h...

Sam Altman’s Trust Issues at OpenAI

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of February, OpenAI’s C.E.O., Sam Altman, made headlines by swiftly cutting a deal with the Pentagon for his company to replace Anthropic...

Will J. D. Vance Inherit MAGA?

10 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses Vice-President J. D. Vance’s week on the world stage: stumping for the Kremlin-aligned Hungarian autocrat Viktor...

Pam Bondi Fails to Make Her Case

08 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker contributing writer Ruth Marcus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Pam Bondi’s removal from her post as Attorney General. They examine th...

How Donald Trump’s War on Iran Helps Vladimir Putin’s War on Ukraine

06 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 2021, when Olga Rudenko and other journalists launched the English-language news outlet the Kyiv Independent, they were committed to making a publi...

The Art of No Deal: Trump’s Approach to the Iran War

04 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s address on the Iran war and the playbook that has defined his career in business and politics whe...

A Former Federal Prosecutor on Why He Quit Donald Trump’s Department of Justice

31 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of federal prosecutors have been fired or have resigned from their roles since Pam Bondi took over as Attorney General. She has made no secr...

A Mamdani Strategist’s Advice for Democrats in the 2026 Midterms

28 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable examines the potential for a “Blue Wave” in the 2026 midterms. The hosts are joined by Morris Katz, a twenty-six-year-ol...

How the War Has Reshaped Life in Iran

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The reporter Cora Engelbrecht joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what life is like for the people of Iran as war unfolds. They talk about Engelbrecht’s ...

Is Cuba Trump’s Next Target?

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The staff writer Jon Lee Anderson has reported from Cuba for many years, and recently wrote about the deteriorating economic conditions on the island....

From Critics at Large: Why We Cling to the Kennedy Myth

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable is off today, and will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy an episode of The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast a...

The Pentagon Wants an Obedient A.I. Soldier. Will It Get One?

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the escalating standoff between the A.I. company Anthropic and the Depar...

Social Media Goes to Court

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the book “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, argues that social-media platforms are detrime...

Pete Hegseth’s Holy War

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable considers how the ideological commitments of Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, are at play in the conflict with Iran. Thei...

The Kristi Noem Show Is Cancelled

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Kristi Noem’s removal from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security. T...

The Global Fallout of Donald Trump’s War on Iran

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As Iran’s retaliation hit American allies throughout the Middle East this week, David Remnick was joined by two New Yorker writers with decades of e...

The Washington Roundtable on the Iran War

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses the war that the United States and Israel have started with Iran, how the conflict might evolve and affect the who...

Special Episode: War in Iran

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The foreign-affairs journalist Ishaan Tharoor joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the fallout from the United States’ joint military operation with Israe...

“Everyone is Overreacting” on the Tariff Ruling, Stephen Vladeck Says

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor and self-proclaimed “Supreme Court nerd,” to examine President ...

How the Epstein Files Are Forcing a Reckoning with Power

26 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Joshua Rothman joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the political and cultural fallout from the release of millions of documents...

How Tucker Carlson Became the Prophet of MAGA

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Tucker Carlson has long been a standard-bearer for far-right views, such as the racist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement.” He rece...

The MAGA Agenda Is Sinking in Popularity. What Might Donald Trump Do?

21 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses the upcoming State of the Union address and the public’s shift against Donald Trump on two of his signature issu...

What Donald Trump and “Everyone” Knew About Jeffrey Epstein

16 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In January, the Justice Department released over three million documents, including many redacted e-mails, related to Jeffrey Epstein. “Should we sh...

What Happens When a Megalomaniac Begins to Fail

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s recent “explosion of the ego” and tendency toward megalomania, and they consider how the evol...

Can Anthropic Control What It's Building?

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss his reporting on Anthropic, the artificial-intelligence company behind t...

Ben Shapiro Is Waging Battle Inside the MAGA Movement

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Shapiro, the host of his eponymous podcast and the co-founder of the conservative website the Daily Wire, has lambasted the left and the Democrati...

How to Protect the 2026 Elections from Donald Trump

07 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s threats to “nationalize” elections in fifteen states, the recent F.B.I. raid to seize 2020 vo...

The “Melania” Documentary Offers an Intimate Look at Very Little

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Lauren Collins joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a new documentary about Melania Trump, which chronicles her life during the ...

The City of Minneapolis vs. Donald Trump

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The staff writers Emily Witt and Ruby Cramer discuss the situation in Minneapolis, a city effectively under siege by militaristic federal agents. “T...

From 9/11 to Minneapolis: How ICE Became a Paramilitary Force

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable is joined by the journalist and historian Garrett Graff to trace how post-9/11 immigration policy, which led to a surge in B...

What the Democrats Can Learn from MAGA

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Charles Duhigg joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss why Republicans have been more successful than...

How Bari Weiss Is Changing CBS News

26 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Last October, Bari Weiss—best-known as a contrarian opinion writer who launched the right-leaning Free Press—was appointed the new editor-in-chief...

How Trump Brought Us to a “Rupture in the World Order”

23 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland and his subsequent retreat. At Davos this week, the Canadian Prim...

Should Progressive Organizers Lean More on the Church?

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the role the church has played in sustaining protest movements—and wheth...

With the Podcast “I’ve Had It,” Jennifer Welch Goes “Dark Woke” on Politics

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Before becoming a podcaster, Jennifer Welch had a successful career as an interior designer and co-starred in a reality show on Bravo. But, since 2022...

A Stark Warning About the 2026 Election, with Robert Kagan

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, for a conversation about the pressure...

Is Everything Going According to Marco Rubio’s Plan?

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Marco Rubio’s reëmergence as one of the most powerful, and most transform...

Trump’s New Brand of Imperialism

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

U.S. intervention in other countries, whether overt or covert, is by no means new, and Daniel Immerwahr notes that the open embrace of expansionism by...

Is Donald Trump Creating the Conditions for Another World War?

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s use of force in Venezuela, his desire to take over Greenland, and the historical echoes of the Ad...

Special Episode: After Maduro’s Ouster, What Are Trump’s Plans for Venezuela?

06 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Ma...

The Company Behind the A.I. Boom

29 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Across the country, data centers that run A.I. programs are being constructed at a record pace. A large percentage of them use chips built by the tech...

How Should We Approach A.I. in 2026?

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The writers Charles Duhigg, Cal Newport, and Anna Wiener join Tyler Foggatt for a conversation about artificial intelligence and the promises, myths, ...

Graham Platner Is Staying in the Race

22 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Republican Susan Collins has held one of Maine’s Senate seats for nearly thirty years, and Democrats, in trying to take it away from her, have a...

Isaac Chotiner Sums Up Politics in 2025

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Isaac Chotiner joins Tyler Foggatt to reflect on several of the most notable interviews he conducted in 2025. They discuss...

Leon Panetta on the Trump Administration’s Venezuelan Boat Strikes

15 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the course of his long career, Leon Panetta was a lieutenant in the Army, a congressman from California, Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staf...

The Washington Roundtable’s 2025 in Review

13 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses what surprised them in 2025, reflecting on the major shock-and-awe events that defined the first year of Donald Tr...

How Bad Is It?: Three Political Scientists Say America Is No Longer a Democracy

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz is joined by the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who teach at Harvard, and Lucan A...

Inside Trump’s Artless Takeover of the Kennedy Center

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Katy Waldman joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how the Kennedy Center, the premier performing-arts hub in Washington, D.C., h...

Senator Adam Schiff on How the Trump Administration Targets Its Opponents

08 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a California congressman, Adam Schiff was the lead manager during the first impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. He later served on the Ja...

America’s “Bad Emperor” Problem

06 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Donald Trump’s health and the signs of his age-related decline: a noticeably reduced work schedule, fe...

Why Is Trump Targeting Venezuela?

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson joins Tyler Foggatt to talk about the Trump Administration’s military strikes on alleged Venezuelan dru...

Why Is Leaving MAGA So Difficult?

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Only thirty per cent of the American public identifies with the MAGA movement, according to a recent NBC poll, but that coalition remains intensely lo...

Ken Jennings on Why Facts Still Matter on “Jeopardy!”

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The “Jeopardy!” host and former contestant Ken Jennings joins Tyler Foggatt to talk about America’s favorite game show. The wide-ranging convers...

Senator Chris Van Hollen on the Epstein Files, and the Leadership Crisis in Washington

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Both major parties are experiencing a crisis of leadership in Washington. President Trump’s flip-flopping on the Epstein files acknowledges that, on...

The Political Scene Live: A Year Since Trump’s Win, What Have We Learned?

22 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable reflects on the first year since Donald Trump’s second win before a live audience at Harvard University’s Institute of P...

Family Estrangement Is on the Rise. Are Politics to Blame?

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker contributing writer Anna Russell joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the rise of family estrangement in mainstream culture. Recent studies h...

Andrew Ross Sorkin on What 1929 Teaches Us About 2025

17 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When President Donald Trump began his tariff rollout, the business world predicted that his unprecedented attempt to reshape the economy would lead to...

Is the Epstein Scandal Trump’s Kryptonite?

15 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses the trove of Jeffrey Epstein correspondence released by Congress this week, the fractures it has caused in the Rep...

How Zohran Mamdani Won, and What Comes Next

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Eric Lach joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race, and what his time i...

What Resistance Means to Governor J. B. Pritzker

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Few Democratic officials have been more outspoken in opposition to the Trump Administration than J. B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. He seems al...

The Washington Roundtable Answers Your Questions

08 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable kicks off the 2026 election season by answering  questions from listeners about the forces most likely to shape next year’...

Have the Democrats Figured Out How to Win Again?

06 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Benjamin Wallace-Wells joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Democrats’ sweeping victories in the first major elections of Dona...

Jon Stewart on the Perilous State of Late Night and Why America Fell for Donald Trump

03 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jon Stewart has been a leading figure in political comedy since before the turn of the millennium. But compared to his early years on Comedy Central’...

From In the Dark: “Blood Relatives,” an investigative series

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On August 7, 1985, five family members were shot dead in their English country manor, Whitehouse Farm. It looked like an open-and-shut case. But the N...

How Bad Is It?: Why an Antifascism Scholar Fled the Country

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt for the latest installment of “How Bad Is It?,” a regular checkup on the health of ...

Zadie Smith on Politics, Turning Fifty, and Mind Control

27 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since Zadie Smith published her début novel, “White Teeth,” twenty-five years ago, she has been a bold and original voice in literature. But thos...

How the Trump Administration Made Higher Education a Target

20 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The swiftness and severity with which the Trump Administration has tried to impose its will on higher education came as a shock to many, not least uni...

The Ceasefire and the Business of Trump’s Diplomacy

18 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable examines the fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the uncertain road ahead, asking to what degree the Trump family’s busines...

How Much More Can Federal Workers Take?

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer E. Tammy Kim joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how the government shutdown is affecting the federal workforce. They talk abou...

Zohran Mamdani Says He's Ready for Donald Trump

13 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Next month, New York City may elect as its next mayor a man who was pretty much unknown to the broader public a year ago. Zohran Mamdan, who is curren...

What Does Donald Trump’s “War from Within” Mean in Practice?

11 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses the President’s use of the military for political ends, and the “almost unlimited” powers he would unlock by...

After James Comey, Who’s Next on Trump’s Revenge Tour?

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker contributing writer Ruth Marcus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Donald Trump’s “revenge tour”—his effort to use the levers of go...

A Conservative Professor on How to Fix Campus Culture

06 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Robert P. George is not a passive observer of the proverbial culture wars; he’s been a very active participant. As a Catholic legal scholar and phil...

How Russell Vought Broke the U.S. Government

04 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses how this week’s government shutdown can be best understood by looking at the background and influence of Russell...

Will the Supreme Court Hand Trump Another Slate of Victories?

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker contributing writer Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the Supreme Court’s new term and the cases that could test the ...

Ezra Klein’s Big-Tent Vision of the Democratic Party

29 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The author and podcaster Ezra Klein may be only forty-one years old, but he’s been part of the political-culture conversation for a long time. He wa...

Jimmy Kimmel and the Power of Public Pressure

27 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses how, in the wake of the reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel’s show, public resistance has a chance to turn the tide ag...

How MAHA Is Sowing Vaccine Confusion

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker contributing writer Dhruv Khullar joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Donald Trump is transforming the nation’s approach to vaccines a...

Is The 2026 Election Already in Danger?

22 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“The Constitution gives the states the power to set the time, place, and manner of elections,” the election lawyer Marc Elias points out. “It gi...

Hillary Clinton on the Psychology of Autocrats

19 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable is joined by the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Keren Yarhi-Milo, the dean of the School of International and...

How Bad Is It?: Political Violence in the U.S., and What We Can Learn from Brazil

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz joins Tyler Foggatt for the latest installment of “How Bad Is It?,” a monthly series on the health of A...

How the “Dangerous Gimmick” of the Two-State Solution Ended in Disaster

15 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, the United States backed efforts to achieve a two-state solution—in which Israel would exist side by side with the Palestinian state, w...

Charlie Kirk and the Long Shadow of Political Violence

13 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Washington Roundtable discusses the fatal shooting of the right-wing activist and Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk, who was killed on Wednesday duri...