The New Yorker Radio Hour

Ben Shapiro Is Waging Battle Inside the MAGA Movement

<p>Ben Shapiro, the host of his eponymous podcast and the co-founder of the conservative website the <i>Daily Wire</i>, has lambasted the left and the Democratic Party for decades. Recently, though, Shapiro has taken to criticizing some of the loudest voices in the MAGA universe, including <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/02/tucker-carlsons-nationalist-crusade">Tucker Carlson</a> and Megyn Kelly. The rift is over the acceptance and promulgation of conspiracy theories and, in particular, the normalization of antisemitism. Shapiro discusses the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/trump-epstein-and-the-women">Epstein files</a> and what they show—and do not show—about the powerful people connected to Jeffrey Epstein. The belief in conspiracies of the élite reflects “people’s desire to abdicate control over their own lives,” Shapiro tells David Remnick. They discuss Shapiro’s adherence to the conservative value of personal responsibility, and how he squares that with MAGA and its champions.</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

The City of Minneapolis vs. Donald Trump

<p>The staff writers Emily Witt and Ruby Cramer discuss the situation in Minneapolis, a city effectively under siege by militaristic federal agents. “This is a city where there’s a police force of about six hundred officers [compared] to three thousand federal agents,” Witt points out. Cramer shares her interview with Mayor Jacob Frey, who talks about how Minneapolis was just beginning to recover from the trauma of George Floyd’s murder and its aftermath, and with the police chief Brian O’Hara, who critiques the lack of discipline he sees from immigration-enforcement officers. Witt shares her interviews with two U.S. citizens who were detained after following an ICE vehicle; one describes an interrogation in which he was encouraged to identify protest organizers and undocumented people, in exchange for favors from immigration authorities. </p><p>Ruby Cramer’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-mayor-of-an-occupied-city">“The Mayor of an Occupied City</a>” was published on January 23rd. Emily Witt’s “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-battle-for-minneapolis">The Battle for Minneapolis</a>” was published on January 25th. </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

How Bari Weiss Is Changing CBS News

<p>Last October, Bari Weiss—best-known as a contrarian opinion writer who launched the right-leaning <i>Free Press</i>—was appointed the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. Donald Trump has called her new regime “the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.” The <i>New Yorker</i> staff writer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/clare-malone">Clare Malone</a> wrote about Weiss’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/01/26/inside-bari-weisss-hostile-takeover-of-cbs-news">hostile takeover of CBS</a> for the January 26, 2026, issue of the magazine. In a conversation with David Remnick, Malone discusses her reporting on Weiss: how resigning from the New York <i>Times</i> launched Weiss to prominence as a crusader against what she has characterized as woke groupthink; how Weiss gained the support of Silicon Valley titans who had their own political grievances; and the headlines about Weiss’s rocky beginning as head of a news network, including the on-air travails of her new anchor, Tony Dokoupil.</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

How Tucker Carlson Became the Prophet of MAGA

<p>Tucker Carlson has long been a standard-bearer for far-right views, such as the racist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement.” He recently did a chatty interview with the white supremacist <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/nick-fuentes-is-not-just-another-alt-right-boogeyman">Nick Fuentes</a>, an admirer of Hitler. And yet, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/11/the-tucker-carlson-road-show">Carlson</a> started out as a respected, well-connected, albeit contrarian, political journalist. Jason Zengerle, who recently joined <i>The New Yorker</i> as a staff writer, talks with David Remnick about his new book, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/808029/hated-by-all-the-right-people-by-jason-zengerle/">Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind</a>.” They trace how Carlson’s sense of personal resentment toward the establishment grew; how launching his own website radicalized his politics in the years before MAGA; and his political ambitions as a potential heir to Donald Trump. “I think, if Tucker Carlson concludes that J. D. Vance can’t get elected President, maybe he has to do it himself,” Zengerle says. “So much of politics now is just being a media figure and being an entertainer. And Tucker does those things very well. . . . I think our politics are at a place where that really doesn’t seem as outrageous as it would have even just a couple years ago.” </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

How Betting Took Over Sports

<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/danny-funt">Danny Funt</a> has been reporting on the gambling boom for <i>The New Yorker</i>, which has generated startling recent headlines, including the arrest of a former N.B.A. coach and the indictment of two M.L.B. pitchers—not to mention the Polymarket user who won four hundred thousand dollars wagering on the seizure of Nicolás Maduro. The legalization of sports gambling, combined with the accessibility of betting apps, has made gambling so pervasive that children in elementary school are routinely placing bets, Funt tells David Remnick. Funt’s new book is “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Everybody-Loses/Danny-Funt/9781668062029">Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling</a>.” </p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

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

<p>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, she and Angie Sullivan, her co-host on the podcast “I’ve Had It,” have gained millions of fans as a sounding board for left-leaning political frustrations. These aren’t only concerns about MAGA but also about the Democratic establishment that she views as captive to a corporate agenda. Welch talks with David Remnick about her contentious interviews with Cory Booker and Rahm Emanuel, her belief in “dark woke,” and how a white Oklahoma woman in her fifties emerged as one of the most provocative voices on today’s left.  </p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Does Every Marriage Need a Prenup?

<p>Prenups have gone from a tool of the ultra-wealthy, carrying a whiff of scandal, to a more widespread request for aspirational young couples with few assets. Wilson spoke with celebrity divorce attorney Laura Wasser, and found that generations who grew up in the era of universal no-fault divorce “just don’t trust marriage” as their elders did; “they want it in writing,” and they have developed apps that make it easy. Clauses calling for nondisparagement on social media are a common feature. But the boom in prenups, Wilson tells David Remnick, has led to couples trying to negotiate even intimate issues such as frequency of sex and body-mass index. </p><p><i>Jennifer Wilson’s “</i><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/29/why-millennials-love-prenups"><i>Why Millennials Love Prenups</i></a><i>” appeared in the December 29, 2025 & January 5, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.</i></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Trump’s New Brand of Imperialism

<p>U.S. intervention in other countries, whether overt or covert, is by no means new, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/daniel-immerwahr">Daniel Immerwahr</a> notes that the open embrace of expansionism by the President and associates such as Stephen Miller goes back to the nineteenth century. Immerwahr is a professor at Northwestern University and the author of the 2019 best-seller “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250251091/howtohideanempire/">How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States</a>.” He discusses Trump’s disdain for international law; tensions between the U.S. and Russia and China; and the historical link between imperialism and appeals to masculine pride.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Demi Moore Talks with Jia Tolentino

<p>Since she reëmerged as a star in the 2024 film “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/09/23/a-different-man-movie-review-the-substance">The Substance</a>,” Demi Moore has been very busy. She has a major role in the current season of Taylor Sheridan’s “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/landman-goes-down-like-a-michelob-ultra">Landman</a>” series, and she has two highly anticipated films coming out this year: a science-fiction film directed by Boots Riley, and “Strange Arrivals,” alongside Colman Domingo, about a couple who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. She sat down at The New Yorker Festival in the fall with the staff writer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jia-tolentino">Jia Tolentino</a> to discuss her varied career and how she has dealt with the pressures of the industry.</p><p><i>This episode was recorded live at The New Yorker Festival, on October 25, 2025. </i></p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Salsa Star Rubén Blades on Acting, Politics, and the Power of Music

<p>For roughly half a century, the singer Rubén Blades has been spreading the gospel of salsa music to every corner of the globe. “You could say that Blades did for salsa what Bob Marley did for reggae,” says <i>The New Yorker’s</i> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/graciela-mochkofsky">Graciela Mochkofsky</a>. “He brought it into the global consciousness.” This year, Blades’s record “Fotografías” is up for a Grammy Award; should he win, it would be his thirteenth. Blades once ran for President of Panama and later served in the country’s cabinet; he’s also notable for bringing social commentary to the dance floor, from his earliest work to the recent “Inmigrantes,” a song about the impact of the climate crisis on refugees. And yet, he tells Mochkovsky, songwriters should beware of political messages. “Political songs are propaganda by definition. If you start singing about political ideology, you’re not an artist—you’re doing propaganda, basically. I try to be as close to a newspaper [reporter] as I can.”</p><p><i>This segment originally aired on October 6, 2023.</i></p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Elaine Pagels on “The Historical Mystery of Jesus”

<p>Thirty years ago, David Remnick published “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/04/03/the-devil-problem">The Devil Problem</a>,” a Profile of the religion scholar Elaine Pagels—a scholar of early Christianity who had also, improbably, become a best-selling author with “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/126049/the-gnostic-gospels-by-elaine-pagels/">The Gnostic Gospels</a>,” from 1979. Pagels’s latest book, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/677236/miracles-and-wonder-by-elaine-pagels/">Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus</a>,” is a summation of her lifetime of research on Christianity, as it takes on some of the central historical controversies of Christianity, including the stories of immaculate conception and the resurrection. She tells Remnick how she found and lost faith in the evangelical movement, but retained a lifelong interest in religion. “I have a sense that what we think of as the invisible world,” she feels, “has deep realities to it that are quite unfathomable.”</p><p><i>This segment originally aired on March 28, 2025.</i></p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

The Company Behind the A.I. Boom

<p>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 colossus Nvidia. The company has nearly cornered the market on the hardware that runs much of A.I., and has been named the most valuable company in the world, by market capitalization. But Nvidia’s is not just a business story; it’s a story about the geopolitical and technological competition between the United States and China, about what the future will look like. In April, David Remnick spoke with Stephen Witt, who writes about technology for <i>The New Yorker</i>, about how Nvidia came to dominate the market, and about its co-founder and C.E.O., Jensen Huang.  Witt’s book “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757558/the-thinking-machine-by-stephen-witt/">The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip</a>” came out this year.   </p><p><i>This segment originally aired on April 4, 2025.</i></p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Graham Platner Is Staying in the Race

<p>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 lot at stake. Graham Platner, a combat veteran, political activist, and small-business owner who has never served in office, seemed to check many boxes for a progressive upstart. Platner, who says he and his wife earn sixty thousand dollars a year, has spoken passionately about affordability, and has called universal health care a  “moral imperative.” He seemed like a rising star, but then some of his past comments online directed against police, L.G.B.T.Q. people, sexual-assault survivors, Black people, and rural whites surfaced. A photo was published of a tattoo that he got in the Marines, which resembles a Nazi symbol, though Platner says he didn’t realize it. He apologized, but will Democrats embrace him, despite ugly views in his past? “As uncomfortable as it is, and personally unenjoyable, to have to talk about stupid things I said on the internet,” he told David Remnick, “it also allows me to publicly model something I think is really important. . . . You can change your language, change the way you think about stuff.” In fact, he frames his candidacy in a way that might appeal to disappointed Trump voters: “You should be able to be proud of the fact that you can turn into a different kind of person. You can think about the world in a different way.”</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Poetry as a Cistern for Love and Loss

<p>Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s most recent collection, “<a href="https://www.cbsd.com/9781556597213/the-new-economy/">The New Economy</a>,” was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry this year, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/hammond-b3-organ-cistern">one of their poems</a> was included in “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746436/a-century-of-poetry-in-the-new-yorker-by-edited-by-kevin-young/">A Century of Poetry in <i>The New Yorker</i></a>,” an anthology volume published this year on the occasion of the publication’s hundredth anniversary. The magazine’s poetry editor, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/kevin-young">Kevin Young</a>, spoke with Calvocoressi about their creative process, how poetry can help with grief, and the inspirations behind their work. </p><p><i>This segment mentions suicide and suicidal thoughts. If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 or chat at 988Lifeline.org.</i></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Leon Panetta on the Trump Administration’s Venezuelan Boat Strikes

<p>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 staff, Barack Obama’s director of the C.I.A., and later, his Secretary of Defense. David Remnick talks with Panetta about the current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, the legality of the ongoing Navy strikes targeting civilian boats off the coast of Venezuela, and the problem with using the military as “the President’s personal toy.”</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Marshall Curry and Judd Apatow on “The New Yorker at 100,” a Documentary

<p>This year marked a hundred years since the birth of <i>The New Yorker</i>, and a documentary about the magazine’s past and present, “The New Yorker at 100,” is now streaming on Netflix. The director is the Academy Award winner Marshall Curry, and Judd Apatow served as an executive producer. They sat down to talk about the process behind the film with Jelani Cobb, a longtime staff writer for the magazine and the dean of the Columbia Journalism School. The trio discussed how they approached depicting a century of journalism history on film, their own relationships to <i>The New Yorker,</i> and what makes David Remnick so hard to interview. </p><p><i>This interview took place at the 2025 New Yorker Festival.  </i></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Chloé Zhao on “Hamnet,” Her Film About William Shakespeare’s Grief

<p>Chloé Zhao was the second woman to ever win an Oscar for Best Director, for her 2020 film “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/nomadland-reviewed-chloe-zhaos-nostalgic-portrait-of-itinerant-america">Nomadland</a>.” After taking a wide turn to create the Marvel supernatural epic “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/eternals-reviewed-chloe-zhaos-lifeless-marvel-movie">Eternals</a>,” Zhao has taken another intriguing change of direction with “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/01/hamnet-movie-review">Hamnet</a>,” based on Maggie O’Farrell’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1984898876">novel</a> about how William Shakespeare coped with the death of his only son. In conversation with the<i> New Yorker </i>staff writer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/michael-schulman">Michael Schulman</a>, Zhao discusses the role that nature plays in her filmmaking, from the American West to the forests of Britain; the process of adapting manga to film; and how neurodivergence informs her creative process.</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Senator Adam Schiff on How the Trump Administration Targets Its Opponents

<p>As a California congressman, Adam Schiff was the lead manager during the first impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. He later served on the January 6th committee. Trump has castigated him as “Shifty Schiff” and demanded that the Justice Department investigate him. In a conversation with David Remnick, Schiff discusses the current inquiry into his mortgage by federal authorities; the Supreme Court’s primary role in enabling this Administration; and why he thinks the rule of law in America is “hanging by a thread.” Unlike some Democrats, Schiff is not sanguine that the release of the Epstein files will damage Trump politically. “If there are ruinous things in the files . . . Bondi and company will make sure they never reach the public eye,” Schiff says. But also, “I think he’s almost impervious to dirt.”</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Noah Baumbach on “Jay Kelly,” His New Movie with George Clooney

<p>The filmmaker Noah Baumbach can recall when he may have fallen out of love with his craft. He was shooting “White Noise,” based on <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541355/white-noise-by-don-delillo/">Don DeLillo’s novel</a>, “on a deserted highway in Ohio at 4 A.M. with a rain machine.”  “Oh, God, I don’t know that I like doing this,” he recalls thinking. “Am I doing this”—making movies—“only because I do it?” He channelled that angst into his new film “Jay Kelly,” a Hollywood comedy of manners starring George Clooney as a very famous movie star who suddenly wonders whether it was all worth it, and why people keep offering him cheesecake. In October, Baumbach spoke with <i>The New Yorker’s</i> articles editor, Susan Morrison, at The New Yorker Festival about working with his wife, Greta Gerwig, on “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/barbie-is-brilliant-beautiful-and-fun-as-hell">Barbie</a>,” and why the first lines of his movies can tell you everything. </p><p> </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Ian McEwan on Imagining the World After Disaster

<p>In his latest novel, Ian McEwan imagines a future world after a century’s worth of disasters. The good news in “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/796211/what-we-can-know-by-ian-mcewan/">What We Can Know</a>” is that humanity still exists, which McEwan calls “nuanced optimism.” He and David Remnick discuss the tradition of the big-themed social novel, which has gone out of literary fashion—“rather too many novels,” McEwan theorizes, hide “their poor prose behind a character.” But is the realist novel, Remnick wonders, “up to the job” of describing today’s digital life? It remains “our best instrument of understanding who we are, of representing the flow of thought and feeling, and of representing the fine print of what happens between individuals,” McEwan responds. “We have not yet found a compelling replacement.” And yet he does not care to moralize: “the pursuit has also got to be of pleasure.” </p><p><i>McEwan spoke with David Remnick at a public event organized by the 92nd Street Y in New York. </i></p><p> </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Why Is Leaving MAGA So Difficult?

<p>Only thirty per cent of the American public identifies with the MAGA movement, according to a recent NBC poll, but that coalition remains intensely loyal to Donald Trump in the face of scandals and authoritarian measures. Defections seem rare and come with the risk of reprisal, even from the President himself. Rich Logis is trying to make them less rare with his advocacy organization, Leaving MAGA. The nonprofit’s  website features testimonials from former adherents, and offers advice for how friends and family can reconnect after ruptures over politics. Logis himself had been a true believer: he worked on Trump’s campaign, wrote articles, released a podcast, and called Democrats “the most dangerous group in the history of our Republic, foreign or domestic—more than Islamic supremacists, more than the Nazis.” He didn’t view MAGA as reactionary, but “very progressive and forward facing.” But somewhere along the way, Logis hung up his red hat. “Even today, talking about my past, the feelings are conjured—those feelings of being welcomed and feeling like you’re part of something, and the exhilaration that comes from that,” he tells the New Yorker Radio Hour’s Adam Howard. Logis emphasizes that leaving MAGA is difficult because, as much as it’s a political ideology, it’s also an identity that meets emotional needs. “I think that there’s a lot of trauma within the MAGA base, whether it’s political or economic. . . . I’m not qualified to make any kind of diagnosis. I’m not a therapist or a clinician, but there’s a lot of pain within MAGA. And I think that a better question [instead] of asking ‘What’s wrong with you?’ is ‘What happened to you?’ ”</p><p> </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

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

<p>Both major parties are experiencing a crisis of leadership in Washington. President Trump’s flip-flopping on the Epstein files acknowledges that, on this issue, at least, he has lost control of MAGA. For the Democrats, the collapse of their consensus on the government shutdown deepens a sense that the current leadership is ineffective. For all the talk of unity, the Party is profoundly divided on what message to convey to voters. “Some people argue that we should just—no matter what Donald Trump does or says—just always come back to the economy and prices,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, tells David Remnick. “And, of course, we should be very focussed on the economy and prices and rising health-care costs, as we have been. But to suggest that we should look the other way in the face of all these other outrages is, I think, a mistake, because I think the American people are tiring of Donald Trump. I think the polls indicate that.” Van Hollen is trying to pave a path between his party’s left and the establishment. He’s used the word “spineless” to describe colleagues in Congress who refused to endorse Zohran Mamdani in his mayoral campaign, but he has not called for Chuck Schumer to step down from leadership, as others have. Van Hollen wants “to be very much part of the debate as to where the Democratic Party goes.” Would that extend, Remnick wonders, to running for President? “My goal at this moment really is to stiffen the spine of the Democratic Party. But that means not just resistance to Trump. It also means taking on very powerful special interests that I think have had too much sway in both the Republican Party for sure, but also in the Democratic Party.” Remnick replies, “I’ve heard firmer nos in my time.” </p><p> </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Rewriting Art History at the Studio Museum in Harlem

<p>The curator Thelma Golden is a major presence in New York City’s cultural life, having mounted <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/the-art-world-before-and-after-thelma-golden">era-defining exhibitions</a> such as “Black Male” and “Freestyle” early on in her career. Golden is the Ford Foundation director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, an institution, founded in 1968, that is dedicated to contemporary artists of the African diaspora. But, for a significant portion of her tenure, this singular institution has been closed to the public. Golden led the initiative to create a new, purpose-built home—requiring the demolition of an old building and reconstruction on the same site. To mark its reopening, David Remnick tours the new space with Golden, discussing some key works and the museum’s mission. He notes that this triumphant moment for the Studio Museum comes during a time of broad attacks on cultural institutions, particularly on expressions of identity politics. “I take a lot of inspiration from our founders, who opened up in a complicated moment,” Golden reflects. “My own career began in the midst of the culture wars of [the nineteen-nineties]. Understanding museums as a place that should be, can be, must be where we engage deeply in ideas. In this moment, that has to offer some hope as we consider a future.”</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Andrew Ross Sorkin on What 1929 Teaches Us About 2025

<p>When President <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> began his tariff rollout, the business world predicted that his unprecedented attempt to reshape the economy would lead to a major recession, if Trump went through with it all. But the markets stabilized and, in recent months, have continued to surge. That has some people worried about an even bigger threat: that overinvestment in artificial intelligence is creating a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-financial-page/is-the-ai-boom-turning-into-an-ai-bubble">bubble</a>. Andrew Ross Sorkin, one of today’s preëminent financial journalists, is well versed in what’s happening; his début book, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305559/too-big-to-fail-by-andrew-ross-sorkin/">Too Big to Fail</a>,” was an account of the 2008 financial crash, and this year he released “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/665634/1929-by-andrew-ross-sorkin/">1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation</a>.” He tells David Remnick that <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-financial-page/the-ai-boom-and-the-spectre-of-1929">the concern</a> lies in the massive borrowing to build the infrastructure for a future A.I. economy, without the sufficient revenue, currently, to pay off the loans. “If I learned anything from covering 1929, [and] covering 2008, it is leverage,” Sorkin says, “people borrowing to make all of this happen. And right now we are beginning to see a remarkable period of borrowing to make the economics of A.I. work.” Sorkin is the co-anchor of “Squawk Box” on CNBC, and he also founded the New York<i> Times</i>’ business section, DealBook.</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Patti Smith on Her Memoir “Bread of Angels,” Fifty Years After Her Début Album, “Horses”

<p>Patti Smith’s album “Horses” came out fifty years ago, on November 10, 1975, launching her to stardom almost overnight. An anniversary reissue came out this year, to rapturous reviews. Yet being a rock star was never Smith’s intention: she was a published poet before “Horses” came out, and had also written a play with Sam Shepard. Music was an afterthought, as she tells it, a way to make her poetry readings pop. “I didn’t want to be boring,” she tells David Remnick. In recent years, it may finally be that more people know Smith as a writer than as a musician. Her memoir “<a href="https://www.mcnallyjackson.com/book/9780060936228">Just Kids</a>,” about her friendship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won a National Book Award. “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/249083/m-train-by-patti-smith/">M Train</a>” reflected on her withdrawal from music as she raised a family. In her newest memoir, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/249084/bread-of-angels-by-patti-smith/">Bread of Angels</a>,” Smith writes intimately about the loss of her husband, her brother, and close friends; she also shares a startling revelation about her family and past. It’s a book that was challenging for her and took her years to write. “I write profusely—fiction, fairy tales, all kinds of things that aren’t even published—without a care,” she says. “Writing a memoir, bringing other people into it, one has to really be prudent, and search themselves and make sure that they’re presenting the right picture.” </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

What Resistance Means to Governor J. B. Pritzker

<p>Few Democratic officials have been more outspoken in opposition to the Trump Administration than J. B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. He seems almost to relish antagonizing Trump, who has suggested Pritzker should be in jail. Meanwhile, ICE and Border Patrol have targeted Chicago, and elsewhere in Illinois, with immigration sweeps more aggressive than what Los Angeles experienced earlier this year; they refused to pause the raids even on Halloween. The President has called Chicago a “hell hole,” but, in Pritzker’s view, immigration sweeps do nothing to reduce crime. “He’s literally taking F.B.I., D.E.A., and A.T.F.—which we work with all the time—he’s taking them out of their departments and moving them over to ICE, and they’re not . . .  helping us catch bad guys,” Pritzker says in an interview with the reporter <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/peter-slevin">Peter Slevin</a>. “He’s creating mayhem on the ground because you know what he wants? He wants troops on the ground in American cities, and the only way he can get that done is by proving that there’s some sort of insurrection or revolution or rebellion.” And yet, as Slevin tells David Remnick, a governor’s power to resist the federal government depends largely on the courts. Thus far, “the district courts have acted quite favorably toward the plaintiffs in various lawsuits against these actions by the federal government.”</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

From In the Dark: “Blood Relatives”

<p>The <i>New Yorker</i> contributing writer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/heidi-blake">Heidi Blake</a> has been investigating a new story for the Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/in-the-dark">In the Dark</a>. This season is about one of the most notorious crimes in modern British history: the Whitehouse Farm murders, in which five members of a family were killed at a rural estate in England in the mid-nineteen-eighties. Jeremy Bamber—brother, uncle, and son to the victims—was convicted of the crimes. Decades later, Blake got a tip that led her to interview key figures in the case and scour hundreds of thousands of evidence files. What she found brings the official story of the case into question, and challenges the very foundations of the U.K.’s legal system. </p><p><i>This is Episode 1 of Blood Relatives. You can hear more episodes and subscribe to In the Dark </i><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/in-the-dark"><i>here</i></a><i>. </i></p><p> </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

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

<p>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’s “The Daily Show”—when Stewart was merciless in his attacks on George W. Bush’s Administration—these are much more challenging times for late-night comedians. Jimmy Kimmel nearly lost his job over a remark about MAGA supporters of Charlie Kirk, after the head of the F.C.C. threatened ABC. CBS recently announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s program. And Stewart now finds himself very near the hot seat: Comedy Central is controlled by David Ellison, the Trump-friendly C.E.O. of the recently merged Paramount Skydance. Stewart’s contract comes up in December. “You’re going to sign another one?” David Remnick asked him, in a live interview at The New Yorker Festival. “We’re working on staying,” Stewart said. “You don’t compromise on what you do. You do it till they tell you to leave. That’s all you can do.”  Stewart, moreover, doesn’t blame solely Donald Trump for recent attacks on the independence of the media, universities, and other institutions. “This is the hardest truth for us to get at, is that [these] institutions . . . have problems. They do. And, if we don’t address those problems in a forthright way, then those institutions become vulnerable to this kind of assault. Credibility is not something that was just taken. It was also lost.” In fact, Stewart also directs his ire at “the Democratic Party, [which] thinks it’s O.K. for their Senate to be an assisted-living facility.” “In the general-populace mind, government no longer serves the interests of the people it purports to represent. That’s a broad-based, deep feeling. And that helps when someone comes along and goes, ‘The system is rigged,’ and people go, ‘Yeah, it is rigged.’ Now, he’s a good diagnostician. I don’t particularly care for his remedy.”</p><p><i>This episode was recorded live at The New Yorker Festival, on October 26, 2025. </i></p><p> </p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

It’s Not Just You: The Internet Is Actually Getting Worse

<p>“Sometimes a term is so apt, its meaning so clear and so relevant to our circumstances, that it becomes more than just a useful buzzword and grows to define an entire moment,” the columnist Kyle Chayka writes, in a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-age-of-enshittification">review</a> of Cory Doctorow’s book “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/">Enshittification</a>.” Doctorow, a prolific tech writer, is a co-founder of the tech blog <i>Boing Boing</i>, and an activist for online civil liberties with the Electronic Frontier Foundation—so he knows whereof he speaks. He argues that the phenomenon of tech platforms seemingly getting worse for users is not a matter of perception but a business strategy. For example, “the Google-D.O.J. antitrust trial last year surfaced all these memos about a fight about making Google Search worse,” Doctorow explains, in a conversation with Chayka. A Google executive had suggested that, instead of displaying perfectly prioritized results on the first search attempt, “what if we make it so that you got to search two or three times, and then, every time, we got to show you ads?” But, Doctorow argues, there is hope for a better future, if we can resist complacency; big internet platforms all depend on forms of “surveillance” of their users. “The coalition [against this] is so big, and it crosses so many political lines,” Doctorow says, “that if we could just make it illegal to spy on people, we could solve so many problems.”</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Zadie Smith on Politics, Turning Fifty, and Mind Control

<p>Since Zadie Smith published her début novel, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/169680/white-teeth-by-zadie-smith/9780375703867/readers-guide/">White Teeth</a>,” twenty-five years ago, she has been a bold and original voice in literature. But those who aren’t familiar with Smith’s work outside of fiction are missing out. As an essayist, in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/zadie-smith"><i>The New Yorker</i></a> and other publications, Smith writes with great nuance about culture, technology, gentrification, politics; “There’s really not a topic that wouldn’t benefit from her insight,” David Remnick says. He spoke with Smith about her new collection of essays, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774274/dead-and-alive-by-zadie-smith/">Dead and Alive</a>.” “The one thing about talking about essays,” she notes, ruefully, “is you find yourself saying the same thing, but worse—without the commas.” One of the concerns in the book is the role of our devices, and social media in particular, in shaping our thoughts and our political discourse. “Everybody has a different emphasis on [Donald] Trump and what’s going on. My emphasis has been on, to put it baldly, mind control. I think what’s been interesting about the manipulations of a digital age is that it is absolutely natural and normal for people to be offended at the idea that they are being manipulated. None of us like to feel that way. And I think we wasted about—whatever it’s been since the invention of the Iphone—trying to bat away that idea, calling it a moral panic, blaming each other, [and] talking about it as if it were an individual act of will.” In fact, she notes, “we are all being manipulated. Me, too. . . . Once we can all admit that, on the left and the right, then we can direct our attention to who’s been doing this and to what advantage.”</p><p>New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, <i>New Yorker</i> staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>