The New Yorker Radio Hour

Bob Woodward on His Trump Tapes

<p><span>Bob Woodward is not one to editorialize. But, during his interviews with Donald Trump at the time of the COVID-19 crisis, Woodward found himself shouting at the President—explaining how to make a decision and trying to browbeat him into listening to public-health experts. Woodward has released audio recordings of some of their interviews in a new audiobook called “The Trump Tapes,” which documents details of Trump’s state of mind, and also of Woodward’s process and craft. “I could call him anytime, [and] he would call me,” Woodward tells David Remnick. His wife, Elsa Walsh, “used to joke [that] there’s three of us in the marriage.” And, in the wake of Damar Hamlin’s accident, the staff writer Louisa Thomas talks with David Remnick about an uncomfortable truth: football’s danger to players is part of its singular popularity. </span></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>

“Giselle,” and What to Do with the Problematic Past – Part II

<p><span>When the renowned choreographer Akram Khan was commissioned to update the classic “Giselle” for the English National Ballet, he couldn’t simply put new steps to a Romantic-era plot. Beautiful as it is, “Giselle” has a view of ideal womanhood that is insupportable in our century—and it didn’t reflect the women he knew.  In Khan’s 2016 “Giselle,” the title character doesn’t chastely expire from a broken heart; she is a strong woman victimized by more powerful men.  The story still culminates in an act of forgiveness, but in a way that resonates with the era of #MeToo. Vincenzo Lamagna composed the production’s new score. The producer Ngofeen Mputubwele describes the production as not simply a great modern ballet but a model for how to reimagine a story that doesn’t work anymore.</span></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 to Do with the Problematic Past, Part I

<p><span>We draw meaning and comfort from traditions, but when the world changes, traditions can stop reflecting our values and cause us pain. This episode features three people struggling against traditions that have become problematic.  The producer Ngofeen Mputubwele talks with Jeanna Kadlec, the author of “Heretic,” a memoir of leaving the evangelical church; and the actor Britton Smith, a leader of Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which seeks to make Broadway an equitable workplace for performers of color. “The fire was loud and the reckoning was very visible to everyone,” Smith tells Mputubwele. “The fire crumbled into ashes, and now the ashes are starting to settle.”</span></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>

As Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith Hit the Road

<p><span>Tracy K. Smith was named Poet Laureate in 2017, at the beginning of the fierce partisan divide of the Trump era. She quickly turned to her craft to address the deep political divisions the election laid bare, putting together a collection called “American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time.” Then she hit the road, visiting community centers, senior centers, prisons, and colleges, and reading poems written by herself and others for groups small and large. “It was exhausting, and exhilarating, and it was probably the best thing I could have done as an American,” she told </span><em><span>The New Yorker’s</span></em><span> poetry editor, Kevin Young. </span> </p> <p><em><span>This segment originally aired July 5, 2019.</span></em></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>

Kirk Douglas, the Guitarist for the Roots, Revamps the Holiday Classics

<p><span>As the guitarist for the Roots, the band for “The Tonight Show,” Kirk Douglas plays anything and everything. So David Remnick put him to the test on some holiday classics. And two longtime </span><i><span>New Yorker</span></i><span> staffers, </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/patricia-marx"><span>Patricia Marx</span></a><span> and </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/roz-chast"><span>Roz Chast</span></a><span>, divulge their celebrated history playing together in a ukulele band. As the Daily Pukuleles, they claim, they influenced some of the biggest names in music in the sixties and beyond. But they were always a little too far ahead of the curve for the mainstream. </span></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>

An Audiobook Master on the Secrets of Her Craft

<p><span>You’ve probably never heard of Robin Miles, but you may well have heard her—possibly at some length. Miles is an actor who’s cultivated a particular specialty in recording audiobooks, a booming segment of the publishing industry. She has lent her voice to more than 400 titles in all sorts of genres—from the classic “Charlotte’s Web” to Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste,” a deep analysis of race in America. “Telling a story, fully, all of it—from all the aspects of it—and creating the kind of intimacy between you and your listener is so satisfying,” she tells the </span><i><span>New Yorker</span></i><span> editor </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/daniel-a-gross"><span>Daniel Gross</span></a><span>. “Being in a great play means you have to have the money and the other actors and a script and a director. This is just me and my book, and I love that.”</span></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>

Ina Garten: Cooking Is Hard; Plus an Essay from Susan Orlean

<p><span>With the Food Network program “Barefoot Contessa,” Ina Garten became a beloved household name. Although she is a gregarious teacher and presence on television, Garten </span><span>prefers to do her actual cooking alone. “Cooking’s hard for me. I mean, I do it a lot, but it’s really hard and I just love having the space to concentrate on what I’'m doing, so I make sure it comes out well.”<span> </span></span><span>G</span><span>arten joins David Remnick to reflect on her early days in the kitchen, and to answer listener questions about holiday meals and more. Her latest book is “Go-To Dinners.” Plus, Susan Orlean joins with an installment from her column “Afterword.” She writes about the life of a Texas man who founded a rattlesnake handling business. He liked providing a service for his neighbors, and for whatever reason, he just loved rattlesnakes—a passion that proved fatal.</span></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 poet John Lee Clark Translates the DeafBlind Experience to the Page

<p><span>Although many hearing and sighted people imagine DeafBlind life in tragic terms, as an experience of isolation and darkness, the poet John Lee Clark’s writing is full of joy. It’s funny and surprising, mapping the contours of a regular life marked by common pleasures and frustrations. Clark, who was born Deaf and lost his sight at a young age, has established himself not just as a writer and translator but as a scholar of Deaf and DeafBlind literature. His new collection, “</span><a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324035343"><span>How to Communicate</span></a><span>,” includes original works and translations from American Sign Language and </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/deafblind-communities-may-be-creating-a-new-language-of-touch"><span>Protactile</span></a><span>. He speaks with the contributor Andrew Leland, who is working </span><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635964/the-country-of-the-blind-by-andrew-leland/"><span>on a book</span></a><span> about his own experience of losing his sight in adulthood. </span></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>

Politico’s Mathias Döpfner, and Sam Knight Reports from Qatar

<p><span>The staff writer </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/sam-knight"><span>Sam Knight</span></a><span> was in Qatar recently, reporting on the World Cup, where, despite years of controversy, a familiar rhythm of upsets, triumphs, and defeats has taken hold. But he finds that the geographical shift toward an Arab nation may benefit the sport. Plus, David Remnick talks with Mathias Döpfner, the C.E.O. of the German news publisher Axel Springer, which acquired Politico for a billion dollars last year. Döpfner relishes taking provocative stances, but has been a vocal critic of media outlets that he says are increasingly catering to partisan audiences. “I think it is not about objectivity or neutrality,” he notes. “It is about plurality.” Politico, Döpfner says, is taking “a kind of contrarian bet: if everybody polarizes, the few who do differently may have the better future.”</span></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>

Is Our Democracy Safe?

<p><span>This year’s midterm elections were widely seen as a victory for democracy in the United States. Election deniers were defeated in many closely watched races and voting proceeded smoothly, even in areas where the Big Lie has taken a firm hold. But the threat of authoritarianism remains strong. David Remnick talks with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of the best-seller “How Democracies Die” about recent political trends. “You can’t really live in a functioning democracy if you feel like each election is a national emergency,” Ziblatt says. “Because what it means is that we’re not confronting the major problems confronting our society.”</span></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 Supreme Court Case That Could Upend Elections

<p>J. Michael Luttig is a retired judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals and a prominent legal mind in conservative circles, close with figures including Clarence Thomas and William Barr. On January 5, 2020, he got a call from Vice-President Mike Pence’s then-lawyer asking Luttig to publicly back Pence’s decision not to attempt to overturn the election the next day. Luttig tweeted that the Vice-President had no constitutional authority to stop the election, and suddenly the judge was thrust into the center of the crisis.</p> <p>Now Luttig is siding with Democrats as co-counsel on the Supreme Court case Moore v. Harper, which he tells David Remnick is “the most important case, since the founding, for American democracy.” At the heart of the debate is the independent-state-legislature theory, a once-fringe legal concept that Donald Trump and his allies believe should have allowed Pence to reject the popular vote in 2020. If the court adopts the theory, it could grant legislatures essentially unfettered authority to run national elections; they could not be challenged even if the election violated the state constitution. Such power, in the hands of a gerrymandered legislature, could be used to bypass the popular vote and appoint a new slate of electors, effectively empowering state lawmakers to choose a winner. The court will hear the case on December 7th.</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 Christine Baranski Fought the Good Fight

<p><span>The veteran stage and screen actress Christine Baranski first became a household name thanks to her Emmy-winning turn on the nineties sitcom “Cybill,” and her Tony-award winning work on Broadway. But “The Good Fight” took her to another level. As Diane Lockhart, a Chicago attorney and diehard liberal, Baranski captured the tensions of the political moment of Donald Trump, and the show ended its run this month. </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/emily-nussbaum"><span>Emily Nussbaum</span></a><span> could barely contain her excitement when sat down with Baranski at The New Yorker Festival in 2018 for a wide-ranging conversation about Baranski’s career and the timeliness of “The Good Fight.” </span></p> <p><span><i>This segment originally aired April 12, 2019.</i></span></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>

Quinta Brunson, a “Child of the Internet,” Revives the Sitcom

<p><span>Quinta Brunson made a name for herself as a master of meme comedy and is a self-described “child of the Internet,” yet her ABC mockumentary series “Abbott Elementary” is an unabashed throwback to the sitcoms of her youth. </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/doreen-st-felix"><span>Doreen St. Félix</span></a><span> talked with Brunson at the 2022 New Yorker Festival about her influences and the everyday comedy of the workplace. St. Félix believes that Brunson has found “freedom in formula” when it comes to “Abbott,” which documents the lives of the beleaguered staff at a Philadelphia public school. “There is nothing that I could do,” Brunson says, “or [that] anyone can do that is more triumphant than someone going to their shitty job.” Writing in the wake of shows like “Black-ish,” Brunson relishes being able to center her story on Black people without addressing topical issues about race; the school is its own self-enclosed world. Just surviving, she thinks, provides its own form of liberation. </span><span>“</span><span>So much has happened to Black people,” she says. “Why are we still here? . . . We really could have called it quits a long time ago, and somehow we just keep going. It’s crazy to me.”</span></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>

Unpacking the Latino Vote, and Susan Orlean on the Queen of Tigers

<p><span>In the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections, many pundits expected Republicans to make significant gains among </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/there-is-no-one-story-about-latino-voters"><span>Latino voters</span></a><span>, further eroding a base of support that Democrats have arguably taken for granted for decades. “What happened instead, as you know, is a more complicated story,” the contributing writer </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/stephania-taladrid"><span>Stephania Taladrid</span></a><span> says, one that both parties will be examining closely as 2024 approaches. Taladrid speaks with two political consultants, Chuck Rocha and Mike Madrid, to unpack the results. Rocha and Madrid co-host “The Latino Vote” podcast. Rocha, a Democrat, was a senior adviser to </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/12/the-populist-prophet"><span>Bernie Sanders</span></a><span> and Madrid, a Republican, was a founding member of the </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/12/inside-the-lincoln-projects-war-against-trump"><span>Lincoln Project</span></a><span>. </span></p> <p><span>And </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/susan-orlean"><span>Susan Orlean</span></a><span> reads from one of her </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/afterword"><span>Afterword</span></a><span> columns, about the long and fecund life of a tiger mother. “Unlike most tiger mothers,” she writes, “Collarwali was, in fact, a tiger.”</span></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 Stories of #MeToo

<p><span>Five years ago, reporting on the film producer Harvey Weinstein’s history of assault and misconduct opened the floodgates of the national reckoning with gender and power known as #MeToo. Three </span><i><span>New Yorker</span></i><span> critics—</span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/alexandra-schwartz"><span>Alexandra Schwartz</span></a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/naomi-fry"><span>Naomi Fry</span></a><span>, and </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/vinson-cunningham"><span>Vinson Cunningham</span></a><span>—recently gathered to assess #MeToo’s impact on the culture more broadly. They discussed works like the new film “Tár,” the movie “The Assistant,” the fiction pieces “</span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/novellas/this-is-pleasure"><span>This Is Pleasure</span></a><span>” and “</span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person"><span>Cat Person</span></a><span>,” and more. Schwartz notes that #MeToo is not only an event in time but also a lens through which to tell stories about interpersonal relationships that have long been taken for granted.</span></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 Qatar Took the World Cup

<p>No self-respecting sports fan is naïve about the role that money plays in pro sports. But, by any standard, the greed and cynicism behind the World Cup are extraordinary. The cloud of scandal surrounding FIFA, the international soccer organization, has led to indictments and arrests on charges of wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering around the globe. Headlines have been filled with reports of the deaths of workers who constructed the facilities. “People are normally careful enough not to leave a paper trail,” the contributor <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/heidi-blake">Heidi Blake</a> notes. But she says, of investigating FIFA, “I’ve never seen graft and corruption documented in this kind of detail.” Blake speaks with David Remnick about “The Ugly Game,” which she co-authored with Jonathan Calvert, and how Qatar came to host the World Cup. </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>

Safia Elhillo on Vulnerability and Anger in “Girls That Never Die”

<p><span>The poet Safia Elhillo first found her voice onstage, performing in youth poetry slams in Washington, D.C., where she grew up, the child of Sudanese immigrants. She published her first collection in 2017, and in 2021 her novel in verse, “Home Is Not a Country,” was long-listed for the National Book Award. She’s now out with a new collection, “Girls That Never Die,” which she characterizes as her most personal and vulnerable work yet. It responds to some of the backlash she received online after her earlier work was published. “Before this book, I think I had really clear rules for myself about what I was and was not allowed to write poetry about. And my body was one of the things that I was not allowed to write poetry about,” Elhillo tells </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/dana-goodyear"><span>Dana Goodyear</span></a><span>. “I think I really had to sit down and dismantle this idea that if I was polite enough, respectful enough, modest enough, quiet enough, silent enough—that nobody would ever want to do me harm.”</span></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 Man Who Escaped from Auschwitz to Warn the World

<p><span>Rudolf Vrba was sent to Auschwitz at the age of seventeen, and, because he was young and in good health, he was not killed immediately but put to labor in the camp. Vrba (originally named Walter Rosenberg) quickly discovered that the scale of the killing was greater than anyone on the outside knew or could imagine, and Jewish communities were being deported without understanding their fate. Jonathan Freedland chronicles Vrba’s story in his new book, “The Escape Artist.” The young Vrba had a “crucial realization, which is [that] the only way this machine is going to be stopped—this death machine—is if somebody gets the word out,” Freedland told David Remnick. Freedland recounts how, against terrible odds, Vrba managed to escape the camp, and provided direct testimony of the Holocaust that reached Allied governments.</span></p> <p><span><i>This interview was recorded at a live event at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. </i></span></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>

Mike White on the New Season of “The White Lotus” in Sicily

<p><span>The first season of “The White Lotus” won ten Emmy Awards and was a critics’ favorite. A dark satire of the privileged, the show chronicled the visit to a luxurious Hawaiian resort of a tech mogul and her family, a pair of newlyweds, and a single woman—all having the worst time of their lives—while the hotel manager goes off the wagon in a way both hilarious and harrowing. In Season 2, creator Mike White has moved the action to Sicily, and is focussing on gender roles and masculinity. White speaks with the staff writer </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/naomi-fry"><span>Naomi Fry</span></a><span> about his upbringing as the child of a minister, in a modest family in a wealthy community. “I hope that I’m not writing this show for the rest of my career,” White says. “But it does feel like, if you’re taking a snapshot, I am being true to the things that I’m thinking about right now.”</span></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>

Russell Moore on Christian Nationalism

<p><span>Russell Moore, a prominent figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, resigned over the church’s response to racism—which Moore considers a sin—and documented sexual abuse allegations. The theologian sits down with David Remnick to reflect on the intersection of Christianity and American politics. “Jesus always refused to have his gospel used as a means to an end,” Moore says. “People who settle for Christianity or any other religion as politics are really making a pitiful deal.” Plus, the contributing writer Eliza Griswold reports on an energized movement of Christian nationalists aiming for statewide power in Pennsylvania. They believe that the authority to rule comes from God, not from a plurality of voters. “This isn’t about injecting Christian values into society,” Griswold notes, “this is about overthrowing secular democracy.” </span></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>

Mayor Francis Suarez’s View from Miami

<p><span>Francis Suarez, the Republican mayor of Miami, is popular in the city he governs, and increasingly prominent beyond it. Conservative voices as disparate as Kanye West and George Will have floated him as a 2024 Presidential candidate. Suarez is a proudly dissident Republican: he loves tech companies, welcomes migrants, and thinks his party can lead the fight against climate change. He’s no culture warrior, and, though he shares a state with Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, he has kept both at arm’s length. So is he, </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/kelefa-sanneh"><span>Kelefa Sanneh</span></a><span> wonders, a Republican at all? Suarez seems to be taking a long view. “Leadership,” he says, depends on whether “you have the talent to articulate a message, a vision, and a plan to get people to a place where people will follow—even if maybe they’re not so sure, maybe they’re not that comfortable with it.”</span></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>

U2’s Bono Talks with David Remnick—Live

<p><span>Last month, </span><i><span>The New Yorker</span></i><span> published a </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/26/from-boy-to-bono"><span>Personal History</span></a><span> about growing up in Ireland during the nineteen-sixties and seventies. It covers the interfaith marriage of the author’s parents, which was unusual in Dublin; his mother’s early death; and finding his calling in music. The author was Bono, for more than forty years the lyricist and lead singer of one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. As U2 sold out arenas and stadiums, Bono held forth on a range of social causes; he became “the definitive rock star of the modern era,” as Kelefa Sanneh puts it. Bono joined David Remnick at the 2022 New Yorker Festival to talk about his new memoir, “Surrender.” “When I sang in U2, something got ahold of me,” Bono said. “And it made sense of me.” They </span><span>discussed how the band almost ended because of the members’ religious faith, and how they navigated the Troubles as a bunch of young men from Dublin suddenly on the world stage. Bono shared a life lesson from Paul McCartney, and he opened up about the early death of his mother. </span><span>“This wound in me just turned into this opening where I had to fill the hole with music,” Bono said. In the loss of a loved one, “there's sometimes a gift. The opening up of music came from my mother.”</span></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 Playwrights Suzan-Lori Parks and Martin McDonagh, Live at The New Yorker Festival

<p><span>This year’s New Yorker Festival featured two conversations with renowned playwrights: Suzan-Lori Parks and Martin McDonagh. Parks, the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for drama, sat down with the staff writer Vinson Cunningham. “The marketplace is telling us that Black joy is what sells,” she said. “I’m very suspicious about what the marketplace wants me to create because I know in my experience where real Black joy resides—and sometimes that’s in the place where there might be some traumatic thing that also happened.” A revival of Parks’s groundbreaking play, “Topdog/Underdog,” just opened on Broadway. </span></p> <p><span>And McDonagh, who is out with a new film, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” spoke with Patrick Radden Keefe. “The Banshees of Inisherin” traces the story of a friendship breaking apart in the beautiful, remote hills of western Ireland. “I just wanted this [movie] to be sort of plotless in a way,” McDonagh said. “Just to have the unravelling of this breakup be what the whole story was about.”</span></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 Vulnerabilities of our Voting Machines, and How to Secure Them

<p><span>The security of voting has become a huge topic of concern. That’s especially true after 2020, when it became an article of faith for Trump supporters that the election was somehow stolen by President Joe Biden. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at University of Michigan, has been studying voting machines and software for more than a decade. “We made a number of discoveries, including that [voting machines] had vulnerabilities that basically anyone could exploit to inject malicious software and change votes,” he tells the staff writer </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/sue-halpern"><span>Sue Halpern</span></a><span>. Conspiracy theories aside, he says, we must address those vulnerabilities in computerized voting. But hand counting of ballots, advocated by some election skeptics, is not a plausible solution. “</span><span>Perhaps as time goes on we’ll get Republicans and Democrats to agree that there are some real problems in election security that we would all benefit from addressing. </span><span>”</span></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>

In Defense of the Comic Novel: Andrew Sean Greer Talks “Less is Lost”

<p><span>Arthur Less is a novelist—a “minor American novelist,” to be precise. He’s a man whose biggest talent seems to be taking a problem and making it five times worse. And he’s the hero of Andrew Sean Greer’s novel “Less,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, an especially rare feat for a comic novel.  </span></p> <p><span>Andrew Sean Greer is now out with a sequel, “Less Is Lost,” which takes Arthur on a road trip across the U.S. He talks with the staff writer<span> </span></span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/parul-sehgal#:~:text=Parul%20Sehgal%20is%20a%20staff,Critics%20Circle%20for%20her%20criticism."><span>Parul Sehgal</span></a><span>. </span></p> <p><span>Plus, for thirty years, the poet Ellen Bass has taken the same walk almost every day, on West Cliff Drive, a road along the ocean in Santa Cruz, California. Friends and family have teased her for being stuck in her ways, so she wrote the poem “Ode to Repetition,” about taking the same walk, listening to the same songs, and doing the same daily tasks, as life marches toward its end. (</span><em><span>This segment originally aired May 26, 2017.</span></em><span>)</span></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>

Tom Stoppard on “Leopoldstadt,” and Geena Davis talks with Michael Schulman

<p><span>Tom Stoppard has been a fixture on Broadway since his famous early play,</span><i><span> “</span></i><span>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” travelled there in 1967. Stoppard is eighty-five years old, and has largely resisted the autobiographical element in his work. But now, in “Leopoldstadt,” a play that has just opened on Broadway, he draws on his family’s tragic losses in the Second World War. Stoppard talks with</span> <span>the contributor </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/andrew-dickson"><span>Andrew Dickson</span></a><span> about his latest work. </span></p> <p><span>And the Oscar- and Emmy Award-winning actor Geena Davis, best known for her role in “Thelma and Louise,” talks with the staff writer </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/michael-schulman"><span>Michael Schulman</span></a><span> about her life and career. Davis ascribes much of her early experience on- and offscreen to a certain level of politeness, a character trait ingrained in her from childhood. “I learned politeness from minute one, I’m sure,” she tells Schulman. “That was my family: very old-fashioned New Englanders.” She reflects on her childhood, her iconic roles in the eighties and nineties, and her “journey to badassery” in her new memoir, “Dying of Politeness,” out this month. </span></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 New Abortion Underground

<p><span>Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the contributor Stephania Taladrid has been following a network of women who are secretly distributing abortion pills across the United States. The network has its roots in Mexico, where some medications used for at-home abortion are  available at a lower cost over the counter. Volunteers—they call themselves “pill fairies”—are sourcing the pills at Mexican pharmacies and bringing them over the border. The work is increasingly perilous: in states like Texas, abetting an abortion is considered a felony, carrying long prison sentences. But, to Taladrid’s sources, it’s imperative. “I mean, there’s nothing else to do, right?” one woman in Texas, who had an abortion using the medication she received from a pill fairy, said. “You can’t just lie down and accept it. You can’t.” </span></p> <p><i><span>Note: The interview excerpts featured in this story (with the exception of Verónica Cruz) are not the actual voices of Taladrid’s subjects. To protect their anonymity, the excerpts were re-recorded by actors. </span></i><span> </span></p> <p><span>Read Stephania Taladrid’s full reporting at newyorker.com.</span></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>

Major Decisions Ahead for the Supreme Court

<p><span>In its last term, the Supreme Court dropped bombshell after bombshell—marking major conservative advances on gun rights, separation of church and state, environmental protection, and reproductive rights. “The Court is not behaving as an institution invested in social stability,” the contributor </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jeannie-suk"><span>Jeannie Suk Gersen</span></a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/11/the-supreme-courts-conservatives-have-asserted-their-power"><span>wrote in July</span></a><span>. She joins David Remnick to preview the Court’s fall term.</span></p> <p><span>Plus, after covering the landslide victory for pro-choice forces in Kansas this summer, the contributor Peter Slevin has been following midterm races in Michigan, where voters this fall will decide not only on state and congressional races but also on a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to an abortion in the state.</span></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>

Joshua Yaffa on What’s Next for Ukraine

<p><span>The contributor Joshua Yaffa, who was based in Moscow for years and has been reporting from Ukraine since the start of the war, speaks to David Remnick from Kyiv. There, Yaffa says, the latest news from Russia—including threats of nuclear attack and reports of political upheaval—has been treated with near-indifference. “Ukraine has been in the fight for its survival since the end of February, fully aware that Russia is ready to throw any and all resources at the attempted subjugation of the Ukrainian state,” he says. “And after things like the massacre in Bucha and other areas outside of Kyiv, earlier this spring, there’s not much that can surprise or shock or scare the Ukrainian public about what Russia is ready to do.” </span></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>

Billy Eichner on “Bros” and Joyce Carol Oates on “Blonde”

<p><span>One of the first queer rom-coms released in cinemas by a major studio, “Bros” is making movie history. But the film’s co-writer and star, the comedian Billy Eichner, tells David Remnick that the milestone has taken too long to achieve. “Culture and society at large, for the vast majority of human existence, [did] not want to talk about the private lives of gay people and L.G.B.T.Q. people,” he says.</span></p> <p><span>Plus, the<span> </span></span><span>staff writer Katy Waldman talks with the prolific novelist Joyce Carol Oates about the new film adaptation of her novel “Blonde,” which premières on Netflix this week. Directed by Andrew Dominick, it’s a fictionalized account of the life of Marilyn Monroe. Oates tells Waldman that she enjoyed the production but found it “extremely emotionally exhausting” and “not for the faint of heart.”</span></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>