This Conversation Made Me a Sharper Editor

A good rule of thumb is that whatever Margaret Atwood is worried about now, the rest of us will likely be worried about a decade from now. The rise of authoritarianism. A backlash against women’s social progress. Climate change leading to social unrest. Advertising permeating more and more of our lives.We originally released this episode back in March 2022. But just like Atwood’s work, it somehow only got more relevant with time. Atwood is the author of at least 17 novels, including the classic “The Handmaid’s Tale,” as well as 20 books of poetry and nine collections of short fiction. When we spoke, she’d just published an essay collection, “Burning Questions.” And she has a new book coming out this fall, “Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts.”Mentioned:Art & Energy by Barry LordBook recommendations:War by Margaret MacMillanBiased by Jennifer L. EberhardtSecrets of the Sprakkar by Eliza ReidCharlotte’s Web by E. B. WhiteLord of the Rings by J. R. R. TolkienThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.htmlThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Special thanks to Kristina Samulewski, Coral Ann Howells and Brooks Bouson. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick and Aman Sahota. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

9 Touko 1h 7min

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is one of just 13 Democrats to represent a district that Donald Trump won. Her distinctive economic message, and a willingness to buck her own party, helped her win re-election. But now the reality of the Trump era is coming home.Gluesenkamp Perez faced raucous crowds at town halls in Washington State recently, with some of her more liberal constituents furious that she isn’t opposing the administration more forcefully. At the same time, the White House has started making economic arguments that sound very similar to ones that she’s made – that we should consume less, produce more and import less stuff from abroad.So I wanted to talk to her about how she’s navigating this moment. What does she think of Trump’s economic agenda? What reactions is she seeing across her district? How does a Democrat now represent both terrified liberals and loyal Trump voters?This episode contains strong language.Book Recommendations:The Wheelwright’s Shop by George SturtExperiences in Visual Thinking by Robert H. McKimChildren’s poetry anthologies from Jack PrelutskyThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.htmlThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Switch and Board Podcast Studio. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

6 Touko 57min

The U.S. dollar is the lingua franca of the global financial system. The fact that so much of the world relies on our currency has long been understood as our exorbitant privilege — the reason we have so much leverage in the global economy and are able to borrow at lower interest rates.But the Trump administration has a much more complicated relationship with the dollar. It has come to see dollar dominance as a burden we bear on behalf of the rest of the world. But in its attempts to move away from dollar dominance, is the Trump administration on the verge of creating a financial crisis?Kenneth Rogoff is a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a professor of economics at Harvard University. He has a book coming out called “Our Dollar, Your Problem.” In this conversation he walks through the history of dollar dominance, why it’s been waning in recent years and what ripple effects the Trump administration’s policies might have.This episode contains strong language.Book Recommendations:Muppets in Moscow by Natasha Lance RogoffThe Queen’s Gambit by Walter TevisBenjamin Franklin by Walter IsaacsonThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.htmlThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

2 Touko 1h 2min

“Abundance,” the book I co-wrote with Derek Thompson, hit bookstore shelves a little over a month ago, and the response has been beyond anything I could have imagined. And it’s generated a lot of interesting critiques, too, especially from the left. So I wanted to dedicate an episode to talking through some of them.My guests today are both on the left but have very different perspectives. Zephyr Teachout is a law professor at Fordham University and one of the most prominent voices in the antimonopoly movement. Saikat Chakrabarti is the president and co-founder of New Consensus, a think tank that has been trying to think through what it would take to build at Green New Deal scale and pace. And he is currently running to unseat Nancy Pelosi in Congress.I found this conversation wonderfully clarifying — both in the places it revealed agreement, and perhaps even more in the places it revealed difference.Mentioned:“How the Gentry Won: Property Law’s Embrace of Stasis” by David Schleicher and Roderick M. Hills, Jr.“The High Cost of Producing Multifamily Housing in California” by Jason M. Ward and Luke SchlakeZephyr’s Book Recommendations:The Promise of Politics by Hannah ArendtThe Populist Moment by Lawrence GoodwynListen, Liberal by Thomas FrankSaikat’s Book Recommendations:Destructive Creation by Mark R. WilsonBad Samaritans by Ha-Joon ChangThe Defining Moment by Jonathan AlterThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.htmlThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

29 Huhti 1h 14min

I have no earthly idea how to describe this conversation. It’s about religion and belief – at this moment in our politics, and in our lives more generally.My guest and I come from very different perspectives. Ross Douthat is a Catholic conservative, who wrote a book called “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious.” I’m a … Californian. But I think everyone would enjoy this conversation — believers, skeptics and seekers alike.Some questions touched on: Is the Trump administration Christian or pagan? How do Christian Trump supporters reconcile the cruelties of this administration with their faith? Can religious experiences be explained by misfiring neurons? Should organized religions embrace psychedelics? Can mystery provide more comfort than certainty?And if you do enjoy this episode, be sure to check out Douthat’s new New York Times Opinion Audio show “Interesting Times,” available wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube.Mentioned:Interesting Times with Ross Douthat“Donald Trump, Man of Destiny” by Ross DouthatLiving with a Wild God by Barbara EhrenreichBook Recommendations:Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen BarrAfter by Bruce GreysonMind and Cosmos by Thomas NagelThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.htmlThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Aman Sahota and Efim Shapiro. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

25 Huhti 1h 35min

After last week’s episode, “The Emergency Is Here,” we got a lot of emails. And the most common reply was: You really think we’ll have midterm elections in 2026? Isn’t that naïve?I think we will have midterms. But one reason I think so many people are skeptical of that is they’re working with comparisons to other places: Mussolini’s Italy, Putin’s Russia, Pinochet’s Chile.But we don’t need to look abroad for parallels; it has happened here.Steven Hahn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at New York University and the author of “Illiberal America: A History.” In this conversation, he walks me through some of the most illiberal periods in American history: Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, Jim Crow, the Red Scare, Japanese American internment, Operation Wetback. And we discuss how this legacy can help us better understand what’s happening right now.This episode contains strong language.Book Recommendations:Democracy in America by Alexis de TocquevilleFrom the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by Elizabeth HintonTroubled Memory by Lawrence N. PowellThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.htmlThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick, Annie Galvin and Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Marina King, Jan Kobal and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

23 Huhti 1h 13min

The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a prison where the only way out, according to El Salvador’s justice minister, is in a coffin.The president says he wants to send “homegrown” Americans there next.This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here.Asha Rangappa is a former F.B.I. special agent and now an assistant dean and senior lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, as well as a member of the board of editors for Just Security and the author of The Freedom Academy on Substack.Mentioned:“Abrego Garcia and MS-13: What Do We Know?” by Roger ParloffBook Recommendations:The Burning by Tim MadiganBreaking Twitter by Ben MezrichErasing History by Jason StanleyThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.htmlThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Rollin Hu, Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

17 Huhti 1h 12min

My colleague Tom Friedman thinks we’re screwed.That’s the first thing he told me when recounting his recent trip to China. It’s not just because of the trade war that President Trump is escalating right now. Friedman believes the whole Washington consensus on China — that the country is a hostile adversary — is dangerous and based on an outdated understanding of what China now is. He saw how China’s manufacturing and technology have advanced so far that in many ways it now surpasses the United States’.In this conversation, Friedman walks me through the advancements he saw in some of the most critical fields of the coming decades — including A.I., E.V.s and clean energy. We discuss why he sees the current consensus as dangerous, what a different path might look like and what the United States should do to develop its domestic manufacturing so that we don’t “get steamrolled.”This episode contains strong language.Mentioned:“I Just Saw the Future. It Was Not in America.” by Thomas L. Friedman“China's overlapping tech-industrial ecosystems” by Kyle ChanGenesis by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Craig Mundie Book Recommendations:The works of Yuval Noah HarariThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Aman Sahota and Efim Shapiro. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Zoe Zongyuan Liu, Kyle Chan and Matt Sheehan. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

15 Huhti 1h 8min