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The Ezra Klein Show

The Ezra Klein Show

*** Named a best podcast of 2021 by Time, Vulture, Esquire and The Atlantic. *** Each Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike? Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

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Episodes

Matter of Opinion: Paul Krugman on Inflation, ?Bad Vibes? and 2024

We?ll be back on Friday with a new episode. In the meantime, we wanted to share one of our favorite recent episodes from our sister podcast, ?Matter of Opinion.?

Why does the economy look so good to economists but feel so bad to voters?

The Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman joins the hosts on ?Matter of Opinion? to discuss why inflation, interest rates and wages aren?t in line with voters? perception of the economy. Then, they debate with Paul how big of an influence the economy will be on the 2024 presidential election, and which of the two presumed candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it could benefit. Plus, Ross Douthat?s lessons on aging, through Michael Caine impressions.

Mentioned:

?Believing Is Seeing,? from Paul Krugman?s newsletter

?The Age of Diminished Expectations,? by Paul Krugman

?The Trip? scene: ?This Is How Michael Caine Speaks?

2024-03-26
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The Deep Conflict Between Our Work and Parenting Ideals

American policy is uniquely hostile to families. Other wealthy countries guarantee paid parental leave and sick days and heavily subsidize early childhood care ? to the tune of about $14,000 per year per child, on average. (The United States, by contrast, spends around $500 per child per year.) So it?s no wonder our birthrate has been in decline, with many people saying they?re having fewer children than they would like.

Yet if you look closer at those other wealthy countries, that story doesn?t entirely hold. Sweden, for example, has some of the most generous work-family policies in the world, and according to the most recent numbers from Our World in Data, from 2021, their fertility rate is 1.67 children per woman ? virtually identical to ours.

Caitlyn Collins is a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of ?Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving.? To understand how family policies affect the experience of child-rearing, she interviewed over a hundred middle-class mothers across four countries with different parenting cultures and levels of social support for families: the United States, Sweden, Italy and Germany. And what she finds is that policies can greatly relieve parents? stress, but cultural norms like ?intensive parenting? remain consistent.

In this conversation, we discuss how work-family policies in Sweden frame spending time with children as a right rather than a privilege, how these policies have transformed the gender norms around parenting, why family-friendly policies across the globe don?t increase birthrates, how cultural pressures in America to be both an ideal worker and an ideal parent often clash, why many American parents feel it?s impossible to have more than one or two children, how cultural discourse has led younger women to ?dread? motherhood and more.

Mentioned:

?Parenthood and Happiness: Effects of Work-Family Reconciliation Policies in 22 OECD Countries? by Jennifer Glass, Robin W. Simon and Matthew A. Andersson

?Is Maternal Guilt a Cross-National Experience?? by Caitlyn Collins

If you're interested in this topic, we also recommend checking out this series from the New York Times Opinion:

?Would You Have Four Kids if It Meant Never Paying Taxes Again?? by Jessica Grose

?Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?? by Jessica Grose

?If We Want More Babies, Our ?Profoundly Anti-Family? System Needs an Overhaul? by Jessica Grose

Book Recommendations:

Competing Devotions by Mary Blair-Loy

Mothering While Black by Dawn Marie Dow

Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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 Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jessica Grose and Sonia Herrero.

2024-03-22
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Birthrates Are Plummeting Worldwide. Why?

For a long time, the story about the world?s population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five children per woman 60 years ago to just over two today. About two-thirds of us now live in a country or area where fertility rates are below replacement level. And that has set off a new round of alarm, especially in certain quarters on the right and in Silicon Valley, that we?re headed toward demographic catastrophe.

But when I look at these numbers, I just find it strange. Why, as societies get richer, do their fertility rates plummet?

Money makes life easier. We can give our kids better lives than our ancestors could have imagined. We don?t expect to bear the grief of burying a child. For a long time, a big, boisterous family has been associated with a joyful, fulfilled life. So why are most of us now choosing to have small ones?

I invited Jennifer D. Sciubba on the show to help me puzzle this out. She?s a demographer, a political scientist and the author of ?8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death and Migration Shape Our World.? She walks me through the population trends we?re seeing around the world, the different forces that seem to be driving them and why government policy, despite all kinds of efforts, seems incapable of getting people to have more kids.

Mentioned:

?Would You Have Four Kids if It Meant Never Paying Taxes Again?? by Jessica Grose

?Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?? by Jessica Grose

?If We Want More Babies, Our ?Profoundly Anti-Family? System Needs an Overhaul? by Jessica Grose

Book Recommendations:

Extra Life by Steven Johnson

The Bet by Paul Sabin

Reproductive States edited by Rickie Solinger and Mie Nakachi

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jessica Grose and Sonia Herrero. 

2024-03-19
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What a Second Biden Term Would Look Like

President Biden gave a raucous State of the Union speech last Thursday, offering his pitch for why he should be president for a second term. It?s the clearest picture we have yet of Biden?s campaign message for 2024. But while he listed off all kinds of proposals, it?s not as easy to parse what a second Biden term might actually look like. So I sat down with my editor Aaron Retica, who had a lot of questions for me about the speech itself and what Biden would be likely to accomplish if he got another four years in the job.

We discuss how my argument for Biden to step aside holds up after he gave such a deft, high-energy performance; what a second Biden administration would likely do when it comes to abortion rights and foreign policy; the issues that didn?t receive much attention in the speech but would likely play a huge role in a second Biden term; the strongest 2024 campaign message that I?ve heard so far; and whether this is a Locke election or a Hobbes election ? and what that means.

Book Recommendations:

Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century by John A. Farrell

A Nation Without Borders by Steven Hahn

The Field of Blood by Joanne B. Freeman

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-03-12
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How America?s Two Abortion Realities Are Clashing

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it scrambled the landscape of abortion access in America, including in ways that one might not entirely expect. Many conservative states made the procedure essentially illegal ? that part was predictable. But there?s also been this striking backlash in blue states, with many of them making historic efforts to expand abortion access, for both their residents and for women living in abortion-restricted states.

And this has created all kinds of new battle lines ? between states, and states and the federal government ? involving travel, speech, privacy and executive power. It?s an explosion of conflicts and constitutional questions that the legal historian Mary Ziegler says has no parallel in modern times. She?s the author of six books on reproductive rights in America, including ?Roe: The History of a National Obsession,? and the Martin Luther King Jr. professor of law at the University of California, Davis. ?We?re seeing, from conservative and progressive states, moves to project power outside of their borders in ways we really haven?t seen in a really long time,? she told me.

In this conversation, Ziegler explains the bifurcated abortion landscape that has emerged since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women?s Health Organization overturned Roe. We discuss the different political and legal strategies conservative and progressive states are using to pursue their opposing goals; why the abortion rate has gone up, even as 14 states have implemented near-total bans on abortion; and how a second Trump administration could try to restrict access to abortion for all Americans, no matter what states they live in.

Mentioned:

?Harsh Anti-abortion Laws Are Not Empty Threats? by Mary Ziegler

Book Recommendations:

The Family Roe by Joshua Prager

Tiny You by Jennifer L. Holland

Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. Williams

?Before Roe v. Wade? by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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 Claire Gordon and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-03-08
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Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Beauty, Human Evil and the Idea of Israel

Marilynne Robinson is one of the great living novelists. She has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal, and Barack Obama took time out of his presidency to interview her at length. Her fiction is suffused with a sense of holiness: Mundane images like laundry drying on a line seem to be illuminated by a divine force. Whether she?s telling the story of a pastor confronting his mortality in ?Gilead? or two sisters coming of age in small-town Idaho in ?Housekeeping,? her novels wrestle with theological questions of what it means to be human, to see the world more deeply, to seek meaning in life.

In recent years, Robinson has tightened the links between her literary pursuits and her Christianity, writing essays about Calvinism and other theological traditions. Her forthcoming work of nonfiction is ?Reading Genesis,? a close reading of the first book of the Old Testament (or the Torah, as I grew up knowing it). It?s a countercultural reading in many respects ? one that understands the God in Genesis as merciful rather than vengeful and humans as flawed but capable of astounding acts of grace. No matter one?s faith, Robinson unearths wisdom in this core text that applies to many questions we wrestle with today.

We discuss the virtues evoked in Genesis ? beauty, forgiveness and hospitality ? and how to cultivate what Robinson calls ?a mind that?s schooled toward good attention.? And we end on her reading of the story of Israel, which I found to be challenging, moving and evocative at a time when that nation has been front and center in the news.

Book Recommendations:

Foxe?s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe

The Vision of Piers Plowman by William Langland

Theologia Germanica

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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 Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Alex Engebretson.

2024-03-05
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The Wars in Ukraine and Gaza Have Changed. America?s Policy Hasn?t.

Joe Biden?s presidency has been dominated by two foreign policy crises: the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The funding the United States has provided in those wars ? billions to both Ukraine and Israel ? has drawn backlash from both the right and the left. And now, as the conflicts move into new stages with no clear end game, Biden?s policies are increasingly drawing dissent from the center.

Richard Haass is an icon of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. He served as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations for 20 years and currently writes the newsletter Home & Away. He?s recently been making the case that our foreign policy is insufficiently independent ? that we?ve become captured by allies that have interests that diverge from our own. His view of this moment is a signal of larger shifts that could be coming in the U.S. foreign policy consensus.

In this conversation, we discuss why he thinks America?s current strategy on both Ukraine and Israel is untenable, what he thinks the north star for our strategy in both cases should be, the Republican Party?s 180-degree turn from internationalism to isolationism, what America?s biggest national security threat really is and more.

Mentioned:

?The Two-State Mirage? by Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami

Book Recommendations:

The World That Wasn?t by Benn Steil

Sparks by Ian Johnson

Diplomats at War by Charles Trueheart

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-03-01
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Your Questions on Open Conventions, a Gaza Schism and Biden?s Chances

We received thousands of questions in response to last week?s audio essay arguing that Democrats should consider choosing a candidate at August?s D.N.C. convention. Among them: Is there any chance Joe Biden would actually step down? Would an open convention be undemocratic? Is there another candidate who can bridge the progressive and moderate divide in the party? Doesn?t polling show other candidates losing to Donald Trump by even larger margins? Would a convention process leave Democrats enough time to mount a real general election campaign?

In this conversation, I?m joined by our senior editor Claire Gordon to answer these questions and many more.

Mentioned:

?Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden? by Ezra Klein

?Here?s How an Open Democratic Convention Would Work? with Elaine Kamarck on The Ezra Klein Show

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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 Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-02-23
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Here?s How an Open Democratic Convention Would Work

Last week on the show, I argued that the Democrats should pick their nominee at the Democratic National Convention in August.

It?s an idea that sounds novel but is really old-fashioned. This is how most presidential nominees have been picked in American history. All the machinery to do it is still there; we just stopped using it. But Democrats may need a Plan B this year. And the first step is recognizing they have one.

Elaine Kamarck literally wrote the book on how we choose presidential candidates. It?s called ?Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates.? She?s a senior fellow in governance studies and the founding director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. But her background here isn?t just theory. It?s practice. She has worked on four presidential campaigns and 10 nominating conventions for both Democrats and Republicans. She?s also on the convention?s rules committee and has been a superdelegate at five Democratic conventions.

It?s a fascinating conversation, even if you don?t think Democrats should attempt to select their nominee at the convention. The history here is rich, and it is, if nothing else, a reminder that the way we choose candidates now is not the way we have always done it and not the way we must always do it.

Book Recommendations:

All the King?s Men by Robert Penn Warren

The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White

Quiet Revolution by Byron E. Shafer

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Annie Galvin. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Kristin Lin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-02-21
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Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden

Biden is faltering and Democrats have no plan B. There is another path to winning in 2024 ? and I think they should take it. But it would require them to embrace an old-fashioned approach to winning a campaign.

Mentioned:

The Lincoln Miracle by Edward Achorn

If you have a question for the AMA, you can call 212-556-7300 and leave a voice message or email [email protected] with the subject line, ?2024 AMA."

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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 audio essay for ?The Ezra Klein Show? was fact-checked by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

2024-02-16
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Best Of: Status Games, Polyamory and the Merits of Meritocracy

For years, Agnes Callard has been on a mission to take ethical philosophy out of the ivory tower. She examines everyday human experiences ? jockeying for status, navigating jealousy, marriage ? with dazzling detail, publishing regularly in mainstream publications. And she tries to live by her philosophy, too, even if it violates social conventions, as many discovered when The New Yorker published a provocative profile of Callard last year. 

We recorded this conversation in May 2021, before the New Yorker article drew attention to the details of her home life. (She lives with both her husband and her ex-husband.) But after our episode with Rhaina Cohen about imagining relationships more expansively, we thought it would be interesting to revisit Callard, who has spent so much time dissecting the dynamics and ethics of different relationships and their possibilities.

Mentioned:

?Who Wants to Play the Status Game?? by Agnes Callard, The Point

?Against Advice,? by Agnes Callard, The Point

?The Other Woman,? by Agnes Callard, The Point

?Parenting and Panic,? by Agnes Callard, The Point

"Aspiration" by Agnes Callard

Book Recommendations:

"Tolstoy: A Russian Life" by Rosamund Bartlett

"Pessoa: A Biography" by Richard Zenith

"Augustine of Hippo" by Peter Brown

?Real Death? by Mount Eerie

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) 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? is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.

2024-02-13
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Building the Palestinian State With Salam Fayyad

?If only we had a partner for peace.?

That?s been the refrain in the Israel-Palestinian conflict for as long as I?ve followed it. But the truth is you don?t need just a partner ? you need two partners able to deliver at the same time.

So you could see it as a tragedy of history that Salam Fayyad joined the Palestinian Authority in 2002, at the height of the second intifada, just as Israeli society shifted hard to the right.

A Western-educated economist, Fayyad is a technocrat at heart. And as the Palestinian Authority?s finance minister, and then as prime minister, he dedicated himself to the spadework of state-building. His theory was that instead of waiting around for the peace process to deliver Palestinian statehood, he would just build a state ? institutions, infrastructure, security, sewers and all ? and then statehood would follow.

And by many measures, he was remarkably successful. The economy boomed, crime plummeted, and in 2011 the United Nations declared the authority ready to run an independent state. But in April 2013, Fayyad resigned. And today, the Palestinian Authority in tatters, widely seen by Palestinians as corrupt and a failure.

Fayyad is now a visiting senior scholar at Princeton. And I wanted to have him on the show to talk about his time building a Palestinian state. What did he learn working with the various factions ? including Hamas ? in Palestinian politics? What did he learn working with Israel? How did we still end up here? And what, given all he?s seen and done, does he think should happen now?

Mentioned:

Into the Breach: Salam Fayyad and Palestine

?A Plan for Peace in Gaza? by Salam Fayyad

Book Recommendations:

Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

The Arabs by Eugene Rogan

On The Trails of Mariam by Nadia Harhash

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-02-09
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What Relationships Would You Want, if You Believed They Were Possible?

Around 40 percent of people who marry eventually get a divorce. Almost half of children are born to unmarried women. The number of close friends Americans report having has been on a steep decline since the 1990s, especially among men. Millions of us are growing old alone. We are living out a radical experiment in how we live, love, parent and age ? and for many, it?s failing.

That?s partial context, I think, for the recent burst of interest and media coverage of polyamory. People want more love in their lives, and opening their relationships is one way to find it. A poll from last year found that one-third of Americans believe their ideal relationship would involve something other than strict monogamy.

But polyamory, for all its possibilities, isn?t right for many, and it doesn?t have that much to say about parenting or aging or friendship. As radical as it may sound, it?s not nearly radical enough. It?s not just romance that could be imagined more expansively. It?s everything.

?If this is such a significant relationship in my life, why is there no term for it?? wonders NPR?s Rhaina Cohen about a relationship that transcends the language we have available for friendship. Her forthcoming book, ?The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life With Friendship at the Center,? is a window into a world of relational possibilities most of us never even imagined existed. It?s a call to open up what we can conceive of as possible. Some of these models might appeal to you. Others might not. But they all pose a question worth asking: What kinds of relationships would you want in your life, if you felt you could ask for them?

Mentioned:

?Men?s Social Circles are Shrinking? by Daniel A. Cox

The Two-Parent Privilege by Melissa S. Kearney

How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti

Book Recommendations:

Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

Thy Neighbor?s Wife by Gay Talese

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on X @ezraklein. 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 Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-02-06
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?Why Haven?t the Democrats Completely Cleaned the Republicans? Clock??

Political analysts used to say that the Democratic Party was riding a demographic wave that would lead to an era of dominance. But that ?coalition of the ascendant? never quite jelled. The party did benefit from a rise in nonwhite voters and college-educated professionals, but it has also shed voters without a college degree. All this has made the Democrats? political math a lot more precarious. And it also poses a kind of spiritual problem for Democrats who see themselves as the party of the working class.

Ruy Teixeira is one of the loudest voices calling on the Democratic Party to focus on winning these voters back. He?s a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the politics editor of the newsletter The Liberal Patriot. His 2002 book, ?The Emerging Democratic Majority,? written with John B. Judis, was seen as prophetic after Barack Obama won in 2008 with the coalition he?d predicted. But he also warned in that book that Democrats needed to stop hemorrhaging white working-class voters for this majority to hold. And now Teixeira and Judis have a new book, ?Where Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.?

In this conversation, I talk to Teixeira about how he defines the working class; the economic, social and cultural forces that he thinks have driven these voters from the Democratic Party; whether Joe Biden?s industrial and pro-worker policies could win some of these voters back, or if economic policies could reverse this trend at all; and how to think through the trade-offs of pursuing bold progressive policies that could push working-class voters even further away.

Mentioned:

??Compensate the Losers?? Economic Policy and Partisan Realignment in the U.S.?

Book Recommendations:

Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities, edited by Amory Gethin, Clara Martínez-Toledano, and Thomas Piketty

Visions of Inequality by Branko Milanovic

The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-02-01
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?The Strongest Democratic Party That Any of Us Have Ever Seen?

If you?re a Democrat, how worried should you be right now? It?s strangely hard to answer that question. On the one hand, polls suggest Democrats should be very worried. President Biden looks weaker than he did as a candidate in 2020, and in matchups with Donald Trump, the election looks like a coin flip. On the other hand, Democrats staved off an expected red wave in the 2022 midterm elections. Biden has a strong record to run on, and Trump has a lot more baggage than he did in 2020.

So, in an effort to put all those pieces together, I had two conversations with two people who have polar opposite perspectives ? starting with a more optimistic take for Democrats.

Simon Rosenberg is a longtime Democratic political strategist, the author of the newsletter Hopium Chronicles and one of the few people who correctly predicted the Democrats? strong performance in 2022. He argues that the Democratic Party is in a better position now than it has been for generations. In this conversation, we talk about why he isn?t worried about Biden?s polling numbers, how anti-MAGA sentiments have become a motivating force for many voters, what he thinks about the shifts in working-class support of the Democratic Party, why there?s such a huge gap between Biden?s economic track record and how voters perceive the economy right now, how Biden?s age is affecting the campaign, whether his foreign policy might alienate young voters and more.

Mentioned:

Columnist Assistant application

Book Recommendations:

A New Deal for the World by Elizabeth Borgwardt

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

The Collector by Daniel Silva

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-01-25
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?I Have No Idea How This Ends. I?ve Never Seen It So Broken.?

It?s been just over 100 days since Hamas?s attack on Israel, and the costs of the war are staggering. In polling from late fall, 64 percent of Gazans reported that a family member had been killed or injured. Nearly two million Gazans ? almost the entire population ? have been displaced from their homes, and analysis of satellite imagery reveals that about half the buildings in the Gaza Strip have probably been destroyed or damaged.

Israel believes that more than 100 hostages are being held captive in Gaza, and polling reveals that Hamas has gained popularity among Palestinians while support for Israel has plummeted around the world. When this war ends, will Israel really be safer? Who will govern Gaza? What will be left of Gaza?

Thomas L. Friedman is a New York Times Opinion columnist and the author of ?From Beirut to Jerusalem,? among other books. He has covered the Middle East for decades and won a Pulitzer for his reporting from Israel. And so I wanted to ask him: What does he think of where Israel is now, and what does he imagine comes next?

Mentioned:

Columnist Assistant application

Thomas L. Friedman?s recent columns

??Joe Biden May Be the Last Pro-Israel Democratic?? by Thomas L. Friedman

Book Recommendations:

The Little Drummer Girl by John Le Carré

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

I?m Your Man by Sylvie Simmons

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2024-01-19
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A Republican Pollster on Trump?s Undimmed Appeal

The fact that Donald Trump is the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination in 2024 has created a chasm in our politics. In the past, Democrats and Republicans at least understood why members of the other party liked their chosen candidates. Most conservatives weren?t confused why liberals liked Barack Obama, and vice versa for George W. Bush. But for a lot of Democrats, it feels impossible to imagine why anyone would cast a vote for Trump. And as a result, the two parties don?t just feel hostile toward each other; they feel increasingly unknowable.

Kristen Soltis Anderson is a veteran Republican pollster, a founding partner of the opinion research firm Echelon Insights and a CNN contributor. She spends her days trying to understand the thinking of Republican voters, including hosting focus groups for New York Times Opinion. So I wanted to get her insights on why Republicans like Trump so much ? even after his 2020 electoral loss, the Jan. 6 insurrection and over 90 criminal charges. What really explains Trump?s enduring appeal?

Mentioned:

Researcher application

Associate engineer application

Gallup's Presidential Job Approval Center

Book Recommendations:

Subtract by Leidy Klotz

Party of the People by Patrick Ruffini

Welcome to the O.C. by Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage and Alan Sepinwall

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

2024-01-16
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Should Trump Be Barred From the Ballot?

There?s this incredible dissonance at the center of our politics right now. On the one hand, all the polling suggests that Donald Trump is about to win Iowa Republican caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He seems overwhelmingly likely to be his party?s nominee, and so possibly our next president. On the other hand, he could be constitutionally disqualified from taking office.

Colorado and Maine concluded as much, and tossed him off their ballots. And now the Supreme Court is poised to take on this unprecedented question of whether a little-known provision of the Constitution, written in the aftermath of the Civil War, can bar Trump from running and scramble the election in 2024.

The Times Opinion columnist David French has been on the show before, as both a guest and a guest host, to break down the criminal cases against Trump. This time, I?ve asked David back to make his case for why Trump is constitutionally disqualified. We discuss some of the biggest objections, what the Supreme Court is likely to do, and how the possible options risk destabilizing the country in different ways.

Mentioned:

Researcher application

Associate engineer application

?The Sweep and Force of Section Three? by William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen

?The Case for Disqualifying Trump Is Strong? by David French

?Snakebit? by Nick Catoggio

Book Recommendations:

Operation Pedestal by Max Hastings

Into the Heart of Romans by N. T. Wright

Manhunt by James L. Swanson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

2024-01-12
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How to Discover Your Own Taste

Being on the internet just doesn?t feel as fun anymore. As more of our digital life is driven by algorithms, it?s become a lot easier to find movies or TV shows or music that fits our preferences pretty well. But it feels harder to find things that are strange and surprising ? the kinds of culture that help you, as an individual, develop your own sense of taste.

This can be a fuzzy thing to talk about. But Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has written a whole book on it, the forthcoming ?Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture.? We talk about how today?s internet encourages everything to look more the same and is even dulling our ability to know what we like. And we discuss what we can do to strengthen our sense of personal taste in order to live a richer, more beautiful life.

Mentioned:

?Quartets: Two: II. Warmth? by Peter Gregson

Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno

Book Recommendations:

?In Praise of Shadows? by Junichiro Tanizaki (essay)

Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by Lawrence Weschler

The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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? is produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Carole Sabouraud.

2024-01-09
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Tired? Distracted? Burned-Out? Listen to This.

I?m convinced that attention is the most important human faculty. Your life, after all, is just the sum total of the things you?ve paid attention to. And we lament our attention issues all the time: how distracted we are, how drained we feel, how hard it is to stay focused or present. And yet, while there?s no shortage of advice on how to improve our sleep hygiene, or spending, or physical fitness, there?s hardly any good information about how to build and replenish our capacity for paying attention.

So for the start of the new year, I wanted to have a conversation with Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, author of the book ?Attention Span,? and one of the few people who?s deeply studied the way our attention works, how that?s been changing, and what we can do to stop frittering our attention budgets away.

Book recommendations:

?The Challenger Launch Decision? by Diane Vaughan

?The Undoing Project? by Michael Lewis

?The God Equation? by Michio Kaku

Mentioned:

We?re looking for a researcher to join our team. Learn more and apply here.And we?re looking for an associate engineer. Learn more and apply here.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

2024-01-05
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Best Of: The Most Amazing ? and Dangerous ? Technology in the World

?We rarely think about chips, yet they?ve created the modern world,? writes the historian Chris Miller.

He?s not exaggerating. Semiconductors power everything from our phones and computers to cars, planes, advanced military equipment, and A.I. systems. Chips are the foundation of modern economic prosperity, military strength and geopolitical power.

This conversation with Chris Miller, author of ?Chip War: The Fight for the World?s Most Critical Technology,? was recorded back in April. But we wanted to re-air it, because what Miller lays out in that book, and in this conversation, is essential to understanding where we are in 2023, and the faultlines that will shape the world ahead. 

Because semiconductors have  one of the most concentrated supply chains of any technology today. One Taiwanese company, TSMC, produces around 90 percent of the most advanced chips. A single Dutch firm, ASML, produces all of the world?s EUV lithography machines, which are essential to produce leading-edge chips. The entire industry is built like this.

That doesn?t just make the chip supply chain vulnerable to external shocks; it also makes it easily weaponizable by the powers that control it. In 2022, the Biden administration banned exports of advanced chips ? and the equipment needed to produce those chips ? to China, and then further tightened those rules this October. In August 2022, President Biden signed into law the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which includes a $52 billion investment to on-shore U.S. chip manufacturing. China has invested tens of billions of dollars over the past decade to build a domestic semiconductor industry of its own. Chips have become to the geopolitics of the 21st century what oil was to the geopolitics of the 20th.

In this conversation, Miller talks me through what semiconductors are, why they matter and how they are shaping everything from U.S.-China relations and the Russia-Ukraine war to the Biden policy agenda and the future of A.I.

Mentioned:

?The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism? by Ezra Klein

Book Recommendations:
The World For Sale by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy

Nexus by Jonathan Reed Winkler

Prestige, Manipulation and Coercion by Joseph Torigian

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

?The Ezra Klein Show? is produced by Annie Galvin, Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Pat McCusker and Kristina Samulewski.

2023-12-26
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Best Of: The ?Quiet Catastrophe? Brewing in Our Social Lives

The holidays are one of the most social times of the year, filled with parties and family get-togethers. Many of us see friends and loved ones who we barely ? or never ? saw all year. Maybe we resolve to stay in better touch in the new year. But then somehow, once again, life gets in the way. 

This is not an accident. More and more people are living lives that feel lonelier and more socially isolated than they want them to be. And that?s largely because of social structures we?ve chosen ? wittingly or unwittingly ? to build for ourselves.

Sheila Liming is an associate professor of communications and creative media at Champlain College and the author of ?Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time.? In the book, Liming investigates what she calls the ?quiet catastrophe? brewing in our social lives: the devastating fact that we?ve grown much less likely to simply spend time together outside our partnerships, workplaces and family units. What would it look like to reconfigure our world to make social connection easier for all of us?

This conversation was recorded in April 2023. But we wanted to re-air it now, at a moment when many of us are spending more time in the company of people we like and love, and remembering how good that feels (at least some of the time). If you feel motivated to have a more social life next year, hopefully this episode provides a clearer sense of the structures that might be standing in the way, what it would look like to knock a couple down, and what you could build instead.

Mentioned:

?You?d Be Happier Living Closer to Friends. Why Don?t You?? by Anne Helen Petersen

?The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake? by David Brooks

Full Surrogacy Now by Sophie Lewis

Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag

Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson

Book Recommendations:

Black Paper by Teju Cole

On the Inconvenience of Other People by Lauren Berlant

The Hare by Melanie Finn

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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? is produced by Annie Galvin, with Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Kristina Samulewski.
 

2023-12-22
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How the Israel-Gaza Conversations Have Shaped My Thinking

It?s become something of a tradition on ?The Ezra Klein Show? to end the year with an ?Ask Me Anything? episode. So as 2023 comes to a close, I sat down with our new senior editor, Claire Gordon, to answer listeners? questions about everything from the Israel-Hamas war to my thoughts on parenting.

We discuss whether the war in Gaza has affected my relationships with family members and friends; what I think about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; whether the Democrats should have voted to keep Kevin McCarthy as House speaker; how worried I am about a Trump victory in 2024; whether A.I. can really replace human friendships; how struggling in school as a kid shaped my politics as an adult; and much more.

Mentioned:

We?re looking for a researcher to join our team. Learn more and apply here.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-12-19
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India Is Transforming. But Into What?

India is known as a country of paradoxes, and a new one has recently emerged. At the same time that the country is poised to become a major global player ? with a booming economy and a population that recently surpassed China?s ? its democracy is showing signs of decay.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his administration have silenced critics and independent institutions. India?s social media discourse has turned increasingly right wing and hostile to Muslims. And Canada and the United States have accused Indian government officials of involvement in assassination plots against Sikh activists.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta is an honorary senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi; a professor at Princeton University; and an editor of ?The Oxford Handbook to the Indian Constitution.? In this conversation, he walks our guest host Lydia Polgreen through India?s rising illiberalism. ?The signs for Indian democracy are looking very ominous,? he says.

They discuss the paradox between India?s flourishing economy and culture and signs of weakening democracy, especially at a moment when many Western countries are cheering a rising India as a democratic counterweight to China. They also talk about what makes Modi such a remarkable and effective political leader and what the United States and other countries could or should do in response to a more assertive India that is shattering norms at home.

Mentioned:

The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru

Book Recommendations:

The India Trilogy by V.S. Naipaul

India in Asian Geopolitics by Shivshankar Menon

Dreamers by Snigdha Poonam

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

2023-12-12
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A Different Path Israel Could Have Taken ? and Maybe Still Can

Before Oct. 7, Israel appeared to many to be sliding into a ?one-state reality,? where it had functional control over Gaza and the West Bank, but the Palestinians who lived there were denied full rights. In 2021, a group of hundreds of former senior defense and diplomatic officials in Israel published a report warning that this was a catastrophe ? for Israel?s security, its democratic values, its international standing, and its very soul. And they argued that there was another way, that even without a Palestinian ?partner for peace,? there was a huge amount Israel could do on its own to create the conditions for a two-state solution to emerge in the future.

Nimrod Novik is a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum and a member of the executive committee of Commanders for Israel?s Security, the group behind the report. He was a senior policy adviser to Shimon Peres when he was prime minister, and was involved in all forms of negotiations with Palestinians and the Arab world.

I wanted to talk to Novik about the plan proposed in the Commanders for Israel?s Security report, and how they might have changed in light of Oct. 7 and the war. We also talk through what the ?day after? might look like in Gaza, the immense anger of the Israeli public over the intelligence failure that led up to the attacks, the alternative coalitions building against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and much more.

Mentioned:

?Initiative 2025? by Commanders for Israel?s Security

Book Recommendations:

The Back Channel by William J. Burns

Master of the Game by Martin Indyk

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Efim Shapiro.

2023-12-08
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?This Is How Hamas Is Seeing This?

Here are two thoughts I believe need to be held at once: Hamas?s attack on Oct. 7 was heinous, murderous and unforgivable, and that makes it more, not less, important to try to understand what Hamas is, how it sees itself and how it presents itself to Palestinians.

Tareq Baconi is the author of ?Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance,? one of the best books on Hamas?s rise and recent history. He?s done extensive work interviewing members of Hamas and mapping the organization?s beliefs and structure.

In this conversation, we discuss the foundational disagreement between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, why Hamas fought the Oslo peace process, the ?violent equilibrium? between Hamas and the Israeli right wing, what Hamas?s 2017 charter reveals about its political goals, why the right of return is sacred for many Palestinians (and what it means in practice), how the leadership vacuum is a ?core question? for Palestinians, why democratic elections for Palestinians are the first step toward continuing negotiations in the future and more.

Book Recommendations:

The Hundred Years? War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

Returning to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani

Light in Gaza edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing and Mike Merryman-Lotze

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-12-05
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A Lot Has Happened in A.I. Let?s Catch Up.

Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of the release of ChatGPT. A lot has happened since. OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, recently dominated headlines again after the nonprofit board of directors fired C.E.O. Sam Altman, only for him to return several days later.

But that drama isn?t actually the most important thing going on in the A.I. world, which hasn?t slowed down over the past year, even as people are still discovering ChatGPT for the first time and reckoning with all of its implications.

Tech journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton are hosts of the weekly podcast ?Hard Fork.? Roose is my colleague at The Times, where he writes a tech column called ?The Shift.? Newton is the founder and editor of Platformer, a newsletter about the intersection of technology and democracy. They?ve been closely tracking developments in the field since well before ChatGPT launched. I invited them on the show to catch up on the state of A.I.

We discuss: who is ? and isn?t ? integrating ChatGPT into their daily lives, the ripe market for A.I. social companions, why so many companies are hesitant to dive in, progress in the field of A.I. ?interpretability? research, and America?s ?fecklessness? that cedes major A.I. benefits to the private sector, and much more.

Recommendations:

Electrifying America by David E. Nye

Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill

?Intro to Large Language Models? by Andrej Karpathy (video)

Import AI by Jack Clark.

AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor

Pragmatic Engineer by Gergely Orosz

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-12-01
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Best Of: This Is Your Brain on Deep Reading. It?s Pretty Magnificent.

Every day, we consume a mind-boggling amount of information. We scan online news articles, sift through text messages and emails, scroll through our social-media feeds ? and that?s usually before we even get out of bed in the morning. In 2009, a team of researchers found that the average American consumed about 34 gigabytes of information a day. Undoubtedly, that number would be even higher today.

But what are we actually getting from this huge influx of information? How is it affecting our memories, our attention spans, our ability to think? What might this mean for today?s children, and future generations? And what does it take to read ? and think ? deeply in a world so flooded with constant input?

Maryanne Wolf is a researcher and scholar at U.C.L.A.?s School of Education and Information Studies. Her books ?Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain? and ?Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World? explore the relationship between the process of reading and the neuroscience of the brain. And, in Wolf?s view, our era of information overload represents a historical inflection point where our ability to read ? truly, deeply read, not just scan or scroll ? hangs in the balance.

In this conversation, recorded in November 2022, we discuss why reading is a fundamentally ?unnatural? act, how scanning and scrolling differ from ?deep reading,? why it?s not accurate to say that ?reading? is just one thing, how our brains process information differently when we?re reading on a Kindle or a laptop as opposed to a physical book, how exposure to such an abundance of information is rewiring our brains and reshaping our society, how to rediscover the lost art of reading books deeply, what Wolf recommends to those of us who struggle against digital distractions, what parents can do to to protect their children?s attention, how Wolf?s theory of a ?biliterate brain? may save our species? ability to deeply process language and information and more.

We?ll be back on Friday, Dec. 1, with a new episode.

Mentioned:

The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse

How We Read Now by Naomi S. Baron

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

Yiruma

Book Recommendations:

The Gilead Novels by Marilynne Robinson

World and Town by Gish Jen

Standing by Words by Wendell Berry

Love?s Mind by John S. Dunne

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. (And if you?re reaching out to recommend a guest, please write  ?Guest Suggestion? in the subject line.)

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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? is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.

2023-11-28
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The Best Primer I?ve Heard on Israeli-Palestinian Peace Efforts

It is too early to talk about a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. With the trauma of Oct. 7 still fresh for the Israeli public and with the ongoing devastation in Gaza, any talk of conflict-ending solutions is cruel fantasy.

But it wasn?t always. Peace efforts in the Middle East have been tried over and over again. It is not a history without breakthroughs. There was a time when a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt would have been unthinkable. But that agreement lives alongside a long list of collapsed negotiations. Why?

I wanted to have someone on the show who could help me read this checkered history. Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of ?The Much Too Promised Land: America?s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.? Few people have been as intimately involved in the many Middle East peace processes as Miller. He?s a decades-long veteran of the State Department who has touched peace negotiations under the Reagan, the Clinton and both Bush administrations. His book is the best I?ve read on the peace processes and what went wrong.

In this conversation, we explore the frustrating, uneven history of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, Miller?s hard-won insights about the reality of peace negotiations and the idiosyncratic personalities who have most influenced the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

Book Recommendations:

The Peace Puzzle by Daniel C. Kurtzer, Scott B. Lasensky, William B. Quandt, Steven L. Spiegel and Shibley Telhami

Arabs and Israelis by Abdel Monem Said Aly, Shai Feldman and Khalil Shikaki

The Missing Peace by Dennis Ross

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Rollin Hu. Mixing by Jeff Geld, with Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero. Archival clips from A.P. Archive, CBS, C-SPAN and NBC.

2023-11-21
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The Sermons I Needed to Hear Right Now

This is a conversation about the relationship between Jewishness and the Jewish State. About believing some aspects of Israel have become indefensible and also believing that Israel itself must be defended. About what it means when a religion built on the lessons of exile creates a state that inflicts exile on others. About the ugly, recurrent reality of antisemitism.

You know, the easy stuff.

In these past few months, I?ve been moved by the sermons of Rabbi Sharon Brous, which have managed to hold these paradoxes with more grace and prophetic wisdom than most. Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish community based in Los Angeles, and the author of the forthcoming book ?The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World.? And so I asked her to be on the show to talk about things that are deeply uncomfortable to talk about.

We discuss the ?great dream? that Israel represents for generations of Jews; Brous?s Yom Kippur sermon reckoning with the moral cost of Israel?s decades-long occupation and its increasingly right-wing government; the ?existential loneliness? she and many in her community felt on Oct. 7; the antisemitism she witnessed in the wake of Oct. 7; how experiences of exile throughout history have shaped the Jewish psyche and speak to us now; stories from her visit with residents of the Kfar Aza kibbutz as they mourned their dead; why ?bearing sacred witness? is a core spiritual commitment; and more.

Mentioned:

?This Is the Moral Earthquake? by Rabbi Sharon Brous (sermon delieverd on Sep. 25, 2023)

?We?ve Lost So Much. Let?s Not Lose Our Damn Minds? by Rabbi Sharon Brous (sermon delieverd on Oct. 14, 2023)

?We Are Hebrews. We Must Act Like It.? by Rabbi Sharon Brous (sermon delivered on Oct. 28, 2023)

Book Recommendations:

The Prophets by Abraham J. Heschel

To Bless the Space Between Us by John O?Donohue

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-11-17
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Are Democrats Whistling Past the Graveyard?

A New York Times and Siena College poll released Nov. 5 showed Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in five of the six key swing states, with a notable jump in support among nonwhite and young voters. In response, Democrats freaked out.

But then two days later, voters across the country actually went to the polls, and Democrats and Democratic-associated policy did pretty well. In Kentucky, Andy Beshear held the governorship. Democrats took back the House of Delegates in Virginia. And Ohio voted for an amendment protecting abortion rights.

I asked Mike Podhorzer, a longtime poll skeptic, to help me understand the apparent gap between the polls and the ballot box. Podhorzer was the longtime political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. And as the founder of the Analyst Institute, he was the godfather of the data-driven turn in Democratic campaign strategy. He also writes a newsletter on these topics called ?Weekend Reading.?

We discuss the underlying assumptions behind polling methodologies and what that says about their results; how to square Biden?s unpopularity with the Democrats? recent wins; why he thinks an anti-MAGA majority is Biden?s best bet to the White House and how that coalition doesn?t always map cleanly onto demographic data; what a newly energized labor movement might means for Biden; and much more.

Mentioned:

?We Gave Four Good Pollsters the Same Raw Data. They Had Four Different Results.? by Nate Cohn

Book Recommendations:

?Politics and the English Language? by George Orwell

Tyranny, Inc. by Sohrab Ahmari

Crashed by Adam Tooze

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Jeff Geld and Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Carole Sabouraud.

2023-11-14
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What Israelis Fear the World Does Not Understand

Earlier this week, we heard a Palestinian perspective on the conflict. Today, I wanted to have on an Israeli perspective.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and the author, most recently, of ?Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.?

In this episode, we discuss Halevi?s unusual education as an Israeli Defense Forces soldier in Gaza during the first intifada, the ?seminal disconnect? between how Israel is viewed from the inside versus from the outside, Halevi?s view that a Palestinian state is both an ?existential need? and an ?existential threat? for Israel, the failures of the Oslo peace process and how the second intifada hardened Israeli attitudes toward peace, what Oct. 7 meant for the contract between the Israeli people and the state, the lessons and limitations of Sept. 11 analogies and much more.

Book Recommendations:

A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

Who By Fire by Matti Friedman

The War of Return by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Kristin Lin. Engineering by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Jeff Geld and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-11-10
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An Intense, Searching Conversation With Amjad Iraqi

Before there can be any kind of stable coexistence of people in Israel and Palestine, there will have to be a stable coexistence of narratives. And that?s what we?ll be attempting this week on the show: to look at both the present and the past through Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. The point is not to choose between them. The point is to really listen to them. Even ? especially ? when what?s being said is hard for us to hear.

Our first episode is with Amjad Iraqi, a senior editor at +972 magazine and a policy analyst at the Al-Shabaka think tank. We discuss the history of Gaza and its role within broader Palestinian politics, the way Hamas and the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached a ?violent equilibrium,? why Palestinians feel ?duped? by the international community, what Hamas thought it could achieve with its attack, whether Israeli security and Palestinian liberty can coexist, Iraqi?s skepticism over peace resolutions that rely on statehood and nationalism, how his own identity as a Palestinian citizen of Israel offers a glimpse at where coexistence can begin and much more.

Mentioned:

Hamas Contained by Tareq Baconi

The Only Language They Understand by Nathan Thrall

Book Recommendations

East West Street by Philippe Sands

Orientalism by Edward Said

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-11-07
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She Polled Gazans on Oct. 6. Here?s What She Found.

The day before Hamas?s horrific attacks in Israel, the Arab Barometer, one of the leading polling operations in the Arab world, was finishing up a survey of public opinion in Gaza.

The result is a remarkable snapshot of how Gazans felt about Hamas and hoped the conflict with Israel would end. And what Gazans were thinking on Oct. 6 matters, now that they?re all living with the brutal consequences of what Hamas did on Oct. 7.

So I invited on the show Amaney Jamal, the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and a co-founder and co-principal investigator of Arab Barometer, so she could walk me through the results.

And, it?s a complicated picture. The people of Gaza, like any other population, have diverse beliefs. But one thing is clear: Hamas was not very popular.

As Jamal and her co-author write: ?The Hamas-led government may be uninterested in peace, but it is empirically wrong for Israeli political leaders to accuse all Gazans of the same.?

Mentioned:

Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research Public Opinion Poll

Washington Institute Poll

Book Recommendations:

The One State Reality edited by Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley

Arabs and Israelis by Abdel Monem Said Aly, Shai Feldman and Khalil Shikaki

A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by Mark Tessler

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Emefa Agawu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-11-03
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If Not This, Then What Should Israel Do?

?Two things are true: Israel must do something, and what it?s doing now is indefensible.? So writes Zack Beauchamp, a senior correspondent at Vox.

Almost a month has passed since Hamas fighters slaughtered over 1,400 people in Israel and the state mounted its furious response. For weeks, Israel has laid siege to Gaza, cutting off water and electricity to the tiny strip of land and carrying out airstrikes that have reportedly killed over 8,000 Palestinians. On Friday a ground invasion began, and the response across much of the globe has been horror. If Israel continues down this road, the cost in Palestinian lives, and in support for Israel, will be immense.

The question that hangs over the criticism is this: What, then, should Israel do? What would be a moral response to Hamas?s savagery and to the very real need Israelis have for security?

Beauchamp, who has covered Israel extensively in recent years, set out to answer that question. He spoke with counterterrorism experts, military historians, experts on Hamas, ethicists and more. I found his piece ?What Israel Should Do Now? one of the best I?ve read since Oct. 7. So I asked him to join me on the show.

Mentioned:

"Fears Grow That Israel Has 'No Plan' Agreed for Postwar Gaza" by Neri Zilber and Felicia Schwartz

Book Recommendations:

A High Price by Daniel Byman

The Selected Works of Edward Said, 1966 ? 2006 by Edward W. Said

The Accidental Empire by Gershom Gorenberg

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Emefa Agawu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Efim Shapiro.

2023-10-31
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The Conflicted Legacy of Mitt Romney

After factional infighting dominated the G.O.P.?s struggle to elect a House speaker, it feels weirdly quaint to revisit Mitt Romney?s career. He?s served as governor, U.S. senator and presidential nominee for a Republican Party now nearly unrecognizable from what it was when he started out. At the end of his time in public office, Romney has found a new clarity in his identity as the consummate institutionalist in an increasingly anti-constitutionalist party. But as a newly published biography of him shows, that wasn?t always the case.

McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic, interviewed Romney dozens of times over the past several years and had access to his private journals, emails, and text messages. In this resulting biography ?Romney: A Reckoning,? Coppins pushes Romney to wrestle with his own role ? even complicity ? in what his party has become.

In this conversation, guest host Carlos Lozada and Coppins examine Romney?s legacy at a time when it may seem increasingly out of place with the mainstream G.O.P. They dive deep into the key decisions and events in Romney?s life; discuss the looming influence Mitt Romney?s father, George, also a Republican presidential candidate, had over his life; how Romney rationalized appeasing figures on the campaign trail he found disdainful, including Tea Party populists and an early 2010s Donald Trump; how he failed to articulate just why he wanted to be president; the many grudges he has against members of his own party who acquiesced or embraced Trump; how Romney will be remembered by history; and much more.

This episode was hosted by Carlos Lozada, a columnist for The New York Times Opinion, and the author of ?What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era.? Lozada is also a host on ?Matter of Opinion,? a weekly podcast from New York Times Opinion.

Book Recommendations:

The Last Politician by Franklin Foer

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-10-27
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The Jewish Left Is Trying to Hold Two Thoughts at Once

Grief moves slowly and war moves quickly. After Hamas assailants killed at least 1,400 Israelis and took hundreds more hostage, Israel dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza in the first week of a conflict that is still ongoing. So far, more than 5,000 Palestinians are reported dead and many more injured. There?s no one way to cover this that reconciles all that is happening and all that needs to be felt.

My approach is going to be to try to cover it from many different perspectives, but I wanted to start with the one I?m closest to, which has felt particularly tricky in recent weeks: that of the Jewish left. So I invited Spencer Ackerman and Peter Beinart on to the show.

Ackerman is an award-winning columnist for The Nation and the author of ?Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump? and the newsletter Forever Wars. Peter Beinart is an editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, the author of the Beinart Notebook newsletter and a professor of journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. And they?ve each taken up angles I think are particularly important right now: the way that Sept. 11 should inform both Israel?s response and the need to empower different kinds of actors and tactics if we want to see a different future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Together we discuss the goals behind Hamas?s initial attack on Israeli Jewish civilians, how the attack changed the psychology of Jews living in and out of Israel and what Israel is trying to achieve in its military response.

Mentioned:

?There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.? by Peter Beinart

?A Deal Signed in Blood? by Spencer Ackerman

Book Recommendations:

The Hundred Years? War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba edited by Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha

Israel?s Secret Wars by Ian Black

The Question of Palestine by Edward W. Said

Strangers in the House by Raja Shehadeh

Hamas Contained by Tareq Baconi

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-10-24
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Israel Is Giving Hamas What It Wants

Oct. 7 was Israel?s Sept. 11. That?s been the refrain. I fear that analogy carries so much more truth than the people making it intend.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This audio essay for ?The Ezra Klein Show? was fact-checked by Michelle Harris, with Mary-Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

2023-10-18
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We Need Better Narratives About Gender

It?s a time of contrast and contradiction for gender queerness in America: At the same time that about 5 percent of Americans under 30 identify as transgender or nonbinary, over 20 states have passed some sort of restriction on gender-affirming care for children. In 2023 alone, over 550 anti-trans bills have been introduced across the country.

The political push and pull can overshadow a broad spectrum of rich questions and possibilities that queer culture opens up ? about how we think about identity and social categories, how we structure our communities and support networks, our anxieties about having children who are different from ourselves, how gender norms shape all bodies and how difficult it can be to make big life decisions.

Masha Gessen is a staff writer at The New Yorker who has thought deeply about many of these questions. ?Gender is something that happens between me and other people,? they say. In this conversation, the guest host Lydia Polgreen asks Gessen, who identifies as trans and nonbinary, what the social and political shift around gender has looked like to them in the past few decades.

They discuss why gender has captured the conservative imagination, how L.G.B.T.Q. activists have fallen into the ?regret trap,? what it means to understand gender expression as a choice rather than something biologically determined, why Gessen prefers a liberatory framework focused on protecting freedoms-to rather than freedoms-from when thinking about L.G.B.T.Q. issues, how gender-affirming care is not just for trans people, how the making of the 1999 movie ?The Matrix? reflects the rapid social change around trans visibility in the United States, the anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiments that made Gessen decide to leave their home in Russia,how gender conformity is social contagion and more.

This episode was hosted by Lydia Polgreen, a New York Times Opinion columnist and a co-host on the weekly Opinion podcast ?Matter of Opinion.? She previously served as the managing director of Gimlet, a podcast studio at Spotify, and as the editor in chief of HuffPost.

Mentioned:

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Book Recommendations:

The Myth of the Wrong Body by Miquel Misse

Conundrum by Jan Morris

Who?s Afraid of Gender by Judith Butler

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Annie-Rose Strasser. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Isaac Jones.

2023-10-10
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Meet the ?Angry, Aggrieved? New Right

The New Right has been associated with everyone from Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to right-wing influencers and Catholic integralists. The breadth of the term can make it hard to define: Is the New Right a budding ideological movement or a toxic online subculture? What does it mean if it?s both?

Stephanie Slade is a senior editor at the magazine Reason, and has covered the New Right extensively. She argues that the New Right subverts the conventional left/right political binary and is better understood as the illiberal backlash to classical liberalism.

This conversation is a tour of the New Right. The guest host, David French, talks to Slade about the politicians who have been attached to the ideological movement; why the New Right is critical of Reaganism; her problems with its self-branding as ?common good conservatism?; how the Ron DeSantis ?Stop Woke Act? signals a diversion from conservative free speech values; why the New Right is so angry; how online factions of the New Right are often in a delicate dance between flirting with bigotry and actually aligning with the provocative beliefs they post; why Catholic integralism matters, even if the average Catholic might have never heard of the ideology; and much more.

This episode was hosted by David French, an Opinion columnist at The New York Times. Previously, he was a senior editor and co-founder of The Dispatch and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

Mentioned:

More information about Ezra?s lecture at UC Berkeley

?The Lost Boys of the American Right? by David French

?Both Left and Right Are Converging on Authoritarianism? by Stephanie Slade

Book Recommendations:

Radicals for Capitalism by Brian Doherty

The Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Annie-Rose Strasser. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-10-03
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Two Attorneys Rank the Severity of Trump?s Indictments

With four ongoing criminal investigations, Donald Trump is the most indicted president in U.S. history. After years of defying unwritten norms, he will now be subject to a criminal justice system defined by norms and precedents. What does due process look like for a former president?

Ken White is a former federal prosecutor, a practicing criminal defense lawyer and a co-host of the podcast ?Serious Trouble.? He writes the popular newsletter The Popehat Report, extensively covering the ins and outs of criminal trials. Among the many commentators on Trump?s unprecedented legal troubles, White stands out for his ?lawsplainers,? which analyze the gap between what the law says and what it actually does.

This conversation walks through each of the four major criminal cases against Trump. Our guest host David French asks White why he loathes the overuse of the RICO statute and whether it was appropriately used in the Georgia election interference indictment. They also discuss the Florida judge whose ?functionally lawless? decision halted parts of the Mar-a-Lago investigation, White?s view that prosecutors can get away with much more in state court than in federal court, how the district attorney in the Georgia case is approaching this ?circuslike? indictment, why Trump?s legal intent is both more and less complicated than the public discourse suggests and much more.

This episode was hosted by David French, a columnist at The New York Times. Previously, he was a senior editor and co-founder of The Dispatch and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

This episode contains strong language.

Book Recommendations:

Pax by Tom Holland

The Shadow Docket by Stephen Vladeck

The Enchanters by James Ellroy

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Annie-Rose Strasser. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Isaac Jones.

2023-09-26
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Boundaries, Burnout and the 'Goopification' of Self-Care

Love it or hate it, self-care has transformed from a radical feminist concept into a multibillion-dollar industry. But the wellness boom doesn?t seem to be making a dent in Americans? stress levels. In 2021, 34 percent of women reported feeling burned out at work, along with 26 percent of men.

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, a psychiatrist, has observed how wellness culture fails her patients, who she says are often burned out because of systemic failures, from the stresses that come with financial precariousness to the lack of paid family leave. In her book ?Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included),? she encourages people to look beyond superficial fixes ? the latest juice cleanses, yoga workshops, luxury bamboo sheets ? to feel better. Instead, she argues that real self-care requires embracing internal work, which she outlines as four practices: setting boundaries, practicing self-compassion, aligning your values and exercising power. Lakshmin argues that when you practice real self-care, you not only take care of yourself, but you can also plant the seeds for change in your community.

In this conversation, the guest host, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Lakshmin discuss how the pandemic opened up a larger conversation about parental burnout; how countries with more robust social safety nets frame care as a right, not a benefit; why it?s fair to understand burnout as a type of societal ?betrayal?; how to practice boundary-setting and why it can feel uncomfortable to do so; the convenient allure of ?faux self-care?; and more.

This episode was hosted by Tressie McMillan Cottom, a columnist for Times Opinion, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of ?Thick: And Other Essays.? Cottom also writes a newsletter for Times Opinion that offers a sociologist?s perspective on culture, politics and the economics of our everyday lives.

Mentioned:

More information about Ezra?s Jefferson Memorial Lecture

?We Don?t Need Self-Care; We Need Boundaries? by Pooja Lakshmin

?How Society Has Turned Its Back on Mothers? by Pooja Lakshmin

?Our Obsession With Wellness Is Hurting Teens ? and Adults? by The Ezra Klein Show with Lisa Damour

?A Legendary World Builder on Multiverses, Revolution and the ?Souls? of Cities? by The Ezra Klein Show with N.K. Jemisin

Book Recommendations:

Living Resistance by Kaitlin B. Curtice

The Emotional Lives of Teenagers by Lisa Damour

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. The senior engineer is Jeff Geld. The senior editor is Annie-Rose Strasser. The show?s production team includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-09-19
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America?s Top Librarian on the Rise of Book Bans

Public libraries around the country have become major battlegrounds for today?s culture wars. In 2022, the American Library Association noted a record 1,269 attempts at censorship ? almost double the number recorded in 2021. Library events like drag story times and other children?s programming have also attracted protest. How should we understand these efforts to control what stories children can freely access?

Emily Drabinski is the president of the American Library Association and an associate professor at the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She is steering an embattled organization at a moment when libraries ? and librarians themselves ? are increasingly under fire.

This conversation unpacks the political and cultural anxieties fueling the attacks on libraries. The guest host Tressie McMillan Cottom discusses with Drabinski how libraries are a bulwark against the increasing class divides of American life, how the ?small infrastructure? of the public library differs from big infrastructure like highways and bridges, how library classification systems can entrench the status quo, the parallels between political attacks on the library and the U.S. Postal Service, how censorship attempts fit in the broader landscape of anti-queer and anti-trans legislation and much more.

This episode was hosted by Tressie McMillan Cottom, a columnist for Times Opinion, a professor at U.N.C. Chapel Hill and the author of ?Thick: And Other Essays.? Cottom also writes a newsletter for Times Opinion that offers a sociologist?s perspective on culture, politics and the economics of our everyday lives.

Mentioned:

More information about Ezra?s lecture at UC Berkeley

Book Recommendations:

The Promise of Access by Daniel Greene

Flamer by Mike Curato

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Annie-Rose Strasser. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-09-12
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What Have We Learned From a Summer of Climate Reckoning?

This summer has been a parade of broken climate records. June was the hottest June and July was not just the hottest July but the hottest month ever on record. At the same time, it looks like we are at the start of a green revolution: Decarbonization efforts have gone far better than what many had hoped for just a few years ago, and renewable energy is getting cheaper.

How should we make sense of these seemingly mixed signals? What does it mean to hold the pessimism of climate disaster and the optimism of climate action together?

There are few individuals better suited to navigate these questions than Kate Marvel, a senior climate scientist at Project Drawdown. In a conversation with guest host David Wallace-Wells, Marvel explores whether climate change is ?accelerating,? why reducing air pollution will lead to more warming before it leads to less; how the human response to a changing climate can be more unpredictable than the climate itself; how witch burnings increased during the last major change in climate; what the relationship is between hotter weather and social unrest; how decarbonization sets us on track to avoiding the worst-case climate models; why, despite all the challenges ahead, there are still immeasurable benefits to fighting for a cleaner planet and much more.

This episode was hosted by David Wallace-Wells, a writer at The New York Times Magazine and the author of ?The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming.? He also writes a newsletter for New York Times Opinion that explores climate change, technology and the future of the planet and how we live on it.

Mentioned:

Beyond Catastrophe by David Wallace-Wells

Book Recommendations:

?On Exactitude in Science? by Jorge Luis Borges

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Troubled Waters by Mary Annaïse Heglar

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-09-05
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It?s Time to Talk About ?Pandemic Revisionism?

Should schools have been closed down? Were lockdowns a mistake? Was masking even effective? Was the economic stimulus too big?

These are the questions that have defined the national conversation about Covid in recent months. They have been the subject of congressional hearings led by Republicans, of G.O.P. candidate stump speeches and of too many Twitter debates to count.

Katelyn Jetelina is an epidemiologist and the author of the popular newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist. She argues that we?ve entered a new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic: ?pandemic revisionism.? In her telling, the revisionist impulse seduces us into swapping cheap talking points for the thorny, difficult decisions we actually faced ? and may face again with the next novel virus.

So this conversation centers on the myths ? and realities ? associated with how we remember the pandemic. It explores what the evidence on the effectiveness of masking says, the fact that the United States was locked down for less than two months, the surprising consensus over social-distancing policy among Democratic and Republican governors early in the pandemic, why the tale of Sweden?s controversial approach to the pandemic is misleading, why the American media paid so much more attention to the first 100,000 U.S. Covid deaths than to the next 900,000, why school closures weren?t as wrongheaded a policy as often portrayed in hindsight, whether Donald Trump gets enough credit for Operation Warp Speed and more.

This episode was hosted by David Wallace-Wells, a writer at The New York Times Magazine and the author of ?The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming.? He also writes a newsletter for New York Times Opinion that explores climate change, technology, the future of the planet and how we live on it.

Book Recommendations:

Lessons from the Covid War by Covid Crisis Group

Open by Andre Agassi

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-08-29
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When Great Power Conflict and Climate Action Collide

The global decarbonization effort is colliding headfirst with the realities of great power politics. China currently controls more than 75 percent of the world?s electric vehicle battery and solar photovoltaic manufacturing supply chains. It also processes the bulk of the so-called critical minerals, like lithium, cobalt and graphite, that are essential to building out clean energy technologies. There is no clean energy revolution without China.

What would happen if China decided to weaponize its clean energy resources in the same way Russia recently weaponized its oil and gas? Is it possible for the U.S. to end its energy dependency on China by investing in clean energy at home? What does this geopolitical reality mean for the prospect of meeting the world?s climate goals?

Over the past few years, Jason Bordoff and Meghan O?Sullivan have been at the forefront of mapping out the ways decarbonization will upend the world?s economic and geopolitical order. Bordoff is the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former senior director for energy and climate change for the National Security Council under Barack Obama. O?Sullivan is the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration.

In Bordoff and O?Sullivan?s view, decarbonization won?t just affect what kinds of cars we drive or how we power our homes. It will transform everything from the nature of international markets and trade relations to the global balance of military and diplomatic power. And it will create new economic superpowers, new alliances and new sources of geopolitical conflict in the process.

This conversation explores the contours of this transformation and what it will mean for the future of the climate and world politics.

Mentioned:

?The Age of Energy Insecurity? by Jason Bordoff and Meghan L. O?Sullivan

?A Critical Minerals Policy for the United States? by Meghan L. O?Sullivan and Jason Bordoff

?Biden?s Historic Climate Bill Needs Smart Foreign Policy? by Jason Bordoff

?The Nuances of Energy Transition Investments? by Columbia Energy Exchange, with Larry Fink

Book Recommendations:

The Prize by Daniel Yergin

Silent Spring Revolution by Douglas Brinkley

The Avoidable War by Kevin Rudd

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates

This episode is guest-hosted by Rogé Karma, the senior editor for ?The Ezra Klein Show.? Rogé has been with the show since July 2019, when it was based at Vox. At Vox, he also wrote and conducted interviews on topics ranging from policing and racial justice to democracy reform and the coronavirus pandemic.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Rogé Karma. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-08-22
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This Conservative Thinks America?s Institutions ?Earned? Their Distrust

You can?t understand the modern Republican Party without understanding the complete collapse of trust in mainstream institutions that has taken place among its voters over the last half-century.

In 1964, 73 percent of Republicans said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing always or most of the time. Today, that number is down to 9 percent. And it?s not just government. Pew found that only 35 percent of Republicans trust national news and 61 percent think public schools are having a negative effect on the country. Many of the issues animating the modern right ? from fights over school curriculums and learning loss to media bias and Covid vaccines ? are connected to this deep distrust.

Mary Katharine Ham is a journalist and conservative commentator who has appeared on CNN, Fox News and ABC News. In Katharine Ham?s view, America?s institutions have ?earned? her party?s rampant distrust. Across her writings, she has leveled scathing critiques of numerous mainstream institutions, from the media to the C.D.C. and universities, arguing that these institutions have consistently failed to serve ordinary Americans. So this is a conversation that explores Katharine Ham?s critique in order to understand the distrust at the heart of the Republican Party.

Mentioned:

?Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Coalition of the Distrustful? by Michelle Goldberg

End of Discussion by Mary Katharine Ham and Guy Benson

Book Recommendations:

Wise Blood by Flannery O?Connor

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

The Right by Matthew Continetti

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Kristin Lin. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-08-15
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A Conservative on How His Party Has Changed Since 2016

The 2024 Republican presidential primary is officially underway, and Donald Trump is dominating the field. But this is a very different contest than it was in 2016. Back then, the Republican Party was the party of foreign policy interventionism, free trade and cutting entitlements, and Trump was the insurgent outsider unafraid to buck the consensus. Today, Trump and his views have become the consensus.

The primary, then, raises some important questions: How has Donald Trump changed the Republican Party over the past eight years? Is Trumpism an actual set of policy views or just a political aesthetic? And if Trump does become the nominee again, where does the party go from here?

Ben Domenech is a longtime conservative writer who served as a speechwriter in George W. Bush?s administration and co-founded several right-leaning outlets, including RedState and The Federalist. He?s currently a Fox News contributor, an editor at large at The Spectator and the author of the newsletter The Transom. From these different perches, he has closely traced the various ways the Republican Party has and, crucially, has not changed over the past decade.

This conversation explores whether Donald Trump really did break open a G.O.P. policy consensus in 2016, the legacy of what Domenech calls ?boomer Republicanism,? how to reconcile Trump?s continued dominance with his surprisingly poor electoral record, the rise of ?Barstool conservatism? and other new cultural strands on the right, whether conservatives actually want ?National Review conservatism policy? with a ?Breitbart conservatism attitude,? what Domenech thinks a G.O.P. candidate would need to do to outperform Trump and more.

This episode contains strong language.

This episode was hosted by Jane Coaston, a staff writer for Times Opinion. Previously, she hosted ?The Argument,? a New York Times Opinion podcast. Before that she was the senior politics reporter at Vox, with a focus on conservatism and the G.O.P.

Mentioned:

The Revolution with Steve Kornacki

Book Recommendations:

The War on the West by Douglas Murray

The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver

Running the Light by Sam Tallent

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Emefa Agawu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show?s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-08-08
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How Martin Wolf Understands This Global Economic Moment

The world economy has experienced many shocks over the past few years: A pandemic. Russia?s invasion of Ukraine. Skyrocketing inflation. These are the stories that have dominated headlines ? and for good reason.

But they?ve also overshadowed a set of deeper, more fundamental shifts ? the rise of China as an economic superpower, the fracturing of trade relations, the realities of the climate crisis ? that are transforming the global economic order and prompting ambitious policy responses from leaders across the world.

Martin Wolf is the chief economics commentator at The Financial Times, a former senior economist at the World Bank and the author, most recently, of ?The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. Across his writings, Wolf has developed some of the clearest frameworks for thinking about how the global economy is changing and some of the sharpest critiques of how policymakers are responding to those changes.

We discuss how China?s meteoric economic rise has shaken the foundations of the global economy, why globalization has remained far more resilient than so many predicted, why Wolf is skeptical that President Biden?s industrial policy agenda will succeed, the debate between ?onshoring? and ?friendshoring? that is dividing the Democratic Party, why a recession in the United States is looking far less likely than it did six months ago, the virtues and vices of Biden?s ?foreign policy for the middle class,? why China?s recent economic troubles could signal a more foundational decline, why the U.S. economy has remained so much more stronger than most economists anticipated, and more.

Mentioned:

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan?s speech

?The I.R.A. Passed a Year Ago. Here?s a Progress Check? by The Ezra Klein Show, with Robinson Meyer

?The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade? by David H. Autor, David Dorn and Gordon H. Hanson

?Is the Global Economy Deglobalizing?? by Pinelopi Goldberg and Tristan Reed

?Climate Progress and the 117th Congress: The Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act? by REPEAT Project

Book Recommendations:

The Narrow Corridor by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Power and Progress by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson

The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert J. Gordon

This episode is guest-hosted by Rogé Karma, the senior editor for ?The Ezra Klein Show.? Rogé has been with the show since July 2019, when it was based at Vox. He works closely with Ezra on everything related to the show, from editing to interview prep to guest selection. At Vox, he also wrote and conducted interviews on topics ranging from policing and racial justice to democracy reform and the coronavirus pandemic.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Rogé Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Kristin Lin. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Efim Shapiro.

2023-08-01
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Biden, Psychedelics, Twitter, My New Book ? and So Much More

As I head into a three-month book leave, I wanted to take some time to address a wide array of listeners? questions. My column editor, Aaron Retica, joins me for a conversation that ranges from the content of my forthcoming book and President Biden?s climate record to the simulation hypothesis and legalized psychedelic therapy.

We also discuss what the I-95 collapse ? and remarkably quick repairs ? tell us about government?s ability to build quickly, the problems with everything-bagel liberalism, what it would mean to treat climate change like the emergency that it is, why I dislike analogies between Biden and Franklin Roosevelt, why health care reform has receded from the center of American political debate, whether liberals are being too soft on Hunter Biden, why I am staunchly against term limits for Congress, what kinds of work are most undervalued in American society, why I?ve become less pessimistic about artificial intelligence disinformation, why I left Twitter but have been enjoying Threads, the challenges of keeping a Sabbath practice and more.

This episode contains strong language.

Note: Starting next week, ?The Ezra Klein Show? will be releasing episodes only once per week, every Tuesday, until Ezra returns from his book leave in early November. These episodes will be hosted by a range of guest hosts.

Mentioned:

?The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism? by Ezra Klein

?The Book I Wish Every Policymaker Would Read? by The Ezra Klein Show, with Jennifer Pahlka

?Two Theories of What I?m Getting Wrong? by Ezra Klein

?The Greens? Dilemma? by J. B. Ruhl and James E. Salzman

?Not Everyone Should Have a Say? by Jerusalem Demsas

We?ve Got You Covered by Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein

?This Is Your Brain on ?Deep Reading.? It?s Pretty Magnificent.? by The Ezra Klein Show, with Maryanne Wolf

?Elon Musk Got Twitter Because He Gets Twitter? by Ezra Klein

?Sabbath and the Art of Rest? by The Ezra Klein Show, with Judith Shulevitz

Music Recommendations:

?Orange? by Caroline Shaw and Attacca Quartet

Fred again..: Tiny Desk Concert on NPR Music

?USB? by Fred again..

?Midas? by Maribou State

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Annie Galvin. Fact checking by Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show?s production team also includes Emefa Agawu, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

2023-07-25
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