The Ezra Klein Show - podcast cover

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinionwww.nytimes.com
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? Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Episodes

There Is a Liberal Answer to Elon Musk

Ezra Klein analyzes the Democratic Party's struggles with governing effectively, particularly in states like California and New York, where high costs of living are driving residents away. He uses the example of California's failed high-speed rail project to illustrate how liberal policies and bureaucratic processes can hinder progress and create scarcity. He argues that Democrats must confront their role in creating these problems and embrace a politics of abundance to counter the populist right's exploitation of scarcity.

Mar 09, 202517 min

This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test

Ezra Klein and Aaron Retica analyze Trump's address to Congress, dissecting its lies, loyalty tests, and authoritarian undertones. They explore the speech's economic implications, attacks on Democrats, and the administration's vision for America, highlighting contradictions and the collision between Trump's rhetoric and reality. The discussion also covers the role of figures like RFK Jr. and the challenges facing the Democratic opposition.

Mar 05, 202549 min

The Government Knows AGI is Coming

Ezra Klein interviews Ben Buchanan, former AI advisor in the Biden White House, about the rapid approach of AGI and its implications. They discuss the US-China competition, national security risks, labor market disruptions, and the need for both safety measures and proactive preparation. Buchanan emphasizes the importance of government readiness and international cooperation in navigating this transformative technology.

Mar 04, 20251 hr 6 min

The Dark Heart of Trump's Foreign Policy

Fareed Zakaria analyzes Donald Trump's foreign policy doctrine, highlighting its rejection of the open international system and its focus on leveraging American power through unconventional means. The discussion covers the implications of Trump's approach on alliances, trade, and global stability, questioning whether it represents a strategic shift or a dangerous dismantling of established norms. The conversation also explores potential lessons for both Democrats and Republicans in navigating the evolving geopolitical landscape.

Mar 01, 20251 hr 21 min

A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics

Martin Gurri discusses his theory of media's impact on politics, arguing that the shift from scarce to abundant information has fueled distrust and instability. He reflects on how this dynamic played out in the Trump era and explores the potential for a new political order. Gurri also examines the role of free speech, censorship, and the challenges of governing in the digital age.

Feb 25, 20251 hr 4 min

A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently

After the elections, I started asking congressional Democrats the same question: If the elections had gone the other way, if they had won a trifecta, what would be their first big bill? In almost every case, they said they didn’t know. That’s a problem. Democrats are in the opposition now. That means fighting the worst of what Trump is doing. But it also means providing an alternative. So one thing I’m going to do this year is talk to Democrats who are trying to find that alternative — an agenda...

Feb 18, 20251 hr 4 min

The Republican Party’s NPC Problem — and Ours

What happens when ambition no longer checks ambition? 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 audio essay for “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by our supervising editor, Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Mixing by E...

Feb 16, 202518 min

What if Trump Just Ignores the Courts?

We are moving into the next phase of Donald Trump’s presidency. Phase 1 was the blitz of executive actions. Now comes the response from the other parts of the government — namely, the courts. A slew of judges, some of them Republican appointees, have frozen a number of the administration’s most aggressive actions: the destruction of U.S.A.I.D., the spending freeze, DOGE’s access to the Treasury payments system and the executive order to end birthright citizenship, to name just a few. The adminis...

Feb 11, 20251 hr 35 min

What Elon Musk Wants

Elon Musk has been on a slash-and-burn tear through the federal government — gaining access to I.T. systems, dismantling U.S.A.I.D. and unleashing a firehose of attacks on his platform, X, accusing the bureaucracy of various conspiratorial crimes. As this all unfolds before our eyes, it’s hard to believe that Musk, not that long ago, was a conventional Obama-era liberal. How did a guy who cared about climate change and going to Mars, whose companies were buoyed by government largess, become Dona...

Feb 07, 20251 hr 7 min

The Breaking of the Constitutional Order

There are two pieces to this episode. First, a tour of what Donald Trump has done — and what he has backed down from doing — over the last few days. There’s a lesson there. Perhaps Democrats are starting to learn it. Then I wanted to hear the view of Trump’s first weeks back in office from someone on the right — someone who agrees with many of Trump’s policies, but also understands how the government works and who cares about our Constitution. Yuval Levin is the director of social, cultural and ...

Feb 05, 20251 hr 19 min

Don't Believe Him

Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term and you’ll see something very different than what he wants you to see. 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 audio essay for “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by o...

Feb 02, 202514 min

MAGA’s Big Tech Divide

MAGA has long been hostile to Big Tech. So now that Big Tech is shifting rightward, what does that mean for MAGA? “We’re seeing a true political coalition having to navigate very, very big questions about how to keep themselves together,” James Pogue told me. He’s a contributing writer at Times Opinion who has been covering the intellectual ferment on the New Right for years. And he just published a great piece about the tensions between the techno-optimists and skeptics within the MAGA coalitio...

Jan 28, 20251 hr 34 min

Let’s Get to the Marrow of What Trump Just Did

On the first day of President Trump’s second term, he signed a record 26 executive orders. Some of them were really big. Others feel more likely messaging memos. And still others are bound to be held up in the courts. So what does it all amount to? What exactly in America has changed? In a former life, I co-hosted a podcast called “The Weeds” with other policy wonks at Vox, including Dara Lind and Matthew Yglesias. We’ve since gone our separate ways; Lind is currently a senior fellow at the Amer...

Jan 25, 20251 hr 3 min

So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means

There’s a quieter transition happening beneath the pageantry of this week’s inaugural events — a transition not of power per se but of the rules around how power in Washington works. And the new rules look very different from the old ones. In this conversation, I’m joined by Aaron Retica, an editor at large for New York Times Opinion (and my column editor), to discuss what President Trump’s inaugural address and first round of executive orders signal about the administration to come. We talk abo...

Jan 22, 202548 min

Democrats are Losing the War for Attention. Badly.

Trump is a master at wielding attention. He’s been owning news cycles and squatting in Americans’ minds for much of the last decade. And for his second term he has an ally in Elon Musk, a man with a similar uncanny skill set. Trump and Musk seem to have figured out something about how attention works in our fragmented media age — and how to use it for political and cultural power — that Democrats simply haven’t. So what is it? What do they understand about attention that their opponents don’t? C...

Jan 17, 20251 hr 13 min

Biden Promised to ‘Turn the Page’ on Trump. What Went Wrong?

Joe Biden wanted to show Americans that there was a better path than Trumpism. He worked to build a “foreign policy for the middle class.” He centered industrial policy. He took a more competitive tack with China. He kept America out of wars. The hope was that if Americans saw foreign policy serving their interests, then that would dim the appeal of someone like Donald Trump. Then Trump won again — stronger than ever. Jake Sullivan is Biden’s national security adviser and one of the key architec...

Jan 14, 20251 hr 8 min

Trump 2.0 and the Return of ‘Court Politics’

The preview we’ve had into Donald Trump’s second administration already feels, by American standards, disturbingly abnormal: Picking a former “Fox and Friends” host for defense secretary. Billionaire after billionaire trekking to Mar-a-Lago to curry favor with the president-elect. The Washington Post withholding an opposing endorsement. Meta ending its third-party fact-checking. But all of this is actually pretty normal — not in the U.S. but in many other countries. Researchers call them persona...

Jan 10, 20251 hr 7 min

Burned Out? Start Here.

I like to begin each year with an episode about something I’m working through more personally. And at the end of last year, the thing I needed to work through was a pretty bad case of burnout. So I picked up Oliver Burkeman’s latest book, “ Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts .” Burkeman’s big idea, which he also explores in his best seller “ Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ,” is that the desire to be more productive, to ...

Jan 07, 20251 hr 5 min

Best Of: Sabbath and the Art of Rest

I have a tendency to end the year feeling pretty worn out. And that’s partly because I struggle to rest properly throughout the year, to build rest into a routine and stick to it. That’s how I was feeling at the end of 2022, when we originally taped this episode. And it’s certainly how I’m feeling at the end of this year, so this felt like a valuable episode to revisit. Judith Shulevitz’s wonderful book, “ The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time ,” draws out lessons from the Jew...

Dec 27, 20241 hr 2 min

What I’m Thinking at the End of 2024

There’s a lot to process as 2024 draws to a close. In our end-of-year Ask Me Anything, the supervising editor of “The Ezra Klein Show,” Claire Gordon, joins Ezra in the studio to ask your questions – on politics, and lots of not-politics too. Ezra talks about the ways this year has affected him personally: how his views on government have changed; his efforts to stave off burnout; and his off-again, on-again relationship with social media. They also discuss the making of the show: the accusation...

Dec 24, 202451 min

Yes, Biden’s Green Future Can Still Happen Under Trump

In 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, ushering in, by some estimates, nearly half a trillion dollars of investment in green energy and manufacturing. But what will happen to this huge investment as Donald Trump enters office? Jigar Shah is one of the best people to answer this question. As the director of the Loan Programs Office at the Department of Energy, he has spent his career finding new ways to finance green infrastructure. And he’s more optimistic than you might ex...

Dec 20, 20241 hr 1 min

‘A Sword and a Shield’: How the Supreme Court Supercharged Trump’s Power

Donald Trump will enter office at a time when presidential power has significantly expanded, because of a string of Supreme Court decisions in recent years. These decisions can be understood to have two functions: They give presidents a “sword” to act more decisively and unilaterally, and a “shield” that protects them from prosecution against actions taken in their official capacity. What will these capacities mean for Trump’s second term — especially as he has promised to radically transform th...

Dec 17, 202445 min

Best Of: How TV, Twitter and TikTok Remade Our Politics

This election felt like the peak of the TV-ification of politics. There’s Trump, of course, who rose to national prominence as a reality-TV character and is a master of visual stagecraft. And while Trump’s cabinet picks in his first term were described as out of central casting, this time he wants to staff some positions directly from the worlds of TV and entertainment: Pete Hegseth, his choice to run the Pentagon, was a host on “Fox and Friends Weekend”; his proposed education secretary, Linda ...

Dec 13, 20241 hr 4 min

You Had a Lot of Questions About the Election

This is our first bonus content of the paywall era, a subscriber-only, election-themed “ask me anything.” If you haven’t subscribed and would like to, you can do that directly through Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or click here . If you don’t want to subscribe, you’ll still have an end-of-year “ask me anything” coming down your feed — a mix of politics and things in life that, thankfully, aren’t politics. And if you do subscribe, thank you so much for supporting the show. We hope you enjoy this li...

Dec 10, 202441 min

Best Of: Why the Far Right Is Thriving Across the Globe

It was possible to see Donald Trump’s first election victory as some kind of fluke. But after the results of this election, it’s clear that America is living in the Trump era. And for Americans who’ve struggled to process this fact, you have lots of company around the world. From Hungary to Brazil, right-wing figures with openly authoritarian goals have been voted into power, to the concern of many of the people who live there. A political phenomenon that spans countries like this — especially c...

Dec 06, 20241 hr 31 min

It's the Corruption, Stupid

Right after the election, I talked about how the results reminded me of 2004. George W. Bush won re-election that year — and unlike four years earlier, the popular vote, too. Democrats were truly, undeniably in the wilderness. But two years later, they found their way out. Democrats won the House for the first time in 12 years. And two years after that, with the election of Barack Obama, they completed their trifecta. Does that comeback story have any lessons for Democrats today? Rahm Emanuel is...

Dec 03, 20241 hr 12 min

Would Bernie Have Won?

There are a lot of different opinions about how the Democratic Party should rebuild after the blow of Donald Trump’s victory. And for the next two episodes, we’re going to showcase two very different ones. Faiz Shakir was Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign manager, and he believes that Democrats need to embrace a Sanders-style class-first populism. This question of whether Sanders or a candidate like him could have beaten Trump loomed over Democratic post-mortems of the 2016 election, and they’ve re...

Nov 26, 20241 hr 16 min

In This House, We’re Angry When Government Fails

The core conflict in our politics right now is over institutions. Democrats defend them, while Republicans distrust them, and seek, in some cases, to eliminate them. This is really bad. It’s bad for institutions when Republicans are elected, because of the damage they might inflict. And it’s bad for institutions when Democrats are elected, because when you’re so committed to protecting something, it’s hard to be clear-eyed or honest about all the ways it’s failing. And when Democrats won’t admit...

Nov 22, 20241 hr 9 min

Trump Kicks Down the Guardrails

I’ve been watching since the election to see what timeline we’re in. And Donald Trump’s first wave of selections for appointees were pretty straightforward. But then came the turn: Pete Hegseth, a former “Fox & Friends” host, to helm the Pentagon; Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence; and the real gut-punch, the former representative Matt Gaetz for attorney general. In the parts of government that can be weaponized most dangerously — the military, the intelligence services, th...

Nov 19, 20241 hr 7 minEp. 1

The End of the Obama Coalition

The Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging nonwhite and working-class voters. There are a lot of theories about why that has been happening, blaming it on the party’s ideas or messaging or campaign tactics. But I think the problem might be deeper than that — rooted in the structure of the Democratic Party itself. Michael Lind is a columnist at Tablet magazine, a co-founder of New America and the author of “ The New Class War: Saving Democracy From the Managerial Elite .” He argues that the Democ...

Nov 13, 20241 hr 5 min
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