Join The New Yorker’s writers and editors for reporting, insight, and analysis of the most pressing political issues of our time. On Mondays, David Remnick, the...
Matthew L. Wald joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the political aftermath of last week’s horrific collision between an American Airlines plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter. They look at the current state of airline safety, the changes afoot at the Federal Aviation Administration, and President Trump’s wild pronouncements that somehow diversity initiatives were to blame for the crash that claimed sixty-seven lives. “The culture warriors, with such a vengeance, are now turning to the F.A.A.—it’s something new and it’s not healthy,” Wald says. This week’s reading:
“How to Understand the Reagan Airport Crash,” by Matthew L. Wald
“How Donald Trump Is Transforming Executive Power,” by Isaac Chotiner
“The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis,” by Dexter Filkins
“Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
“Kash Patel’s Political-Persecution Fantasies,” by Tess Owen
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32:57
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, Bill Gates was the best known of a new breed: the tech mogul—a coder who had figured out how to run a business, and who then seemed to be running the world. Gates was ranked the richest person in the world for many years. In a new memoir, “Source Code,” he explains how he got there. The book focusses on Gates’s early life, and just through the founding of Microsoft. Since stepping away from the company, Gates has devoted himself to his foundation, which is one of the largest nonprofits working on public health around the globe. That has made him the target of conspiracy theories by anti-vaxxers, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has asserted that Gates and Anthony Fauci are together responsible for millions of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gates views the rise of conspiracy thinking as symptomatic of larger trends in American society exacerbated by technology. “The fact that outrage is rewarded because it’s more engaging, that’s kind of a human weakness,” he tells David Remnick. “And the fact that I thought everybody would be doing deep analysis of facts and seeking out the actual studies on vaccine safety—boy, was that naïve. When the pandemic came, people wanted some evil genius to be behind it. Not some bat biology.
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31:45
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on What Democrats Should Do Next
The Washington Roundtable discusses the fallout of the White House releasing, and then rescinding, a memo intended to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans. The incident, as well as this week’s Senate confirmation hearings for controversial Cabinet nominees such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Kash Patel, offers Democrats an opportunity to seize control of the narrative—if they can get organized, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, says. “If what Democrats are doing is running around calling them chaotic and incompetent, that’s not going to win the day unless those charges are connected to actual harms happening to regular people.”This week’s reading:
“Donald Trump’s Cabinet of Revenge,” by Susan B. Glasser
“Trump’s Orders Sow Chaos Inside the Nation’s Enforcer of Equal Opportunity,” by E. Tammy Kim
“Kash Patel’s Political-Persecution Fantasies,” by Tess Owen
“Behind the Chaotic Attempt to Freeze Federal Assistance,” by Atul Gawande
“The Junk Science of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” by Clare Malone
“How Donald Trump Seizes the Primal Power of Naming,” by Jessica Winter
“Trump’s Attempt to Redefine America,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.
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36:14
How Trump’s Federal-Aid Fiasco Is Testing the Separation of Power
On Tuesday, the Trump Administration sent out a memo attempting to put a blanket pause on most federal funding, sowing confusion about financing for student loans, SNAP benefits, nonprofits, and more. The next day, after a backlash, the Administration rescinded the memo, while maintaining that a freeze remains in “full force and effect.” The order created chaos across the federal government, threatening a power struggle between the President, Congress, and the courts. The New Yorker contributor and Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Trump’s directives are testing how far a President can go. This week’s reading:
“Trump's Attempt to Redefine America,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
“The Unchecked Authority of Trump's Immigration Orders,” by Jonathan Blitzer
“Donald Trump Throws the Doors to the Patriot Wing Open,” by Antonia Hitchens
“Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages,” by Susan B. Glasser
“Britain’s Foreign Secretary Braces for the Second Trump Age,” by Sam Knight
To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected].
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29:34
A Spirit of Vengeance in Trump’s First Week
The Washington Roundtable discusses President Trump’s first week in office, during which he broke a record for the most executive orders any modern-day President has signed on Day One. The President’s inaugural address and barrage of orders seemed driven by a sense of grievance, accrued in the course of four years out of office, four criminal prosecutions, and a deep desire for revenge. Will an apparatus of rage, taking form as vengeance, ultimately inhibit the government from performing its functions? Plus, they discuss the Episcopal Bishop Marianne Buddy’s remarks at the interfaith prayer service, and the importance of speaking truth to power. This week’s reading:
“Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages,” by Susan B. Glasser
“The Unchecked Authority of Trump’s Immigration Orders,” by Jonathan Blitzer
“The Big Tech Takeover of American Politics,” by Jay Caspian Kang
“Why Is the Mastermind of Trump’s Tariff Plan Still Sitting at Home in Florida?,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
“How Much Power Does President Trump Have?,” by Jeannie Suk Gersen
“Donald Trump Invents an Energy Emergency,” by Bill McKibben
“What Trump 2.0 Means for Ukraine and the World,” by Isaac Chotiner
To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.
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Join The New Yorker’s writers and editors for reporting, insight, and analysis of the most pressing political issues of our time. On Mondays, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, presents conversations and feature stories about current events. On Wednesdays, the senior editor Tyler Foggatt goes deep on a consequential political story via far-reaching interviews with staff writers and outside experts. And, on Fridays, the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the latest developments in Washington and beyond, offering an encompassing understanding of this moment in American politics.
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