The New Yorker: Politics And More

In Donald Trump’s first term in office, the American Civil Liberties Union filed four hundred and thirty-four lawsuits against the Administration. Since Trump’s second Inauguration, the A.C.L.U. has filed cases to block executive orders ending birthright citizenship, defunding gender-affirming health care, and more. If the Administration defies a judge’s order to fully reinstate government funds frozen by executive order, Anthony Romero, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, says, we will have arrived at a constitutional crisis. “We’re at the Rubicon,” Romero says. “Whether we’ve crossed it remains to be seen.” Romero has held the job since 2001—he started just days before September 11, 2001—and has done the job under four Presidents. He tells David Remnick that it’s nothing new for Presidents to chafe at judicial obstacles to implement their agendas; Romero mentions Bill Clinton’s attempts to strip courts of certain powers as notably aggressive. But, “if Trump decides to flagrantly defy a judicial order, then I

The essayist and cultural critic Brady Brickner-Wood talks with Tyler Foggatt about the opposition Donald Trump encountered in his first Presidential term, why many liberals are feeling a sense of resignation, and the Democratic Party’s struggle to present a unifying message. Plus, the political commentary embedded in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. This week’s reading: “What Happened to the Trump Resistance?,” by Brady Brickner-Wood “The War on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor “The Fears of the Undocumented,” by Geraldo Cadava  “The Madness of Donald Trump,” by David Remnick “Elon Musk and Donald Trump Are Not Fixing U.S. Foreign Aid but Destroying It,” by John Cassidy “Elon Musk’s A.I.-Fuelled War on Human Agency,” by Kyle Chayka “What Happens if Trump Defies the Courts,” by Isaac Chotiner To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail

Many of the most draconian measures implemented in the first couple weeks of the new Trump Administration have been justified as emergency actions to root out D.E.I.—diversity, equity, and inclusion—including the freeze (currently rescinded) of trillions of dollars in federal grants. The tragic plane crash in Washington, the President baselessly suggested, might also be the result of D.E.I. Typically, D.E.I. describes policies at large companies or institutions to encourage more diverse workplaces. In the Administration’s rhetoric, D.E.I. is discrimination pure and simple, and the root of much of what ails the nation. “D.E.I. is the boogeyman for anything,” Jelani Cobb tells David Remnick. Cobb is a longtime staff writer, and the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “If there’s a terrible tragedy . . . if there is something going wrong in any part of your life, if there are fires happening in California, then you can bet that, somehow, another D.E.I. is there.” Although affirmative-act

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Atul Gawande, the former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, to discuss Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s rapid-fire dismantling of the agency. They explore the life-and-death implications of the Trump Administration ending foreign aid, why the agency was targeted, and which federal agencies might be next.  This week’s reading: “Behind the Chaotic Attempt to Freeze Federal Assistance,” by Atul Gawande “Elon Musk’s Revolutionary Terror,” by Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump’s Madness on Gaza,” by David Remnick “How Donald Trump Is Transforming Executive Power,” by Isaac Chotiner “What Happened to the Trump Resistance?” by Brady Brickner-Wood “Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “Trump’s Trade War Is Only Getting Going,” by John Cassidy To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Lear

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 To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themai

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 t

 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. Ke

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 T

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 Tru

Within hours of his Inauguration, and shortly after proclaiming that his victory had been preordained by God, Donald Trump signed dozens of executive orders. These included exiting the World Health Organization, attempting to end birthright citizenship in the United States, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. He also issued pardons for hundreds of the January 6th convicts. David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what Trump’s first days back in office portend for the next four years. “[Trump] hasn’t changed one iota,” Remnick says, “except that his confidence has increased, and his base has increased, and the obedience of the Republican Party leadership is absolute.”This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Inaugural Day of Vindication,” by Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump Plays Church,” by Vinson Cunningham. “ ‘An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape,’ ” by David Remnick “What Trump 2.0 Means for Ukraine and the World,” by Isaac Chotiner “Donald Trump Returns to Washington,” by Antonia Hitchen