The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s recent “explosion of the ego” and tendency toward megalomania, and they consider how the evolution of autocratic regimes in history can help us to predict how the rest of his Presidency may unfold. They are joined by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, who is the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” The group looks at how, as autocrats’ popularity decreases—as Trump’s has recently in the polls—these figures develop paranoia and entrench themselves in untenable positions, a phenomenon called “autocratic backfire.” “The key is that they end up constructing a kind of echo chamber. And so they overestimate their own abilities,” Ben-Ghiat says. “They start to believe their own propaganda.” 
This week’s reading:

“ ‘If We Don’t Have Free Speech, Then We Just Don’t Have a Free Country,’ ” by Susan B. Glasser

“Pam Bondi’s Contempt for Congress,” by Ruth Marcus

“Is There a Remedy for Presidential Profiteering?,” by David D. Kirkpatrick

“What Does Xi Jinping Want?” by Isaac Chotiner

“Bad Bunny’s All-American Super Bowl Halftime Show,” by Kelefa Sanneh

“Jeffrey Epstein’s Bonfire of the Élites,” by John Cassidy 

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 
Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

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The New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss his reporting on Anthropic, the artificial-intelligence company behind the large language model Claude. They talk about Lewis-Kraus’s visits to the company’s San Francisco headquarters, what drew him to its research on interpretability and model behavior, and how its founding by former OpenAI leaders reflects deeper fissures within the A.I. industry. They also examine what “A.I. safety” looks like in theory and in practice, the range of views among rank-and-file employees about the technology’s future, and whether the company’s commitment to building safe and ethical systems can endure amid the pressures to scale and compete. 
This week’s reading:

“What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know, Either,” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus

“Is There a Remedy for Presidential Profiteering?,” by David D. Kirkpatrick

“Bad Bunny’s All-American Super Bowl Halftime Show,” by Kelefa Sanneh

“Listening to Joe Rogan,” by David Remnick

“What Do We Want from a Protest Song?,” by Mitch Therieau 

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 
Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

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Ben Shapiro, the host of his eponymous podcast and the co-founder of the conservative website the Daily Wire, has lambasted the left and the Democratic Party for decades. Recently, though, Shapiro has taken to criticizing some of the loudest voices in the MAGA universe, including Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. The rift is over the acceptance and promulgation of conspiracy theories and, in particular, the normalization of antisemitism. Shapiro discusses the Epstein files and what they show—and do not show—about the powerful people connected to Jeffrey Epstein. The belief in conspiracies of the élite reflects “people’s desire to abdicate control over their own lives,” Shapiro tells David Remnick. They discuss Shapiro’s adherence to the conservative value of personal responsibility, and how he squares that with MAGA and its champions. 
The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 
Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s threats to “nationalize” elections in fifteen states, the recent F.B.I. raid to seize 2020 voting records at an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and the ways in which the Administration might meddle with a free and fair vote in 2026. Their guest, Richard Hasen, is the director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at U.C.L.A.’s School of Law. “I actually think that now is the time to be preparing for this,” Hasen says. “I think states and localities should think about getting injunctions from federal courts against Donald Trump to prevent him from interfering with the tabulation of ballots.”
This week’s reading:

“Donald Trump Already Knows the 2026 Election Is ‘Rigged,’ ” by Susan B. Glasser

“Dan Bongino’s Podcast Homecoming,” by Jon Allsop

“Why the D.H.S. Disaster in Minneapolis Was Predictable,” by Jonathan Blitzer

“Is ICE Leading Us Into a Constitutional Crisis?,” by Isaac Chotiner

“How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post,” by Ruth Marcus

“ ‘Melania’ Is a Forty-Million-Dollar Journey Into the Void,” by Lauren Collins

“How Trump Is Debasing the Dollar and Eroding U.S. Economic Dominance,” by John Cassidy

“Russia Is Swarming Europe with Young Agents,” by Ian Crouch

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 
Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Lauren Collins joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a new documentary about Melania Trump, which chronicles her life during the twenty days leading up to Donald Trump’s second Inauguration. They talk about the film’s glossy yet superficial portrait of the First Lady, who served as an executive producer, as well as its troubled rollout and poor critical reception. They also explore Melania’s tenure as First Lady and the contradictions at the center of her political identity as an immigrant married to a President whose anti-immigration rhetoric and policies have come to define both his Administration and the moment of the film’s release. 
This week’s reading:

“ ‘Melania’ Is a Forty-Million-Dollar Journey Into the Void,” by Lauren Collins

“What a ‘Melania’ Cinematographer Hoped to Accomplish,” by Isaac Chotiner

“How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post,” by Ruth Marcus

“Why the D.H.S. Disaster in Minneapolis Was Predictable,” by Jonathan Blitzer

“Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion,” by David Kirkpatrick

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 
Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices