The Ezra Klein Show

We’re in a really strange moment in the foreign policy politics of the Democratic Party. People are looking for an alternative vision — an approach to American power in the world that would feel more moral and just, after the failures of President Biden, and the wrecking ball President Trump has taken to international rules and norms.

The answer many on the left are coming to is powerfully simple: international law. America could just start following the rules that we helped write. Is that possible? Is that enough? What would that even look like?

To talk through these questions, I invited Linda Kinstler on the show. She’s a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, and the author of “Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends.” She’s done some incredible writing and reporting on whether what we’re watching is the death of international law. In this conversation, we talk about the Biden administration’s failures to live up to the principles it set for itself, the Trump administration’s campaign to destroy the International Criminal Court and what it would take to reinvigorate international law.

Mentioned:

“Are we witnessing the death of international law?” by Linda Kinstler

“Abdul El-Sayed, U.S. Senate candidate, on AIPAC and Israel” by Detroit Free Press Opinion Staff

Book Recommendations:

The Divided City by Nicole Loraux

Crossing the Red Line by Akbar Shahid Ahmed

Under Water by Tara Menon

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Kelsey Lannin, with Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Steph Khoury and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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My colleague Ross Douthat is leaving The Times after 17 years to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” Before he goes, I’m asking him a few questions.

Douthat has had a unique vantage point on the news media and politics over the last few decades. He’s typically held the role of explaining the right to more liberal audiences, starting as an undergrad, when he was a conservative columnist for The Harvard Crimson. Douthat has also lived through the seismic changes in the media from the both the inside and the outside: He’s made his career at legacy media institutions, but I first got to know him – and spar with him – as an early-2000s blogger (and I have the 20-year-old Bloggingheads.tv clips to prove it).

So what does Douthat make of the transformations he’s lived through? How did blogging change journalism? How did a Republican Party powered by evangelical Christians become a political party dominated by Catholics and pagans? What has he learned about persuasion from writing for liberal audiences? And with the resources of “60 Minutes” behind him, will he finally crack the U.F.O. story once and for all?

Mentioned:

Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV

“Is It Time for a New Sexual Revolution?” with Louise Perry, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

“Christopher Nolan’s Finest Trick” by Ezra Klein

Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam

Book Recommendations:

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

De Gaulle by Julian Jackson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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, Marie Cascione and Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Arpita Aneja and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The show’s executive producer, Claire Gordon, joins me in the studio to ask me your questions. Topics include: whether my views on “woke” issues have changed; the feedback we got on our episode with Chris Rufo; the D.S.A. insurgency; my first singing lesson; and the story that I’m in a “secret society” with Peter Thiel. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions; we read them all and wish we’d been able to get to more of them!

Mentioned:

“What Has Chris Rufo Wrought?” The Ezra Klein Show

“White threat in a browning America” by Ezra Klein

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

““Yes Means Yes” is a terrible law, and I completely support it” by Ezra Klein

Music Recommendations:

Four Tet “Wingdings”

“Mas Amable” by DJ Python

“Reckoning” by Jon Hopkins and Imogen Heap

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon and Steph Khoury. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Jack McCordick Rollin Hu and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What’s big and ugly and has united Republicans and Democrats? A.I. data centers.

An overwhelming majority of Americans say they’d oppose a data center being built near where they live. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul just imposed a one-year moratorium on data center construction, and there are over 100 other local or statewide moratorium proposals across the country. A.I.’s explosive momentum over the last few years seems to have finally run into a force that could slow it down: the messy politics of getting things done in the real world.

So, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? And how much is the data center backlash about the actual construction of these buildings, and how much is it about A.I. itself?

Jasmine Sun has an excellent newsletter covering both the culture inside the A.I. companies and the anger that’s been building against them. And she just finished a reporting trip in the Midwest, where she interviewed people on all sides of the data center fight. So I wanted to talk to her about what she saw and what she thinks A.I. companies can learn from the growing movement against them.

Mentioned:

@jasmine’s Substack

Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass by Jasmine Sun

Sam Bankman-Fried on Arbitrage and Altruism (Ep. 145)

Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Conversation Is for You. With Priya Parker, The Ezra Klein Show

Book Recommendations:

The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut

The Technology Trap by Carl Benedikt Frey

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Kelsey Lannin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Steph Khoury and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

'The Odyssey' is the political movie of the decade.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

This column read was produced by Marie Cascione, Claire Gordon and Emma Kehlbeck. Fact-checking by Jack McCordick and Rollin Hu. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Jan Kobal. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, and Marina King. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The first year of President Trump’s second term was a whirlwind of action: on immigration, on trade, on political retribution. But things seem to me to be slowing down quite a bit. Trump is incredibly unpopular, and he’s now bogged down in a war with Iran that he doesn’t seem capable of ending. He often appears more concerned with his many White House renovations than with whether the Republican Party can hold the House and the Senate in November. So what’s going on in this administration? Where is this all going?

It’s hard to think of a journalist more qualified to answer those questions than Maggie Haberman. As a White House correspondent for The New York Times, she’s published some of the hardest-hitting reporting about Trump’s second act as president and the group of loyalists that now surrounds him.

Haberman, alongside her New York Times colleague Jonathan Swan, just published an extraordinary chronicle of this extraordinary political moment, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.” In this conversation, we discuss how decisions get made in this White House, what Trump has achieved so far and what’s really motivating him as we head toward the midterms.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“Maggie Haberman on What an Unleashed Trump Might Do” by The Ezra Klein Show

“Trump Says He Decides What ‘America First’ Means” by Michael Scherer

Book Recommendations:

Takeover by Charlie Savage

Strangers by Belle Burden

I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Dani Dillon, Steph Khoury and Jan Kobal. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Kate Wilkinson and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

President Trump is very unpopular right now. But polls show the Democratic Party is just as unpopular – if not more so. So what can the party do about it? 

But to answer that question, you first have to understand what the Democratic Party is. That is, mechanically, what is it? What powers does it have? When you call the Democratic Party, who picks up the phone? And how can that party, the official party, be reinvented for this era?

Ben Wikler has a unique perspective on this question. He transformed the Democratic Party of Wisconsin into a fund-raising, door-knocking powerhouse when he served as chair from 2019 to 2025. And he’s shared some of his insights from winning elections in a swing state in his new book, “This Is The Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy.”

In this conversation, we discuss Wikler’s vision for a reinvigorated party, as well as the kinds of changes he thinks Democrats need to embrace if they want to build a bigger tent and a national majority. 

Mentioned:

“This Is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin” with Ben Wikler on The Ezra Klein Show

“GOP midterm strategy: Make it a ‘hate election’” by Marc Caputo

Book Recommendations:

Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro

Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott

Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Steph Khoury and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Morris Katz helped orchestrate Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory and Graham Platner’s ultimately disastrous run for Senate. It’s quite a résumé  for a political consultant who is still in his 20s.

Platner’s implosion could prove particularly costly for Democrats. It may mean the difference between winning and losing a Senate majority. But before the rape accusation that ended his campaign, Platner had come out of nowhere to beat Janet Mills, the sitting governor of Maine, who was Chuck Schumer’s hand-picked candidate. The lessons to take from that campaign remain angrily contested. 

Katz, a senior adviser to Platner, has been central to many of the most attention-grabbing, populist campaigns in recent years: Besides Mamdani’s New York mayoral upset, he worked on John Fetterman’s 2022 Senate campaign and Dan Osborn’s 2024 independent Senate run in Nebraska. He has figured something out about this political moment. Along the way, he has become a controversial figure himself.

So what has he gotten right? And what has he learned from what he’s gotten wrong? 

This episode contains strong language.

Ask Me Anything: We’re going to be recording an “Ask Me Anything” episode soon. If you would like to submit a question, email ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com with the subject line “AMA.”

Mentioned:

“Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior” by Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer

“How Economic Anxiety Is Driving the Democratic Socialists’ Surge” by Emma Goldberg

“The search for Carter” by Norman Mailer

“The warrior and the priest” by Ronald Brownstein

Book Recommendations:

Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

The Shame by Makenna Goodman

The Fourth Branch by Daniel Squadron

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu, Annie Galvin and Marie Cascione. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon, Julian Hackney and Jan Kobal. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Marina King. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Rebecca Shaid.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How Brian Eno expanded the possibilities of what music and sound can be.

Eno is a trailblazing musician and producer who’s worked on seminal records by U2, David Bowie, the Talking Heads and Coldplay, among others. But Eno isn’t just a great collaborator with other artists; he’s also a great collaborator with machines. Long before we started worrying about A.I. replacing human creativity, Eno was tinkering with generative systems to pioneer ambient music – a genre that has deeply influenced how we listen to music today.

We recorded this conversation in 2025, and it’s one of my favorite recent episodes of the show. So I wanted to resurface it this summer for anyone who may have missed it the first time.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

What Art Does by Brian Eno and Bette Adriaanse

East West Street by Philippe Sands

Silence by John Cage

Book Recommendations:

Printing and the Mind of Man edited by John Carter and Percy H. Muir

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander

Naples ’44 by Norman Lewis

Music Recommendations:

The Rural Blues

“The Velvet Underground” by the Velvet Underground

The Consolers

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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, Kate Sinclair and Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Alyssa Jane Moxley, Sophie Abramowitz, Geeta Dayal, Jack Hamilton and Victor Szabo.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You can’t understand China today without understanding its president, Xi Jinping.

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has doubled down on communist ideology and significantly consolidated his own power while transforming China into an industrial juggernaut unrivaled in the world. And Xi’s ambitions for China go far beyond that.

So what does Xi want for China in the coming years? And how should the United States respond?

Kevin Rudd has a unique perspective on these questions. He first met Xi in the 1980s, when Rudd was a China analyst in Australia’s foreign service and Xi was a local party official. Decades later, when Rudd was the prime minister of Australia and Xi was China’s vice president, the two men got to know each other better. And after leaving office, Rudd decided to really try to understand Xi; his latest book, “On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World,” is built off the doctorate he pursued at Oxford after his time as prime minister. Rudd recently finished a stint as Australia’s ambassador to the United States and is now the global president and chief executive of the Asia Society.

In this conversation, Rudd explains Xi’s ideology and the forces that shaped it, his ambitions for China and strategy for achieving them, and what Xi thinks of the United States and Trump.

Mentioned:

On Xi Jinping by Kevin Rudd

The Avoidable War by Kevin Rudd

Book Recommendations

The Party’s Interests Come First by Joseph Torigian

The Souls of China by Ian Johnson

Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

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 Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Dani Dillon and Kristen Williamson. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker and Diane Wong. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Joseph Torigian and Eyck Freymann. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Already this summer, there have been huge wildfires in the Southwest and Great Plains and an extraordinary heat wave in Europe, as the world stares down the barrel of a powerful El Niño. Climate change is accelerating, and yet climate politics right now is in disarray.

But something else is happening, too. Advances in clean energy technology mean it is now possible to build a world of energy abundance that was the stuff of dreams just a few years ago. That means a new kind of climate politics is possible — one that doesn’t just talk about sacrifice and disaster prevention but also can present decarbonization as a path to somewhere better, where everyone has more, not less.

Bill McKibben is one of the best people at articulating that vision. He’s a founder of the climate action groups 350.org and Third Act, and he’s been at the vanguard of the climate movement for decades. His 1989 book, “The End of Nature,” is considered the first book on global warming written for a general audience. His latest book, published last year, is “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.”

Mentioned:

“Global Electricity Review 2026” by Ember

The End of Nature by Bill McKibben

“The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men,” The Ezra Klein Show with Helen Lewis

“We’re All Living in the ‘Mirror World’ Now,” The Ezra Klein Show with Naomi Klein

Book Recommendations:

The Glorians by Terry Tempest Williams

The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit

The Carbon Wave by Leah C. Stokes

Brought to You By by Amy Westervelt

End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley and Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Dani Dillon and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The old solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict don’t seem to fit the present reality.

A two-state solution feels increasingly impossible, given the scale of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinian determination for a right of return. And a one-state solution, in which Israelis and Palestinians would live as equal citizens in a single state, is hard to imagine, given how strongly both peoples seek political self-determination.

But what if those aren’t the only options?

A Land for All is an Israeli-Palestinian initiative that is proposing a confederation model: two sovereign states, structured to allow freedom of movement between them. It’s a theory of peace based on neither separation nor unification. It holds, first, that both peoples have a relationship to and claim on all the land and, second, that both peoples want to control their own political destinies.

I have been — and am — skeptical of solutions to a conflict that is so devoid of the political conditions for a settlement. But even if you’re far from your destination, it’s worth knowing where it is you hope to go. So could this be an answer for both peoples? How would it handle the problems that have bedeviled previous solutions, from security and violence to religious extremism?

Rula Hardal and May Pundak are the executive directors of A Land for All. Hardal is a Palestinian citizen of Israel who received her doctorate in political science from the University of Hannover in Germany, and Pundak is an Israeli lawyer, activist and social entrepreneur. They joined me to explain how A Land for All would work and why they think it might succeed where so much else has failed.

Mentioned:

A Land for All plan

Rula Hardal’s Book Recommendations:

The Holocaust and the Nakba, edited by Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg

States of Denial by Stanley Cohen

Israel: What Went Wrong? by Omer Bartov

May Pundak’s Book Recommendations:

Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

The Moomin series by Tove Jansson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find the transcript 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.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kelsey Lannin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King and Eric Laplante. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Filipa Pajevic and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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What does it mean to celebrate America on its 250th anniversary?

The Trump administration’s festivities — from the U.F.C. fight on the White House lawn to the Great American State Fair — have centered American glory and greatness. What has been missing are the Americans who fought to move America closer to its promises. They had to love a country — or at least believe in a country — that often failed them. How did they do it?

Beneath that is a deep question for anyone who loves a country, or even loves another person: How do you love something in its wholeness, amid its imperfections and failures?

One person who is thinking deeply about how to do this is Bryan Stevenson. He’s a civil rights lawyer and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which is based in Montgomery, Ala. E.J.I. has created a series of museums and sites in Montgomery that aim to examine America’s history of enslavement, racial violence and segregation, while also uplifting and honoring the people who endured these systems and fought to upend them.

The sites are remarkable to witness, as I found out when I visited Montgomery, and they hold America’s manifold truths in tension with one another — all its horror and beauty, tragedy and triumph, inhumanity and humanity.

I asked Stevenson how he’s thinking about America’s 250th birthday — and what work the country has left to fulfill its vision of liberty and equality for all.

Mentioned:

The Legacy Sites, Equal Justice Initiative

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

The 1619 Project

The 1776 Report

The Apartheid Museum

Book Recommendations:

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Kelsey Lannin. Audio by Jeff Geld and Johnny Simon Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Marion Lozano and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special Thanks to Sonia Kapadia, Tania Cordes, Danielle Carrasquero and the Equal Justice Initiative.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Christopher Rufo is arguably the most successful activist of the MAGA era. He rose to prominence fighting D.E.I. initiatives and critical race theory. In President Trump’s second term, he’s had a huge influence on policy, from Trump’s executive orders against D.E.I. and the attacks on the Department of Education to the ICE and C.B.P. deployments to Minneapolis.

Rufo, helpfully, calls his shots. He has published a guide, “The New Right Activism: A Manifesto for the Counterrevolution,” in which he argued for the value of “agitprop” and counseled that “political life moves on narrative, emotion, scandal, anger, hope, and faith — on irrational, or at least subrational, feelings.” But more recently, in his writing and on the podcast he co-hosts, “Rufo & Lomez,” he seems worried about the new right he has helped build: its attraction to conspiracy theories, its racialist thinking, its internal fissures.

So I wanted to have him on the show to talk about the problems he sees on his side, but also to interrogate whether he may have scored short-term victories while seeding profound long-term problems.

Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute. He’s a contributing editor of City Journal and the author of “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.”

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“The New Right Activism” by Christopher Rufo

“The Number” by David D. Kirkpatrick

“The unraveling of a cat tale” by Jacqueline Sweet

Book recommendations

Unmasking the Administrative State by John Marini

The Revolutionary by Stacy Schiff

The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Mixing by Pat McCusker, Efim Shapiro, and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Kate Wilkinson and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A hypervisual, looks-obsessed, wellness-crazed, postliterate society where we’re constantly staring at screens and evaluating one another based on metrics, as the country around us feels like it’s falling apart: That sounds like the world we live in. It’s also the world Gary Shteyngart created in his 2010 novel, “Super Sad True Love Story.”

I’ve been thinking about the book a lot recently, especially with the rise of the “looksmaxxing” influencer Clavicular and the longevity guru Bryan Johnson, and this feeling that people are upset and agitated but grabbing at the wrong things to fix it. It feels uncannily like the experience of living inside Shteyngart’s novel.

But Shteyngart isn’t just a dystopian prophet, he’s also an expert at living well amid the world’s darkness. His forthcoming book, “The Sensualist: Adventures in Pure Pleasure,” is an essay collection about his efforts to do exactly that. So I wanted to have Shteyngart on the show to understand how he predicted so many of the grimmer aspects of our present, but also how we might delight in the world’s “endless buffet of pleasure” in spite of them.

This episode contains strong language.

Note: We’re recording an "Ask Me Anything" episode soon. If you have a question, please email ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com using the subject like "AMA." We'd love to hear from you.

Mentioned:

“The End Point Of Viral Content” by Ryan Broderick

“How Jokes Won the Election” by Emily Nussbaum

“A Visit to Seoul Brings Our Writer Face-to-Face With the Future of Robots” by Gary Shteyngart

The Intimate City by Michael Kimmelman

“Don’t Just Take the Slow Road; Design It,” Commencement address at Wesleyan’s 194th Commencement Ceremony, Chris Murphy

Book Recommendations:

Men Like Ours by Bindu Bansinath

A Tender Age by Chang-rae Lee

Motherland by Julia Ioffe

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Mary-Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Attention is working in really unusual ways this election cycle.

Graham Platner, a political unknown a year ago, ended up dominating his Senate primary against Maine’s sitting governor – even as his campaign was rocked by a series of scandals. James Talarico also seemed to come out of nowhere to become the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas. Jon Ossoff has ginned up a ton of excitement as a potential 2028 presidential contender, in part because of his viral videos. Meanwhile, the former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt became a political star on X during his bid to become mayor of Los Angeles and yet failed to make the runoff.

All of this has a lot of lessons for how attention is working right now in American politics. So I wanted to have on my favorite person to talk to on this topic. Chris Hayes is the host of “All In With Chris Hayes” on MS NOW and the author of “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.”

Mentioned:

“Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine” by Jared Golden

“We Took AOC to a Deep Red Data Center Town” by More Perfect Union

“America Dissected” by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

“Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left?” with James Talarico, The Ezra Klein Show

“Joe Rogan Experience #2352 - James Talarico” with James Talarico, The Joe Rogan Experience

“Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President” by Michelle Goldberg

“Obama Suddenly Panicked After Gazing Too Far Into Future” by The Onion

Book Recommendations:

Transcription by Ben Lerner

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Alan Opts Out by Courtney Maum

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Julie Beer and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate…

The Democratic Party is in the middle of a rupture over foreign policy – with Israel and Palestine at the center.

In recent weeks, the Democratic senators Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen both called for a break with the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel. Schatz said the next administration needs “a whole new crop of foreign policy staffers,” while Van Hollen went further, accusing Biden’s senior decision makers of “complicity.” And Gaza has become a central issue splitting Democrats in primaries around the country. It’s become such a profound fault line, it reminds me of how the Iraq war remade the Democratic Party years ago.

And Democrats face huge foreign policy questions beyond Gaza, too. Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the rules-based order, and the American public has become increasingly cynical about U.S. interventions abroad. Do Democrats want to try to restore what came before Trump? Is that even possible? Or is there a vision for something new?

Matt Duss is at the center of foreign policy thinking on the left. He’s the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, previously served as Senator Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy adviser and is currently advising Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So I thought he’d be the perfect person to ask: What would a left foreign policy actually look like? What would it try to do in the world?Mentioned:

“The Hard Truth My Party Needs to Face” by Chris Van Hollen

“Democrats Can’t Avoid a Reckoning With Gaza” by Matthew Duss

“Why We Need a Progressive Foreign Policy” by Chris Murphy

“Congressman Jason Crow’s New Vision for American Foreign Policy” by Jason Crow

Book Recommendations:

Crisis of the Common Good by Chris Murphy

From Life Itself by Suzy Hansen

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A new masculinist movement has gone mainstream on the right.

The prominent voices in this movement yearn for an earlier time, when men were men and women were women. Sometimes that time seems to be the 1950s, like when Tucker Carlson extols a world where men go to work and women stay at home. But sometimes it goes way farther back. The pastor Doug Wilson advocates household voting, in which men vote for their wives. And Costin Vlad Alamariu, better known as Bronze Age Pervert, harks back to the Bronze Age — specifically the ancient Hittite and Mitanni Empires.

Helen Lewis wrote a recent cover story for The Atlantic about this new antifeminist backlash, which she calls “the single most important force holding together the American right.” So I wanted to have her on the show to talk about these ideas, the political program of this movement and how seriously we should take it.

Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of “Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights” and “The Genius Myth.”

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

Difficult Women by Helen Lewis

“What Is the Longhouse?” by L0m3z

The Last Men by Charles Cornish-Dale

Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

“The Men — and Boys — Are Not Alright” with Richard Reeves, The Ezra Klein Show

“Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” with Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

“The Great Feminization” by Helen Andrews

“The Women Leaving the New Right” by Sam Adler-Bell

Book Recommendations:

Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson

Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford

The Genius Factory by David Plotz

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Kyle Grandillo. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at

Over the past month, there have been two dominant stories in American foreign policy. One, of course, is the war with Iran. The other is the much-anticipated summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping of China. And I think if you look closely at both of these stories, you see that our foreign policy has entered into a period of absolute incoherence.

I’m not even sure what the status of the Iran war is at this point. What is Trump trying to achieve? What is he willing to accept?

Taking a more hawkish approach to China has been a core and consistent principle of Trump’s since his first term. He’s been insistent that China has taken advantage of the United States and that America needed to change that dynamic and flex more power. But is that happening? Is that even Trump’s position anymore?

So I wanted to do an episode looking at China and Iran and trying to assess Trump’s foreign policy in general and the ways he’s remaking what America means on the world stage.

Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consultancy firm, and the global affairs publication GZero. He’s also the author of, among other books, “Every Nation for Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World.”

Mentioned:

Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

The J Curve by Ian Bremmer

“The ‘Vibecession’ Is Over. The ‘Permacession’ Is Here.” by Annie Lowrey

“Disney and the Decline of America’s Middle Class” by Daniel Currell

Eurasia Group’s Top Risks for 2026

Book Recommendations:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

A World Appears by Michael Pollan

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 and Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

President Trump doesn’t seem to care that much about winning the midterms. He’s more unpopular at this point in his second term than basically any of his modern predecessors. Democrats seem poised to retake the House and have a real chance of retaking the Senate. You might expect a president in that position to pivot to the center, to focus on voters’ top concerns and try to boost the strongest Republicans in key races.

Trump isn’t doing any of that. Instead, he announced a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay out “victims of lawfare,” he threatened to re-escalate the Iran war, and he intervened in Republican primaries in ways that are gifts to Democrats, like endorsing the scandal-plagued Ken Paxton over the incumbent, John Cornyn, in Texas’ Senate race.

Why doesn’t Trump seem to care more about winning?

Liam Donovan is a Republican strategist and a president at Targeted Victory, a Washington public affairs and digital marketing firm. He has worked on the National Republican Senatorial Committee and for Cornyn. In this conversation, we discuss the moves Trump is making, the rough political environment for Republicans and what the paths to Democratic victories look like.

Mentioned:

“Graham Platner Thinks a Political Revolution Is Coming” by The Interview

Thomas Massie interview in The Washington Examiner

Book Recommendations:

The Right by Matthew Continetti

Apple in China by Patrick McGee

The Frackers by Gregory Zuckerman

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What are the conditions that enable a country to become great — or great again? The Trump administration — and other right-wing movements in other countries — offers a vision of greatness based on power and domination abroad, and a mix of shared national and religious stories at home. And that vision is clearly appealing to a lot of people. Liberals in the U.S. and elsewhere have been struggling to tell a story that can compete.

What story would Yuval Noah Harari tell? One of the through lines of Harari’s best-selling books — “Sapiens,” “Homo Deus,” “Nexus” — is the huge role that stories play in shaping the arc of history, driving humans to cooperate on a grand scale to achieve great things, or divide violently against one another.

So I wanted to ask him about the stories that the U.S. and Israel, in particular, seem to have embraced right now. What does history tell us about the power of this story? And why does the liberal story seem so weak right now?

Mentioned:

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Unstoppable Us, Volume 3 by Yuval Noah Harari

“Understanding AI” by Timothy B. Lee

Book Recommendations:

The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut

Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We have entered a world of maximum gerrymandering warfare. Any guardrails that once existed, from the Constitution or the courts, have been bulldozed over the last decade – most recently in the Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act and made it harder for minorities to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps.

Red and blue states alike have been aggressively trying to redraw their congressional maps in response to all these developments. And there is no sign that will end in 2028; legislatures will just continue trying to tweak their lines to squeeze out advantage for whatever party is in power. And competitive districts in this country – already an endangered species – now teeter on extinction.

That is, unless something dramatic changes.

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the political reform program at New America. He’s one of the most persistent and thoughtful advocates of selecting House members through proportional representation – a system used in many other countries that would make gerrymandering much more difficult. He’s the author of the 2020 book “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America” and writes the newsletter Undercurrent Events.

Mentioned:

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop by Lee Drutman

“Undercurrent Events” by Lee Drutman

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

“How one country stopped a Trump-style authoritarian in his tracks” by Zack Beauchamp

Book Recommendations:

Tyranny of the Majority by Lani Guinier

American Politics by Samuel P. Huntington

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Kate Sinclair, Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What do you do when you feel anxious or insecure? Many of us try to push the feeling away, or we ruminate on it, or try to solve it, or avoid the thought altogether. But what would happen if we did the exact opposite?

The Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön is the author of many beloved books, including “When Things Fall Apart,” “Welcoming the Unwelcome” and — my personal favorite — “Comfortable With Uncertainty.” And she has a way of inviting people to befriend the parts of life that typically induce dread — from uncertainty and suffering to loss and discomfort. And she argues that the process of sitting with these experiences and emotions actually releases their power over us. In a time as chaotic and tumultuous as ours, she has so much practical wisdom to share.

In this conversation, she shares what it looks like to actually let go of difficult emotions, the art of “collaborating with reality” when things don’t go as expected, and how to awaken yourself to the “nowness” of life.

Mentioned:

Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chödrön

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön

Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chödrön

Another Kind of Freedom by Pema Chödrön

Book Recommendations:

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chögyam Trungpa

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

Enlightened Vagabond by Matthieu Ricard

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Kim Freda. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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On Friday, I moderated a forum with the top Democratic candidates for California governor, focusing on the state’s housing crisis.

California’s current governor, Gavin Newsom, came into office in 2019 promising to build millions of homes. And in the years since, dozens of pro-housing laws have passed, designed to cut red tape and spur more construction. And yet the number of homes being built in California is basically the same as when he took office, and the state’s housing crisis remains, arguably, the worst in the country. So I wanted to know what the next governor would do about it.

We taped this at the Calvin Simmons Theater in Oakland, Calif. The candidates on the stage were Xavier Becerra, a former attorney general of California and health and human services secretary under President Joe Biden; Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose and a tech entrepreneur; Katie Porter, a former U.S. representative; Tom Steyer, a former San Francisco hedge fund manager, a climate activist and a philanthropist; and Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles and speaker of the California State Assembly. This panel was recorded live. The Times did not fact-check candidates’ remarks.

Mentioned:

“Cost to Build Multifamily Housing in California More Than Twice as High as in Texas” by RAND

“What Worries Me Most About ‘Abundance’” with Derek Thompson and Marc Dunkelman, The Ezra Klein Show

Book Recommendations:

The Hour of the Predator by Giuliano da Empoli

Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Why Nothing Works by Marc J. Dunkelman

Ours Was the Shining Future by David Leonhardt

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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, Marie Cascione, Kristin Lin and Marina King. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Argus HD.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Here’s a shocking number: One out of eight American adults is taking a GLP-1, like Ozempic or Zepbound, according to a KFF poll.

GLP-1s are the biggest pharmaceutical story since antidepressants. But there’s still so much we don’t know.

“We’re only at the beginning of what’s been called this Ozempic era,” the journalist Julia Belluz told me. “I think we’re really just at the beginning of discovering the benefits and the harms of these drugs.” These discoveries begin in the research but are also expanding into how we think about our punishing beauty standards and the blurry lines between illness and wellness.

Belluz is a contributing Opinion writer and the author, with Kevin Hall, of “Food Intelligence.” She’s one of the best health and science reporters I know and has been reporting on GLP-1s for years.

In this conversation, Belluz takes me through what we know — and don’t know — about GLP-1s, their unexpected uses, how they are clashing with a culture obsessed with thinness and looksmaxxing, and whether everyone should be on them.

Mentioned:

“The obesity pay gap is worse than previously thought” by The Economist

“The Great Ozempic Experiment” by Julia Belluz

Book Recommendations:

Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky

The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum

Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the U.S., illiberalism is in power. I don’t think anybody really argues against that. But I’ve been surprised by how weak liberalism has felt in response.

Donald Trump isn’t a popular president; he isn’t making people want more of what he is. But if the forces of illiberalism are really going to be turned back in this country, I think more people need to be excited and inspired by liberalism itself. We need a liberalism that stands for more than “not Trump.”

So I’ve been on my own esoteric journey, reading a lot of books on the history of liberalism, trying to understand what excited and inspired people in the past, and how liberals overcame crises like the one we’re in. And reading one of those books, “The Lost History of Liberalism” by Helena Rosenblatt, it felt like an epiphany — that this was a piece of the puzzle.

So I wanted to have Rosenblatt on the show to talk about it. Rosenblatt is a professor of history, political science and French at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and in this conversation, she walks me through the history of liberalism that she uncovered, and the values that once lived at its heart.

Mentioned:

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Liberalism by Edmund Fawcett

Book Recommendations:

Liberalism against Itself by Samuel Moyn

Liberalism as a Way of Life by Alexandre Lefebvre

Thinking With Machines by Vasant Dhar

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Lauren Reddy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Filipa Pajevic and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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“Abundance” came out a little over a year ago. It’s been exciting — and a little disorienting — seeing how it’s rippled out into the world, and the ways it’s been embraced and debated and critiqued. So I wanted to take a moment to talk through what’s really happened in the last year – with Derek Thompson, my “Abundance” co-author, and Marc Dunkelman, whose book “Why Nothing Works” came out around the same time, and circles the same ideas.

What has the abundance movement actually achieved in the last year? Where has it fallen short? And what have the three of us learned from our critics?

Mentioned:

Ezra is moderating a forum on housing and affordability with some of the top California gubernatorial candidates. The event is on Friday, May 8, in Oakland, CA. You can buy tickets here. Use the code EKSHOW for 20 percent off your order.

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Why Nothing Works by Marc J. Dunkelman

Derek Thompson’s Substack

The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro

“The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth” by Brian M. Rosenthal

“Why Are Palantir and OpenAI Scared of Alex Bores?” by The Ezra Klein Show

“The Anti-Social Century” by Derek Thompson

Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

The Permanent Problem by Brink Lindsey

“Bernie Sanders: ‘There Ain’t Much of a Democratic Party” by Bernie Sanders and David Leonhardt

Book Recommendations:

Making a New Deal by Lizabeth Cohen

Stuck by Yoni Appelbaum

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, Narrated by Richard Poe

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at

Stewart Brand might be the most influential philosopher of the internet – at least in its more idealistic era. In the 1960s, Brand was the central bridge figure between the San Francisco counterculture and the emerging technology scene. He created the legendary Trips Festival with Ken Kesey in 1966, and was there at “the mother of all demos” in 1968. And he created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog, which Steve Jobs called “one of the bibles of my generation” and “Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along.” 

Brand has seen Silicon Valley evolve in the decades since. And along the way, he has written many brilliant books about our relationship to technology, the built environment and the natural world. His latest book is “Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One.” 

In this conversation, we discuss everything from dropping acid to the genesis of the Whole Earth Catalog, what he thinks A.I. will reveal about humanity, the 40 years he’s spent living on a tugboat and the importance of maintenance in a culture that prizes novelty and disposability.

Mentioned:

Ezra is moderating a forum on housing and affordability with some of the top California gubernatorial candidates. The event is on Friday, May 8, in Oakland, CA. You can buy tickets here. Use the code EKSHOW for 20 percent off your order.

Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One by Stewart Brand

“We Didn’t Ask for This Internet” with Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu, The Ezra Klein Show

I And Thou by Martin Buber

Book Recommendations:

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester

The Scottish Enlightenment by Arthur Herman

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Kelsey Lannin. Our recording engineers are Aman Sahota and Johnny Simon. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Fred Turner.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Leading the Future, a super PAC whose funders include the founders of companies like Palantir and OpenAI, is spending millions of dollars this election cycle, and a considerable amount of that money is going toward attack ads against Alex Bores – even though Bores himself used to work for Palantir.

Bores is a New York state assemblyman who is running for Congress to represent New York’s 12th District. His campaign includes an extensive A.I. policy platform, including demands for A.I. companies to be more transparent about safety, and an idea for an “A.I. dividend” that would redistribute some of the profits of A.I. companies to the public. So his race has turned into a central battleground over the future of the A.I. industry and who has the power to shape it.

In this conversation, we discuss how Bores went from working for Palantir to running a campaign that would regulate the A.I. industry, the major issues he thinks A.I. policy needs to address, and his response to the attacks against him.

Mentioned:

Give People Money by Annie Lowrey

“Alex Bores’ AI Policy Framework For Congress”

“NY Congressional Candidate Faced Palantir Sexual Comments Claim” by Laura Nahmias

“AI populism’s warning shots” by Jasmine Sun

Book Recommendations:

A Theory of Justice by John Rawls

World Eaters by Catherine Bracy

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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 Lori Segal. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Lauren Reddy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Gregory C. Allen.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett are three of the richest people in the world, but they pay little in income tax relative to their wealth.

In 2021, ProPublica published an investigation built on leaked tax documents that reveal what some of the richest Americans really pay — or don’t. Warren Buffett had a true tax rate of 0.1 percent. Jeff Bezos: 0.98 percent. Michael Bloomberg: 1.3 percent.

Ultra-wealthy Americans have essentially been written out of the tax system. “It’s wrong as a matter of principle. It’s wrong because we need their money. It’s wrong as a matter of fairness. It is wrong for so many reasons,” the law professor Ray Madoff told me.

She’s the author of the new book “The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy,” and she’s interested in helping people understand how broken the American tax system is and how to fix it.

In this conversation, we discuss the techniques the ultra-wealthy use to evade the tax system, why they think “salaries are for suckers” and what tax reform could look like.

Mentioned:

“The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax” by Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel

The Second Estate by Ray D. Madoff

Taxation: The People’s Business by Andrew W. Mellon

Philanthrocapitalism by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green

Book Recommendations:

The Age of Extraction by Tim Wu

The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order by Gary Gerstle

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

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, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Lauren Reddy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Edward Fox.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.