Plus: OpenAI plans a fourth-quarter IPO in the race to beat Anthropic to market. And investor concerns over future component costs overshadow Apple’s blowout iPhone sales. Luke Vargas hosts.
A.M. Edition for Jan. 30. President Trump is reportedly planning to announce his choice to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed chair today: former Fed governor Kevin Warsh. WSJ finance editor Alex Frangos tells us it’s unclear which version of the central bank insider-turned-critic Trump would get. Plus, OpenAI says its hotly-anticipated public offering may come in the fourth quarter. And despite massive iPhone 17 sales, Apple investors are focussed on rising component costs that could hit the company’s bottom line. Luke Vargas hosts.
Senate leaders strike a short-term funding deal to keep most of the government running, but a partial shutdown now looks imminent as the House remains out until next week. Border Czar Tom Homan suggested a possible drawdown of federal immigration agents in Minnesota, only for President Trump to later say there would be no pullback at all, as arrests and protests continue on the ground. And the FBI seizes hundreds of thousands of ballots and election records from Fulton County, Georgia, as the Trump administration escalates scrutiny ahead of the midterms.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Anna Yukhananov, Gigi Douban, Ben Swasey, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas, Ava Pukatch and Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
President Trump was elected in 2024 on the promise that he would fix the economy. Now, a new poll from The New York Times/Siena reveals that the issue may be driving voters away.
Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst at The Times, explains what the poll tells us.
Guest: Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times.
Background reading:
Few voters say Mr. Trump’s second term has made the country better, a new poll found.
A potential shutdown looms as Democrats pressure the Department of Homeland Security for reforms. President Trump cites debunked conspiracy theories over the 2020 election, sparking concerns over more election office raids. And Ukrainians find themselves in freezing conditions after an attack on energy infrastructure.
The old world order is dying. What new world order — if any — is struggling to be born?
I can’t think of a week when it felt clearer that an era was coming to an end. Whatever people thought America was, at least for a couple of decades, it’s something else now. The killing of Alex Pretti and the fact that it was recorded on video that plainly contradicted the Trump administration’s initial narrative made that clear. Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, also drove home that point when he declared at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the world was in the midst of a “rupture.”
What do people think of America now in Europe? In China? And if American hegemony is coming to an end, what comes after that?
Adam Tooze is a historian at Columbia University and a chronicler of crises. The Guardian recently called him “the crisis whisperer.” He’s written a number of books about the times when systems fall apart and new orders emerge, including “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World.” And on his Substack, Chartbook, he tracks the unfolding crises and power shifts, in particular the rise of China. He also had a front-row seat to the chaos of Davos last week, moderating a panel that included Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary.
I wanted to talk to Tooze about what he saw at the World Economic Forum, how the world’s understanding of the U.S. is changing and how he’s making sense of this moment.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. 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, Annie Galvin, 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.
That’s the name of an app that’s gone massively viral in China. Every two days, you click a green button to confirm you’re alive and well – but if you miss it, an emergency contact is alerted.
The app is aimed towards those who live alone, so it’s got us contemplating the science of connection and loneliness. First, we take a look at the most isolated trees on Earth and how they act as important recorders of history. We also discuss NASA’s space probe Voyager 1, and how we can connect with a device that’s 25 billion kilometres away from us.
We’re joined by glaciologist Liz Morris, who shares what it was like to do research far from civilisation, in Antarctica.
Then we reunite with a species that we thought was lost for ever, and answer an important question: just how big can spiders get?
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Candice Bailey and Ogechi Ekeanyanwu
Producers: Ella Hubber, with Lucy Davies, Imy Harper, Tim Dodd, Sophie Ormiston and Margaret Sessa-Hawkins
Senate Democrats were ready to shut down the government Friday night in order to get much-needed reforms to ICE and Border Patrol — but they didn’t need to. On Thursday, they made a deal with Republicans and the White House to fund most of the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. The Department of Homeland Security, however, will only be funded for two weeks while Senators negotiate some guardrails for ICE. So what happens now? To find out, we spoke with Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine on Thursday just before Senate Democrats announced their deal.
Outrage over the killing of Alex Pretti spreads to nonpolitical and Trump-friendly spaces, even as Border Czar Tom Homan promises to "draw down" the DHS presence in Minneapolis and the White House caves to Democrats' demands on debating DHS funding. Could this be a turning point in the Trump presidency? Jon and Dan discuss all the latest, including Anderson Cooper's extraordinary conversation with Stella Carlson, the woman who filmed the crucial angle of the shooting. Then they turn to the FBI's deeply troubling raid on the election headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, and the premiere of "Melania," a multi-million dollar bribe from Jeff Bezos to the first family disguised as a documentary. Then, Jon sits down with MSNOW's Joe Scarborough to talk about why Republicans in Congress still put up with Trump, and why he hopes the next Democratic nominee returns to the party's organizing roots. Plus: a special preview of our new subscriber-only show, Pod Save America: OnlyFriends.
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