President Donald Trump has, according to many legal experts, crossed the Rubicon.
After years of railing against his perceived enemies and publicly threatening to use the government for revenge, he’s pressured the Justice Department to bring charges against someone he hates despite warnings from top prosecutors.
Late last week, a grand jury narrowly indicted former FBI Director James Comey on allegations that he lied to Congress in 2020. The 5-year statute of limitations was set to expire on Tuesday.
President Trump orders the National Guard to be deployed to Portland, Ore., after declaring it a war-ravaged city. And reports surface that the administration is considering strikes in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the military’s top generals are on their way to Quantico for a mysterious meeting called by Pete Hegseth that the president now wants to crash. Congressional leaders meet with the White House with the clock running out on the window to avert a government shutdown. And the nation reels after a weekend of violence in Michigan and North Carolina.
Does Donald Trump help or hurt himself by using the weapons of the presidency as personal tools for revenge? This is apart from the question of whether his doing so is simply turnabout-as-fair-play or simply an outrageous misuse of his power. Give a listen.
For the past decade, a simple message has been delivered to a generation of American students: If you learn to code and complete a computer science degree, you’ll get a job with a six-figure salary.
Now, thousands of students who followed the advice are discovering that the promise was empty. Natasha Singer, a technology reporter for The Times, explains.
Guest: Natasha Singer, a technology reporter in the business section of The New York Times.
The experimental cognitive psychologist and popular science writer, Steven Pinker delves into the intricacies of human interactions in his latest book, ‘When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage’. From avoiding the elephant in the room to the outing of the emperor’s new clothes, Pinker reveals the paradoxes of human behaviour.
Common knowledge can bind people and communities together in a shared purpose, but Aleks Krotoski, the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Artificial Human and The Digital Human, journeys to the fringes of human endeavour in The Immortalists. There, Silicon Valley tech billionaires are using their wealth to focus on their own futures, attempting to disrupt and defy their own mortality.
How people behave to strangers and how much they’re willing to spend to help them, is at the heart of David Edmonds’s biography of the philosopher Peter Singer. Death in a Shallow Pond considers Singer’s most famous thought experiment and his contention that we’re morally obliged to come to the aid of those less fortunate if we can. It’s a practical philosophy that has divided opinion, but also inspired a new movement of effective altruism.
Many of us tend to take our muscles for granted. They are the unsung heroes of our bodies. They are the stuff that moves us and keeps us healthy. But as we age, how much can we rely on our muscles? What are the secrets of our muscles? Journalist and author Bonnie Tsui takes a deep dive into the science, history, and personal narratives that shape our understanding of muscle in her book, On Muscle: The Stuff that Moves Us and Why it Matters.
The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates was harshly critical of my response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. In an article in Vanity Fair, he suggested I was whitewashing Kirk’s legacy, comparing it to the whitewashing of the Southern cause after the Civil War.
So I wanted to have Coates on the show to talk out our disagreement, as well as some deeper questions that I think exist underneath it about the work of politics.
What should the left do about the fact that so many Americans share Kirk’s views? What kinds of disagreements should we try to bridge? When is that work moral and necessary, and when is it a betrayal?
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker. 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, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by 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.
This month kicked off the big four fashion weeks: New York, London, Milan and Paris. Each year, designers, brands, influencers and celebrities flock to these events to see and be seen.
On today’s episode, Gilbert sits down with Stella Bugbee and Jacob Gallagher, two of The Times’s foremost style experts and veterans of the fashion week circuit, to discuss clothes. They talk about what fashion week means in the frenetic fashion ecosystem of 2025, and they answer some listener questions about how to cultivate a personal style.
On Today’s Episode:
Stella Bugbee, the Styles editor for The New York Times.
Listen to the full debate on Open to Debate’s podcast channel or watch it on YouTube: https://bit.ly/MikePesca
Men are falling behind in our society, and some point to traditional ideas of masculinity as the cause. What does it mean to “be a man” today, and how do labels like toxic masculinity impact that question? For some men, masculinity is a continually evolving identity that goes beyond narrow definitions placed upon it. For others, it's a rigid set of expectations that results in emotional isolation and other negative outcomes. Now we debate: Is Masculinity A Prison? Arguing Yes: Lux Alptraum, Writer, Journalist, and Sex Educator Arguing No: Mike Pesca, Host of "The Gist" Podcast Nayeema Raza, Journalist and Host of "Smart Girl Dumb Questions," is the guest moderator. Produced by Open to Debate, a podcast series that brings together influential thinkers to debate today’s most pressing topics, using facts, reason, and civility. Produced by Corey Wara Production Coordinator Ashley Khan Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show, contact ad-sales@libsyn.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/TheGist Subscribe to The Gist: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ Subscribe to The Gist Youtube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_bh0wHgk2YfpKf4rg40_g Subscribe to The Gist Instagram Page: GIST INSTAGRAM Follow The Gist List at: PescaProfundities | Mike Pesca | Substack