Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

For weeks, fights have been escalating between top scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., culminating in his accusation that the agency’s top official, Dr. Susan Monarez, was untrustworthy.

Dr. Monarez went before a Senate committee on Wednesday to give her side of the story.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who covers health policy for The New York Times, discusses the testimony and the rift that the hearing exposed within the Republican Party over how far to go to support Mr. Kennedy and his vaccine agenda.

Guest: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a correspondent based in Washington who covers health policy for The Times.

Background reading: 

• The fired C.D.C. director described clashes with Mr. Kennedy and turmoil at the agency.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Photo: Kenny Holston/The New York Times

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Paris Marx is joined by Caroline Haskins to discuss what Palantir actually does and the growing influence it has within the US government and many large corporations.

Caroline Haskins is a staff writer at Wired.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Peter Thiel is giving a series of lectures on the Antichrist.

• Caroline wrote about Palantir and getting confronted by the company at a conference.

• Paris mentioned a connection between Paypal and the founding of Palantir; a founding story for Palantir is that the concept for the company grew from the desire to use the fraud-detection software designed for PayPal to build counterterrorism software.

• Palantir is having a much better financial year than the rest of Silicon Valley.

Christian Duguay, creator of Valley Heat, breaks down how Doug Duguay, his in-show alter ego, works within a 51% fictional universe. Tight sound design and ad-jingle microplots create an absurd world populated with Canadian foosball biker gangs and rogue car washes. Duguay traces the show’s improv roots and why “I’ll take that” became its guiding ethos. Plus: RFK Jr. claims that CDC director Susan Monarez once admitted, “I am untrustworthy.” And in the spiel, Charlie Kirk’s killer has his first court appearance, as the administration all but declares war on leftists.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Ravi dissects the assassination of Charlie Kirk and what it reveals about America’s escalating era of political violence. He examines the FBI’s failures, the right’s contradictions on free speech, and the Trump administration’s use of state power against ideological opponents. The episode also looks at media consolidation, TikTok’s looming takeover, foreign AI entanglements, and the widening economic divide in the U.S. Ravi closes by connecting these crises to global flashpoints—from Navalny’s poisoning to U.S. immigration raids—warning that the erosion of democratic norms may be as dangerous as any single act of violence.

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New York Times bestselling author and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul joins "The Source." He brings a bold, clear-eyed look at how the autocracies of China and Russia are challenging the current global order, and how America’s future depends on successfully confronting these threats.array(3) { [0]=> string(20) "https://www.tpr.org/" [1]=> string(0) "" [2]=> string(1) "0" }

Various states in the U.S. are locked in a fight over redistricting.

It’s all centered on which party will keep the House next year. Republicans now have a slim majority, 219 seats to 213.

It started this summer when President Donald Trump asked Republicans in Texas to redraw the state’s congressional maps early. The goal he said, was to improve Republicans’ shot at winning five more seats in the House of Representatives during the 2026 midterm elections. After a standoff with Democrats in the state legislature, Republicans passed a map that did just that.

Democrats in California, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, responded with their own map. It’s a redraw aimed at giving Democrats five more seats in the House. Newsom signed that bill into law in late August, saying it would “neutralize” what happened in Texas. Unlike Texas, California’s map goes to the voters this November for approval. It would last through the 2030 elections.

But the redistricting fights don’t end there. Another GOP effort is nearing the finish line in Missouri. Republicans pushed a new map that will set them up to win seven seats instead of the usual six. Democrats currently hold two House seats in Missouri.

Missouri Senate Republicans passed their redistricting bill on Friday. Now, it’s at the desk of Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe for his signature. So, what does this mean for the state, the Democrats, and the midterms?

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Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss what made Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk effective, explain what his death and the response to it mean for the future of the nation, and debunk the both-sides-ism plaguing conversations about political violence.

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