Today we discuss Gavin Newsom's SAT scores on the backdrop of his 2028 presidential ambitions, and John recommends Splitsville.
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Today we discuss Gavin Newsom's SAT scores on the backdrop of his 2028 presidential ambitions, and John recommends Splitsville.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The United States has been building up a military presence around Iran for weeks, even as negotiators from both countries plan to meet later this week in hopes of finding a diplomatic solution to the escalating tensions.
David E. Sanger, a national security correspondent for The New York Times, explains what President Trump hopes to achieve through potential military action, and why he has chosen this moment.
Guest: David E. Sanger, the White House and National Security Correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
Photo: Pool photo by Fazry Ismail
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
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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A.I. agents are here. Have they changed your life yet? The release of agents like Claude Code marked a new pivot point in the history of A.I. We are leaving the chatbot era and entering the agentic era — where A.I. is capable of completing all kinds of tasks on its own, and even collaborating and communicating with other A.I.
It isn’t clear yet whether these models actually make their users meaningfully more productive. But the technology is continuing to improve; there are few signs that it is close to plateauing. So what might this new era mean for our economy, our labor market and our kids?
Clark is a co-founder of Anthropic, the company behind Claude and Claude Code. His newsletter, Import AI, has been one of my go-to reads to track the capabilities of different models over the years. In this conversation, I ask him to share how he sees this moment — how the technology is changing, whether it is leading to meaningful changes in how we work and think, and how policy needs to or can change in response to any job displacement on the horizon.
Mentioned:
“Import AI” by Jack Clark
“2026: This is AGI” by Pat Grady and Sonya Huang
“Why and How Governments Should Monitor AI Development” by Jess Whittlestone and Jack Clark
“Anthropic’s Chief on A.I.: ‘We Don’t Know if the Models Are Conscious’", Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Book Recommendations:
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
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 Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and 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.
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 Feb. 23, 1776, John Adams offered resolutions in the Continental Congress with the intent of boosting domestic production of saltpeter, a main ingredient in gunpowder, and gunpowder mills. Domestic production never really took off during the war, only accounting for a small percentage of total gunpowder. Instead, the colonies imported or smuggled supplies in from the French and the West Indies.
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Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow of NYU Law discuss their book How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America and argue that the path forward for DEI is a shift from "lifting" to "leveling." The conversation presses whether this is a genuine doctrinal shift or simply a strategic recalibration in a post-affirmative-action era. Plus, IEEPA ! MOHELA ! and in the Spiel, a Court once declared illegitimate strikes down Trump's tariff emergency, and its most distraught critics have a chance to recalibrate or double down on the illegitimacy argument.
Produced by Corey Wara
Video and Social Media by Geoff Craig
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With a shooting at Mar-a-Lago and some real counterterrorism issues associated with Trump's threat of war on Iran, Kash Patel probably had more important matters to attend to than shotgunning beer with the U.S. hockey team. And the team itself might have remembered that Patel himself is standing in the way of investigating the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. But too many people at the top don't give a crap, and others are taking their cue. And that includes the larger media, which has moved on from Minnesota, even though women are having to resort to giving birth at home out of fear that federal agents will snatch family members in the labor & delivery ward. Meanwhile Trump is aggressively promoting regime change in Iran, and Sam Altman sounds like he thinks Neo was the bad guy in "The Matrix." Plus, does Netanyahu's role in helping get Trump back into power—and perhaps pushing him to war— open up a political opportunity for Dems to put pressure on Israel?
JVL joins Tim Miller.
show notes