The Indicator from Planet Money - Are U.S. defense contractors lavishing their investors too much?

In early January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening bans on defense contractors paying dividends or buying their stock back.

Today on the show, we learn about the Trump Administration’s frustrations with the weapons supply chain, find out what a defense industry investor makes of the move, and ask whether this reflects the state tightening its grip on the industry that arms the U.S. military.

Related episodes: 
Are we overpaying for military equipment?
Can Just-In-Time handle a new era of war?
How to transform a war economy for peacetime

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter

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Read Me a Poem - “Maritime Poem” by Nizar Qabbani

Amanda Holmes reads Nizar Qabbani’s “Maritime Poem,” translated from the Arabic by Rana Bitar and Robert Bensen. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.


This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.


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Chapo Trap House - 1003 – Bored of Peace feat. Derek Davison (1/19/2026)

Chapo Foreign Policy correspondent Derek Davison returns to talk about the decades that have been happening these past few weeks. We stop at Iran and cover the protests and the possible involvement of Israeli weaponry; at Syria, where Rojava and the SDF have all but capitulated to Ahmed al-Sharaa; at Greenland, where the potential of an inter-NATO conflict grows, and in Israel, where Trump attempts to do freemium diplomacy. Finally, we read a piece about the Brandon administration acquiring The Device. Find all of Derek’s foreign policy coverage at: www.foreignexchanges.news www.americanprestigepod.com

Bad Faith - Episode 543 Promo – The Iran Intervention (w/ Jeffrey Sachs)

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock this episode and our entire premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast

Economist & Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs returns to Bad Faith to discuss the protests in Iran and rising regional tensions, how western warhawks are framing the conflict, and what we should know about the history that led us here.

Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube for video of this episode. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod).

Produced by Armand Aviram.

Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).

NPR's Book of the Day - ‘This is Where the Serpent Lives’ is a sprawling debut novel set in modern Pakistan

Author Daniyal Mueenuddin has hit the ground running with his debut novel, This is Where the Serpent Lives. Set in modern Pakistan, the story spans generations and explores class, corruption, and crime — themes that  Mueenuddin says he believes might resonate with American readers in particular. In today’s episode, Mueenuddin speaks with NPR’s Scott Simon about his novel-writing process for This is Where the Serpent Lives, and why he sprinkled subtle autobiographical details across its pages.

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