With the boarding and seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker, the United States's confrontation with Venezuela ascends to a higher level. What's going on? And why are Democrats making crazy commercials and going with crazy candidates for 2026? And why am I recommending a movie from 1946–It's a Wonderful Life—that everyone has already seen? Give a listen.
David Beito’s new biography on Franklin D. Roosevelt is not the hagiographic nonsense that has dominated the US history profession. That is a good thing. Americans should know how FDR’s presidency led to one disaster after another.
You may be familiar with the AI-fueled stock market boom. Well, former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath warns it could mirror the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. But worse. She calculates a similar crash could erase $35 trillion in global wealth. Today on the show, what would that mean for the US and global economies?
The Catholic Church is wading into a deeply partisan issue. The Archbishop of Chicago weighs in.
This fall, the Trump administration launched Operation Midway Blitz – an aggressive immigration crackdown campaign in Chicago.
It was met with outcry from many communities around the city including the Catholic Church, and that sentiment goes all the way to the very top of the Church with Pope Leo calling on the government to treat undocumented people humanely.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink, featuring reporting from NPR domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef.
It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Patrick Jarenwattananon.
Eli Lake joins us for a conversation that begins with Christmas music and ends with man's search for meaning. Today's COMMENTARY RECOMMENDS: The Bible. Give a listen.
Gavin Newsom is the 2028 Democratic front-runner. That’s what many of the polls and the Polymarket betting odds say.
It’s been widely believed that Newsom wants to run for president someday. But belief that he could be a front-runner was less common. A liberal white guy from a state that much of the country considers badly governed just didn’t seem like the profile the Democratic Party was looking for.
But as a Californian who has watched Newsom for a long time, I was surprised by him this year. After President Trump returned to the White House, Newsom started a podcast, interviewing people like Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon and Michael Savage, which made a lot of Democrats mad. At the same time, Newsom turned himself into the leader of the resistance — trolling Trump on social media and pushing a ballot initiative to end California’s independent redistricting to counter the partisan redistricting effort in Texas.
Newsom has been willing to try things and take risks. He has shown a feel for this moment — in politics and in the way attention works now.
But it’s still true that he runs a state that the country considers badly governed. California tops the rankings of unaffordable states, at a time when affordability has become a central electoral issue.
In this conversation, I ask Newsom about all of this — what he learned this year from talking to figures on the right, how he thinks the Democratic Party can win back voters it lost, why California is so unaffordable and what he’s doing about it.
Mentioned:
Applebee’s America by Ron Fournier, Douglas B. Sosnik and Matthew J. Dowd
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. 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 and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
If you want to make Bitcoin, you need powerful computers and a lot of energy. Well, it turns out the same infrastructure needed for Bitcoin mining is pretty valuable in the era of AI. Today on the show, why some miners are starting to throw in the towel on crypto in favor of supporting AI infrastructure.
Maria finally gets to reveal a project she’s been working on that’s been kept under wraps, and then it’s movie night on Risky Business! Nate and Maria talk about their favorite poker movies and explain why portrayals of poker for a movie audience often don’t get the game quite right. Plus, they share what poker movie they’d like to make and who’d play them in it.
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