President Trump has overseen an aggressive foreign policy, including harsh words about Europe and a lethal military campaign in the Caribbean.
Last week, the White House unveiled its new national security strategy, which made Mr. Trump’s true goals clear and alarmed countries around the world.
David E. Sanger, who covers the White House and national security for The New York Times, explains what the strategy is and how it may change America’s global relationships for good.
Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.
For the second time in a week, Justice Department prosecutors fail to secure an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James. The U.S. plans to seize the oil from a tanker leaving Venezuela. And Australian teens struggle through their second day without legal access to major social media sites.
This is one of my favorite conversations in recent memory — with the writer Zadie Smith.
Smith is the author of novels, including “White Teeth,” “On Beauty” and “NW,” as well as many essays and short stories. Her ability to give language to the kinds of quiet battles that live inside of ourselves is part of why she’s been one of my favorite writers for years.
“We absolutely need to gather in our identity groups sometimes for our freedoms, for our civil rights. There’s absolutely no doubt about that. But for that role to be the thing that is you existentially all the way down — that is something that I personally believe all human beings revolt from at some level,” she told me when we spoke last September, shortly before Trump’s re-election.
It’s ideas like these that I found interesting to revisit now, in a starkly different political climate. In this conversation, we discuss Smith’s novel, “The Fraud,” which Smith wrote with Trump and populism front of mind; what populism is really channeling; why Smith refuses the “bait” of wokeness; how people have been “modified” by smartphones and social media; and more.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
We're excited to offer some interviews as bonus content on Getting Hammered with friends of the show on topics we care about. Today, Karen Vaites, an expert on literacy and curriculum, who really knows the nitty-gritty about how students learn, what works, and what we can replicate. We rant a bit about school closings and Randi Weingarten, then get on to the business of moving forward— the Mississippi Miracle, the Southern Surge, and whether skepticism is warranted. We are optimists. There is good news! We're trying to spread the word and help spread the strategy. That's where you come in.
Over the Christmas season, it is estimated that some 3.6 million families in Japan will tuck into KFC over Christmas (other fried chicken is available), which inspired the Unexpected Elements team to chew over all things chicken!
First up, we discover that chicken may never have become domesticated if it wasn’t for rice farming. We also ponder whether the chicken or the egg came first (are you Team Chicken or Team Egg)? Next, we find out that humans are surprisingly smart at translating chicken chatter.
We’re then joined down the line by Dr Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum of Natural History, who reveals more about the links between dinosaurs and birds.
Plus, how Brazil became a poultry superpower, and what happens to chickens in tornadoes.
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Camilla Mota and Godfred Boafo
Producers: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, with Sophie Ormiston, Ella Hubber and Robbie Wojciechowski
OA1215 - We examine why the potential merger of Warner Brothers Discovery with either Netflix or Paramount would almost be certainly illegal under better circumstances before mourning the imminent loss of the independence of the one government agency which is supposed to stop this kind of thing. What exactly is the Federal Trade Commission, and why was destroying it a top priority for Project 2025? We then take a closer look at this week’s oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, in which the Supreme Court’s MAGA majority is poised to turn the FTC and dozens of other independent agencies into tools for Trump’s corruption and graft. Finally, in today’s footnote: why is an actual government website hawking the Trump Gold Card, and can the President really just make up a completely new way to give anyone with one million dollars a new path to US citizenship?
The Trump Administration has put billions of dollars into building an immigration superstructure meant to punish those who have done nothing wrong and intimidate everyone else – including legal immigrants and US citizens. Weirdly enough, that’s proving not to be very popular. According to new polling from the Associated Press, Trump is now deeply underwater on the subject of immigration – with 60 percent of respondents opposing his handling of the issue. So to talk more about what’s happening with immigration, from the Administration’s plans for 2026 to its many horrifying offenses, we spoke to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. He’s a Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council.
And in headlines, dueling healthcare bills fail in the Senate, nature-lovers push back on plans to make President Trump the face of their National Park adventures, and Disney becomes the first major studio to license its characters to OpenAI’s video generator.This holiday season, gift someone a Friends of the Pod subscription or treat yourself. Learn more at crooked.com/friends. Subscribing is the best way to support independent progressive media.
