The Ezra Klein Show
Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?
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Episodes (53)
Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force
ICE now has the biggest budget of any law enforcement agency in America.
“ICE and Customs and Border Protection have long been the most rogue, kind of renegade and certainly pro-Trump police agencies...
“ICE and Customs and Border Protection have long been the most rogue, kind of renegade and certainly pro-Trump police agencies...
MAHA Is a Bad Answer to a Good Question
“Make America Healthy Again” is a great idea — somebody should try it.
A lot of the concerns animating the MAHA movement — chronic disease, the unhealthiness of the American diet, how profits warp...
A lot of the concerns animating the MAHA movement — chronic disease, the unhealthiness of the American diet, how profits warp...
Your Questions (and Criticisms) of Our Recent Shows
I do my best to respond to your critiques of some of our recent episodes.
We got an overwhelming response to my interviews with the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, the national conservativism...
We got an overwhelming response to my interviews with the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, the national conservativism...
Trump vs. the U.S. Economy
What is going on with the economy right now?
There are a lot of mixed signals. President Trump slashed taxes, but he’s also bringing in a lot of money through tariffs. Inflation is creeping up, but...
There are a lot of mixed signals. President Trump slashed taxes, but he’s also bringing in a lot of money through tariffs. Inflation is creeping up, but...
When Is It Genocide?
In December 2023, when South Africa accused Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice, I thought it was wrong to do so. Israel had been attacked. Its defense was legitimate. The...
Mahmoud Khalil Tells His Story
Mahmoud Khalil was a leader in Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests. In March, he was arrested by ICE agents and held for more than 100 days in a Louisiana detention facility. The Trump...
Behind Trump and Vance Is This Man’s Movement
Vice President JD Vance gave a speech recently that deserved more attention than it got. Accepting an award at a right-wing think tank, he argued that there’s a fundamental brokenness in how we define...
Best Of: Barbara Kingsolver on ‘Urban-Rural Antipathy’
“It’s so insidious, people don’t realize it,” Barbara Kingsolver told me, describing the prejudice against “country people.” Kingsolver is one of those “country people,” as well as a literary legend...
Is Decarbonization Dead?
Biden passed the most ambitious climate legislation in American history. Trump just shredded it. What does that mean for the future of renewable energy in America? Where does the climate movement go...
Why American Jews No Longer Understand One Another
The consensus that held American Jewry together for generations is breaking down.
That consensus, roughly, was this: What is good for Israel is good for the Jews; anti-Zionism is a form of...
That consensus, roughly, was this: What is good for Israel is good for the Jews; anti-Zionism is a form of...
A New Middle East?
For decades, Israel has wanted American support to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. But U.S. presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have resisted — until President Trump. So, what changed? And what are...
Is This America’s Golden Age? A Debate.
Kevin Roberts, Kellyanne Conway, Ben Rhodes and I battled it out a few weeks ago on a stage in Toronto.
This was for a Munk Debate on the motion: “Be it resolved, this is America’s Golden Age.” It...
This was for a Munk Debate on the motion: “Be it resolved, this is America’s Golden Age.” It...
Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights
President Trump’s actions against transgender Americans have been stunningly wide-ranging. They’ve also been popular.
Trump has sought new restrictions on trans people in sports, schools, the...
Trump has sought new restrictions on trans people in sports, schools, the...
Ehud Olmert on Israel's Catastrophic War in Gaza
It is impossible to overstate how hellish life in Gaza has been for the past 20 months.
The death count is above 50,000 people — more than 15,000 of whom are children — and at least 1.9 million of...
The death count is above 50,000 people — more than 15,000 of whom are children — and at least 1.9 million of...
Best Of: Salman Rushdie Is Not Who You Think He Is
This is one of my favorite episodes of the show in recent memory. It’s a conversation with the author Salman Rushdie about the experience of losing control of your identity in the world. This happened...
The Emergent Trump Doctrine
Trump has been making some foreign policy moves I didn’t entirely expect. He seems determined to get a nuclear deal with Iran. He’s been public about his disagreements with Benjamin Netanyahu. He...
Our Lives Are an Endless Series of 'And'
This is a bit of a strange episode. It’s an attempt to explore the difficulty of everything we’re supposed to feel in a day. We’re in a time when to open the news is to expose yourself to horrors —...
The Growing Scandal of $TRUMP
Steve Bannon famously talked about using “muzzle velocity” as a strategy: doing so much so quickly that you overwhelm the ability of the media to cover it. I think what the Trump family is doing with...
Trump’s Big Budget Bomb
Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is the cruelest and most irresponsible piece of domestic legislation to be seriously proposed in my lifetime.
When you think about this bill, you should think about...
When you think about this bill, you should think about...
How Groupthink Protected Biden and Re-elected Trump
This episode is about a seemingly simple question: Was there a Joe Biden cover-up?
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book argues there was. “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up,...
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book argues there was. “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up,...
Is Trump Losing? A Debate
Is Donald Trump eroding American democracy and consolidating power for himself? Or is he trying to do that and failing? Is this what sliding toward authoritarianism looks like? Or is this what a...
‘We Have to Really Rethink the Purpose of Education’
I honestly don’t know how I should be educating my kids. A.I. has raised a lot of questions for schools. Teachers have had to adapt to the most ingenious cheating technology ever devised. But for me,...
Best Of: Margaret Atwood on American Myths and Authoritarianism
A good rule of thumb is that whatever Margaret Atwood is worried about now, the rest of us will likely be worried about a decade from now. The rise of authoritarianism. A backlash against women’s...
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is one of just 13 Democrats to represent a district that Donald Trump won. Her distinctive economic message, and a willingness to buck her own party, helped her...
Trump vs. the Dollar
The U.S. dollar is the lingua franca of the global financial system. The fact that so much of the world relies on our currency has long been understood as our exorbitant privilege — the reason we have...
Abundance and the Left
“Abundance,” the book I co-wrote with Derek Thompson, hit bookstore shelves a little over a month ago, and the response has been beyond anything I could have imagined. And it’s generated a lot of...
Ross Douthat on Trump, Mysticism and Psychedelics
I have no earthly idea how to describe this conversation. It’s about religion and belief – at this moment in our politics, and in our lives more generally.
My guest and I come from very different...
My guest and I come from very different...
The Very American Roots of Trumpism
After last week’s episode, “The Emergency Is Here,” we got a lot of emails. And the most common reply was: You really think we’ll have midterm elections in 2026? Isn’t that naïve?
I think we will...
I think we will...
The Emergency Is Here
The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a...
Tom Friedman Thinks We’re Getting China Dangerously Wrong
My colleague Tom Friedman thinks we’re screwed.
That’s the first thing he told me when recounting his recent trip to China. It’s not just because of the trade war that President Trump is escalating...
That’s the first thing he told me when recounting his recent trip to China. It’s not just because of the trade war that President Trump is escalating...
Trump’s Tariffs, Market Panic and What Comes Next
After a week of market chaos, President Trump pulled back from the brink. But he didn’t pull that far back. He left a 10 percent tariff on most of the world and launched a trade war with China. It’s...
Paul Krugman on the ‘Biggest Trade Shock in History’
The tariffs President Trump unveiled this week were both bigger than most people expected and a lot more confusing. These aren’t the flat tariffs he proposed during the campaign. And they aren’t...
‘Our Kids Are the Least Flourishing Generation We Know Of’
There’s something of a policy revolution afoot: As of March, more than a dozen states — including California, Florida and Ohio — have passed bills or adopted policies that aim to limit cellphone usage...
The Last 2 Months — and Next 2 Years — of U.S. Politics
It’s our first subscriber-only “Ask Me Anything” of the year. The show’s executive producer, Claire Gordon, joins me to discuss your questions about the risk of a constitutional crisis and how...
What Is DOGE’s Real Goal?
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency is great branding. Who could be against a more efficient government? But “efficiency” obfuscates what’s really happening here.
Efficiency to what...
Efficiency to what...
Is Trump ‘Detoxing’ the Economy or Poisoning It?
It’s hard to understand the economic logic of President Trump’s tariffs. In our last episode, we tried, but with limited success. And that might be because the logic here isn’t entirely economic at...
Why Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Work
Wall Street thought Donald Trump was bluffing about his tariff plans. The stock market rallied after his election. But the reality has started setting in. Trump is doubling down on tariffs, even as he...
There Is a Liberal Answer to Elon Musk
Right-wing populism thrives on scarcity. The answer is abundance. But a politics of abundance will work only if Democrats confront where their approach has failed.
This audio essay is adapted from...
This audio essay is adapted from...
This Trump Speech Was the Ultimate Loyalty Test
The economy has started blinking red. President Trump’s tariffs have been roiling markets. Consumer sentiment was already down. G.D.P. forecasts are predicting slower growth. And on Tuesday night...
The Government Knows AGI is Coming
Artificial general intelligence — an A.I. system that can beat humans at almost any cognitive task — is arriving in just a couple of years. That’s what people tell me — people who work in A.I. labs,...
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
In 2016, when Donald Trump won the first time, a little-known book became an unexpected phenomenon. It was “The Revolt of the Public,” self-published two years earlier by a former C.I.A. media...
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
After the elections, I started asking congressional Democrats the same question: If the elections had gone the other way, if they had won a trifecta, what would be their first big bill? In almost...
What if Trump Just Ignores the Courts?
We are moving into the next phase of Donald Trump’s presidency. Phase 1 was the blitz of executive actions. Now comes the response from the other parts of the government — namely, the courts.
A slew...
A slew...
What Elon Musk Wants
Elon Musk has been on a slash-and-burn tear through the federal government — gaining access to I.T. systems, dismantling U.S.A.I.D. and unleashing a firehose of attacks on his platform, X, accusing...
The Breaking of the Constitutional Order
There are two pieces to this episode. First, a tour of what Donald Trump has done — and what he has backed down from doing — over the last few days. There’s a lesson there. Perhaps Democrats are...
Don't Believe Him
Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term and you’ll see something very different than what he wants you to see.
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at...
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at...
MAGA’s Big Tech Divide
MAGA has long been hostile to Big Tech. So now that Big Tech is shifting rightward, what does that mean for MAGA?
“We’re seeing a true political coalition having to navigate very, very big questions...
“We’re seeing a true political coalition having to navigate very, very big questions...
Let’s Get to the Marrow of What Trump Just Did
On the first day of President Trump’s second term, he signed a record 26 executive orders. Some of them were really big. Others feel more likely messaging memos. And still others are bound to be held...
So That's What 'Make America Great Again' Means
There’s a quieter transition happening beneath the pageantry of this week’s inaugural events — a transition not of power per se but of the rules around how power in Washington works. And the new rules...
Democrats are Losing the War for Attention. Badly.
Trump is a master at wielding attention. He’s been owning news cycles and squatting in Americans’ minds for much of the last decade. And for his second term he has an ally in Elon Musk, a man with a...
Biden Promised to ‘Turn the Page’ on Trump. What Went Wrong?
Joe Biden wanted to show Americans that there was a better path than Trumpism. He worked to build a “foreign policy for the middle class.” He centered industrial policy. He took a more competitive...
Trump 2.0 and the Return of ‘Court Politics’
The preview we’ve had into Donald Trump’s second administration already feels, by American standards, disturbingly abnormal: Picking a former “Fox and Friends” host for defense secretary. Billionaire...
Burned Out? Start Here.
I like to begin each year with an episode about something I’m working through more personally. And at the end of last year, the thing I needed to work through was a pretty bad case of burnout.
So I...
So I...
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