The work of Rod Dreher has a consistent theme: doom. He believes the collapse of Christianity has ushered civilizational decline in Europe, that we’ve traded our humanity for comfort, and he worries that totalitarianism is around the corner for the United States. “I’m worried about Weimar America,” he tells me. “It may not be Hitler 2.0, it may not be Stalin 2.0. It might be something all American, but it’s not going to be what we’re used to.” It’s best not to dismiss him; he’s been right before. We discuss how we got here and the dangers that still lie ahead when we grant godlike powers to our technology.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 1:41 - The role of Christianity in Western society
• 12:26 - Free speech in Western Europe
• 17:40 - Immigration and de-Christianization
• 23:55 - Viktor Orbán's Hungary
• 34:50 - "Weimar America" and the coming crisis
• 46:45 - Dreher's personal journey
• 55:12 - Dark re-enchantment and A.I. as a "vector for the demonic"

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

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My fellow Americans: On this 250th anniversary of our great republic, I think we’re unlikely to have a unifying address from any politician. So, I thought I’d get a little dressed up and offer one myself. Watch this video on YouTube Channel: Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]

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The growing alienation between men and women is, to my mind, one of the biggest stories of our time.

It’s warping our politics and culture through the rise of misogynistic influencers on the right and a growing sense of feminist despair on the left.

My guest this week believes that our problems today can be traced back to the sexual revolution. She argues that it reset relations between the sexes in a fundamentally negative way and ultimately benefited men. Louise Perry is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression section and the author of “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.”

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:28 - “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution"
• 16:20 - What is reactionary feminism?
• 21:30 - The effects of the digital revolution on men and women
• 30:29 -  The tradwife phenomenon
• 34:58 - What about premarital sex?
• 43:38 - Can female emancipation and sexual restraint coexist?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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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“If you think this is a bad deal, what is your alternative?” Critics of JD Vance think that his key role in the Iran negotiations may end up being an albatross around his neck. (“If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD,” President Trump said in France this week.)

But in our conversation, the vice president seemed buoyant and eager to play the salesman, insisting that the deal is better than the pact President Barack Obama sealed in 2015.

I asked him about his initial opposition to the war, his conflict with the pope and whether his political future is riding on the success of the Iran agreement. We also discussed Vance’s new book, “Communion,” about the vice president’s return to faith, and whether or not the Trump administration’s policies embody Christian values.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:06 - The implications of the US - Iran Peace deal
• 07:04 - Will Iran's internal politics transform?
• 17:30 - The US - Israel Relationship
• 22:19 - Vance's Protestant Christian upbringing
• 28:22 - From non-believer to rediscovering faith
• 35:18 - Christianity in Vance's life and in the Trump administration
• 47:07 - Tensions with Pope Francis
• 54:10 - The future of the Iran deal and a message to Republican critics

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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We can enhance athletic performance, lose weight with a pill and even take psychedelics to alter consciousness. At what point does all this self-optimization become self-obsession? When does it get in the way of our humanity itself? My guest this week is the German biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer, who believes scientific breakthroughs to extend our lives — and even put us in touch with the divine — are close at hand.

0:00 - Intro
01:40 - Investing in longevity, A.I. and psychedelics
6:06 - The vision for the Enhanced Games
13:45 - Normalizing enhancements for everyone
20:02 - Ozempic is the first of many...
30:00 - The five basics for health and well-being
36:52 - Psychedelics trips and spiritual revelations
59:20 - Christian skepticism
01:04:22 - "Jesus is not human-maxxing."

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. 

Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/opinion/better-sex-better-hair-better-sleep-humanmaxxing-is-here.html

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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In an era defined by deep institutional distrust, a new trend within populist conservatism has emerged. It’s a sense that the federal government is keeping secrets and protecting the powerful at our expense. My guest this week is Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a conservative Republican from Florida who has quickly established herself as a political troublemaker. She’s challenging fellow lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — on issues like sexual harassment and ethics, but she doesn’t see her campaign to clean up Congress as in tension with her allegiance to President Trump. Luna has focused her first years in Congress on exposing what she views as coverups, from the Epstein files to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and longstanding government secrecy around U.F.O.s.

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:31 - Luna's politics: "Conservative with a streak of populism"
• 08:07 - From chaos to conservative influencer
• 16:17 - Critiquing the ethics of Congress
• 24:55 - Presidential ethics and the Epstein files
• 36:25 - The U.A.P. activity at Eglin Air Force Base
• 41:02 - The "mosaic" around the J.F.K. assassination
• 47:50 - U.A.P. evidence
• 54:30 - Whistleblower retribution and protections
• 57:57 - Secret programs: "A stronger dose of strangeness"

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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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The future of high-tech warfare has arrived. Just look to the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran to see how much drones and robots have remade the modern battlefield. Is the U.S. positioned to win wars in this new era? What are the ethical constraints of waging autonomous warfare? My guest this week is Christian Brose, the president and chief strategy officer of Anduril, a defense technology company building a slate of autonomous weapons and defense systems for the American military.

• 00:00 - Intro
• 03:18 - Drones on the Russia - Ukraine battlefield
• 8:17 - Iran's stalemate and American military readiness
• 17:11 - Anduril is more than a "Lord of the Rings" reference
• 25:33 - Force fields and a layered defense
• 31:12 - The challenges of "finicky" autonomous systems
• 44:44 - The ethics of automating the kill chain

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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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What’s really driving the humanities crisis in higher education? As enrollment and reading decline, I asked Jennifer Frey, a professor of philosophy, what it was like to run a liberal arts program that was gutted. I wanted to know whether she thinks the age of A.I. could bring back the kind of education she says is fundamental to human formation.

• 00:00 - Intro
• 2:08 - Why study the humanities?
• 5:00 - Do the humanities mean more morality?
• 15:00 - Shakespeare vs. John Grisham
• 24:07 - The Tulsa Honors College
• 34:43 - Left-wing critiques and specialization
• 44:10 - Is conservatism a friend to liberal arts?
• 56:32 - Why the humanities are crucial in the age A.I.

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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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The United States and China are really the only two countries that matter right now in shaping the A.I. future. As President Trump and President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing, there’s a kind of Cold War atmosphere, with people talking about an A.I. arms race. But who is winning? Are we even in a race at all? Kyle Chan, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it’s hard to call it a race because the U.S. and China have very different A.I. goals.

• 00:00:25 U.S. vs. China in A.I.
• 00:03:07 Everyday A.I. in China
• 00:07:41 China's A.I. chip limitations
• 00:12:14 China's A.I. advantage: energy & deployment
• 00:16:10 China's public mood on A.I.
• 00:19:44 AI, job displacement and social concerns
• 00:23:53 Robots for China's labor shortage
• 00:26:55 China's view on America's AGI fixation
• 00:31:16 Distilling A.I. models
• 00:38:39 U.S. needs more A.I. deployment
• 00:41:48 U.S. chip policy and the hawk's argument

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, 

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

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A stalemated war. Fractured alliances. A rival waiting in the wings. It feels to me that we’re having an “end of the American empire” moment. My guest this week, Ray Dalio, is an unlikely prophet of doom — the billionaire Bridgewater investor conquered Wall Street by studying history and mastering global trends. He foresaw the 2008 financial crisis,and these days he’s warning that the U.S. is repeating the patterns that ended great empires of the past.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:24 - The rise and fall of empires through big cycles
• 08:35 - Geopolitical tensions: China, Iran and the Suez Canal
• 14:27 - Fiat currency or gold?
• 24:19 - America’s coming ‘heart attack’
• 30:37 - Acts of nature, A.I. and technology
• 43:37 - ‘Could we have a Japanese future?’

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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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Self-driving cars are here. But what kind of future will they bring: safe roads and extra time or dystopian traffic jams? My guest this week is Andrew Miller, who writes about self-driving cars and transportation policy. I love the open road, so I press him on what’s lost when we give away driving to the robots.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:27 - The sales pitch for Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox 
• 12:24 - How autonomous are autonomous cars? 
• 20:14 - Liability: Who is responsible for an accident?
• 31:56 - Political obstacles: Spying, data, labor
• 38:53 - 20:35: The good and bad scenarios
• 48:25 - Are we losing the “romance of the road”?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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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