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.)

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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.

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One question has haunted my investment strategy for years: What is cryptocurrency actually for? It feels as though the vibes are constantly shifting — one day it’s the dollar’s successor, and the next it’s little more than a meme. My guest this week is bitcoin evangelist Anthony Pompliano, the chief executive of ProCap Financial. We get into whether crypto is a bet against the American empire and whether its volatility is actually a strength.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:27 - Physical to digital: The evolution of financial assets
• 05:00 - The wealth inequality gap
• 09:58 - The global adoption of crypto
• 14:51 - Bitcoin vs. Ethereum
• 20:26 - Why "stability" is a financial lie
• 29:30 - A “digital savings account”
• 41:57 - The role of Bitcoin in political dynamics
• 56:05 - “A bet against America”

(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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President Trump has tested the limits of presidential power since he returned to office — from his assertion of total control over federal agencies to his war in Iran. But so far, many of Trump’s most aggressive moves have been stopped by the Supreme Court. 

My guest this week is Sarah Isgur, a conservative court watcher, who argues that the Supreme Court isn’t just a firewall against Donald Trump, but the real power center in American politics today.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:28 - Remaking the presidency: The hundred-year experiment
• 04:26 - Trump’s legal retribution campaign
• 09:15 - The Supreme Court’s strategy in the face of Trump
• 18:15 - “Looming" cases: Tariffs and birthright citizenship
• 28:23 - Supreme Court internal dynamics
• 43:32 - The future bench

(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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How would you live if you knew when you were going to die? I sat down with the former Republican senator Ben Sasse to hear how he is facing his own mortality after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis. For Sasse, cancer brings pain, but also clarity, sharpening his focus on the state of our politics, his wife and three children, and the God he expects to shortly meet.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:51 - Ben Sasse’s terminal diagnosis
• 07:14 - Oncology navigation and clinical trials
• 16:10 - Sasse’s career in the Senate and reflections on politics
• 32:55 - What could a civic-minded Senator achieve?
• 38:15 - Reforming academia and liberal arts
• 54:49 - Facing mortality: The “final enemy”
• 59:27 - Advice for the living
• 1:01:10 - The “prayer of pancreatic cancer”

(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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Even if you don’t believe he walked on water, the teachings of Jesus still have a certain power. My guest this week, the New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, calls himself a “Christian atheist.” I asked Ehrman to come on the show to explore Jesus’ message, discuss how the Bible has shaped the morality of the Western world and explain what even the biggest skeptic can learn from one of mankind’s oldest texts.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 02:20 - Jesus’s moral teachings
• 08:15 - Ehrman’s path away from Christianity and faith
• 21:22 - The historical evidence for Jesus and the New Testament
• 33:26 - The challenges in interpreting the Gospels
• 52:07 - The contradictions in the New Testament
• 01:04:10 - Historical and geographical validity
• 01:09:25 - The visions and reality of the Resurrection 
• 01:19:21 - A “Christian atheist”

(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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Is the U.S. winning the war with Iran? Even though President Trump claims success, it doesn’t quite feel like it — oil and gas prices are high, the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed, and the Iranian regime is still in place. Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a prominent Iran hawk, explains why “total victory” is within reach in spite of the cost. I pressed him on the gap between Trump’s desire for a quick deal and his desire to end the Islamic Republic.

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:03:49 -  Is Iran biding its time until Trump leaves office?
• 00:07:07 -  Three phases to regime change
• 00:09:42 -  Iran's military capabilities and the Strait of Hormuz
• 00:14:54 -  How will the next American president treat Iran?
• 00:18:48 -  The battle for the Strait of Hormuz
• 00:23:27 -  Will Iran attack its neighbors?
• 00:28:43 -  Will Trump cut a deal?
• 00:38:19 -  Does Israel think Trump is its best chance?
• 00:43:04 -  Risk of U.S. alienation from Israel
• 00:48:01 -  The cost of inaction and the Iranian people

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 idea that white people — and white men in particular — face discrimination has become something of an obsession on the American right.

It’s a view that my guest this week shares. Jeremy Carl was nominated to a State Department post by the Trump administration, which sparked a lot of controversy. Carl is the author of “The Unprotected Class,” in which he makes the case that white Americans are in danger of becoming “second-class citizens.” 

I wanted to know what he thinks constitutes anti-white discrimination and whether focusing on it inevitably leads to white nationalism. After we taped this interview, Carl withdrew his nomination, acknowledging that he lacked enough support to be confirmed.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:59 - Jeremy Carl’s trajectory and State Department Nomination
• 05:24 - The Civil Rights Act and rise of anti-white Discrimination
• 12:20 - The impact of immigration on white Americans
• 24:53 - The "radicalization" of D.E.I.
• 37:37 - Carl’s provocative language and controversial tweets
• 51:06 - “White culture” vs. “civic nationalism”
• 01:01:00 - The fours pillars of “Americanness”

(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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Can the Democrats finally seize on President Trump’s increasing unpopularity and end their slump? It seems to me as though 2026 is providing them ample opportunity. But I wanted to know what they actually stand for. Have they learned anything about immigration? Are they ready for the new politics of artificial intelligence? To find out, I asked someone I consider a true man of the left, Chris Hayes, the host of “All In With Chris Hayes” on MS NOW.

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:09 - Democrats: The state of play in 2026
• 06:46 - How Israel fractures the Democrats
• 09:19 - Immigration reform beyond the “old consensus”
• 19:46 - Models for Democratic leadership: Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego, Rafael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff
• 27:22 - 2028: Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and “the Hillary Clinton problem” 
• 30:41 - The politics of attention
• 36:19 - The challenges of achieving a Leftist society
• 45:37 - A Leftist case against A.I.
• 1:04:23 - Will A.I. define the 2028 election?

(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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I don’t think a war with Iran is what Trump — or his voters — had in mind when he campaigned on “America first.” My guest this week is Curt Mills, the executive director of The American Conservative, a magazine that champions foreign policy restraint. Mills thinks the war with Iran is a major betrayal of the voters who put Trump in the White House and has the potential to shatter Trump’s domestic coalition. 

• 01:27 - Tracking the Trump administration’s foreign policy shifts and dynamics
• 08:50 - The different strands of right-wing foreign policy
• 15:00 - Is the anti-war movement real?: Policy, polling and public opinion 
• 27:49 - Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East’s influence on U.S. foreign policy
• 40:17 - Why can’t Trump say no to Israel?
• 46:20 - How does the fallout in Iran impact Trump’s potential 2028 successors and insurgents?

(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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We’re going back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. That is, if Artemis II can get off the ground. I sat down with Jared Isaacman, the billionaire leading NASA, to hear his perspective on everything from extraterrestrial life to the timeline for sending humans to Mars. 

This interview was recorded before NASA announced the delay of Artemis II’s launch.

• 01:59 - Where are we?
• 04:00 - From entrepreneur to astronaut
• 09:04 - The “lunar futuristic junkyard”
• 15:06 - NASA’s budget
• 22:43 - Beyond NASA: Blue Origin, SpaceX and private industry
• 27:26 - The orbital economy
• 37:21 - How do we get to Mars?
• 43:31 - “Do you think there's life out there?”

(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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