The New Yorker staff writer Jason Zengerle joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Republican candidates are responding to Donald Trump’s historically low approval ratings. They talk about the races in which the President’s endorsements may be hurting Republicans, the political fallout from his immigration policies and the war in Iran, and his decision to campaign in deep-red states rather than in competitive districts. They also consider whether a blue wave could weaken Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, and how the midterms might affect its next slate of Presidential candidates.

This conversation was recorded for a live video on Substack. Follow The New Yorker on Substack »

Recommended reading:

• “The Republicans’ Remarkably Bad Midterm Campaigns,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
• “Trump’s Repudiation Is at Hand, Right?,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “The State Officials Defending the Midterms from the President,” by Barton Gellman
• “How ICE Is Targeting the 2026 Midterms,” by Jonathan Blitzer
• “Can Democrats Win Back Labor?,” by Dan Kaufman

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week.

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The Senate race between James Talarico and Ken Paxton dominates the news out of Texas, but, in the race for governor, a Democratic state legislator is also running neck and neck with the longtime Republican incumbent, Greg Abbott. Gina Hinojosa is likely leading among independents by as much as twenty-three per cent, according to one recent poll. She tells David Remnick that opposition to data centers and to Abbott’s school-voucher program could lead to a blue wave in Texas. “Nobody in 2026 in Texas has the luxury of fighting culture wars,” Hinojosa says. “We've been doing that for ten years, and we're all worse off.” But, Remnick notes, she seems to hold her fire when it comes to Donald Trump. “Listen, I have to win Trump voters to win this race,” she replies. “Latinos went for Trump in Texas. . . . I don't think it is helpful to rub their noses in his failures.”

Further reading:

• “The Republicans Are Messing with Texas,” by Peter Slevin
• “The Astonishing Transformation of Austin,” by Lawrence Wright

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

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The Washington Roundtable is joined by Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff under Barack Obama, for a discussion about the Democratic Party’s odds heading into the midterm elections. In 2006, as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Emanuel helped engineer his party’s sweeping electoral victories against an unpopular Republican President. Two decades later, he anticipates Democratic wins across the board, including in the Texas and Iowa Senate races. Emanuel lays out what he sees as an affirmative agenda for the Party, should they take control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term: ethics reform, a minimum-wage increase, an overhaul of the tax code, and a focus on corruption. “The way I talk about corruption is, He wants his ballroom and you’re getting the bill. He wants his arch, and you can’t afford a meal at the Golden Arches. He gets a $450 million plane from Qatar, and you get $4.50 a gallon of gas,” says Emanuel. “You gotta drive the corruption into the wallet.”

This week’s reading:

• “Trump’s Repudiation Is at Hand, Right?,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “How ICE Is Targeting the 2026 Midterms,” by Jonathan Blitzer
• “Can Justin J. Pearson Win in Tennessee?,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• “How Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Gave Florida Democrats a Chance,” by Daniel Castro
• “How the D.S.A. Learned to Love Elections,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

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A growing portion of the electorate appears to recognize the mayhem President Donald Trump has instigated since returning to the Oval Office. That segment includes some of the people who put him back into office, including Rich Baris, who goes by the People’s Pundit on social media. Baris runs Big Data Poll, and appears regularly on “The Charlie Kirk Show” and other right-wing outlets. But he concurs with nonpartisan pollsters that MAGA is fracturing, and he talks with David Remnick about how the President lost the trust of his base; the contempt MAGA voters have for the old Republican Party; and who might take the reins after Trump. 

Further reading:

• “The Week Republicans Finally Panicked About Trump,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “A Never Trumper and a Democrat on Beating MAGA for Good,” by Isaac Arnsdorf
• “How the Internet Fringe Infiltrated Republican Politics,” by Antonia Hitchens
• “Tucker Carlson’s Nationalist Crusade,” by Jason Zengerle
• “Does MAGA Have Ideas?,” by Joshua Rothman

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

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The Washington Roundtable is joined by Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning filmmaker, to discuss his new documentary, “Musk.” Since July, Elon Musk has poured more than a quarter of a billion dollars into Republican campaigns, more than any other donor in the midterms by a wide margin, and all in plain view. Jane Mayer, the New Yorker staff writer and the author of “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,” explains how Musk is bringing political financing by the ultra-wealthy out of the shadows: “He’s the coming-out party for the billionaires.” Gibney argues that Musk’s flagrant spending is less a matter of ideology than one of self-preservation—a way to forestall investigations, protect his companies, and keep the federal contracts coming. How did a single person come to wield this kind of power over our elections, our technology, and even a war on the other side of the world? “He sold us all a dream,” Gibney says, “and we fell for it.”

Get Tickets to The Political Scene Live at The New Yorker Festival on October 24th

Get Tickets to The Political Scene Live at Sith & I in Washington D.C. on November 18th

This week’s reading:

• “Trump’s October Surprise Is a Pivot to Putin,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Who Won the Redistricting War?,” by Jon Allsop
• “Kimberly Who?,” by Ruth Marcus
• “Donald Trump After the Midterms,” by David Remnick
• “Pity the Poor Passport,” by Adam Gopnik

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The New Yorker staff writers Isaac Chotiner and Benjamin Wallace-Wells join Tyler Foggatt to discuss what Democrats might do after the midterms if they win a majority in the House or the Senate, and how Donald Trump might respond to attempts to check his power. If Trump has been willing to circumvent Congress on issues like military action and tariffs, how much difference would a Democratic majority make during the remainder of his second term? They also talk about how large a Democratic victory could be, and ask what the results might reveal about voters’ views of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

This conversation was recorded for a live video on Substack. Follow The New Yorker on Substack »

Recommended reading:

• “Donald Trump After the Midterms,” by David Remnick
• “The Dumocrats Are Coming for Trump, and All He Can Do Is Call Them Names,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Who Won the Redistricting War?,” by Jon Allsop
• “The Well-Funded Fight to Keep Latinos Voting Republican,” by Jesús Rodríguez
• “A Populist Revival in Iowa,” by Peter Slevin

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The economic punishment and threats of aggression that Donald Trump has launched against Canada are so severe that its government has looked at how to prepare for U.S. military action. David Remnick sits down with a former senior Canadian politician, Chrystia Freeland, to talk about the disintegration of a rock-solid partnership. Freeland served as the Deputy Prime Minister under Justin Trudeau, and has also held the roles of Minister of International Trade and Minister of Foreign Affairs; she helped negotiate a trade deal in Trump’s first term, which he subsequently broke. Freeland’s new book about the U.S.-Canada relationship is called “Unreliable Boyfriend,” but that title may soft-pedal it. “The vast majority of Canadians see this as a rupture” that will be permanent, she tells Remnick. “They think America is toxic and broken and can never be trusted again. . . . I actually am an outlier, because I think we shouldn’t write America off quite yet.”  

Further reading:

• “What If Canada Joined the E.U.?,” by Ishaan Tharoor
• “Canada, the Northern Outpost of Sanity,” by Bill McKibben
• “The Historical Roots of Donald Trump’s Aggressive Nationalism,” by Isaac Chotiner

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Washington Roundtable weighs in on how Donald Trump’s rampant corruption will play out at the polls. Although conventional wisdom in Washington suggests that graft doesn’t move voters, Democrats have nonetheless spent more than three hundred million dollars on ads that portray the President’s self-enrichment as a tax on everyone else. They are joined by a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Slaughter, who discusses what, if anything, can be done about corruption in the federal government, and why criminal prosecution may not be the most effective tool to combat it. Slaughter argues that officials must find ways to make corruption costly for those who engage in it. And though few Americans expect the powerful to face consequences, Slaughter says, “the only way to change that impression . . . is to start making people pay.”

Get Tickets to ⁠The Political Scene Live at The New Yorker Festival⁠ on October 24th

Get Tickets to ⁠The Political Scene Live at Sith & I in Washington D.C.⁠ on November 18th

This week’s reading:

• “The Dumocrats Are Coming for Trump, and All He Can Do Is Call Them Names,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “The Battle for the Post-Trump Right,” by Emma Green
• “The Battle to Pass a Billionaire Tax,” by Nicholas Lemann
• “In ‘Musk,’ Alex Gibney Punctures Elon’s Self-Mythology,” by Sheelah Kolhatkar
• “ICE Is Everywhere and Acting with Impunity,” by Jonathan Blitzer
• “Will Netanyahu Escape His Reckoning?,” by David Remnick

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer joins Tyler Foggatt to talk about Donald Trump’s decision to delay the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for Salvadoran immigrants. They discuss why the Administration, which has already terminated the T.P.S. designations of fourteen other countries, effectively opening up those communities to deportations, has yet to follow through on its promise to do the same for immigrants from El Salvador, and whether the decision was influenced by lobbyists from industries that rely on immigrant labor. They also discuss the tensions between the nativist wing of the Trump Administration and the pro-industry wing, and what Trump’s handling of T.P.S. reveals about how he makes decisions and exercises power in his second term. Does Trump’s unpredictability—and his susceptibility to being influenced even on his most deeply held beliefs—make his agenda more vulnerable to challenge?

Recommended reading:

• “Why Trump Delayed Cancelling Legal Status for Salvadorans,” by Jonathan Blitzer
• “ICE Is Everywhere and Acting with Impunity,” by Jonathan Blitzer
• “The Quiet Unravelling of a Haitian Life in America,” by Ruby Cramer
• “The Great Delegalization,” by Dara Lind

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

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In 2023, Evan Gershkovich was working as a young reporter in Moscow for the Wall Street Journal, when he was arrested by Russian authorities. He was eventually convicted on blatantly false charges of espionage and spent nearly five hundred days in imprisonment. Gershkovich recounts the experience in a new memoir, “This Cursed Beautiful Land,” and in an essay in The New Yorker. He spoke with David Remnick about life inside a Russian prison, the international prisoner swap that freed him, and why the difficult process of reacclimating to his former life complicated how he viewed his incarceration. 

Further reading and listening: 

• “The Russian Prisoner Who Didn’t Want to Be Freed,” by Joshua Yaffa
• “Evan Gershkovich Is Finally Coming Home,” by Joshua Yaffa
• “The Unimaginable Horror of a Friend’s Arrest in Moscow,” by Joshua Yaffa

This segment was recorded live at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Centers, in New York City.  

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Washington Roundtable is joined by the Polish Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, to discuss the war in Ukraine and Russia’s brazen tests of the NATO alliance, including drone incursions in Poland and a campaign of gray-zone tactics. “They are boiling the frog and watching what we will do,” Sikorski says. He weighs how much Europe can still count on the United States under President Trump, and whether the trust between America and its allies can be restored. The panel also reflects on how Poland pulled back from its own authoritarian slide, and what that history might say for Americans worried about the future of our democracy. 

This week’s reading:

• “Pete Hegseth Just Declared Victory in the Wrong War,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Why the War in Iran Is Likely to Heat Up Again,” by Isaac Chotiner
• “Why Trump Delayed Cancelling Legal Status for Salvadorans,” by Jonathan Blitzer
• “The President vs. the Press,” by Jelani Cobb

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices