The Washington Roundtable discusses this week’s confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and the potential for a “shock and awe” campaign in the first days of Donald Trump’s second term. Plus, as billionaires from many industries gather around the dais on Inauguration Day, what should we make of President Biden’s warning, in the waning days of his Administration, about “an oligarchy taking shape in America”? 

This week’s reading:

• ““The Trump Effect”: On Deal-Making and Credit-Claiming in Trump 2.0,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “The Pressure Campaign to Get Pete Hegseth Confirmed as Defense Secretary,” by Jane Mayer
• “Why the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Is Happening Now,” by Isaac Chotiner
• “ ‘An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape,’ ” by David Remnick
• “How Much of the Government Can Donald Trump Dismantle?” by Jeannie Suk Gersen
• “The Shock of a Gaza Ceasefire Deal,” by Ruth Margalit

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

The Eaton and Palisades fires continue to wreak destruction across Los Angeles. They are predicted to become the most expensive fire recovery in American history. As the fires have burned, a torrent of right-wing rage has emerged online. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Charlie Kirk have attacked liberal mismanagement and blamed D.E.I. programs and “woke” politics for the destruction. Meanwhile, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has expressed concerns that the future Trump Administration may add conditions to federal financial-assistance relief for California, something that Republican Congress members have already floated. The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what happens when disaster relief is swept up in the culture war. 

This week’s reading:

• “The Insurance Crisis That Will Follow the California Fires,” by Elizabeth Kolbert
• “On the Ground During L.A.’s Wildfire Emergency,” by Emily Witt
• “An Arson Attack in Puerto Rico,” by Graciela Mochkofsky
• “Elon Musk’s Latest Terrifying Foray Into British Politics,” By Sam Knight
• “The Pressure Campaign to Get Pete Hegseth Confirmed as Defense Secretary,” by Jane Mayer

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected].

Representative Ro Khanna of California is in the Democrats’ Congressional Progressive Caucus. And although his district is in the heart of Silicon Valley—and he once worked as a lawyer for tech companies—Khanna is focussed on how Democrats can regain the trust of working-class voters. He knows tech moguls, he talks with them regularly, and he thinks that they are forming a dangerous oligarchy, to the detriment of everyone else. “This is more dangerous than petty corruption. This is more dangerous than, ‘Hey, they just want to maximize their corporation's wealth,’ ”he tells David Remnick. “This is an ideology amongst some that rejects the role of the state.” Although he’s an ally of Bernie Sanders, such as advocating for Medicare for All and free public college, Khanna is not a democratic socialist. He calls himself a progressive capitalist. Real economic growth, he says, requires “a belief in entrepreneurship and technology and in business leaders being part of the solution.”

The Washington Roundtable discusses Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to end its fact-checking program across Meta’s social-media sites. Instead, Meta will release a tool that allows readers to add context and corrections to posts, similar to the way one can leave a “community note” on X. What does this choice mean for truth online in the coming Trump Administration, and have “alternative facts,” as they were dubbed by Kellyanne Conway in 2017, won out? Plus, free speech in the era of Donald Trump, lawsuits brought against the mainstream media, and how journalists will cover President Trump’s second Administration.

This week’s reading:

• “King Donald and the Presidents at the National Cathedral,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Why the MAGA Fight Over H-1B Visas Is Crossing Party Lines,” by John Cassidy
• “Lauren Boebert’s Survival Instincts,” by Peter Hessler

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

After nearly a decade as Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has resigned from office. His stepping down follows a years-long decline in popularity, which stands in sharp contrast to his meteoric rise in 2015. It now seems likely that the Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whose far-right populist support some have likened to Trump’s MAGA movement, will attain Canada’s highest office. The New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik joins the show to discuss Trudeau’s descent, Poilievre’s ascent, expectations for the upcoming parliamentary election, and what the future of Canadian politics may hold. 

This week’s reading:

• “Why Justin Trudeau Had to Step Down,” by Adam Gopnik
• “How Much Do Democrats Need to Change?,” by Peter Slevin
• “Bourbon Street After the Terror,” by Paige Williams
• “How Sheriffs Might Power Trump’s Deportation Machine,” by Jessica Pishko
• “New Mexico’s Nuclear-Weapons Boom,” by Abe Streep 

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected].

The Political Scene will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy a recent episode from The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast. Artists owe a great debt to ancient Rome. Over the years, it’s provided a backdrop for countless films and novels, each of which has put forward its own vision of the Empire and what it stood for. The hosts Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the latest entry in that canon, Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” which has drawn massive audiences and made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. The hosts also consider other texts that use the same setting, from the religious epic “Ben-Hur” to Sondheim’s farcical swords-and-sandals parody, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” Recently, figures from across the political spectrum have leapt to lay claim to antiquity, even as new translations have underscored how little we really understand about these civilizations. “Make ancient Rome strange again. Take away the analogies,” Schwartz says. “Maybe that’s the appeal of the classics: to try to keep returning and understanding, even as we can’t help holding them up as a mirror.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Gladiator II” (2024)

“I, Claudius” (1976)

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1966)

“The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988)

“Monty Python’s Life of Brian” (1979)

“Cleopatra” (1963)

“Spartacus” (1960)

“Ben-Hur” (1959)

“Gladiator” (2000)

“The End of History and the Last Man,” by Francis Fukuyama

“I, Claudius,” by Robert Graves

“I Hate to Say This, But Men Deserve Better Than Gladiator II,” by Alison Willmore (Vulture)

“On Creating a Usable Past,” by Van Wyck Brook (The Dial)

Emily Wilson’s translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss efforts by the U.S. government to rein in social media, including the latest attempt to ban TikTok. While Kang agrees that society should be more conscientious about how we, especially children, use social media, he argues that efforts to ban these apps also violate the First Amendment. 

“Social media has become the public square, even if it is privately owned,” he says. 

This episode was originally published in March, 2024.

This week’s reading:

• “The Misguided Attempt to Control Tiktok,” by Jay Caspian Kang

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected].

President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of one-hundred. He is remembered as a man of paradoxes: an evangelical-Christian Democrat, a white Southern champion of civil rights and solar energy, and a one-term President whose policies have come to seem prescient. Carter was unpopular when he departed the White House, in 1981, but, more than any other President, he saw his reputation improve after he left office. What does the evolution of Carter’s legacy tell us about American politics, and about ourselves? Lawrence Wright spent significant time with Carter and even wrote a play about the Camp David Accords, the peace deal that only Carter, Wright argues, could have brokered between Israel and Egypt. He joins Tyler Foggatt to remember Carter as a man and leader. 

The Washington Roundtable revisits an episode recorded after Henry Kissinger’s death, in November, 2023. Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos evaluate Kissinger’s controversial legacy, share anecdotes from his time in and around Washington, and discuss how he continued to shape U.S. foreign policy long after leaving the State Department.

“There are not that many hundred-year-olds who insist upon their own relevance and actually are relevant,” Glasser says.

This week’s reading:

• “Henry Kissinger’s Hard Compromises,” by Evan Osnos
• “Why Washington Couldn’t Quit Kissinger,” by Isaac Chotiner

This episode was originally published in December, 2023.

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

From the conflict in Gaza and the war in Ukraine to political chaos across Europe and the reëlection of Donald Trump, 2024 has been among the most tumultuous years in recent memory. Isaac Chotiner, the primary contributor to The New Yorker’s Q. & A. segment, has been following it all. He joins the show to reflect on his favorite interviews of the year, and to discuss 2024’s two biggest stories: the violence in Gaza and the reëlection of Donald Trump. Chotiner also talks about Joe Biden’s legacy, and his view on how Biden’s Presidency will be regarded by history.

This week’s reading:

• “The Year in Brain Rot,” by Jessica Winter
• “Luigi Mangione and the Making of a Modern Antihero,” by Jessica Winter
• “Syria After Assad,” by Robin Wright
• “In South Korea, a Blueprint for Resisting Autocracy?,” by E. Tammy Kim

Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.

1. Power dynamics in the Middle East shifted dramatically this year. In Lebanon, Israel dealt a severe blow toHezbollah, and another crucial ally of Iran—Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria—was toppled by insurgents. But the historian Rashid Khalidi is skeptical that these changes will set back the Palestinian cause, as it relates to Israel. “This idea that the Palestinians are bereft of allies assumes that they had people who were doing things for their interest,” Khalidi tells David Remnick, “which I don’t think was true.” The limited responses to the war in Gaza by Iran and Hezbollah, Khalidi believes, clearly demonstrate that Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance “was designed by Iran to protect the Iranian regime. . . . It wasn’t designed to protect Palestine.” Khalidi, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, is the author of a number of books on Palestinian history; among them, “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” has been particularly influential. The book helped bring the term “settler colonialism” into common parlance, at least on the left, to describe Israel’s relationship to historic Palestine. Sometimes invoked as a term of opprobrium, “settler colonialism” is strongly disputed by supporters of Israel. Khalidi asserts that the description is historically specific and accurate. The early Zionists, he says, understood their effort as colonization. “That’s not some antisemitic slur,” he says. “That’s the description they gave themselves.”
2. The concept of settler colonialism has been applied, on the political left, to describe Israel’s founding, and to its settlement of the Palestinian-occupied territories. This usage has been disputed by supporters of Israel and by thinkers including Adam Kirsch, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, who has also written about philosophy for The New Yorker. “Settler colonialism is . . . a zero-sum way of looking at the conflict,” Kirsch tells David Remnick. “In the classic examples, it involves the destruction of one people by another and their replacement over a large territory, really a continent-wide territory. That’s not at all the history of Israel and Palestine.” Kirsch made his case in a recent book, “On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice.”