- 29 minutes 35 secondsThe Battle Over Black Representation in the South
The approach to this year’s midterms has brought two hugely consequential changes to voting for Black Americans: the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and redistricting. In the wake of those actions, efforts are underway to mobilize Black voters in the South.
In Mississippi, the Senate battle is being seen as a sleeper race, and the Black Democrat running has a chance of flipping the seat, but state lawmakers are trying to redraw the maps and do away with their one majority Black district.
Today, Emily Cochrane, a reporter covering the American South for The New York Times, addresses the implications for voters across the region — not just in the midterms, but for years to come.
Guest: Emily Cochrane, a national reporter for The New York Times covering the American South.
Background reading:
- Black Democratic candidates running in the South have implored Black voters to go to the polls in response to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
- High-profile Democrats across the country have some hope in Scott Colom’s bid for a seat in the Senate.
Photo: Anna Foley/The New York Times
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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23 October 2026, 9:45 am - 33 minutes 52 secondsThe Election That Will Define Israel’s Future
Israelis head to the polls next week. On the ballot is the future of a country that has become isolated on the world stage, because of both its war in Gaza and a growing outcry over settler violence in the West Bank.
David M. Halbfinger, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times, explains how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu differs from his biggest challenger.
Guest: David M. Halbfinger, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Here’s why Palestinians hope Israelis will oust Netanyahu in pivotal election.
- President Trump endorsed Netanyahu as best U.S. partner in the Israeli election.
Photo: Amir Cohen/Reuters; Ariel Schalit/Associated Press
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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22 October 2026, 9:45 am - 32 minutes 29 secondsIs This Economy as Awful as Voters Think? We Ask Our Expert.
The economy is one of the most important issues for voters in the midterm elections. President Trump has been trying to persuade Americans that they are wrong to be frustrated about the cost of living.
Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent for The New York Times, explains what the latest economic data actually says.
Guest: Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Three charts that explain the economy as voters head to the polls.
- Higher energy prices lift U.S. inflation ahead of the midterms.
Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Associated Press
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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21 October 2026, 9:45 am - 43 minutes 39 secondsElizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder Keep Us Guessing
The comedian Nathan Fielder came to fame as the creator and host of the Comedy Central series “Nathan for You.” The show followed Fielder as he devised outrageous schemes, ostensibly with the aim of helping various small businesses. What became clear, though, was that Fielder was less interested in helping business owners generate profits than he was in understanding the people ensnared in his plots. His next project, the HBO series “The Rehearsal,” was a similar offbeat portrait of offbeat people. At the center of both projects is Fielder himself, a documentarian whose motives can sometimes be hard to parse.
This week, Fielder’s first feature-length documentary, “You Can See Everything,” hits theaters. Co-directed by Lance Oppenheim, the movie shows Fielder embedding himself into the life of the disgraced Theranos founder and felon Elizabeth Holmes in the days leading up to her imprisonment for fraud. The film caused a big splash when it debuted at the Telluride Film Festival, in part because it presents Holmes, a mysterious and compelling cultural figure, through the eyes of Fielder, a mysterious and compelling filmmaker.
This week, the Times movie critic Alissa Wilkinson and critic at large Jason Zinoman, who covers comedy, join Michael Barbaro for a spoiler-free discussion of Nathan Fielder, his career, and why he might be the perfect person to tell the story of Elizabeth Holmes.
On Today’s Episode
Alissa Wilkinson, a movie critic at The New York Times.
Jason Zinoman, a critic at large for the Culture section of The New York Times.
Background Reading
- ‘The Real World’ and Nathan Fielder can both thank this cult filmmaker.
- ‘You Can See Everything,’ if you could only secure a ticket.
Photo: A24, via Associated Press
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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18 October 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 4 minutes50 Years In, What's the Point of U2? Bono and the Edge Have Answers.
The longtime friends and creative partners on what U2 still means — and what would make them call it quits.
- Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]
- Watch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@TheInterviewPodcast
- For transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/theinterview
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
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17 October 2026, 10:00 am - 38 minutes 57 secondsCeline Dion’s Triumphant Return to the Stage
A dramatic pop music comeback story is underway: Celine Dion is performing again.
In 2022, Dion, the renowned Canadian singer, announced that she had stiff person syndrome, a rare and incurable neurological disorder that causes painful muscle spasms and affects roughly one in a million people. The announcement came as a shock to her fans, and in a raw and revealing documentary released in 2024, “I Am: Celine Dion," she shared her struggle to overcome her condition, and sing again. But Dion worked her way back to performing, and is now appearing in a run of sold out shows in Paris.
The culture reporter Elisabeth Vincentelli was there on opening night, and in this episode of “The Sunday Daily,” she talks with our host Natalie Kitroeff about the remarkable comeback of Celine Dion.
On Today’s Episode:
- Elisabeth Vincentelli, an arts, culture, and theater journalist.
Background Reading:
Photo credit: Clementine Schneidermann for The New York Times.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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11 October 2026, 10:00 am - 37 minutes 27 secondsThe Restaurant Industry Is Broken. Can It Be Fixed?
If you dine out regularly, you might have noticed some changes in restaurants over the past few years. Perhaps you’ve found yourself ordering at a counter, scanning a QR code to see the menu, or eating … a lot more soft serve.
These changes aren’t just trends. Brett Anderson, a New York Times food reporter, says they are restaurant owners’ desperate attempts to stay afloat in an industry in crisis. According to a report from the National Restaurant Association, 42 percent of restaurant owners said they weren’t profitable in 2025. Many of them were at serious risk of closing.
In this episode of “The Sunday Daily,” Brett talks with our host Michael Barbaro about the economic realities that are forcing businesses to rethink the entire concept of a restaurant, including a radical experiment at one Minneapolis diner that stopped charging for food entirely.
On Today’s Episode:
- Brett Anderson, a reporter for the Food section of The New York Times.
Background Reading:
- This Restaurant Stopped Charging for Food. And Profits Are Up.
Photo credit: Caroline Yang for The New York Times.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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4 October 2026, 10:00 am - 57 minutes 17 secondsThe Best TV Shows of the 21st Century
The turn of the century was the beginning of a new era in television: prestige TV for the masses. Today, television is where big stars and innovative creators go to marshal sizable budgets and tell meaningful stories.
Over recent months, our colleagues at The New York Times ran a survey, asking industry insiders — on-screen talent, writers, directors, producers, executives and others — to pick their top 10 television series of the last 26 years. We compiled their responses into a list, published this week, of the best TV of the 21st century.
In this episode of “The Sunday Daily,” The Times’s canon editor, Gilbert Cruz, and our chief TV critic, James Poniewozik, talk with our host Natalie Kitroeff about what made the list, and what didn’t.
On Today’s Episode
James Poniewozik is The New York Times’s chief TV critic.
Gilbert Cruz is the canon editor at The New York Times.
Background Reading
- The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century
- The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century: Cast Your Vote
- The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century: How Stars, Creators and Other TV Lovers Voted
Photo: The New York Times
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
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27 September 2026, 10:00 am - 34 minutes 48 secondsHow a 1,000-Year-Old Tapestry Took London by Storm
For the first time in centuries, the Bayeux Tapestry — a nearly 1,000-year-old piece of embroidery that depicts the invasion of England by William the Conqueror in 1066 — is on display in Britain.
It was long said by art experts to be too fragile to move. But in a development that required geopolitical persuasion, this summer the tapestry made its way from Bayeux, France, to the British Museum in London.
When the first block of tickets went on sale, the British Museum said, over 80,000 people at a time waited online to buy them.
In this episode of the “Sunday Daily,” Alex Marshall, a culture reporter for The New York Times, talks with host Michael Barbaro about why this ancient piece of embroidery matters so much to the British public.
On Today’s Episode:
Alex Marshall is a European culture reporter for The New York Times, based in London.
Background Reading:
- How to See a Bayeux Tapestry — Without Going to the British Museum
- A Nation Gripped by ‘Bayeux Fever’ Finally Gets to See the Tapestry
Photo credit: Kin Cheung for Associated Press.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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20 September 2026, 10:00 am - 37 minutes 36 secondsThe Good, the Bad and the Good-Bad (Movie)
When it comes to movies we love, there are the artistic masterpieces and there are the foot-stomping crowd pleasers. But there’s another particular kind of beloved movie, the one that makes our friends groan, but that we rewatch incessantly; the one that we can quote line for line, even as we giggle at the actors’ performances; the one that we’d say is great, but that we might not say is good. These are the kinds of movies that Maya Salam, a pop culture writer at The New York Times, covers in her monthly column, The Good-Bad.
This episode is a celebration of good-bad movies, timed to the release of “Practical Magic 2,” the long-awaited sequel to the 1998 cult film that Salam called “a bubbling cauldron of plot holes and tones.” Our host Rachel Abrams talks to Salam about the joys of loving a movie despite (or because of) its flaws. Then, they’re joined by The Times’s canon editor, Gilbert Cruz, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a Times Magazine writer, to discuss the best of good-bad cinema.
On Today’s Episode:
Maya Salam covers pop culture for The New York Times.
Gilbert Cruz is the canon editor for The New York Times.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a features reporter for The New York Times Magazine.
Background Reading:
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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13 September 2026, 10:00 am - 42 minutes 59 secondsClassical Music Is in Crisis. Gustavo Dudamel Is Here to Save It.
This week marks the start of the Gustavo Dudamel era in New York.
The superstar conductor was just 28 when he became the musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009. A native of Venezuela and a product of its El Sistema musical training program, Dudamel quickly established himself not just as a great conductor, but also as a cultural force of nature. In his time in Los Angeles, he expanded the Philharmonic’s repertoire, created a successful youth outreach program, won prestigious awards and ingratiated himself with Hollywood elite.
Now, after 17 years in Los Angeles, Dudamel is taking the helm at one of the world’s most famous and storied orchestras: the New York Philharmonic. It’s a job once held by Leonard Bernstein, and Dudamel is hoping to follow in Bernstein’s footsteps to make the Philharmonic and the music that it plays a bigger part of the pop culture landscape.
On today’s episode, Joshua Barone, who covers classical music for The Times, discusses Dudamel, what he’s accomplished and the high hopes for his tenure with the New York Philharmonic.
Music Featured (in order of appearance, all conducted by Gustavo Dudamel):- Johann Strauss, Tik-Tak Polka, Polka Schnell, Op. 365, Weiner Philharmoniker (Sony Music Entertainment)
- Dmitri Shostakovich, Festive Overture, Op. 96, Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon)
- Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor IV. Adagietto, Berlin Philharmonic (Berlin Philharmonic Recordings)
- Antonin Dvorak, Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88, B. 163, III. Allegretto grazioso- Molto vivace, Los Angeles Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon)
- John Williams, “The Imperial March” (From “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back”), Los Angeles Philharmonic (UMG Recordings, Inc)
- John Adams, “En un Día de Amor Yo Bajé Hasta la Tierra,” The Gospel According to the Other Mary, Los Angeles Master Chorale and Los Angeles Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon)
- Gabriela Ortiz, “Kauyumari,” Los Angeles Philharmonic (Platoon)
- Ludwig Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92, IV. Allegro con brio, Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon)
- Thomas Adès, “XII. The Thieves — devoured by reptiles,” Dante, Los Angeles Master Chorale and Los Angeles Philharmonic (Nonesuch Records)
- Ludwig Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio, Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon)
- Ludwig Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra (self-released)
- Leonard Bernstein, “End Credits” and “The Dance at the Gym: Mambo,” from “West Side Story” (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), Los Angeles Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic (Hollywood Records)
On Today’s Episode:
Joshua Barone is an editor for the Culture section of The New York Times who works on classical music and dance coverage. He also writes criticism about classical music and opera.
Background Reading:
- Gustavo Dudamel’s Long Goodbye to L.A., and Long Hello to New York
What Makes Superstar Conductor Gustavo Dudamel So Good?
Photo Credit: James Estrin/ The New York Times
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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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