The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Washington Roundtable is joined by the journalist and historian Garrett Graff to trace how post-9/11 immigration policy, which led to a surge in Border Patrol hiring, set the stage for today’s crisis in Minneapolis. The panel examines how ICE and C.B.P., created to protect Americans from outside threats, have been unleashed in America’s cities as what Graff calls "a fascist secret police." “The Border Patrol has never been intended to be a force that is routinely interacting with American citizens,” Graff says. “Full stop, period, let alone routinely patrolling American cities.”
This week’s reading:

“Operation Trump Rehab,” by Susan B. Glasser

“The Green Monster,” by Garrett Graff for Politico, 2014

“Why Minnesota Can’t Do More to Stop ICE,” by Garrett Graff for Wired 

“The Schoolchildren of Minneapolis,” by Emily Witt

“What ICE Should Have Learned from the Fugitive Slave Act,” by Jelani Cobb

“Do Federal Officials Really Have ‘Absolute Immunity’?,” by Isaac Chotiner

“Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis,” by Vinson Cunningham

“The Cruel Conditions of ICE’s Mojave Desert Detention Center,” by Oren Peleg

“Maybe the United States Can Be One of Mark Carney’s ‘Middle Powers,’ ” by Bill McKibben

“Trump’s Greenland Fiasco,” by Joshua Yaffa

“What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizing—and Infighting,” by Charles Duhigg

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

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The New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Charles Duhigg joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss why Republicans have been more successful than Democrats at building durable political coalitions. They talk about the difference between short-term mobilization and long-term organizing, why large-scale protests often fail to translate into lasting power, and how conservative groups have quietly built local infrastructure that may sustain the MAGA movement beyond Donald Trump’s Presidency. They also examine how the left’s efforts are impeded by debates over ideological purity, and whether a renewed focus on community-based organizing and pragmatic coalition-building could reshape progressive politics in the coming years. 
This week’s reading:

“What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizing—and Infighting,” by Charles Duhigg

“Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis,” by Vinson Cunningham

“Do Federal Officials Really Have ‘Absolute Immunity’?,” by Isaac Chotiner

“The Battle for Minneapolis,” by Emily Witt

“The Cruel Conditions of ICE’s Mojave Desert Detention Center,” by Oren Peleg 

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. 
Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last October, Bari Weiss—best-known as a contrarian opinion writer who launched the right-leaning Free Press—was appointed the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. Donald Trump has called her new regime “the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.” The New Yorker staff writer Clare Malone wrote about Weiss’s hostile takeover of CBS for the January 26, 2026, issue of the magazine. In a conversation with David Remnick, Malone discusses her reporting on Weiss: how resigning from the New York Times launched Weiss to prominence as a crusader against what she has characterized as woke groupthink; how Weiss gained the support of Silicon Valley titans who had their own political grievances; and the headlines about Weiss’s rocky beginning as head of a news network, including the on-air travails of her new anchor, Tony Dokoupil. 
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. 
Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland and his subsequent retreat. At Davos this week, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, characterized the episode as “a rupture in the world order.” To analyze how Trump’s rhetoric has heightened concerns about the durability of the transatlantic alliance, the Roundtable is joined by Carl Bildt, the co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the former Prime Minister of Sweden. “I think what we need to do as Europeans is to do our own thing,” Bildt says. “We now have a United States that, from our point of view, is unpredictable.” 
This week’s reading:

“It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea,” by Susan B. Glasser

“An Unhappy Anniversary: Trump’s Year in Office,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin

“The Overlooked Deaths of the Attack on Venezuela,” by Oriana van Praag

“The Ice Curtain,” by Ian Frazier

“How Europe Can Respond to Trump’s Greenland Imperialism,” by Isaac Chotiner

“The Congresswoman Criminalized for Visiting ICE Detainees,” by Jonathan Blitzer

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. 
Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the role the church has played in sustaining protest movements—and whether effective political dissent in the United States is possible without involvement from religious institutions. They talk about how churches have historically provided moral authority, infrastructure, and community to movements for social change, why those qualities have been difficult to replicate in the age of social media and mass protest, and what is lost when dissent becomes sporadic or primarily digital. They also examine whether churches still have the widespread credibility and organizing capacity to anchor protest today, and what it would take for religious institutions to once again embrace a central place in modern political life. 
This week’s reading:

"Can American Churches Lead a Protest Movement Under Trump?," by Jay Caspian Kang

"Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News," by Clare Malone

"An Unhappy Anniversary: Trump’s Year in Office," by Amy Davidson Sorkin

"The Overlooked Deaths of the Attack on Venezuela," by Oriana van Praag

"Why Trump Supports Protesters in Tehran but Not in Minneapolis," 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. 
Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices