The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, for a conversation about the pressures facing American democracy, the security of elections, and how these domestic tensions interact with the collapse of international norms. Nearly a decade after his prescient 2016 column for the Washington Post, “This is How Fascism Comes to America,” Kagan contends that the U.S. has moved beyond the warning and into a full democratic crisis. “There is no chance in the world that Donald Trump is gonna allow himself to lose in the 2026 elections, because that will be the end of his ability to wield total power in the United States,” Kagan says.This week’s reading: “The Minnesota War Zone Is Trump’s Most Trumpian Accomplishment,” by Susan B. Glasser “What It’s Like to Be Trump’s Closest Ally Right Now,” by Sam Knight “A D.H.S. Shooting Puts Portland Back Under the Microscope,” by James Ross Gardner  “Jay Powell, the Prepster Banker Who Is Standing Up to Trump,” by John Cassidy “How Donald Trump Has Transformed ICE,” Isaac Chotiner “How Colombia’s President Reached an Uneasy Détente with Donald Trump,” by Jon Lee Anderson  “Iran’s Regime Is Unsustainable,” by Robin Wright “The Supreme Court Gets Back to Work,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “The Lights Are Still On in Venezuela,” by Armando Ledezma “How Marco Rubio Went from “Little Marco” to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler,” by Dexter Filkins  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 Dexter Filkins joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Marco Rubio’s reëmergence as one of the most powerful, and most transformed, figures in Donald Trump’s second term. They talk about Rubio’s unlikely ascent to the dual roles of Secretary of State and national-security adviser, his journey from outspoken Trump critic to loyal enforcer, and what that evolution reveals about how power operates inside the Administration. They also examine Rubio’s central role in the U.S. abduction of the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, the dismantling of the State Department’s foreign-aid infrastructure, and the department’s growing reliance on coercion over diplomacy. This week’s reading: “How Marco Rubio Went from “Little Marco” to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler,” by Dexter Filkins “Denmark Is Sick of Being Bullied by Trump,” by Margaret Talbot “Iran’s Regime Is Unsustainable,” by Robin Wright “The Supreme Court Gets Back to Work,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “What Comes After the Protests,” by Jay Caspian Kang  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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

U.S. intervention in other countries, whether overt or covert, is by no means new, and Daniel Immerwahr notes that the open embrace of expansionism by the President and associates such as Stephen Miller goes back to the nineteenth century. Immerwahr is a professor at Northwestern University and the author of the 2019 best-seller “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.” He discusses Trump’s disdain for international law; tensions between the U.S. and Russia and China; and the historical link between imperialism and appeals to masculine pride. 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses Donald Trump’s use of force in Venezuela, his desire to take over Greenland, and the historical echoes of the Administration’s new imperialist projects. The panel also considers Trump’s brand of “narcissistic unilateralism” and the increased risks of global conflict when foreign policy is based on one man’s whims. “Donald Trump wants to write his name into history,” the staff writer Susan B. Glasser says. “He wants every single person in the world to have to exchange their map for one of the United States that looks different, that looks bigger, and that everybody for all eternity will say, ‘Donald Trump did this.’ ” This week’s reading: “Why Donald Trump Wants Greenland (and Everything Else),” by Susan B. Glasser “Minneapolis Grieves, Again,” by E. Tammy Kim “Mr. Mamdani’s (New) Neighborhood,” by Molly Fischer “The Aggressive Ambitions of Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine,’ ” by Robin Wright  “What Will Become of Venezuela’s Political Prisoners?,” by Stephania Taladrid “J. D. Vance’s Notable Absence on Venezuela,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “The Dramatic Arraignment of Nicolás Maduro,” by Cristian Farias “The Former Trump Skeptics Getting Behind His War in Venezuela,” by Isaac Chotiner “Jack Smith’s Closing Argument,” by Ruth Marcus “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Big Breakup,” by Charles Bethea  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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the United States to face narco-terrorism charges. They talk about the unprecedented nature of the raid, the shaky intelligence and legal rationale behind it, and what the operation reveals about the Trump Administration’s increasingly coercive approach to the region. They also examine what “running” Venezuela could look like in practice—from leaving Maduro associates in power to exploiting the country’s oil reserves—and how the intervention may reverberate across Latin America. This week’s reading: “Regime Change in America’s Back Yard,” by Jon Lee Anderson “Who’s Running Venezuela After the Fall of Maduro?,” by Jonathan Blitzer “The Folly of Trump’s Oil Imperialism,” by John Cassidy “The Brazen Illegality of Trump’s Venezuela Operation,” by Isaac Chotiner “Can the U.S. Really ‘Run’ Venezuela?,” by Caroline Mimbs Nyce 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices