The Political Scene | The New Yorker

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

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The Washington Roundtable: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the addition of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to the Democratic ticket and Donald Trump’s erratic response at a press conference on Thursday. “Walz has scrambled the circuits for Trump because he’s not easy to pigeonhole,” Osnos says. “He’s not what Trump imagines, in his comic-book way, of what a progressive looks like.” Plus, the campaigns’ strategies in the battleground states and what it will take to win key states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania.

This week’s reading:

• “Does Anyone in America Miss Joe Biden as Much as Donald Trump?” by Susan B. Glasser
• “How Generic Can Kamala Harris Be?” by Jay Caspian Kang
• “How Kamala Harris Became Bigger than Donald Trump,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells
• “What Tim Walz Brings to Kamala Harris’s Campaign to Beat Donald Trump,” by Peter Slevin
• “ ‘Weird’ Is a Rebuke to Republican Dominance Politics,” by Katy Waldman
• “What Does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Actually Want?,” by Clare Malone

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.

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The New Yorker staff writers Dexter Filkins and Clare Malone join Tyler Foggatt to examine Donald Trump’s appointments of former congressman Matt Gaetz and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to his Cabinet.Gaetz, who has been nominated for Attorney General, is one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders and the former subject of a sex-trafficking investigation run by the Department of Justice. (Gaetz has denied all allegations.) Trump has chosen Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, giving one of the world’s most prominent anti-vaccine activists broad powers over public health. How would these men reshape the legal and medical infrastructures of our federal government? And will they even be confirmed?

This week’s reading:

• “How Far Would Matt Gaetz Go?,” by Dexter Filkins
• “R.F.K., Jr.,’s Next Move,” by Clare Malone
• “Why Is Elon Musk Really Embracing Donald Trump?,” By John Cassidy
• “Trump’s Cabinet of Wonders,” by David Remnick
• “The Most Extreme Cabinet Ever,” by Susan B. Glasser

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

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The Washington Roundtable discusses how people in D.C. and across the country are preparing themselves for Donald Trump’s second Presidency, and what tools citizens have to protect their rights and push back on abuses of power. The American Civil Liberties Union has called attention to the strategies of litigation, legislation, and mobilization—strategies that are proven to work. David Cole, a former legal director of the A.C.L.U. and a professor of law and public policy at Georgetown University, joins Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos to discuss the checks and balances that exist as guardrails in government and civil society, and how those may be utilized in the coming four years.

This week’s reading:

• “What Could Stop Him?,” by David Cole (The New York Review of Books)
• “The Explosion of Matt Gaetz and Other Early Lessons in Trump 2.0,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Donald Trump’s Administration Hopefuls Descend on Mar-a-Lago,” by Antonia Hitchens
• “The Pain Creating a New Coalition for Trump,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• “The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone,” by Ronan Farrow
• “Donald Trump’s U.F.C. Victory Party,” by Sam Eagan
• “Understanding Latino Support for Donald Trump,” by Geraldo Cadava

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.

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Many of the most draconian measures implemented in the first couple weeks of the new Trump Administration have been justified as emergency actions to root out D.E.I.—diversity, equity, and inclusion—including the freeze (currently rescinded) of trillions of dollars in federal grants. The tragic plane crash in Washington, the President baselessly suggested, might also be the result of D.E.I. Typically, D.E.I. describes policies at large companies or institutions to encourage more diverse workplaces. In the Administration’s rhetoric, D.E.I. is discrimination pure and simple, and the root of much of what ails the nation. “D.E.I. is the boogeyman for anything,” Jelani Cobb tells David Remnick. Cobb is a longtime staff writer, and the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “If there’s a terrible tragedy . . . if there is something going wrong in any part of your life, if there are fires happening in California, then you can bet that, somehow, another D.E.I. is there.” Although affirmative-action policies in university admissions were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, D.E.I. describes a broad array of actions without a specific definition. “It’s that malleability,” Cobb reflects, that makes D.E.I. a useful target, “one source that you can use to blame every single failing or shortcoming or difficulty in life on.”

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