Offline with Jon Favreau

Does misinformation even matter if no one can agree on a shared reality? The New Yorker’s Jay Caspian Kang joins Offline to explain how the ICE shooting in Minnesota exposes Americans’ algorithm silos. Then, he and Jon explore the rise of a 23-year-old YouTuber who ignited the right’s fascination with fraud in Minnesota, and break down five media trends that will reshape the industry in 2026 and b...

What does 21st century authoritarianism look like in the United States? Author and Atlantic staff writer George Packer joins Offline to talk about America’s zombie democracy, who could be the most dangerous MAGA heir, and how Democrats should be fighting for the country. For our last episode of 2025, George and Jon connect the dots between Trump, polarization, oligarchs, AI, social media, Charlie...

Julie Scelfo, founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction, sits down with Jon to talk about the impacts AI and social media are having on our kids…and what we can do to stop it. Julie breaks down what change parents can effect vs. policy makers, the horrors kids are normalizing on social media, and the corruption at the highest echelons of government that are preventing safety features from being m...

Economist and techno-optimist Noah Smith, author of the Noahpinion Substack, joins Offline to debate the promise of artificial intelligence, the benefits of online fragmentation (could it be good for our society?) and whether liberal nationalism is feasible—and a good thing. Though Noah and Jon differ on a lot of “Offline” themes, they find common ground on the dangers of social media, leftist sco...

What happens when the AI bubble bursts, how did Meta get away with it yet again, and…is Elon “Bubba”? Max Fisher pays Offline a visit to take stock of the year in memes, conspiracy theories, and information siloes. He and Jon meet the ghosts of twitter fights past and future, compare notes on staying off their phones, and chat about what they’re watching right now…besides Zohran and Trump flirting...

There’s a lot of tired discourse about whether or not a Democratic Socialist like Zohran Mamdani could win in places that aren’t as blue as New York City. But what’s not getting enough attention is that Mamdani and his campaign somehow cracked the code for producing online content with offline results: getting people off the couch to connect with strangers face to face over a shared political goal...

Is there anything wrong with Democratic leadership being so devoutly…secular? Jon sits down for a conversation with Texas State Representative James Talarico, who put becoming an ordained minister on hold to run for US Senate. They discuss how genuine connection is the only road toward persuasion in our divided world, whether James can flip a Senate seat on a platform of loving thy neighbor, and h...

Something happened in 2016 that led Democrats to campaign on unpopular issues. Researcher Simon Bazelon digs into extensive polling data—and on-the-ground-results from tight races—to explain where elites steered us off course, how we can neutralize Trump’s advantages, and why voters might not actually want radical change. Then, he and Jon discuss the pitfalls of an attention economy that gives cli...

Will the AI bubble pop or will AI permanently reshape our society? Jon sits down with Stephen Witt, an investigative journalist and author of “The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip” to talk about Stephen’s dire warning in the New York Times about an AI prompt that could end the world. The two discuss the data centers taking over towns across America (an...

Chris Hayes, MSNBC host and author of The Siren’s Call , returns to Offline to talk about Democrats’ posting problem…they’re too afraid of controversy, too stingey with their appearences, and too focused on fundraising. Have the content firehoses diluted cancel culture? What’s the secret to Zohran Mamdani’s press strategy? Is John Fetterman the Democrats’ John McCain—and is there a lesson to learn...

Being an American right now is a wild ride. Every day brings a new controversy, with breathless media narratives and the same loud voices rushing in to score political points. Then another Truth Social post drops and the circus moves on. But all that noise is drowning out the actual story. On Crooked Media’s new podcast Runaway Country , veteran journalist Alex Wagner talks to the voices at the ce...

53% of American men are now dying before the age of 75—and that trend is getting worse.  Clinical psychologist Zac Seidler, Director of Men's Health Research at Movember, joins Offline to delve into how men misconstrue wellness in an increasingly digital world. Zac's work exposes how male influencers, podcasters, and cultural and political figures are shaping young men's views on masculinity, thei...

Cass Sunstein, Harvard professor and author of the new book On Liberalism: in Defense of Freedom, joins Offline to examine whether small-l "liberal" values like freedom, human rights, and the rule of law will be able to survive an illiberal president. Cass compares and contrasts what Trump and Vance are doing with the actions of the Bush and Reagan administrations, debates whether liberalism is a...

Should protests be about expression or persuasion? What makes for an effective protest? And is it still possible for protests to effect change in a fractured, algorithmic media environment? Jon talks to Dr. Omar Wasow, a professor at UC-Berkeley, about his famous study on the effectiveness of civil rights protests in the 1960s. They discuss why the protests of the early 60s led to more political c...

Skibidi rizz Labubu Dubai matcha. The internet—and its algorithms—have reshaped the words we use and the way we speak—but are those changes also affecting our politics? Adam Aleksic, known online as Etymology Nerd, joins Offline to talk to Jon about his new book “Algospeak” in which he makes sense of our new, internet-optimized linguistic landscape. Jon and Adam discuss how that landscape is chang...

Charlie Kirk’s assassination has rattled people on both sides of the aisle and terrified those whose jobs, like Charlie’s, involve talking about politics on the public stage. Jon reflects on the aftermath of the killing, what he finds most alarming, and his disappointment with leaders on the right and followers on the left. Then, the Bulwark’s Will Sommer joins the show to break down how important...

Democrats need to defend democracy without undermining it—but how? John Ganz, author of When the Clock Broke and the "Unpopular Front” substack, joins Offline to interrogate why Democrats have ceded nostalgia about the past to Republicans, how they should be resisting the America's autocratic slide, and what it says about our political moment that his “Trump is dead” tweet went viral. John and Jon...

As the U.S. slides into autocracy, Americans need to be reminded that liberalism can still solve the problems that Trump uses to fear monger. Jerusalem Demsas, founder and editor in chief of “The Argument,” joins Offline to explain what solutions for immigration and the economy would look like, her beef with the post-liberal left, and why she’s staying on Twitter...and maybe you should too. Plus,...

 Ben Rhodes—bestselling author, Pod Save the World co-host, and fellow Obama administration alum—joins Offline to explain how America is being torn apart by short-term thinking and the technology that stokes it. Ben recently wrote a piece for the New York Times on the topic, and he and Jon connect the dots between big tech, the attention economy and domestic dogmas, drawing on fifty years of forei...

Kyla Scanlon, author and economic commentator, joins Offline to explain why our economy feels so weird. She and Jon talk about the ways AI — and Labubus — have taken over the markets, whether big tech has become overly reliant on the attention economy, and why Gen Z is feeling so down about their longterm economic prospects. But first! Jon sits down with The New Yorker's Kyle Chayka to talk about...

As the Trump administration manufactures conspiracies to distract from the president’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, some on the right are blaming the deep state while others are finally calling foul. The Bulwark’s Will Sommer has been covering the far right conspiracy beat for years, and he joins the show to break down the Epstein drama, run through the kooks in charge of federal law enforceme...

Why are non-white voters moving towards Trump? Yale professor and author Daniel Martinez HoSang sits down with Jon to examine how Democrats’ multiracial coalition fell apart during and after Obama’s presidency, what minorities see in Trump (and why they have no remorse about voting for him) and what the left can do to win them back. But first! Max is back to hash out the news of the week: Trump ha...

Living through a deadly plague as we watched the country descend into political violence on our screens might've left us with some...unresolved issues. Director Ari Aster sits down with Jon to break down his new dark comedy, “Eddington,” which depicts the violent unraveling of a small town as it faces pandemic, polarization, and AI proliferation. But first! MSNBC’s Brandy Zadrozny joins Offline to...

Boys today are being told to man up by the right and sit down by the left. Coming of age in the shadow of #MeToo and wading through algorithms rife with manosphere content, many young men are accepting the far right’s simple answers and leaning into traditional masculinity…without realizing it’s stunting their emotional development. Others are letting technology isolate and depress them. What is i...

Religion in the US has been on the decline for many years, but does atheism make us unhappier? Ross Douthat, New York Times Opinion columnist and author of Believe , joins Offline to explain why he thinks believing in God is a rational choice, why secular humanism feels worse in the age of Trump, and what he makes of Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance’s recent misanthropic comments on his "Interesting Tim...