The Ezra Klein Show

I’m reporting from the Democratic National Convention this week, so we’re going to try something a little different on the show — a daily audio report of what I’m seeing and hearing here in Chicago. For our first installment, I’m joined by my producer, Rollin Hu, to discuss what the convention’s opening night revealed about the Democratic Party after a tumultuous couple of months. We talk about ho...

A strange new gender politics is roiling the 2024 election. At the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump made his nomination a show of campy masculinity, with Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, warming up the crowd. JD Vance’s first viral moments have been comments he made in 2021 about “childless cat ladies” running the Democratic Part...

Risk has been on my mind this year. For Democrats, the question of whether Joe Biden should drop out was really a question about risk – the risk of keeping him on the ticket versus the risk of the unknown. And it’s hard to think through those kinds of questions when you have incomplete information and so much you can’t predict. After all, few election models forecast that Kamala Harris would have...

It’s been remarkable watching the Democratic Party act like a political party this past month — a party that makes decisions collectively, that does hard things because it wants to win, that is more than the vehicle for a single person’s ambitions.  But parties are made of people. And in the weeks leading up to President Biden’s decision to drop out of the race, it felt like the Democratic Party w...

In picking Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris is after more than just Pennsylvania. Mentioned: “ Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need? ” by The Ezra Klein Show Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast . Book recommendations from all our...

The economy is one of the biggest vulnerabilities for Democrats this election and, in particular, the issue of affordability. Many Americans blame the Biden administration for the past few years of high inflation, and housing costs have become a crisis in cities across the country. These are top concerns for voters, and the Democratic Party hasn’t articulated the clearest answer. But there are som...

I’ve watched a lot of presidential campaigns, and I can’t remember one in which the contest for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination has played out quite so publicly. One breakthrough voice has been Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. Before last week, he didn’t have much of a national profile. But then he went on “Morning Joe” and said of Donald Trump and JD Vance, “These guys are just weird.” Tha...

Gretchen Whitmer is one of the names you often see on lists of Democratic V.P. contenders. She’s swatted that speculation down repeatedly, but the interest in her makes a lot of sense. Michigan is a must-win state for Democrats, and she has won the governorship of that state twice, by significant margins each time. She’s also long been one of the Democratic Party’s most talented and forthright mes...

The Democratic Party’s rallying around Kamala Harris — the speed of it, the intensity, the joyfulness, the memes — has been head-spinning. Just a few weeks ago, she was widely seen in the party as a weak candidate and a risk to put on the top of the ticket. And while a lot of those concerns have dissipated, there’s one that still haunts a lot of Democrats: Can Harris win in Wisconsin? Democrats ar...

An open convention or a coronation aren’t the only two options.   Mentioned: “ Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden ” by The Ezra Klein Show “ What Is the Democratic Party For? ” by The Ezra Klein Show Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com . You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book...

This year’s Republican National Convention was Donald Trump’s third as the party’s nominee, but it was the first that felt like a full expression of a G.O.P. that has fully fallen in line with Trumpism. And the mood was jubilant. Speakers even made efforts to reach out to unions, Black voters and immigrants — imagining a big-tent Republican Party that could be far more formidable at the ballot box...

The Trump campaign isn’t just expecting to win this election; it’s expecting to win it in a landslide. And top Trump campaign officials were feeling that confident even before Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance. So what’s their strategy to achieve the blowout they’re imagining? And is their confidence justified? Tim Alberta is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of “ American Carn...

When Donald Trump on Monday chose Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate it excited populists — and unnerved some business elites. Later that evening, the president of the Teamsters, Sean O’Brien, gave a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention. “Over the last 40 years, the Republican Party has rarely pursued strong relationships with organized labor,” O’Brien said. “There a...

It was once a fringe opinion to say President Biden should drop his re-election bid and Democrats should embrace an open convention. That position is fringe no more. But when the conventional wisdom shifts this rapidly, there’s always the danger of overlooking its potential flaws. My colleague, the Times Opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie, has been making some of the strongest arguments against Biden...

If Joe Biden steps aside for the Democratic presidential nomination — still a very big if — the favorite to replace him is Vice President Kamala Harris. In recently leaked post-debate polling from Open Labs , Harris polled better than Biden in matchups against Trump. In 2019, Dana Goodyear wrote in The New Yorker , “As a Black, female law-and-order Democrat, Harris creates a kind of cognitive diss...

After President Biden’s rough performance at the first presidential debate, the question of an open convention has roared to the front of Democratic politics. But how would an open convention work? What would be its risks? What would be its rewards?  In February, after I first made the case for an open Democratic convention , I interviewed Elaine Kamarck to better understand what an open conventio...

Top Democrats have closed ranks around Joe Biden since the debate. Should they?  Mentioned: “ This Isn’t All Joe Biden’s Fault ” by Ezra Klein “ Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden ” by The Ezra Klein Show “ Here’s How an Open Democratic Convention Would Work ” with Elaine Kamarck on The Ezra Klein Show The Hollow Parties by Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Ema...

I joined my Times Opinion colleagues Ross Douthat and Michelle Cottle to discuss the debate — and what Democrats might do next. Mentioned: “ The Biden and Trump Weaknesses That Don’t Get Enough Attention ” by Ross Douthat “ Trump’s Bold Vision for America: Higher Prices! ” with Matthew Yglesias on The Ezra Klein Show “ Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden ” on The Ezra Klein Show “ Here’s How...

Donald Trump has made inflation a central part of his campaign message. At his rallies, he rails against “the Biden inflation tax” and “crooked Joe’s inflation nightmare,” and promises that in a second Trump term, “inflation will be in full retreat.” But if you look at Trump’s actual policies, that wouldn’t be the case at all. Trump has a bold, ambitious agenda to make prices much, much higher. He...

The biggest divide in our politics isn’t between Democrats and Republicans, or even left and right. It’s between people who follow politics closely, and those who pay almost no attention to it. If you’re in the former camp — and if you’re reading this, you probably are — the latter camp can seem inscrutable. These people hardly ever look at political news. They hate discussing politics. But they d...

On Tuesday I got back from an eight-day trip to Israel and the West Bank. I happened to be there on the day that Benny Gantz resigned from the war cabinet and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to schedule new elections, breaking the unity government that Israel had had since shortly after Oct. 7. There is no viable left wing in Israel right now. There is a coalition that Netanyahu leads...

There’s something weird happening with the economy. On a personal level, most Americans say they’re doing pretty well right now. And according to the data, that’s true. Wages have gone up faster than inflation. Unemployment is low, the stock market is generally up so far this year, and people are buying more stuff. And yet in surveys, people keep saying the economy is bad. A recent Harris poll for...

After Donald Trump was convicted last week in his hush-money trial, Republican leaders wasted no time in rallying behind him. There was no chance the Republican Party was going to replace Trump as their nominee at this point. Trump has essentially taken over the G.O.P.; his daughter-in-law is even co-chair of the Republican National Committee. How did the Republican Party get so weak that it could...

The steady dings of notifications. The 40 tabs that greet you when you open your computer in the morning. The hundreds of unread emails, most of them spam, with subject lines pleading or screaming for you to click. Our attention is under assault these days, and most of us are familiar with the feeling that gives us — fractured, irritated, overwhelmed. D. Graham Burnett calls the attention economy...

A.I.-generated art has flooded the internet, and a lot of it is derivative, even boring or offensive. But what could it look like for artists to collaborate with A.I. systems in making art that is actually generative, challenging, transcendent? Holly Herndon offered one answer with her 2019 album “ PROTO .” Along with Mathew Dryhurst and the programmer Jules LaPlace, she built an A.I. called “Spaw...