The Ezra Klein Show

“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada announced last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
It was one of the most significant foreign policy speeches in years, sending shockwaves through the international community. He was describing a dynamic that’s been building for decades — what the scholars Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman call “weaponized interdependence” — that has now reached a tipping point.
I asked Farrell on the show to explain this dynamic, why this is a “rupture” moment and how other countries are responding. He is an international-affairs professor at Johns Hopkins University, is an author of the book “Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy” and writes an excellent Substack, Programmable Mutter.
Note: This episode touches on the clashes over immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and the killing of Renee Good, but it was recorded on Friday, before the killing of Alex Pretti.
Mentioned:
“Davos 2026: Special address by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada”
Underground Empire by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman
“Programmable Mutter” by Henry Farrell
“The nature and sources of liberal international order” by Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry
“The Enshittification of American Power” by Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman
“Too big to care” by Cory Doctorow
Weapons of the Weak by James C. Scott
Private Truths, Public Lies by Timur Kuran
“Further Back to the Future: Neo-Royalism, the Trump Administration, and the Emerging International System” by Stacie E. Goddard and Abraham Newman
“The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989–91” by Susanne Lohmann
Book Recommendations:
Dollars and Dominion by Mary Bridges
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
The Score by C. Thi Nguyen
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker, Kate Sinclair Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

There’s so much more happening than what you see in online video clips.
Congress gave Trump a staggering, military-size budget for immigration enforcement. And it’s hard to keep the scale of what the administration is building in your mind all at once. There are all the additional boots on the ground, as well as a lot of things that are less visible.
I wanted to talk to someone who has followed closely how the whole immigration system is changing under President Trump. Caitlin Dickerson is a journalist at The Atlantic. She’s been covering immigration closely since Trump’s first term, and she won a Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for reporting on his family separation policy. In this conversation, we discuss what the country’s new immigration enforcement infrastructure looks like, what it is being used to do now and what it might mean for the future.
This episode contains strong language.
Mentioned:
“We need to take away children.” by Caitlin Dickerson
“ICE’s Mind-Bogglingly Massive Blank Check" by Caitlin Dickerson
“Hundreds of Thousands of Anonymous Deportees” by Caitlin Dickerson
“How ICE Lost Its Guardrails” by Caitlin Dickerson
“Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” The White House
Book Recommendations:
Impossible Subjects by Mae M. Ngai
Solito by Javier Zamora
Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sarah Stillman and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

We are one year into Trump’s second term. And it feels like so much has happened – more than the human mind, or the country, can absorb. But how much has Trump really accomplished? What policies have changed the country in a way that will last?
My guest Yuval Levin is one of the smartest thinkers on the right, and his verdict is: not that much. “There’s an important story to tell about the absence of action in the past year, too,” he tells me.
Levin is the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, the founder and editor of National Affairs and the author of several books on policy and political theory, including “American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – and Could Again.”
Mentioned:
Charts
Buckley by Sam Tanenhaus
Book Recommendations:
Insecure Majorities by Frances E. Lee
Making the Presidency by Lindsay M. Chervinsky
Last Branch Standing by Sarah Isgur
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

State Representative James Talarico of Texas might have been our most requested guest last year. And he seemed to come out of nowhere.
Talarico started breaking through with viral videos on TikTok and Instagram. And in those videos, he didn’t sound like your typical Democrat. He’s forthrightly Christian, quoting Scripture to defend progressive positions and challenging Christian nationalism on Christian grounds. And he is now running for Senate in Texas — in a primary field that includes U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett — in what will be one of the most important Senate races this year.
So I wanted to have Talarico on the show to talk about his faith, his politics and the way those two have come together in this attentional moment. Because he’s clearly saying things that people are hungry to hear.
Mentioned:
The Sabbath by Rabbi Heschel
“#2352 James Talarico”, The Joe Rogan Experience
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Book Recommendations:
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
The Upswing by Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Marie Cascione. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Michelle Harris, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The shocking events of January have sent a message: America works differently now. 
M. Gessen is a Times Opinion columnist and the author of books about living under autocracy, including the National Book Award-winning “The Future Is History.” They have been a clear, relentless and perceptive voice on what it means and what it is like to live in a country that is turning into a different kind of regime. And they wrote an essay on the seizure of the president of Venezuela, calling it “a blow — quite likely fatal — to the new world order of law, justice and human rights that was heralded in the wake of World War II.” 
Mentioned:
“329 Days of Trump” by Michael M. Grynbaum and Stuart A. Thompson
“Two Middle East Negotiators Assess Trump’s Israel-Hamas Deal” by Ezra Klein
The Future Is History by M. Gessen
Book Recommendations:
Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
The Hill by Harriet Clark
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin and Marie Cascione. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.