The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Thousands of federal prosecutors have been fired or have resigned from their roles since Pam Bondi took over as Attorney General. She has made no secret of weaponizing the Justice Department to pursue Donald Trump’s vendettas. One of those prosecutors is Troy Edwards, who quit a senior national-security position in the Eastern District of Virginia. As an assistant U.S. attorney in DC, Edwardshad won convictions against members of the Oath Keepers for January 6th-related offenses. Edwards is also the son-in-law of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, and, when the Justice Department indicted Comey on grounds widely seen as flimsy, Edwards knew he had reached his red line. (The charges were quickly dismissed, though without prejudice.) The New Yorker’s legal correspondent Ruth Marcus talks with Edwards about his decision to leave, how he broke it to his family, and why he thinks other prosecutors should not follow his lead. 
Further reading: 

“Pam Bondi’s Contempt for Congress,” by Ruth Marcus

“The Flimsy, Dangerous Indictment of James Comey,” by Ruth Marcus

“Pam Bondi’s Power Play,” by Ruth Marcus

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.

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The Washington Roundtable examines the potential for a “Blue Wave” in the 2026 midterms. The hosts are joined by Morris Katz, a twenty-six-year-old Democratic political strategist for Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine. Katz argues that for the Party to win a historic majority in the next election, it needs to embrace outsider candidates who refuse money from corporate PACs and aren’t “apologetic” about the government’s role in people’s lives. “We can run a campaign that says, ‘Donald Trump said he’d end forever war and lower costs and he hasn’t’—that will be successful,” Katz says. “I think even more successful would be that we are going to end forever wars, and we are going to lower costs by taking on monopolies—by taking on price gouging, by raising wages, by taxing billionaires more.” 
This week’s reading:

“​​Donald Trump Is Breaking Up with Europe,” by Susan B. Glasser

“How the War in Iran Became a Race to Stabilize the Global Economic Order,” by Sudarsan Raghavan

“A Former Prisoner of the Iranian Regime Watches Trump’s War,” by Jason Rezaian

“The Distant Promise of Iran’s Would-Be King,” by Azadeh Moaveni

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 reporter Cora Engelbrecht joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what life is like for the people of Iran as war unfolds. They talk about Engelbrecht’s reporting, which is based on dispatches from a dissident in Tehran who maintained contact during an internet blackout, and about how his account reveals some of the challenges of daily life under bombardment from the U.S. and Israel—and under a government that continues to police dissent. They also explore how the conflict has complicated the hopes of many Iranians who once saw foreign intervention as a path to liberation, and the growing fear that, whatever the outcome of the war, everyday citizens will continue to bear the cost.
This week’s reading:

“What the War Has Done to Iranians,” by Cora Engelbrecht

“A Former Prisoner of the Iranian Regime Watches Trump’s War,” by Jason Rezaian

“How Donald Trump May Have Sabotaged His Chances for a Deal with Iran,” by Isaac Chotiner

“The Distant Promise of Iran’s Would-Be King,” by Azadeh Moaveni

“Is Cuba Next?,” by Jon Lee Anderson

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. 

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The staff writer Jon Lee Anderson has reported from Cuba for many years, and recently wrote about the deteriorating economic conditions on the island. His newest piece for the magazine dives into the potential outcomes of Donald Trump’s desire to pursue regime change. Anderson explores the economic impact of the United States blocking Venezuelan oil from reaching Cuba, which could be a death knell for the Communist government. Anderson and David Remnick discuss the current negotiations between the two countries, Marco Rubio’s strategy, and what cards the Cuban government might still hold. “They’re going to go into this,” Anderson suggests, “like maybe a canny poker player.”
Plus, the historian Ada Ferrer won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2022 book, “Cuba: An American History,” and she has one of the clearest views of the long and vexed relationship between the island and its giant neighbor. Ferrer left Cuba as an infant, coming to the United States with her mother in 1963 when Fidel Castro’s regime was arguably at its peak. David Remnick talks with Ferrer about the impact of U.S. sanctions, the economic collapse of Cuba, and what Donald Trump’s threat of a “takeover” means to the Cuban people and to Cuban Americans in the U.S.
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. 

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The Washington Roundtable is off today, and will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy an episode of The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast about the FX series “Love Story,” which drops audiences into the lives of one of the most talked-about couples of the nineties: J.F.K., Jr., and the style icon Carolyn Bessette. The hosts Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, who are staff writers and critics at The New Yorker, discuss how the show re-creates the look and fashion of the era in granular detail while reducing the relationship itself to a generic fairy tale. “Love Story” ’s focus on style underscores how much the Kennedy legacy lives in aesthetics, which risks obscuring some of the darker chapters of its history. “It does seem like we have ever more efficiently stripped the Kennedys and their image, and their style, from any notions of political power,” Cunningham says. “The look of something and the sort of moral thrust of something are not always one to one working in parallel.”
New episodes of “Critics at Large” drop every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

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