Radio Atlantic
Radio Atlantic is a podcast from The Atlantic magazine that brings the publication's ideas-driven approach to audio. The show aims to 'road test' big ideas shaping news and culture through conversations and debates with insightful thinkers and writers. It seeks to complicate simplistic views, cut through noise with personal narratives, and help listeners make up their own minds. The podcast intends to bring order to chaotic national conversations and encourage purposeful thinking.
Episodes
American History as Rorschach Test
The Florida Department of Education recently announced an alternative to the Advanced Placement history course that it described in a press release as “free from ideological bias or indoctrination.” For its new curriculum, Florida recommends one textbook: Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, by Wilfred McClay. As American patriotism plummets, McClay partly blames history class,
Trump’s Battle for Washington
The drama around the algal bloom in the Reflecting Pool may seem like a shallow issue. But it’s part of a much broader pattern as President Trump tries to “beautify” Washington, D.C., and cement his legacy. Host Adam Harris talks to the Atlantic staff writer David Graham about Trump’s attempts to remake the city physically, culturally, and politically.
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How the World Cup Explains the World
In his classic book How Soccer Explains the World, the Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer theorized that the sport was a mirror of the world, particularly in its shift from tribalism to interdependence. More than two decades after the book came out, the world is different in many ways, but he says the title still holds true.
Foer joins to discuss the World Cup. Who he’s excited to watch. How th
What Will Happen to Birthright Citizenship?
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Trump administration’s executive order limiting who can be born an American is constitutional, and whether “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”—save for those who are here under unique circumstances, such as children of foreign dignitaries—are citizens of the union. This week on Radio Atlantic, Adam Harris is joined by Atlantic staff
Live: Nancy Pelosi on the Midterms
Throughout her career, Nancy Pelosi has known how to get things done: whipping up votes, negotiating bills, and, in what is probably her crowning achievement, pushing through the Affordable Care Act as speaker of the House. At the end of her current term, she plans to retire, after nearly 40 years in Congress.
Hanna Rosin recently sat down with Pelosi at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, in Seattle
When Both Parties Try to Out-Macho Each Other
The MAGA movement has fully embraced masculinism, which The Atlantic’s staff writer Helen Lewis defines in her cover story this month as “a movement to fight back against the advances of feminism and reassert the primacy of men.” Democrats have a more complicated relationship with it. After the last presidential election, when Donald Trump made inroads with young men, even those of color, some Dem
Is the GOP Starting to Defy Trump?
For most of his second term, Donald Trump has successfully conveyed the message that defiance is not an option. Republicans who ignored that message generally wound up out of office, so they largely toed the line. Lately, though, that seems to be changing.
Republicans recently pushed back against the president’s proposed “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” and the administration ultimately scrapped it. T
Is Cuba Next?
Not long after U.S. commandos swiftly extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him to the United States, Donald Trump set his sights on the next target: Cuba.
Some administration officials seem interested in Cuba’s nickel and cobalt deposits. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shares the dream of many Cuban exiles for regime change on the island. Although, from the Cuban perspective, t
Higher Education’s Identity Crisis
Universities tried to be all things to all people. That model may not be working anymore.
Adam Harris is joined by Ian Bogost, Atlantic contributing writer and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, to discuss the state of higher education.
On campuses across the country, students are graduating into a job market with questions on their mind. What kind of career is stable in 2026? Wi
The Gerrymandering Wars
There is an ongoing battle for House seats. And it’s playing out not so much in elections but in congressional maps. The Atlantic staff writers Russell Berman, who’s been covering the redistricting wars for the past several months, and Vann R. Newkirk II, who’s long followed the Voting Rights Act (and now its demise), explain how this new era of tit-for-tat gerrymandering is different than ever be
The Tragedy of the Tradwife
The author Caro Claire Burke discusses her debut novel, Yesteryear, about a tradwife influencer suddenly transported back to 1855 and faced with the harsh realities of actual pioneer life. The book is a No. 1 New York Times best seller, and its film rights have already been sold and Anne Hathaway is attached to star.
Seen one way, the tradwife is just a social-media trend, sometimes soothing to
The 'Great Man' Presidency
Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar. Napoleon Bonaparte. Donald Trump
The Atlantic staff writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer reported this week on the president privately comparing himself to the three norm-defying, world-historical figures highlighted in the work of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
The president has also sought to make his mark across seemingly every
Kash Patel's FBI
Last week, The Atlantic published a story about how FBI Director Kash Patel’s colleagues are alarmed by what they describe as erratic behavior and excessive drinking. Sources told staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick that, on multiple occasions, members of his security detail had trouble waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated.
Patel called the story a “lie” and earlier this week sued The At
If Hungary Can Do It
Whatever happens next in Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s stunning downfall contains obvious warnings for MAGA and Donald Trump: Propaganda has its limits. Concerns about affordability are real. True democracy can reassert itself in a single election. Reality can bend only so far.
The Hungarian journalist Veronika Munk of the news outlet Denník N shares her view from the streets of Budapest. And the Atla
Trump Is Wishcasting Victory in Iran
Last weekend, on Easter Sunday, President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!”
On Tuesday, he posted again: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
Hours later—after ongoing talks, and condemnation by world leaders and American lawmakers from both parties—the United States
The Manosphere Feels Betrayed
The manosphere helped Donald Trump win the 2024 election. Now that he’s started a war with Iran and failed to keep some core campaign promises, the coalition cemented by podcast bros and Austin-area commentators is starting to crack. The Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey has been tracking the political shifts among a small but influential group of manosphere podcasters.
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The Department of Homeland Security Theater
ICE at airports. TSA lines out the door. And a new boss at DHS amid its funding shutdown.
After the deaths on the streets of Minneapolis, after the theatrics of Greg Bovino, after the drama of Kristi Noem, ICE may be entering a new era. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the new DHS head, having struck a softer tone than his predecessor during hearings. He told senators that he would stop the prac
Trump Is Kicking the Economy While It’s Down
Iran is blocking oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Consumers around the world are already seeing higher gas prices as a result, but the global oil supply affects so much more than just prices at the pump. Soon, shoppers could see higher prices on food, clothes, e-commerce, and everything in between. The Atlantic staff writer Rogé Karma explains that a healthy economy could pro
A Year as a Degenerate Sports Gambler
Gambling is ever-present in America these days. After the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to legalized sports gambling, Americans went from legally betting $4.9 billion on sports in 2017 to at least $160 billion last year.
When the Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins wanted to do a story about sports gambling, he and his editor thought, Why not try it himself? He had never really gambled befo
A War Begun on Instinct
The president is trusting his gut, not Congress.
The Atlantic staff writer Missy Ryan covers national security and has spent years reporting on American wars in the Middle East. She helps sift through the changing explanations for why the administration says it took America to war with Iran.
And Senator Jeanne Shaheen, ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, shares how she thinks Demo
After Khamenei, What Now?
President Trump claimed victory after American strikes killed Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran who had terrorized his own citizens and people all over the world for decades. But what the fall of Khamenei means for the people of Iran going forward is not yet clear.
We talk to Arash Azizi, an Iranian writer and contributor to The Atlantic, about how Iranians view the strike and what the rea
What Can the Texas Primary Tell Us About Democrats?
This week, the Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey was covering a campaign rally in Texas when she was ushered out. Elaine has been covering national politics for years, and has been turned away before—but that usually happens only at Trump rallies.This time, she was turned away by the staff of a Democrat running in the Texas Senate primary. The Atlantic’s Adam Harris talks with Godfrey about her
Why Pick a Fight With Iran Now?
President Trump has given plenty of signals recently that he is prepared to take military action against Iran. The exact reasoning, however, is less obvious. The Atlantic staff writers Nancy Youssef and Tom Nichols explain what’s next for the United States and Iran, and how Pentagon officials might be planning for another conflict in the Middle East.
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Black History Month Is Different This Year
The Trump administration is trying to sanitize U.S. history by removing mentions of slavery on historic monuments, scrubbing words such as “oppression” from government websites, and obscuring the legacy of Black American heroes. Last summer, the president personally criticized the Smithsonian for focusing too much on “how bad slavery was.”
The Atlantic’s Clint Smith and Adam Harris argue that if
Iran Wants Him Arrested. He's Going Back Anyway.
The writer-director Jafar Panahi’s new film, It Was Just an Accident, is the second Iranian film ever nominated for multiple Oscars. Panahi is in the United States for the awards season, but soon after, he plans to return to Iran, where he may well be arrested.
His co-writer on the film was recently jailed after signing a letter objecting to the deadly crackdown on protests in Iran. Panahi, who
The Meaning of 'Melania'
The Melania movie is pitched as a documentary following the first lady of the United States in the lead-up to her husband’s second inauguration. But it’s missing all the hallmarks of a journalistic, biographical film. What you get instead is a series of aphorisms that clang loudly against the reality being shaped by Donald Trump. And of course, shot after shot of $1,000 shoes, gold decorations, an
How Jeff Bezos Broke The Washington Post
In a dismal morning Zoom call on Wednesday, The Washington Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, announced that they were laying off roughly a third of its already diminished staff.
We talk to Joshua Benton, the founder of and a senior writer at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, about how the Post reached this point, the loss to journalism, and how Jeff Bezos is uniquely responsibl
Tim Walz Fears a Fort Sumter Moment in Minneapolis
The Minnesota governor warns of a national unraveling and shares the view from his state.
“ The way you win this is through nonviolence, that you cannot do violence,” Governor Tim Walz told the Atlantic staff writer Isaac Stanley-Becker in Minneapolis on Wednesday. “And I know my constituents are mad at me for saying that. They’re shooting us. They’re killing us. They’re beating us. They’re taki
Another Death in Minneapolis
A second American was shot and killed by federal agents. The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer joins from Minneapolis to describe what he’s seen there in recent days, describing it as a form of activism America’s not seen since the 1960s—perhaps even earlier.
Serwer spent last week in Minneapolis talking to protesters. “They know that ICE has the guns. They know that if ICE kills them, this fed
The Discarded
Last year, there was a mass exodus of federal workers: Some were pushed out, while others left on their own. All in all, more than 300,000 Americans left government jobs. The Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer spent months talking to dozens of them, finding out who they were, what they did, and ultimately what, as a country, we may have lost.
Read Foer’s full story: “The Purged.”
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Do ICE Officers Have 'Immunity'?
Tensions are high in Minneapolis this week. The Trump administration is sending more federal agents. Protesters are calling for justice for the killing of an unarmed citizen. But what could actually happen legally? Especially when the Department of Justice seems more interested in trying to open a criminal investigation into the victim’s wife than the ICE officer who pulled the trigger?
We talk t
'Aren't We Supposed to Be the Good Guys Here?'
President Donald Trump likely won’t listen to this podcast, but Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona has a warning for him: Any attempt to take Greenland using military force will probably go down as the biggest mistake made by a president in all of U.S. history.
In this conversation with Kelly, we discuss the impact of the censure letter against him sent by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the legality
Is the U.S. Running Venezuela or Not?
After the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured by U.S. forces over the weekend, President Donald Trump announced that America would now “run” Venezuela. Staff writers Vivian Salama and Michael Scherer break down what might happen next—and what Trump told The Atlantic the day after the capture.
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No Easy Fix | An Update on Evan
In July, we published a series of stories about San Francisco’s attempt to address a crisis unfolding on the city’s streets. We followed Evan, who had been homeless for years, as he sought an escape from the addiction that was threatening his life. Four months later, we check in on how he’s doing.
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Netflix vs. Paramount
It was a great year for Warner Bros. Discovery: Two of its movies (One Battle After Another and Sinners) are front-runners for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it had a string of critical hits and box-office successes with Superman, Weapons, and A Minecraft Movie. But despite those wins, the media conglomerate—which also owns HBO and CNN—found itself up for auction with two aggressive bidde
ISIS Never Really Went Away
More than a decade after its peak, the Islamic State has changed, but it isn’t defeated. This past weekend, the jihadist group reemerged in connection with two disparate acts of violence thousands of miles apart.
Two U.S. soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Syria by a man the Pentagon says is affiliated with ISIS. A day later, at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, two men opened fi
He's Undocumented. She's Not.
A young Chicago couple—one is an undocumented immigrant from Poland, and the other is a U.S. citizen—face a choice: stay in the place they’ve called home—or give up on the place that doesn’t seem to want them anymore.
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Is This the End of Kids on Social Media?
Australia is about to become the first country in the world to ban kids under 16 from having social-media accounts. Other countries have attempted partial restrictions, but Australia’s Online Safety Amendment is the first real ban, and it comes with heavy fines for social-media companies that fail to comply. In this episode, we hear from the woman in charge of enforcing the policy, the teens who w
How Alison Roman Does Thanksgiving
In Alison Roman’s newest cookbook, “Something From Nothing,” her pantry is her primary inspiration. In this live conversation, we talk with Roman about her family Thanksgiving, why she makes her own baby food, and why simple really is better. We also discuss food trends, and what life is like for her as a solo creator. Then, we put the cookbook’s philosophy of simplicity to the test with an onstag
When Border Patrol Comes to Town
When the Trump administration promised a mass deportation campaign they initially relied on Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Disappointed with ICE’s pace and tactics, the White House turned to the Border Patrol for more sweeping, military-style enforcement. Commander-at-large Gregory Bovino has brought his green-uniformed agents (and his film crew) to Los Angeles, Chicago, now North Carolina
What If AI Is a Bubble?
The money keeps coming. Global spending on artificial intelligence is projected to hit $375 billion this year. In 2026, the figure is supposed to approach half a trillion dollars.
The sums invested already are so staggering that the United States is beginning to look like an “Nvidia-state,” where the tech boom is fueling a great majority of economic growth. But lately, tech watchers have started
Will 2026 Be a Fair Fight?
Go ahead, Democrats. Enjoy your victory parties. But after that, brace yourselves, because Republicans may not be playing by the same rules a year from now. Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term—indeed, since his loss in 2020—he has shown his willingness to subvert the rules of free and fair elections. In various ways, he’s used his power to intimidate potential opponents, D
Strike First, Explain Never
So far, the U.S. has blown up 14 boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, killing at least 57 people. In the two months since the strikes began, the administration has consistently offered the same explanation: The U.S. has a fentanyl overdose problem, and these boats are a source of that drug. The federal government has stuck to that line despite the Drug Enforcement Administration and Department
18 Minutes From Nuclear Annihilation
In Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, A House of Dynamite, the clock is ticking. The film’s fictional president of the United States has less than 20 minutes and very little information to decide whether or not to retaliate against a nuclear missile, launched at the United States, from an unknown source. As with Bigelow’s other war movies, the story is disturbingly plausible. During the Cold War, the li
If the Voting Rights Act Falls
This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the last remaining section of the Voting Rights Act, a civil rights law designed to ensure that states could not get in the way of nonwhite citizens voting.
We talk to Stacey Abrams, voting rights activist and former candidate for Georgia governor, and Atlantic staff writer Vann Newkirk about the case and a world without the Voting Rights
Saudi Arabia Gets the Last Laugh
The Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia concludes this week, but the outrage (from comedians who didn’t go) and self-justification (from comedians who did) continues. The festival is one small piece of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s grand vision to remake the kingdom for the 21st century and simultaneously draw global attention away from human-rights violations like the 2018 murder of journ
Weaponizing the Justice Department
President Donald Trump is using the Department of Justice to try to punish his political enemies. How much can the president bend the DOJ, an institution built on norms and ethics, to his will before it breaks? In this episode, we talk to the Atlantic staff writer Quinta Jurecic, who covers legal issues, and Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare, about who the Trump administration might targ
An American Education | 2. Testing Teachers for 'Wokeness'
Hanna Rosin sits down with Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters to ask him about a purity test for teachers and a nearly scandalous incident that happened days before the interview. And two Oklahoma high-school teachers take very different paths.
This is the second episode of a two-part series from Radio Atlantic. (This episode has been updated from a previously published version to include
Live from The Atlantic Festival: ‘2026 Is the Battlefield’
A live conversation about authoritarian forces in America with Anne Applebaum, an Atlantic staff writer, and Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and a lifelong democracy activist.
Speaking about the upcoming midterms, Kasparov says: “If Democrats do not retake the House, 2028 will be a formality.”
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David Letterman on the Threats to Late-Night Hosts
Yesterday, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was suspended indefinitely. It’s a shocking moment for free speech, given the order in which events unfolded. Earlier that day, FCC Chair Brendan Carr had suggested on a conservative podcast that ABC and its affiliates consider taking steps against Kimmel, saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
As it so happened, the late-night legend Davi
An American Education | 1. Is Oklahoma Breaking Public Schools?
American public education is changing. And, in many ways, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters is at the center of it, trying to push for Bibles in schools, new curriculum standards that include dozens of references to Christianity, and an ideology test for teachers coming from “places like California and New York.”
One Oklahoma teacher finds herself at direct odds with Walters and the Depa
Rupert Murdoch Gets His Succession Finale
He was, after all, the eldest boy. The family drama that inspired HBO’s Succession ended this week with a settlement that ensures Rupert Murdoch’s conservative media conglomerate will pass to his oldest and most conservative son, Lachlan.
The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins wrote about the Murdoch succession saga for The Atlantic’s April cover story, “Growing Up Murdoch.” He joins Radio Atlan
Welcome to the Vaccine Free-for-All
As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to dismantle the national vaccine infrastructure, states have started going their own way. Governors in California, Washington State, and Oregon said they intend to coordinate on vaccine policies. Florida’s surgeon general went in the opposite direction, announcing a plan to end all state vaccine mandates, which he compared to “sla
A Blueprint for Military Takeovers
President Donald Trump recently deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and has talked about federalizing the Guard in other cities across the country. In this episode of Radio Atlantic we talk to Atlantic staff writers Quinta Jurecic and Nick Miroff about which legal barriers might hinder Trump from using the military this way, how he might try to push past the courts, and what role immi
Peace in Ukraine Is Not a Real-Estate Deal
There was so much symbolism in President Donald Trump’s two most recent international summits—in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then at the White House this week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In this episode, we talk with Anne Applebaum, who has been studying Ukraine and Russia for decades and understands their leaders’ underlying motivations. And we spe
No Easy Fix | 3. A Golden Opportunity
In July, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for an expansion of involuntary commitment—forcing people into treatment facilities—in response to the homelessness crisis. San Francisco has been attempting such an expansion for the past 19 months. What can the rest of the country learn from California?
This is the final episode in a three-part series from Radio Atlantic, No E
No Easy Fix | 2. Tolerance
At the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, U.S. cities began trying new ways to stop the spread of infection among drug users. Ideas that were first seen as radical, such as needle exchanges, quickly caught on—because they worked. San Francisco is one of the first places where such programs took root. Now it’s one of the places questioning whether they should still exist.
This is the sec
No Easy Fix | 1. Vanishing Point
For the past five years, American cities have tried—and often failed—to meaningfully address worsening homelessness and addiction.
In San Francisco, a city that has become emblematic of these crises, a new mayor has pledged to prioritize the problem. And one man, living on the street and struggling with addiction, is ready to make a change.
This is the first episode of a new three-part miniseri
A New Kind of Family Separation
The Trump administration is again going after undocumented minors—but their approach is different than it was during his first presidency.
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Read more from Nick Miroff.
Read Stephanie McCrummen’s story: The Message Is ‘We Can Take Your Children’
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Epstein Conspiracy, or Epstein Conspiracy Theory?
Donald Trump and his Department of Justice kicked the conspiracy-theory beehive last week when they rescinded previous promises to make public the government’s secret files on Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier and convicted sex offender charged with the sex trafficking of minors. The Atlantic’s executive editor, Adrienne LaFrance, speaks with the journalist who broke the Epstein story in
Should You Be Having More Babies?
In the United States and many other Western countries, the decision to have children or not is sometimes framed as a political affiliation: You’re either in league with conservative pronatalists, or you’re making the ultimate personal sacrifice to reduce your carbon footprint. But the declining global birth rate is a fact that defies politics. Dean Spears, a co-author of the new book After the Spi
The Patriotic Punk
The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg talks to Ken Casey, frontman for the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys, about the time he called out a fan in the audience who was wearing a MAGA shirt. The band has been around for three decades and has its working-class roots in Quincy, Massachusetts. At concerts, the band often dedicates its song “First Class Loser” to Donald Trump, and it sells T
Who Could Rule Iran Next?
We talk with the writer Arash Azizi about what kinds of seismic changes could be coming for his home country of Iran, and whether he thinks they could make things better—or much worse.
Read more from Azizi at The Atlantic here.
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Change Your Personality
A few years ago, Olga Khazan, author of Me, But Better, set out to change her personality, which even she found unpleasant. After consulting with experts on personality plasticity and then setting a deadline, Khazan put herself through an intense experiment intended to make herself more likeable, to herself and others.
Khazan tested and scored herself on a range of key personality traits at the
The Real Problem With Trump's Parade
In this bonus episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with staff writer Tom Nichols about how all the pieces fit together: the military parade, the president’s speech at Fort Bragg, and the dispatching of Marines to the protests in Los Angeles.
It’s not just that President Trump wants to acclimate Americans to the sight of tanks in the streets. It’s not just that Trump is signaling to governors that h
Elon and the Genius Trap
Explaining how Musk tanked his reputation has many ways: First, he alienated environmentalists by teaming up with Trump, and then he alienated Trump fans by insulting their hero. Another way is clear by looking at American culture’s historical relationship with “genius,” and how it tends to go wrong.
In this episode, we talk with Helen Lewis, author of The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dan
Mossad’s Former Chief Calls the War in Gaza ‘Useless’
In April, 250 former Israeli intelligence officers signed their names to an open letter of protest asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to proceed with his plans to escalate the war on Gaza.
One of them was Tamir Pardo, head of Mossad, Israel’s equivalent of the CIA, from 2011 to 2016. Pardo, with his decades of experience fighting terrorism, explains his perspective on how the war unfol
Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy
The Atlantic’s Jocelyn Frank reports on the detailed system that may be unintentionally leading pilots to avoid the mental-health care that they need, and increasing risks to passenger safety.
Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating exploratio
What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism
We talk with Eric Garcia, author of We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation and a political reporter at the Independent, about the myths spreading about autism under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Yes, there’s the one about how vaccines cause autism, which the scientific community has rejected. But there’s also a more fundamental one that Kennedy references often: Is there, as h
Trump and the Crown Prince
Lavender carpets. Golden swords. Arabian horses. President Trump arrived in the Gulf to a royal welcome. Both sides seem delighted about what they’re getting out of one another. So what are they getting? And what will it mean for the future of the Middle East?
We talk to Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, about this new era of chumminess between the Ameri
The Art of the Doll
Recently, Donald Trump mused that “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know?” We talk with a doll manufacturer and a policy analyst about tariffs and Americans’ relationship with choice.
Elenor Mak, founder of Jilly Bing, talks about her dream of giving Asian American kids the choice of having a doll that looks like them, and how the new tariffs might kill it. And Mart
Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?
In the past few years, Donald Trump has changed his mind about cryptocurrency. He’s gone from believing it was “based on thin air” to wanting the U.S. to become the “crypto capital of the world.” Atlantic staff writer Annie Lowrey breaks down how the president’s reversal of opinion about this notoriously volatile industry could destabilize the U.S. financial system—and lead to a crypto-induced eco
Trump Is Enjoying Himself
Why would President Donald Trump invite The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Trump has attacked as a “total sleazebag,” to meet with him in the Oval Office? We talk with Goldberg about what Trump told him about Signalgate. We also talk with Atlantic staff writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer about the lessons Trump learned from his time in the political wilderness, and how h
Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out
For a while, it seemed as if DOGE Elon and Tesla Elon could exist in the same space-time continuum. One of them carried out Donald Trump’s ruthless cost-cutting mission while the other pitched cars that appealed most to people who were highly likely to oppose that mission, or even rage against it.
Then this week came Tesla’s first quarterly earnings report since Elon Musk started his work with DOG
Sarah McBride Is Used to the Hate
Sarah McBride made models of the White House when she was 6. Her childhood dream, as a Delawarean, was to meet Joe Biden.
Then last November, one of her ambitions came true when was elected to the House of Representatives. She became the first openly trans member of Congress, a historic achievement that also happened to coincide with a rise in anti-trans sentiment and the election of Donald Trump
Tariffs Are Paused. Uncertainty Isn't.
The stock market has been tanking since President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs a week ago. Then Wednesday mid-afternoon—after Trump reversed course on global tariffs—the market experienced one of its biggest single-day jumps ever. So … what exactly happened? And if the U.S. economy continues to be this unpredictable, what does that mean for the future?
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Why Trump Wants to Control Universities
If the Trump administration’s actions and rhetoric against universities sound vaguely familiar, that may be because they’ve already happened elsewhere. Over the years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has dismantled his country’s higher-education system; cracked down on diversity, dissent, and critical thinking; and cast academic institutions as dangerous.
So what does that mean for the futur
Classified, or Not Classified?
The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, and staff writer Shane Harris published more details from a Signal chat between President Donald Trump’s top advisers that included sensitive details about a military strike in Yemen. In screenshots published by The Atlantic, the defense secretary messaged information about strike targets and times of attack. Top Trump officials have denied both to
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans
The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, received a connection request on Signal from a “Michael Waltz,” which is the name of President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. Two days later, he was added to a group text with top administration officials created for the purpose of coordinating high-level national-security conversations about the Houthis in Yemen. (Read his story here.)
The Bird-Flu Tipping Point
It’s been five years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. But there may be another potential pandemic on the horizon: bird flu. Against the backdrop of growing anti-vaccination sentiment, exhaustion from COVID, and a new administration, The Atlantic’s Katie Wu explains that the U.S. is perhaps less prepared to deal with a widespread outbreak than it was when COVID hit—and bird flu, if it s
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