The Ezra Klein Show
Winner of the 2020 Webby and People's Voice awards for best interview podcast.
Ezra Klein brings you far-reaching conversations about hard problems, big ideas, illuminating theories, and cutting-edge research. Want to know how Stacey Abrams feels about identity politics? How Hasan Minhaj is reinventing political comedy? The plans behind Elizabeth Warren’s plans? How Michael Lewis reads minds? This is the podcast for you. Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1
Free speech, safety, and ‘the letter’
Yascha Mounk and I discuss free speech, safety, and ‘the letter’
85 min
2
The frightening fragility of America's politica...
Masha Gessen on whether American democracy can survive Donald Trump
63 min
3
Can artificial intelligence be emotionally inte...
A fun conversation about emotional intelligence, machine learning, and AI
72 min
4
Danielle Allen on the radicalism of the America...
The Harvard political theorist on democracy, prison abolition, and the American founding
67 min
5
Land of the Giants: The Netflix Effect
Land of the Giants is a podcast from our friends at Recode and the Vox Media Podcast Network that examines the most powerful tech companies of our time.
17 min
6
Nicholas Carr on deep reading and digital thinking
How technology literally changes our brains
70 min
7
Your questions, answered
Ask Ezra Anything 2020 edition
78 min
8
Which country has the world's best healthcare s...
Ezekiel Emanuel on healthcare reform, coronavirus response and presidential leadership
68 min
9
The transformative power of restorative justice
sujatha baliga on how to radically reimagine our criminal justice system
72 min
10
Ross Douthat and I debate American decadence
Ross Douthat on American decline, utopian ambition, and the Catholic right
89 min
11
A serious conversation about UFOs
A religion scholar on UFOs, belief systems, and purgatory
88 min
12
A former prosecutor's case for prison abolition
Paul Butler on how our criminal justice system is broken — and how to fix it
64 min
13
Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is hopeful
The award-winning author on police violence, protest, and "the public"
89 min
14
Are humans fundamentally good? (with Rutger Bre...
Rutger Bregman on human nature, hierarchy, and hunter-gatherer societies
94 min
15
From politician to priest
Why Lt. Governor Cyrus Habib is giving up elected office and joining the Jesuits
118 min
16
Robert Frank's radical idea
Using contagion economics to solve our hardest problems
69 min
17
Why “essential” workers are treated as disposable
Mary Kay Henry on essential jobs, organizing, and the future of work
66 min
18
"The world’s scariest economist” on coronavirus...
Mariana Mazzucato on her "plan to fix capitalism".
79 min
19
A mind-bending conversation about quantum mecha...
Sean Carroll answers my dumb quantum mechanics questions — and yours.
76 min
20
Why the coronavirus is so deadly for black America
David R. Williams on the science behind Covid-19’s massive racial disparities
76 min
21
Jenny Odell on nature, art, and burnout in quar...
A truly cathartic conversation with Jenny Odell
63 min
22
An unusually honest conversation about wielding...
Rep. Pramila Jayapal on stimulus negotiations, the economy, and progressive power.
81 min
23
What should the media learn from coronavirus?
Coronavirus exposed weaknesses in our media ecosystem. Can we fix them?
91 min
24
Bill Gates’s vision for life beyond coronavirus
Bill Gates saw coronavirus coming. Here’s his plan to beat it.
48 min
25
An epic conversation with Madeline Miller
Madeline Miller on myth, translation, and writing a perfect sentence
77 min
26
The loneliness pandemic/Betraying “essential wo...
We have something a bit different today. Two episodes from our extraordinary colleagues at Today, Explained, both of them close to my heart.
44 min
27
Why Bernie Sanders lost and how progressives ca...
Sean McElwee on what the left got wrong in 2020
96 min
28
Scott Gottlieb on how, and when, to end social ...
When will social distancing end? When will life return to “normal”? And what will it take to get there?
45 min
29
Toby Ord on existential risk, Donald Trump, and...
81 min
30
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this, too
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on coronavirus, leadership, and intergenerational justice.
47 min
31
What social solidarity demands of us in a pandemic
Social distancing isn’t enough. We need social solidarity.
62 min
32
Coronavirus has pushed US-China relations to th...
What’s happening between the US and China is truly scary
56 min
33
Is the cure worse than the disease?
Are we overreacting to coronavirus? An economist and a bioethicist weigh in.
62 min
34
An economic crisis like we’ve never seen
Annie Lowrey on the coronavirus depression
79 min
35
"The virus is more patient than people are"
Obama's Ebola Czar on why coronavirus is much worse
75 min
36
A master class in organizing
116 min
37
Weeds 2020: The coronavirus election
Ezra and Matt on dueling pandemic response plans from Sanders and Biden, and Trump's oval office address.
51 min
38
Dan Pfeiffer on Joe Biden, beating Trump, and s...
The former Obama White House communications director has some critical feedback for the Democratic party
92 min
39
Are you a "political hobbyist?" If so, you're t...
Political scientist Eitan Hersh on how political hobbyism is ruining politics
80 min
40
What would a Sanders or Biden presidency look l...
Matt Yglesias and I talk foreign policy, staffing, the Democratic Party and more.
69 min
41
Rebecca Solnit on Harvey Weinstein, feminism, a...
The radical wisdom of Rebecca Solnit
102 min
42
Weeds 2020: The Bernie electability debate
Welcome to Weeds 2020! Every other Saturday Ezra and Matt will be exploring a wide range of topics related to the 2020 race.
55 min
43
Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry
America’s two-time poet laureate on love, language, and erasure
84 min
44
Barbara Ehrenreich on UBI, class conflict, and ...
Ezra Klein and Barbara Ehrenreich discuss our most pervasive cultural myths from rugged individualism to positive thinking
62 min
45
What Donald Trump got right about white America
AEI's Tim Carney on how social breakdown killed the American Dream
69 min
46
Ta-Nehisi Coates on my “cold, atheist book”
Ezra is joined by Ta-Nehisi Coates to discuss "Why We're Polarized" live from Brooklyn, NY.
70 min
47
If God is dead, then … socialism?
Philosopher Martin Hagglund and Vox's Sean Illing discuss the meaning of life
59 min
48
Tim Urban on humanity’s wild future
The Wait But Why creator thinks the human species is at an existential fork-in-the-road. Is he right?
84 min
49
Jill Lepore on what I get wrong
Easily the toughest interview of my book tour so far
79 min
50
Is Tom Steyer the solution to our dysfunctional...
Why the presidential candidate thinks we need another billionaire to beat Trump
60 min
51
Why We're Polarized, with Jamelle Bouie (live!)
In conversation with Jamelle Bouie on my new book, "Why We're Polarized"
70 min
52
Antisemitism now, antisemitism then
Antisemitism is called “the oldest hatred.” But what is it, and where, exactly, does it come from?
86 min
53
Book excerpt: A better theory of identity politics
A special preview of Ezra's book; Why We're Polarized.
58 min
54
The war on Muslims (with Mehdi Hasan)
Mehdi Hasan on the rise of global Islamophobia
85 min
55
Post-debate special!
Matt Yglesias and I unpack the debate that did, and didn't happen.
54 min
56
An “uncomfortable” conversation with Cory Booker
Cory Booker is one of most promising candidates in the 2020 Democratic field. So, why is his campaign struggling?
88 min
57
The conservative mind of Yuval Levin
The AEI scholar discusses human nature, the conservative movement, and the case against socialism
75 min
58
How an epidemic begins and ends
A preview of season 3 of Vox's The Impact
37 min
59
Nathan Robinson’s case for socialism
The editor of Current Affairs discusses Bernie Sanders, libertarian socialism, utopian thinking and more
97 min
60
How to topple dictators and transform society (...
Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth on why nonviolent resistance succeeds -- and fails
47 min
61
Ask Ezra Anything
Ezra answers listener questions about free will, polarization, capitalism, Twitter and more
88 min
62
Best of: Work as identity, burnout as lifestyle
Anne Helen Petersen and Derek Thompson on what happens when work becomes an identity, and capitalism becomes a religion.
77 min
63
Republicans vs. the planet
Vox's Dave Roberts on the politics of climate change
97 min
64
The geoengineering question
Jane Flegal on the idea that could shatter the link between emissions and global warming
71 min
65
How to solve climate change and make life more ...
Entrepreneur Saul Griffith on why we have all the tools we need to fix climate change
91 min
66
Paul Krugman on climate, robots, single-payer, ...
The Nobel-prize winning economist explains it all
84 min
67
The moral philosophy of The Good Place (with Mi...
The geniuses behind TV's most philosophically-inclined sitcom discuss what it means to be a good person
99 min
68
When doing the right thing makes you a criminal
Direct Action Everywhere co-founder Wayne Hsiung explains why he decided to risk his freedom to expose extreme injustice.
99 min
69
Peter Singer on the lives you can save
Ezra chats with Peter Singer about the re-release of his book "The Life You Can Save".
73 min
70
Best of: The age of "mega-identity" politics
A conversation with Lilliana Mason about identity politics
75 min
71
Because podcast
Gretchen McCulloch on how the internet revolutionized language
77 min
72
There’s more to life than profit
Yancey Strickler on climate change, founding Kickstarter and the perils of profit
89 min
73
Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.
Dave Eggers and I discuss satire, the Trump presidency and the importance of disconnecting.
80 min
74
How Whole Foods, yoga, and NPR became the hallm...
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and Ezra Klein discuss why today’s rich are far less materialistic, but a far greater threat to equality
68 min
75
How social media makes us antisocial
Andrew Marantz explains the symbiotic relationship between social media platforms and the alt-right
89 min
76
ICYMI: Edward Norton’s theory of mind, movies, ...
107 min
77
Introducing Reset
Arielle Duhaime-Ross hosts Reset - the new tech podcast from Recode.
42 min
78
What a smarter Trumpism would sound like
Michael Lind discusses the new class war, China, and his theory of political settlement
82 min
79
The climate crisis is an oceans crisis
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson explains why oceans are essential to human life and how we are killing them.
69 min
80
We live in The Good Place. And we’re screwing i...
How bad is climate change? Scientist Kate Marvel explains.
81 min
81
Neoliberalism and its discontents
Wendy Brown and Noah Smith try to define one of the most confusing concepts in modern political discourse
89 min
82
The four words that will decide impeachment
Ezra Klein and Gene Healy discuss the meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"
52 min
83
We don’t just feel emotions. We make them.
A mind-blowing conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett on how emotion is made
90 min
84
How politics became a war against reality
Peter Pomerantsev on modern propaganda, post-truth politics, and the authoritarian resurgence
84 min
85
The loneliness epidemic
A deeply personal conversation with Vivek Murthy about loneliness and its impact on the mind, body, and soul
76 min
86
Ibram X. Kendi wants to redefine racism
Is racism solely about policies that widen racial inequality? Ibram X. Kendi and Ezra Klein discuss.
85 min
87
Malcolm Gladwell’s Stranger Things
Ezra Klein and Malcolm Gladwell discuss Cuban spies, talking to strangers, the process of creative storytelling, and much more
91 min
88
An inspiring conversation about democracy
Danielle Allen and Ezra Klein discuss what a democratic policy agenda would looks like, how to talk to strangers, and why we need to reform civic education.
87 min
89
Samantha Power’s journey from foreign policy cr...
A conversation about human nature, China, and the blurry line between morality and strategy in US foreign policy
87 min
90
When meritocracy wins, everybody loses
Is meritocracy responsible for rampant inequality, waning social mobility, and widespread dissatisfaction? Ezra Klein and Daniel Markovits discuss.
85 min
91
Nikole Hannah-Jones on the 1619 project, choosi...
Ezra Klein and Nikole Hannah-Jones discuss America's founding contradiction, racial segregation, capitalism and more
98 min
92
Randall Munroe, the genius behind XKCD
A quirky, weird, illuminating, curious trip through the mind of a genius
82 min
93
Julián Castro's quiet moral radicalism
Why Julián Castro wants to decriminalize migration, admit climate refugees, reimagine our relationship with the homeless, and protect animals.
61 min
94
Political animals (with Leah Garcés)
Leah Garcés and Ezra Klein discuss how building coalitions with unlikely allies may just be the key to reducing animal suffering
87 min
95
John McWhorter thinks we're getting racism wrong
John McWhorter and Jane Coaston discuss the limits of third-wave antiracism
63 min
96
The rocky marriage between libertarians and con...
Jane Coaston and Conor Friedersdorf discuss the future of the GOP in Trump's America
83 min
97
A mind-bending, reality-warping conversation wi...
What psychedelics, burning money, and postmodernism have in common
85 min
98
Jia Tolentino on what happens when life is an e...
Ezra Klein and Jia Tolentino discuss how the Internet distorts identities, cheapens solidarity, and erodes morality
99 min
99
The original meaning of “identity politics” (wi...
Ezra Klein and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor discuss the origins of identity politics and the future of Black liberation
79 min
100
Are bosses dictators? (with Elizabeth Anderson)
Elizabeth Anderson sits down with Ezra Klein to discuss workplace tyranny, the power of ideology, and a vision for a more democratic society
85 min