Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

By New York Times Opinion

The first draft of our future. Mapping the new world order through interviews and conversations. Every Thursday, from New York Times Opinion.

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How many episodes does Interesting Times with Ross Douthat have?

The podcast currently has 342 episodes available.

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat episodes:

July 31, 2025The DOGE Alum Asking if Foreign Aid Is America’s Problem
Does America have a moral obligation to the world? The former Department of Government Efficiency staffer Jeremy Lewin, now deputy administrator for the United States Agency for International Development, explains how he is implementing President Trump’s foreign aid philosophy and what it means for humanitarian assistance going forward.
01:59 - From the private sector to interviewing with Elon Musk
09:18 - The rapid restructuring of U.S.A.I.D.
19:44 - Lewin’s critiques of U.S.A.I.D.’s focus
25:15 - The most controversial cuts: humanitarian aid
29:50 - America’s interests first, values-based interests second
40:14 - What is the future vision for foreign aid?
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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48min
July 24, 2025What if the Government Believes in U.F.O.s More Than You Do?
U.F.O.s, fairies and abductions! This week, Ross talks to Diana Walsh Pasulka, a professor of religious studies, about how a deep dive into Catholic archives led her down a path to unravel the connections between religion, extraterrestrial encounters and government secrecy.
01:53 - How Pasulka’s religious studies led to the U.F.O. debate
06:08 - Modern U.F.O. encounters and telepathic communication
13:29 - What are the actual beliefs of the U.F.O. community?
19:28 - Whistleblowers and government contradictions
31:35 - Angels, demons and “actual things in the sky”
45:38 - Disclosure
52:51 - “Amazing.”
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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1h
July 19, 2025She Exposed Epstein, and Shares MAGA’s Anger
Julie K. Brown thinks Jeffrey Epstein didn’t act alone. On this episode of “Interesting Times,” Ross talks to Brown, the investigative reporter whose work ultimately led to Epstein’s re-arrest, about what the government could release that it hasn’t and how the story is bigger than Epstein.
2:32 - Brown's initial interest in the Epstein case
5:26 - Discovering Epstein's crimes and the plea deal
13:13 - Epstein's victims and the impact of Brown's reporting
18:20 - Epstein's wealth and connections
25:20 - Epstein's social circles
35:01 - Certainty and unsolved mysteries
45:25 - The role of government in the case
51:04 - Trump and the political fallout
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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59min
July 17, 2025Is ‘Toxic Empathy’ Pulling Christians to the Left?
The conservative Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey joins Ross on “Interesting Times” this week to explain why “toxic empathy” has a stranglehold on politics, whether evangelical Christians have a red line President Trump could cross and why her commentary has echoes of Phyllis Schlafly.
01:26 “The New Phyllis Schlafly”
9:46 Untangling the web of Evangelical Protestants
15:50 Female authority in the church
22:12 What is “toxic empathy”?
30:55 Toxic empathy and cruelty in American politics
40:19 Do conservative christians have a red line?
57:24 “The mushy middle”
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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1h 4min
July 10, 2025Israel’s Moral Balance Beam
How has the war in Gaza reverberated throughout American politics? Opinion columnist Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat debate the implications of the Israel-Gaza conflict on antisemitism, the morality of war, and why “Monday morning quarterbacking” is not productive when taking stock of military actions in the Middle East.
01:56 Israel actions in Gaza
04:39 The moral baseline
13:31 What is the end game?
15:52 The role of Israel in American politics
23:44 Can you criticize Israel without becoming antisemetic?
36:05 Does Israel have obligations to the Jewish diaspora?
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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47min
July 03, 2025Why Trump’s Blood-and-Guts Strategy Worked
Happy Independence Day! We’ll be back next week with a new episode, but today we’re sharing the episode that started us on the path to “Interesting Times.” Ross Douthat talks to Reihan Salam, the president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Together they wrote the book “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.”
They review their George W. Bush-era prescriptions for the Republican Party to reclaim the working-class vote and the ways they were right (and wrong) about building a new Republican majority.
03:47 George W. Bush era
12:06 Rise and fall of the Tea Party
18:19 Trump’s 2016 “blood and guts” message
28:11 Trump’s effect on the right and left
35:48 Trump’s first term economic agenda
39:30 Elon Musk vs JD Vance
46:50 Imagining an activist, conservative government
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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56min
June 26, 2025A Mind-Bending Conversation with Peter Thiel
The billionaire Peter Thiel is unimpressed with our pace of innovation. In this episode, he critiques artificial intelligence, longevity science and space travel — and warns that our lack of progress could lead to catastrophic outcomes, including the emergence of the Antichrist.
01:19 - What does stagnation mean in 2025?
06:30 - Peter Thiel's case for more progress and innovation
11:30 - Does taking more scientific risk include life extension?
15:14 - Peter Thiel's political history
18:34 - Did Trump live up to Thiel's expectations?
25:10 - Does Elon Musk still want to go to Mars?
28:09 - How Thiel defines A.I.
33:20 - Is A.I. Too Modest An Ambition?
35:23 - How will the human race evolve? Should it?
41:53 - Thiel's critique of Silicon Valley
43:40 - Who is the real Antichrist?
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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1h 1min
June 19, 2025The Progressive Regulator Winning Over the Populist Right
Is the key to freedom a life without Amazon? This week, Ross talks to Lina Khan, former Chair of the Federal Trade Commission about how unchecked corporate power has limited choice in our day-to-day lives, and how her fight against Big Tech unites left and right.
02:41 - What’s wrong with big business?
09:27 - The political costs of corporate consolidation
11:39 - How the 2008 financial crisis shaped Lina Khan's philosophy
17:49 - The antitrust consensus from Reagan to Obama
21:54 - How the left and right align against big business
26:12 - Khan's wins and losses at the FTC
36:53 - Is the Trump administration embracing or rejecting Khan's vision?
42:32 - Is anti-monopoly policy the solution to our economic problems?
48:38 - Can Big Tech be broken up?
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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1h 1min
June 12, 2025Trump’s Future Depends on His Immigration Crackdown
Has immigration become the new litmus test for the Republican Party? In this episode, Ross talks to Matthew Continetti, the author of “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism,” about the party’s shifting coalition, the defining role of immigration and how today’s right echoes its past.
01:50 - What the Elon experiment (and fallout) tells us about the Republican Party
06:55 - Is there a tech right beyond DOGE?
10:09 - Is the “new right” really all that new?
18:16 - Where Trump’s agenda fits within the larger conservative story
25:16 - “Immigration is the biggest issue of our time”
28:39 - How border control will define conservatism around the world
34:05 - Is Silicon Valley out of step with Trump's immigration crackdown?
39:43 - Will Trump's ideas outlast Trump?
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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44min
June 05, 2025What Makes Art ‘Left Wing’?
Does Hollywood have anything interesting left to say? In a world where franchises dominate and grown-up movies have fallen by the wayside, Ross talks to the showrunner Tony Gilroy, whose “Star Wars” spinoff “Andor” has, according to Ross, succeeded in being both original and smartly political in a Hollywood that is often neither.
03:04 - The political world of ”Andor”
08:36 - Tony Gilroy's syllabus for “Andor”
10:40 - Is “Andor” a left-wing show?
17:07 - What makes Hollywood progressive or liberal?
24:22 - Debating the politics of “Michael Clayton”
29:42 - Why aren't there more movies for grown-ups?
32:56 - “There are no movie stars anymore.”
35:55 - How A.I. changing the movie business
39:28 - Tony Gilroy's advice for future filmmakers
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
...more
43min

FAQs about Interesting Times with Ross Douthat:

How many episodes does Interesting Times with Ross Douthat have?

The podcast currently has 342 episodes available.

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