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“The Trump administration was betting that if they broke the law fast enough,” writes Michael Lewis, “the law would never catch up to them.”

On the heels of his new book, Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State, the bestselling author of Moneyball and The Big Short returns to the show. We discuss how watching Trump’s 2017 inauguration inspired The Fifth Risk, (4:30), the rise of DOGE (9:30), and Elon Musk’s mass firing of public servants (11:00). Then, Lewis unpacks the country’s growing national debt (26:00), parallels to the 2008 financial crisis (29:30), and the attack on non-partisanship in government (35:00).

On the back half, we walk through his approach to profiling people (39:39), the criticism surrounding Going Infinite and his proximity to Sam Bankman-Fried (44:10) and the controversy behind The Blind Side (53:45). To close, we talk about how he approaches difficult subjects (1:07:20), finding hope in dark times (1:13:30), and writing through grief following the loss of his daughter, Dixie (1:17:00).

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Kevin Barry reads his story “Chuck Murphy’s Last Run,” from the October 19, 2026, issue of the magazine. Barry is the author of seven books of fiction, including the story collection “That Old Country Music” and the novels “City of Bohane,” for which he won the International Dublin Literary Award, and “The Heart in Winter,” which came out in 2024.

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At the center of the country’s debates over artificial intelligence is a simple but hard question: What kind of technology is this?

Is A.I. a kind of “alien mind”? Are we unleashing a new species on the planet, one that will transform human society so completely that historical analogies to past technologies simply don’t hold? Or is A.I. more normal than that?

Arvind Narayanan is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. And he’s an author, alongside his colleague Sayash Kapoor, of the extremely influential essay “A.I. as Normal Technology.”

In that essay, and then in a Substack under that name, they lay out their case that A.I. is in fact something we’ve seen before — or at least, it’s close enough to past revolutionary technologies that we have a road map to deal with it. So I wanted to bring Narayanan on the show to hear that perspective.

Mentioned:

“A.I. as Normal Technology” by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor

“What Will Be Scarce?” by Alex Imas

Book Recommendations:

“Not the End of the World” by Hannah Ritchie

“Breakneck” by Dan Wang

“Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our director of photography is Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Kristen Williamson and Dani Dillon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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.

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(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion
(04:44) – Stephen Sexton interview
(01:01:07) – Southword poem, Biophoton by Andrew Gebhardt 

Stephen Sexton’s first book, If All the World and Love Were Young was the winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2019 and the Shine / Strong Award for Best First Collection. He was awarded the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2020. He was the winner of the National Poetry Competition in 2016 and the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award in 2018. Cheryl’s Destinies was published in 2021, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection.

This week's Southword poem is 'Biophoton' by Andrew Gebhardt, which received third prize in the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition and is published in issue 50. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

In the last of five episodes to celebrate reaching the episode 500 mark by looking at things he skipped in earlier series, Peter talks to Daniel Watson about philosophy in early medieval Ireland.

We're honoured to have Sir Ian Rankin, one of the most successful authors in the world, as our guest today. If you love to read, you'll almost certainly have read one of Ian's novels - and in John Rebus, he created one of the most enduring, complicated and loved central characters in modern fiction.

In this really absorbing conversation, Ian describes his childhood in a working class home in Fife, where his parents taught him the value of "thrawn" - resilience and determination against the odds. Ian was a quiet and bookish child, who spent hours at his desk in his tiny bedroom making up stories and imaginary pop groups who would compete each other in an invented top ten. He became a punk, started to be interested in girls, and realised that he didn't want to be an accountant - but instead wanted to defy his family and study English at university. He went to Edinburgh, met his wife, and discovered a world beyond his home town which has captivated and inspired him ever since. Ian also talks to Gyles about his son, Kit, who has a chromosomal defect and is severely disabled. He talks about his writing process and philanthropy. And finally he talks about his new novel, The Heights, which is out now.

Ian's book, The Heights, is available here. It is Ian's first standalone thriller in two decades, and tells the story of the dark underbelly of a luxury apartment block in London. It is highly recommended.

Our thanks to Sir Ian for his time, energy and charming conversation.

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This is a catch-up version of James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. To join the game, call 0345 60 60 973, Thursdays at 12pm.

Misha Glenny delves in to the In Our Time archive to select ten episodes for listeners to revisit. His final choice is the Trinity, an episode first released in March 2014. The idea that God is a single entity, but one known in three distinct forms - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - has been a central belief for most Christians since the earliest years of the religion. The doctrine was often controversial in the early years of the Church, until clarified by the Council of Nicaea in the late 4th century. Later thinkers including St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas recognised that this religious mystery posed profound theological questions, such as whether the three persons of the Trinity always acted together, and whether they were of equal status. The Trinity's influence on Christian thought and practice is considerable, although it is interpreted in different ways by different Christian traditions.

With:

Janet Soskice

Martin Palmer

The Reverend Graham Ward

Producer: Thomas Morris

Reading list:

Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford University Press, 2010), especially chapter ‘The Doctrine of God’ Lewis Ayres and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz

Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford University Press, 2006)

John Behre, The Way to Nicaea: Formation of Christian Theology Vol 1 (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001)

Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford University Press, 2011)

Susan Frank Parsons (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2002), especially chapter ‘Trinity and Feminism’ by Janet Soskice

George Herbert, The Complete English Poems (Penguin Classics, 2004)

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin Classics, 1998)

Ben Quash and Michael Ward (eds.), Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe (SPCK, 2007), especially essay on ‘Biblical Trinitarianism’ by Janet Soskice

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe (HarperPerennial, 1976)

Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1998)

Graham Ward, Christ and Culture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

What if housing, childcare, transport and social care were no longer treated as things to buy and sell but as services everyone was entitled to, regardless of their ability to pay?

Social policy analyst Anna Coote believes the market has failed to provide many of life's essentials. Her answer is universal basic services: a system where access to housing, care, education, transport and other necessities are free or genuinely affordable.

She tells Gabriel Gatehouse about a proposal that challenges the assumption that markets are the best way to allocate resources. From housing shortages to childcare costs, Anna explains what universal basic services would mean in practice and whether Britain could ever afford them.

WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 

Episodes of Radical are released every Thursday.

Series Producer: Simon Tulett

Elvis Costello is a singer and songwriter whose career spans five decades and over 30 albums. He’s a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter Hall of Fame. He’s won Grammy Awards, Ivor Novello Awards, a BAFTA, and he’s on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest songwriters of all time. He put out his first album, My Aim Is True, in 1977. This month, he released a 49th anniversary edition of the album. So for this episode, I spoke to Elvis Costello about the making of “Alison,” from that debut album. Coming up, you’ll hear the isolated tracks from the original recording, as well as some additional parts that didn’t make the cut. And, in discussing the origin story of his song, we also ended up talking about the origin story of Elvis Costello himself.

For more info, visit songexploder.net/elvis-costello.