Israeli forces still occupy half of Gaza. In the cease-fire deal, Israel agreed to fully withdraw its presence there once Hamas fully demilitarized. But Amit Segal thinks that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Instead, he believes Gaza will end up divided. So what does that really mean? What are the implications?

Segal is the chief political analyst for Channel 12 News in Israel and is known to be quite close to the Netanyahu government. He writes the newsletter It’s Noon in Israel and is the author of the book “A Call at 4 a.m.: Thirteen Prime Ministers and the Crucial Decisions That Shaped Israeli Politics,” which was recently published in English.

In this conversation, he talks about why most Israelis don’t see the cease-fire as the end of the war between Israel and Hamas and how this conflict is mapping onto Israeli politics — both at present and as the country looks toward its next elections.

This episode contains strong language.

Book Recommendations:

The Accidental President by A. J. Baime

An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Messiah in Sde Boker by Hagai Segal

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 Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Naomi Noury.

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

The “Democratic penalty” should scare the hell out of Democrats.

The Democratic Party brand has become toxic in certain parts of the country, especially with working- class voters. The Center for Working-Class Politics has actually measured this so-called “Democratic penalty,” and found it’s in the double digits in some Rust Belt states.

So what should Democrats do about it?

One theory says that Democrats were once economic populists and just need to be again. Another theory says that the working class feels left behind and looked down on by a Democratic Party that has moved sharply left on culture, on climate, on guns, on immigration.

Jared Abbott is the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, which has done a lot of research and polling on working- class voters. So I asked him on the show to talk through these theories and what it would take for Democrats to once again be the party of the working class.

Mentioned:

“Compensate the Losers?” Economic Policy and Partisan Realignment in the US

“Representation Gaps: Changes in Popular Preferences and the Structure of Partisan Competition in the Developed Democracies” by Peter A. Hall and Georgina Evans

Book Recommendations:

Rust Belt Union Blues by Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol

We’re Still Here by Jennifer M. Silva

America, América by Greg Grandin

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

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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

President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard from red states into blue cities isn’t just a partisan attack; it’s also a geographic one. In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won rural areas by 40 percentage points. And you could see what’s been happening in Washington, D.C., and Chicago as a rural political coalition militarily occupying urban centers. The rural-urban divide in America has become so big it’s dangerous — for our politics, and for democracy. And yet, just a few decades ago, this divide didn’t exist. Urban and rural areas voted pretty much in lockstep. And for Democrats to gain power again, they’ll need to figure out how to win some of those voters back.

So how did the Democratic Party lose rural voters? And what could they do to win their votes back?

Suzanne Mettler is a political scientist at Cornell University and the co-author with Trevor E. Brown of the new book “Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy.”

Mentioned:

Rural Versus Urban by Suzanne Mettler and Trevor E. Brown

Four Threats by Robert C. Lieberman and Suzanne Mettler

Book Recommendations:

The Politics of Resentment by Katherine J. Cramer

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Devotions by Mary Oliver

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

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Will Peischel. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Michelle Harris, Marina King, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Isaac Jones, Carole Sabouraud, and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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

Every Israeli-Palestinian peace deal has failed. Could Trump’s be any different?

On Oct. 10, the Israeli cabinet approved a cease-fire deal brokered by the Trump administration, Turkey and Qatar. Since then, the living Israeli hostages have come home. Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel have been freed. Israeli forces have partially withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, and they’re allowing in more desperately needed aid. This is finally, hopefully, the end of this war.

But that was just the first part of the deal. The next phase is a lot more ambitious — and ambiguous. And while President Trump said the region would now “live, God willing, in peace for all eternity,” history would suggest otherwise.

Robert Malley has worked on Middle East policy under President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden and President Bill Clinton. Hussein Agha negotiated on the Palestinian side, working under both Yasir Arafat, the first president of the Palestinian Authority, and the P.A.’s current president, Mahmoud Abbas. Together they wrote a sweeping new history of attempts at peace, “Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine.” They join me to examine what could go right — or wrong — as the rest of the deal takes shape.

Mentioned:

Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley

Book Recommendations:

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Dirty Hands by Jean-Paul Sartre

The Just Assassins by Albert Camus

The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger

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

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Jack McCordick. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Chris Wood and Ashley Clivery.

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

Eliezer Yudkowsky is as afraid as you could possibly be. He makes his case.

Yudkowsky is a pioneer of A.I. safety research, who started warning about the existential risks of the technology decades ago, – influencing a lot of leading figures in the field. But over the last couple of years, talk of an A.I. apocalypse has become a little passé. Many of the people Yudkowsky influenced have gone on to work for A.I. companies, and those companies are racing ahead to build the superintelligent systems Yudkowsky thought humans should never create. But Yudkowsky is still out there sounding the alarm. He has a new book out, co-written with Nate Soares, “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies,” trying to warn the world before it’s too late.

So what does Yudkowsky see that most of us don’t? What makes him so certain? And why does he think he hasn’t been able to persuade more people?

Mentioned:

Oversight of A.I.: Rules for Artificial Intelligence

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares

“A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In.” by Kashmir Hill

Book Recommendations:

A Step Farther Out by Jerry Pournelle

Judgment under Uncertainty by Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky

Probability Theory by E. T. Jaynes

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

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Helen Toner and Jeffrey Ladish.

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

The government shutdown is the Democrats’ first big strategic bet of Trump’s term.

Not everyone in the party agreed that shutting down the government was the right move or that health care was the right message. So why did they ultimately pick this fight? What are the risks? And what could Democrats learn here that might help shape their strategy for the midterms and beyond?

Jon Favreau, a former Obama speechwriter and a current co-host of “Pod Save America,” joins me to discuss.

Mentioned:

"Off Message” by Brian Beutler

“What the Shutdown Is Really About” by Ezra Klein

Book Recommendations:

Civil Resistance by Erica Chenoweth

Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King Jr.

The Radical Fund by John Fabian Witt

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

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin and Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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

There’s a serious high-stakes policy fight at the heart of this.

The Democrats didn’t pick a fight over authoritarianism or tariffs or masked immigration agents in the streets. They picked one over health care. And the issue here is very real. Huge health insurance subsidies passed under President Joe Biden are set to expire at the end of this year, threatening to make health care premiums skyrocket and kick millions off their insurance.

Neera Tanden was one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act and has worked in Democratic policymaking for decades. She is the president of the Center for American Progress and was a director of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council. I asked her on the show to lay out the policy stakes of the shutdown and what a deal might look like.

Mentioned:

KFF Health Tracking Poll

The Time Tax by Annie Lowrey

One Big Beautiful Bill Act

Book Recommendations:

Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

The Sirens’ Call by Chris Hayes

End Times by Peter Turchin

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

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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

Brian Eno’s music opens up worlds I love to step into during trying times. And this conversation with Eno did the same thing.

Eno is a trailblazing musician and producer who’s worked on seminal records by U2, David Bowie, the Talking Heads and Coldplay, among others. But Eno isn’t just a great collaborator with other artists; he’s also a great collaborator with machines. He’s been experimenting with music technology for decades. Long before we started worrying about ChatGPT replacing human creativity, Eno was tinkering with generative systems to pioneer ambient music – a genre that has deeply influenced how we listen to music today. Eno’s use (and playful misuse) of technology has expanded the possibilities of what music and sound can be.

Many of you emailed in asking for a break from the news. Here it is.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

What Art Does by Brian Eno and Bette Adriaanse

East West Street by Philippe Sands

Silence by John Cage

Book Recommendations:

Printing and the Mind of Man edited by John Carter and Percy H. Muir

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander

Naples ’44 by Norman Lewis

Music Recommendations:

The Rural Blues

“The Velvet Underground” by the Velvet Underground

The Consolers

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

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker, Kate Sinclair and Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Alyssa Jane Moxley, Sophie Abramowitz, Geeta Dayal, Jack Hamilton and Victor Szabo.

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

The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates was harshly critical of my response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. In an article in Vanity Fair, he suggested I was whitewashing Kirk’s legacy, comparing it to the whitewashing of the Southern cause after the Civil War.

So I wanted to have Coates on the show to talk out our disagreement, as well as some deeper questions that I think exist underneath it about the work of politics.

What should the left do about the fact that so many Americans share Kirk’s views? What kinds of disagreements should we try to bridge? When is that work moral and necessary, and when is it a betrayal?

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“My President Was Black” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Book Recommendations:

The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer

Race and Reunion by David W. Blight

The Sirens’ Call by Chris Hayes

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 Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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

This is McCarthyism 2.0. 

Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration has been speed-running an attack on the “radical left.” And the tactics it has been using are darkly reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s. So what can that period teach us about the current moment and what the Trump administration might do next? How far could this go? 

Corey Robin is a political theorist at Brooklyn College. He’s an expert on McCarthyism and the author of the book “The Reactionary Mind,” one of the most insightful books you can read on the Trumpist right. In this conversation, he walks through what happened in the first and second Red Scares and what made him start worrying about the Trump administration.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

Red Scare by Clay Risen

“How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms” by Ross Douthat

The Furies by Arno J. Mayer

Book Recommendations:

On the Slaughter by Hayim Nahman Bialik

Naming Names by Victor S. Navasky

Citizen Marx by Bruno Leipold

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 Jack McCordick and Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Kelsey Kudak. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Beverly Gage and Clay Risen.

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