The Mishal Husain Show

Rutger Bregman knows what appearing at Davos can do for your profile. His reputation was made when he went there in 2019 and attacked the rich. The clip went viral. 

A historian and author originally from the Netherlands, Bregman has been focused on elites ever since, most recently in his book Moral Ambition, and in a series of lectures on the BBC, after which he accused the organization of censoring his views on Donald Trump.

In this conversation with Mishal Husain, we hear more about his worldview, which is more nuanced than some might expect. He discusses how he is impressed by entrepreneurs, favors action over commentary and is putting his book profits toward building a community that furthers his beliefs.

00:00 - Introducing Rutger Bregman
02:30 - The rise of AI
07:53 - Wasted talent
09:22 - I want to pull my hair out
10:05 -  European leadership
11:14 - Europe is weak
12:25 - Ideals are worth little without power
13:45 - Building a movement
17:40 - Mamdani and populism
21:00 - The God shaped hole
25:12 - Elon Musk the entrepreneur
26:08 - The BBC and Trump
30:49 - A new form of feudalism
33:56 - Small groups can change the world
35:14 - The best place to think

Watch this podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is Donald Trump’s plan for Venezuela? Does he have one? Will he go beyond threats in supporting the uprising in Iran or invading Greenland?

Jeanne Shaheen has been in the US Senate since 2009 and is now the most senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Her position has given her access to information most lawmakers don’t have. She’s also known as someone prepared to work with Republicans. Indeed, she was one of the eight Democrats who joined the GOP to end last year’s government shutdown over healthcare subsidies that have since been allowed to expire.

In this conversation with Mishal Husain, Shaheen talks about how she’s hoping to reassure traditional American allies shaken by Trump’s attacks and threats as part of a Congressional delegation to Denmark this week. Closer to home, she discusses healthcare, the cost of living and the future of the Democratic party ahead of the midterms.

02:38 - US operation in Venezuela
04:47 - Military action on Greenland?
06:00 - Has Trump already damaged NATO?
07:11 - Is Trump emboldened?
08:13 - Maduro replaced by another “repressive dictator”
12:20 - Trump and Iran
13:31 - Tariffs and China
15:21 - Bipartisanship in a polarized era
18:17 - “I share that frustration”
20:20 - The future of the Democratic party
24:00 - Disquiet amongst Republicans
24:55 - Healthcare and the shutdown
27:25 - Policy differences with her daughter
30:35 - Life after the Senate
31:55 - Optimism for the future?

Read this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend:
www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

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Illustration: Uli Knörzer for Bloomberg; Source Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images

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US President Donald Trump’s tough talk about China and tariffs can be traced back in large part to economist Peter Navarro. A well-known China hawk, he has written books arguing Beijing poses a threat to the US economy and its national security.

Navarro is a loyalist who has served as a key trade adviser in both Trump administrations. In between, he spent four months behind bars for refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena tied to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

It is Navarro who stands behind Trump’s sweeping tariffs against China and other nations, levies that have in some cases raised prices for US companies and consumers.

In this conversation with Mishal Husain, recorded in Bloomberg's Washington studio, Navarro discusses the US relationship with China and an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the administration’s use of emergency powers to levy tariffs. They also look ahead to this year’s midterm elections and back at the controversial Vanity Fair profile of Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. 

00:00 - Introduction from Mishal Husain
02:16 - Navarro’s bond with President Trump
05:04 - Navarro’s journey from Democrat to MAGA Republican
08:01 - Time in Federal prison
09:36 - US-China relationship
12:21 - Navarro’s advice for Europe
13:22 - Trump diplomacy
15:35 - Allowing Nvidia to export advanced chips to China
17:49 - Delivering for working class Americans
20:08 - Rubio-Vance 2028
21:57 - Addressing affordability concerns
23:38 - Manufacturing jobs: “We can’t wave a magic wand”
26:45 - Supreme Court ruling
30:17 - Cost of tariff refunds
31:15 - “It's not a job, it's a mission”

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kara Swisher has followed the story of Silicon Valley for three decades, having started work as a tech journalist at a time when few people were interested in the beat.

But through relationships she built with the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and many others, she became a formidable voice, and eventually more of a commentator and critic.

Swisher now hosts the podcasts Pivot and On with Kara Swisher. Following a year in which Silicon Valley titans lined up behind Donald Trump, she tells Mishal Husain what she thinks 2026 will bring. Swisher unpacks fears of an artificial intelligence bubble, why she’s paying attention to robotics and what life after Trump may be like.

02:16 - You would be “stupid” to ignore the AI bubble
05:40 - The promise of AI
07:16 - Swisher’s first download
09:30 - “Serious wealth creates real problems”
14:20 - Steve Jobs was an “adult”
17:15 - “What Tesla did was astonishing”
20:30 - The influence of Peter Thiel
22:20 - Generational shift in tech
23:30 - “You couldn’t have started an Uber now”
26:15 - Swisher’s paying attention to robotics in 2026
29:30 - What Swisher learned from Silicon Valley
31:50 - Swisher’s move into podcasting
35:40 - Life after Trump and why she’s watching KPop Demon Hunters

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

Find Mishal’s conversations with the godmother of AI Fei-Fei Li and CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman here:
https://link.podtrac.com/1wqpj1f8

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the year draws to a close, we are bringing you one of Mishal Husain’s biggest conversations of the year, in full. In May 2025, Elon Musk joined Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum, in a rare media appearance.

He remains as consequential a global figure today, as he was then, even if he is no longer working with Donald Trump.

Within 10 days of this conversation, he had left DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, and soon after that he was publicly trading insults with the president.

Musk talked about Tesla, his ambitions for SpaceX and Starlink and his political spending.

Note: This episode was recorded with a remote guest in front of a live audience, and as a result, the audio quality may vary. 

02:31 - Mishal Husain introduces Elon Musk
03:21 - A week in the life of Elon Musk
04:25 - The future of Tesla
9:19 - Attacks on Tesla showrooms
11:35 - The future of warfare
14:30 - “I’m in no rush to go public”
17:30 - OpenAI
20:45 - Regulating AI
24:00 - “I’m simply an advisor”
26:30 - Starlink
29:44 - “Your question’s absurd”
31:26 - DOGE
33:15 - US Agency for International Development
37:20 - Political spending

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lynsey Addario’s life work means  taking great risks to tell other people’s stories. She is a Pulitzer Prize winning war photographer who has been abducted twice while documenting conflicts from Afghanistan to Ukraine and Sudan.

There aren’t many women in her field. In a new National Geographic documentary called “Love+War,” currently streaming on Disney+, she lets us into that world, one she’s made her profession for three decades. Addario shows how she adjusts from a work environment of grave danger and high-adrenaline to being a mother making the school run and spending time with her sons.

In this conversation, she tells Mishal Husain, why she believes her job is to “bear witness” and how she came to it. She remembers the first time she used a camera and shares how her childhood prepared her to walk into any situation and connect with anyone, from soldiers to refugees and civilians living through extreme times.

This interview contains descriptions of abduction, violence and sexual assault which some listeners/viewers may find distressing.

02:27 - Love+War
03:34 - The turning point
06:00 - Learning about the risks
07:00 “I don’t want to do this for a living”
09:19 - Being held in Fallujah
11:20 - On embed in Afghanistan
14:31 - Operation Rock Avalanche
15:43 - Dealing with the emotion
16:50 - The daughter of hairdressers in Connecticut
17:44 - Getting her first camera
19:30 - Planning a “shoot-list”
21:51 - Russian strike on Ukraine
17:30 - Being held hostage in Libya
31:02 - Survivor’s guilt
33:30 Life at home
36:30 - Social media and fake images
40:18 - Switching off

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mustafa Suleyman co-founded AI lab DeepMind when he was just 26 years old. Four years later, it was acquired by Google for a reported $400 million. 

He is now head of Microsoft’s AI unit, where he just unveiled a new superintelligence team tasked with creating an AI that can outperform humans at all tasks.

In this conversation with Mishal Husain, Suleyman talks about the decisions society has to make about AI, the white-hot war over tech talent and the competition with other tech bros. 

00:00 - Introduction from Mishal Husain
02:20 - Suleyman’s daily use of AI
04:52 - Stoicism and the magic of AI
05:50 - Defining superintelligence
07:35 - The AI Wild West
09:20 - Humans misusing technology
11:43 - Promise of abundance, universal basic income
14:30 - Suleyman’s family and decision to drop out of Oxford
19:37 - "Decisions we make may have very lasting consequences”
21:04 - Exploring the ‘broligarchy’
22:28 - His view of Sam Altman and Open AI
24:11 - Conversations with Demis Hassabis about Gemini 3
26:15 - “I’m sort of a centrist these days”
28:09 - AI containment and the role of government
29:58 - Microsoft’s revised deal with OpenAI: “It is a shift for us”
31:42 -The talent war and ‘Zuck’s’ pay packages
34:12 - Circular deals in AI: “Watching it carefully”
36:22 - “I really want to nail medical superintelligence”
37:36 - Suleyman on using AI for emotional support
40:21 - The UK lacks the “hustle culture” of Silicon Valley
42:13 - AI news reporters: “We’re exploring everything”

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Salman Rushdie was nearly killed when he was stabbed 15 times on stage in upstate New York in 2022. His injuries were so severe that he lost an eye. It was an attack that came decades after he was first subjected to death threats over his novel, The Satanic Verses.

Once he had recovered, he found he was unable to write fiction. However, after publishing an account of what happened to him, the stories returned, with five brought together in his latest book, The Eleventh Hour.

In this conversation with Mishal Husain, Rushdie talks about free speech, the family connection they both share and the places he’s called home, from India to Britain and the US.

02:30 - “Don’t waste your time”
04:40 - Writing as a form of optimism
05:00 - Starting out as a writer
08:00 - Meeting E.M. Forster as a teenager
10:00 - “You write the story to find out what story you’re writing”
11:15 - Writing Midnight’s Children
12:46 - The family connection between Salman Rushdie and Mishal Husain
14:35 - The women in the family
16:00 - Getting together as a family
17:55 - Returning to India to write about childhood
20:30 - Reclaiming India
22:55 - India today and Prime Minister Modi
24:24 - “If you’re paying attention you see things coming”
24:50 - The family reacts to Midnight’s Children
26:44 - A farewell to India?
28:45 - Before and after the fatwa
31:30 - Defending free speech
32:25 - Banning books in the US
34:30 - Zohran Mamdani’s campaign
38:50 - The next novel
40:25 - “I’m a bit clumsier”

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ken Burns has been telling stories about America for almost 50 years. The lauded documentary filmmaker has a new series on PBS, The American Revolution, which charts the period before and after 1776. It will air internationally ahead of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence. 

Mishal Husain asked Burns to join the show to mark Thanksgiving, looking at today’s America through the lens of its past and the characters who made history.

02:15 -  The complexity of the American Revolution

04:00 - The underdog story 

07:15 - The global significance of the American Revolution

13:43 - Mishal Husain’s connection to Lexington Green 

16:15 - Why Ken Burns became a filmmaker

17:55 - “My mother’s gift in a funny way was dying”

19:20 - The Ken Burns Effect 

20:15 - Hollywood actors as first person narrators 

21:25 - Directing Josh Brolin as George Washington

22:00 - Why Tom Hanks didn’t want to be the voice of George Washington

23:00 - Filming reenactments

24:50 - The American Revolution is not over

29:10 Working for PBS, American Public Broadcasting

32:20 What is Ken Burns grateful for on Thanksgiving?

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stanford University Professor Fei-Fei Li has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence research for 25 years, which is why she’s been called the “godmother of AI.”

In this conversation she tells Mishal Husain how she arrived in the US as a teenager after her parents decided to emigrate from China. She also talks about the high school teacher who inspired her and a deep love of physics, leading her to ask what she calls “audacious” questions.

These days, amid her excitement about AI and its potential, she also is focused on what humans must do to build safeguards, and has a message for parents, too. 

02:50 -  AI is a “civilizational technology”
04:15 - “Technology is a double-edged sword”
05:45 - Being a tech CEO and an academic
06:45 - Falling in love with physics
08:00 - What is intelligence?
08:40 - Finding my first North Star
09:45 - Fei-Fei Li’s two key breakthroughs
14:52 - Moving from China to the US at 15
15:48 - Running the family shop taught me resilience
17:30 - “I wasn’t curious about nightclubs”
18:20 - My inspirational teacher
22:20 - “China is a powerhouse in AI”
23:00 - Creating 3D worlds with AI
27:20 - AI and the jobs market
28:40 - Are humans going to be replaced?
31:00 - “The machine overlord”
32:45 - What should parents tell their children?
34:40 - The AI bubble
36:00 - Powering the big data centres AI needs
37:20 - “I’m not a tech utopian or a dystopian”
38:00 - “My one worry is our teachers”
39:20 - “I’m conscious of my responsibility”
41:28 - Fei-Fei Li believes in timeless human values
42:00 - “My favourite book these days is Harry Potter”

Watch this podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.