President Trump has appointed Dan Bongino — a former U.S. Secret Service agent, right-wing podcaster and an outspoken critic of the F.B.I. — as the agency’s deputy director. In this episode, the Opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg examines what Bongino’s appointment means for the bureau and for the new order of American politics.

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Turning our back on Ukraine would only weaken America.

The Trump administration may be considering negotiating a peace deal with Russia that would end the war in Ukraine. “No American president in the last 80 years and probably 100 years before that would have made this bargain,” Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, tells the Opinion columnist David French.

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President Trump appears ready to cut a deal that could end Russia’s war in Ukraine without ever consulting Ukraine. In this episode, the deputy Opinion editor Patrick Healy talks to the Opinion columnist Thomas L. Friedman about Trump’s unpredictable approach to foreign policy.

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In this episode, the Opinion editor Aaron Retica and the columnist Jamelle Bouie discuss how President Trump, Elon Musk and their supporters are trying to sidestep Congress and reshape executive power.

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Kirk Wallace Johnson served with U.S.A.I.D. in Baghdad and Fallujah. When he returned to the United States, he spent much of his career helping thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, many of whom risked their lives working with American troops, gain refugee status in the United States through the List Project. As President Trump closes the door on the American refugee program, Johnson and the Times columnist Lydia Polgreen grapple with how to live now, through Trump’s second term, in the face of a muted resistance movement.

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It’s Valentine’s Day, and if you celebrate, the chances of giving or receiving a bouquet of flowers is high. But have you considered the environmental impact of those flowers? In this audio essay, the contributing Opinion writer Margaret Renkl explains the true cost of bouquets and argues for other, less environmentally harmful ways to express your love.

This episode originally aired February 14, 2024.

The deputy editor of Opinion, Patrick Healy, speaks with the columnist M. Gessen about why so many people and institutions, including Democrats, have bent the knee to Trump, despite strongly disagreeing with him.

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In June 2020, Manuel Bayo Gisbert, a visual anthropologist and artist, was abducted by members of a drug cartel outside of Mexico City. He was beaten, tortured and ultimately released, making him one of the few survivors of kidnappings in Mexico. A crisis of violence and disappearances has plagued the country for decades. In this episode, hear Gisbert tell his own story and how it led him to collect the memories of those who are still missing.

Read Gisbert’s essay and see his photos of the survivors and families of the disappeared on nytimes.com.

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The biggest challenge to President Trump’s executive orders may be the American judicial system. In this episode, the Times Opinion columnist David French is joined by the federal judge Jeffrey S. Sutton to talk about the principles that guide the courts and how the calls made in those rooms could decide the future of American democracy in the next four years.

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The New York Times Opinion writer Binyamin Appelbaum has been writing and thinking about President Trump’s economic policy since his first term in office. In this episode, he joins the deputy Opinion editor Patrick Healy to talk tariffs, economic expansion and Trump’s recklessness.

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