Despite his message at the first-ever Republican midterm convention this week, President Trump’s brand is weak. His approval rating is hanging at about 35 percent, and even die-hard MAGA Republicans are frustrated by his war with Iran, gas prices, and tariffs. 

There’s an opportunity here for Democrats. The question is whether they’ll be able to seize it. Sarah Longwell is the publisher of “The Bulwark,” and she has some candid advice for Democrats in her new book, “How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time.” Longwell joins the show to explain what she’s learned from conducting hundreds of focus groups with voters and what it will take to beat MAGA. 

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Long DMV lines, endless tax forms, and paperwork-heavy safety-net programs aren’t just annoyances—they’re “time taxes,” the administrative burdens that waste people’s time and can keep eligible families from getting help.

On this episode of “Radio Atlantic,” Atlantic staff writer Annie Lowrey tells host Adam Harris that these burdens are often harsher for people with less social status and have long been used as tools of social control, such as Jim Crow voting rules and restrictive SNAP and TANF requirements designed to police behavior and deter use.

In her new book, “The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time—And How to Fix It,” Lowrey says reforms are possible but require political will, clearer accountability, and a focus on making government services simpler and more user-friendly.

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The breakout crime drama “Furious,” which had its series finale this week, centers around a female serial killer who is exacting revenge on the men who abused her. We talk with the Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert about what the show reveals about society in the post-MeToo era, and with the show’s creator, Liz Meriwether, about what it means to humanize a psychopath. 

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Midterm elections are almost always referendums on the policies of the party in power; President Trump is hoping that Republicans steer into the skid. Last week, my colleagues reported that the president—dogged by the war in Iran, the trade war with Canada, and an economy that has Americans dipping into their savings for groceries and daily expenses—hopes that Republicans seeking to win reelection or gain seats will use his time in office to sway voters. 

But that strategy could play directly into the hands of Democrats hoping to take back both chambers of Congress. My colleagues the Atlantic staff writers Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker join me this week to discuss Congress, the economy, and the midterm elections.

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Bill Gates has generally been an AI optimist. Three years ago, he wrote that AI had downsides, but the risks were “manageable.” This week, Gates wrote a new memo, headlined: “The Turbulent AI Era Is Here. The Choices We Make Now Are Critical.” 

He joins the show to raise the alarm about the dangers he sees in artificial intelligence—economic upheaval, social unrest, cyberattacks, bioterrorism—and most crucial, what he sees as a failure of experts and governments to take these threats seriously enough. 

“The lack of dialogue with all parts of society is kind of deafening silence,” he tells Hanna Rosin. “Anyone who analogizes AI as a technology to other technologies is missing that this time is different. And saying something is different, there’s a very high bar for that, but I’m staking whatever reputation I have [on] saying this time is different.”

They have a wide-ranging conversation—also available on video—about his evolving views on AI and what he misjudged in his interactions with Jeffrey Epstein.

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This back-to-school season, higher education finds itself at a crossroads. Amid rising costs, pressures from the Trump administration over admissions and ideological diversity, and AI, a debate is raging about what college is actually for. 

Radio Atlantic host Adam Harris speaks with Jack Stripling of The Chronicle of Higher Education about new challenges that colleges and universities are facing from the Department of Education, and what purpose higher education serves in the Trump era.

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What does it take to win Jeopardy?  Drew Goins—an Atlantic staff writer, a Jeopardy champion, and the creator of The Atlantic’s new trivia game, Rabbithole—shares his secrets on winning at Jeopardy and cultivating a very particular brand of curiosity.

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In 2013, Julia Curlee became the first CIA officer to transition openly and keep serving the agency.She felt more effective at her job living as the person she always believed she was—and years ago she wrote about her experience under a pseudonym in The Atlantic. Her performance proved her effectiveness: She became the daily intelligence briefer for Vice President Pence during the first Trump administration and a director on the National Security Council in both the Biden administration and the second Trump term.

Less than 70 days after the president returned to office in 2025, Julia was fired from the White House without explanation. She returned to the CIA and, over time, began to feel a lack of support at the agency in an administration that was openly hostile to transgender people. Julia left her dream job with the federal government earlier this year. This week on Radio Atlantic, she is telling her full story for the first time.

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Gen Z has romanticized the technology of the ’90s—or the era’s lack of it. Young long for a time when people were looking at each other instead of their phones. But could that nostalgia for a smartphone-free society actually help guide the future?

That’s one of the driving questions from the latest season of How to Touch Grass, co-hosted by Julie Beck and Natalie Brennan. This week on Radio Atlantic, we’re sharing the first episode, with an introduction by Hanna Rosin.

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Radio Atlantic host Adam Harris speaks with former Republican U.S. Senator and former U.S. Ambassador Jeff Flake about his recent endorsement of Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in the Georgia Senate race and why character in politics still matters.

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