Vox Conversations

By Vox

Society & Culture Philosophy

What's Vox Conversations about?

Ezra Klein brings you far-reaching conversations about hard problems, big ideas, illuminating theories, and cutting-edge research. Want to know how Mark Zuckerberg intends to govern Facebook? What Barack Obama regrets in Obamacare? The dangers Yuval Harari sees in our future? What Michael Pollan learned on psychedelics? The lessons Bryan Stevenson learned freeing the wrongly convicted on death row? The way N.K. Jemisin imagines new worlds? This is the podcast for you. Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

4.5

9,203 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

The complicated history of ...

04.22.2021

Vox environmental reporter Benji Jones talks with journalist and author Michelle Nijhuis about her book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction. They talk about the history of the conservation movement and its many characters, the standout ...

Vox Conversations episodes:

04.22.2021 The complicated history of wildlife conservation Vox environmental reporter Benji Jones talks with journalist and author Michelle Nijhuis about her book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction. They talk about the history of the conservation movement and its many characters, the standout ...
04.15.2021 How to replace everything in the industrialized world Climate writer and Vox contributor David Roberts talks with Jessika Trancik, Associate Professor at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at M.I.T. They discuss many aspects of the vast undertaking to remake our world in response to the realities ...
04.08.2021 Patricia Lockwood's big, beautiful internet brain Writer and Vox contributor Anne Helen Petersen talks with poet and novelist Patricia Lockwood about the experience of being extremely online. They discuss Lockwood's book No One Is Talking About This, writing and religious upbringing, the parts of life perfectly ...
04.01.2021 Who is the real George Soros? Vox's Worldly host Zack Beauchamp talks with author and New Statesman editor Emily Tamkin about the life and legacy of George Soros. How did a Hungarian billionaire philanthropist become the No. 1 boogeyman of right-wing nationalist movements on both sides ...
03.27.2021 Introducing Unexplainable Unexplainable is a new podcast from Vox about everything we don’t know. Each week, the team look at the most fascinating unanswered questions in science and the mind-bending ways scientists are trying to answer them. New episodes drop every Wednesday. ...
03.25.2021 The border, explained by someone who knows it intimately Aarti Shahani, NPR journalist and host of WBEZ podcast Art of Power, talks with investigative journalist and author Alfredo Corchado about the US-Mexico border. Trump's actions created a new urgency for the political establishment to better understand the border, and ...
03.18.2021 "Wintering," wisdom, and weathering life's darkest times Vox's Sigal Samuel talks with the author of Wintering, Katherine May, about the lessons we can learn during life's darkest seasons. They talk about our long collective pandemic winter, about how times of retreat can allow for personal and political ...
03.11.2021 Reframing America's race problem Vox's Sean Illing talks with the author of The Sum of Us, Heather McGhee, about the costs of racism in America — for everyone. They discuss what we all lose by buying into the zero-sum paradigm that progress for some ...
03.04.2021 Who owns the Western? Vox book critic Constance Grady talks with Vox gender identities reporter and novelist Anna North about Anna's new book Outlawed. They discuss creating an alternative history, reimagining the Western, and having fun with the usually fraught topics of gender and ...
02.25.2021 A Watchmen writer on race, TV, and tech giants The Undefeated's culture critic Soraya Nadia McDonald talks with Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer Cord Jefferson. They discuss the transition from journalism to TV, delving into Jefferson's move from Gawker to writing for hit shows like Succession, The Good ...
02.18.2021 Uncovering the history of psychedelics in Christianity Vox's Sean Illing talks about the the little-known history of psychedelics and spirituality in the Western world with Brian Muraresku, author of The Immortality Key. What role did psychedelic drugs play in the rise and spread of Christianity — and ...
02.11.2021 Biden's immigration architect on racism, reform, and the Obama legacy NPR journalist, memoirist, and host of the upcoming WBEZ podcast The Art of Power Aarti Shahani talks with Cecilia Muñoz, a former aide to Obama and part of Biden's transition team. It's a conversation about immigration policy reform and the ...
02.04.2021 The Capitol Siege and American Revolution Vox's Dylan Matthews talks with author and Revolutions podcaster Mike Duncan about what history can tell us about the insurrection at the US Capitol. Is America experiencing a true moment of revolution? So many republics throughout history have crumbled - ...
01.28.2021 Why fascism in Post-Trump America isn't going away Vox's Sean Illing talks to Yale professor and author Jason Stanley about why American democracy provides such fertile soil for fascism, how Donald Trump demonstrated how easy it was for our country to flirt with a fascist future and what ...
01.25.2021 The Joe Biden experience Ezra Klein is joined by Evan Osnos, a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now to discuss our new president. President Biden has been in national politics ...
01.21.2021 What it means to be a "good" rich person Vox columnist Anne Helen Petersen talks with sociologist Rachel Sherman about her research into the anxieties of wealthy people and their desire to be seen as "middle class." Sherman's work exposes the flawed stories we tell ourselves about who qualifies ...
01.18.2021 Peter Kafka and Kevin Roose on big tech's power and responsibility Recode’s Peter Kafka speaks with New York Times’s Tech columnist Kevin Roose about big tech’s power and responsibility - and whether it is going to have accountability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
01.14.2021 Sam Sanders and Olivia Nuzzi on President Trump’s last days New York magazine's Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi spent the past four years covering the Trump White House. In this inaugural episode of Vox Conversations, Nuzzi talks to guest host Sam Sanders, host of NPR's It’s Been a Minute, about the ...
01.07.2021 Best of: We don’t just feel emotions. We make them. How do you feel right now? Excited to listen to your favorite podcast? Anxious about the state of American politics? Annoyed by my use of rhetorical questions? These questions seem pretty straightforward. But as my guest today, psychologist Lisa Feldman ...
01.04.2021 Best of: Ending the age of animal cruelty, with Bruce Friedrich You often hear that eating animals is natural. And it is. But not the way we do it. The industrial animal agriculture system is a technological marvel. It relies on engineering broiler chickens that grow almost seven times as quickly ...
12.31.2020 Best of: The moral philosophy of The Good Place After creating and running Parks and Recreation and writing for The Office, Michael Schur decided he wanted to create a sitcom about one of the most fundamental questions of human existence: What does it mean to be a good person? ...
12.28.2020 Best of: Michael Lewis reads my mind Michael Lewis needs little introduction. He’s the author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short, The Blind Side, The Fifth Risk. He’s the host of the new podcast “Against the Rules.” He’s a master at making seemingly boring topics — ...
12.24.2020 Best of: Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry It’s the rare podcast conversation where, as it’s happening, I’m making notes to go back and listen again so I can fully absorb what I heard. But this conversation with Tracy K. Smith was that kind of episode. Smith is ...
12.21.2020 What I’ve learned, and what comes next. As strange as it is to write, this is my last podcast here at Vox. In January, I'll be starting at the New York Times as a columnist on the opinion page, doing a reported column on policy and launching ...
12.17.2020 Best of: An inspiring conversation about democracy with Danielle Allen This conversation with Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen in fall 2019 is one of my all-time favorites. Allen directs Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. She’s a political theorist, a philosopher, the principal investigator of the Democratic Knowledge Project, ...
12.14.2020 Michael Pollan on the psychedelic society On November 3, as the country fixated on the incoming presidential election results, voters in Oregon approved a seemingly innocuous ballot measure with revolutionary potential. Proposition 109, which passed with 56 percent of the vote (the same margin by which ...
12.10.2020 Best of: Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford neuroscientist and primatologist. He’s the author of a slew of important books on human biology and behavior, including most recently Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. But it’s an older book ...
12.07.2020 Joe Biden and "the new progressivism" It’s often said that Joe Biden has an instinct for finding the political center — that of his party, and that of the country. To understand how Biden has changed, and how he might govern, we need to understand how ...
12.03.2020 Best of: Frances Lee on why bipartisanship is irrational There are few conversations I’ve had on this show that are quite as relevant to our current political moment as this one with Princeton political scientist Frances Lee. Joe Biden will occupy the White House come January, but pending the ...
11.30.2020 The most important book I've read this year If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Best known for the Mars trilogy, Robinson is one of the greatest living science ...
11.26.2020 Best of: Alison Gopnik changed how I think about love Happy Thanksgiving! We will be back next week with brand new episodes, but on a day when so many of us are thinking about love and relationships I wanted to share an episode that has changed the way I think ...
11.23.2020 Best of: Vivek Murthy on America’s loneliness epidemic At the holidays, I wanted to share some of my favorite episodes of the show with you (we’ll be back next week with brand new episodes). My conversation with Vivek Murthy tops that list, and it has particular force this ...
11.19.2020 What Democrats got wrong about Hispanic voters Donald Trump has built his presidency on top of racial dog whistles, xenophobic rhetoric, and anti-immigrant policies. A core belief among liberals was that this strategy would help Trump with whites but almost certainly hurt him with Latinos, and people ...
11.16.2020 Antitrust, censorship, misinformation, and the 2020 election I’ve been fascinated by the sharp change in how the tech platforms — particularly the big social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and to some degree, YouTube — are acting since the 2020 election. It’s become routine to see President ...
11.12.2020 The crisis isn’t Trump. It’s the Republican Party. If the past week — and past four years — have proven anything, it’s that we are not as different as we believed. No longer is the question, "Can it happen here?" It’s happening already. As this podcast goes to ...
11.07.2020 The Joe Biden experience Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. And — counting the votes of people, not just land — it won’t be close. If current trends hold, Biden will see a larger popular vote margin than Hillary ...
11.05.2020 Chris Hayes and I process this wild election This is not the post-election breakdown I expected to have today, but it's definitely the one that I needed. Chris Hayes is the host of the MSNBC primetime show, “All In," and the podcast "Why is this Happening? With Chris ...
11.02.2020 Stacey Abrams on minority rule, voting rights, and the future of democracy We’re one day away from the election, though who-knows-how-many days from finding out who won it. But there’s more at stake than whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be our next president. There is a fight behind the fight, ...
10.29.2020 Nate Silver on why 2020 isn't 2016 As you may have heard, there's a pretty important election coming up. That means it's time to bring back the one and only Nate Silver. Silver, the founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight, boasts one of the best election forecasting records ...
10.26.2020 Sarah Kliff grades Biden and Trump's health care plans There are few issues on which the stakes in this election are quite as stark as on health care. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden plans to pass (and Democrats largely support) a massive health care expansion that could result in ...
10.22.2020 Trumpism never existed. It was always just Trump. In 2016, Julius Krein was one of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. In Trump’s critiques of the existing Republican and Democratic establishments, Krein saw the contours of a heterodox ideology he believed could reshape American politics for the better. So ...
10.19.2020 What should Democrats do about the Supreme Court? If Democrats win back power this November, they will be faced with a choice: Leave the existing Supreme Court intact, and watch their legislative agenda — and perhaps democracy itself — be gradually gutted by 5-4 and 6-3 judicial rulings; ...
10.15.2020 Marilynne Robinson on writing, metaphysics, and the Donald Trump dilemma Marilynne Robinson is one of the greatest American novelists alive today. She’s the author of the Pulitzer-prize winning Gilead — one of my favorite books, ever — as well as Housekeeping, Home, Lila, and her latest, Jack. She’s also produced ...
10.12.2020 The case for Trump’s foreign policy As we approach the 2020 election, I want to make sure the conversation on this show reflects the actual choice the country is facing. So we are going to be doing a few episodes, including this one, with guests who ...
10.08.2020 Fareed Zakaria on how Biden and Trump see the world Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, a columnist for the Washington Post, and one of the most astute foreign policy thinkers of our time. So much of this conversation is focused on just that: How Biden ...
10.05.2020 How a climate bill becomes a reality Helluva week in politics, huh? And yet, in the background, the world is still warming, the fires still burning, the future still dimming. There will be plenty of episodes to come on the election. But I wanted to take a ...
10.02.2020 The meat we eat affects us all In this special episode of the Future Perfect podcast, neuroscientist Lori Marino helps us understand how arbitrarily we draw the lines between animals as pets and animals as food, and how we might redraw those lines. Subscribe to Future Perfect ...
09.30.2020 A dark, dangerous debate In a special, post-debate episode, I'm joined by Matt Yglesias to discuss the most unnerving presidential debate I've ever seen. Hosts: Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias), Senior correspondent, Vox Ezra Klein (@ezraklein), Editor-at-large, Vox Credits: Producer/Editor - Jeff Geld Researcher - Roge ...
09.28.2020 A radical — or obvious? — plan to save American democracy We talk a lot on this show about the problems with American political institutions. But what if all those problems are actually just one problem: the two-party system. Lee Drutman is a political scientist, senior fellow in the Political Reform ...
09.24.2020 RBG, minority rule, and our looming legitimacy crisis The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just weeks before a presidential election, leaves us in dangerous waters. It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which the election outcome is contested by one side and is ultimately determined by a Supreme ...

Older episodes