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What If AI Is a Bubble? Nov 13, 2025

Show notes

The money keeps coming. Global spending on artificial intelligence is projected to hit $375 billion this year. In 2026, the figure is supposed to approach half a trillion dollars.

The sums invested already are so staggering that the United States is beginning to look like an “Nvidia-state,” where the tech boom is fueling a great majority of economic growth. But lately, tech watchers have started to ask the obvious question: Is this boom in fact a bubble?

We talk to the Atlantic staff writer Charlie Warzel about what might happen—to companies, to the economy, to ordinary Americans—if one day that bubble were to burst.

Charlie covers tech and all the strange, unmooring things it does to culture. And he has a new Atlantic video podcast called Galaxy Brain launching this week.

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Will 2026 Be a Fair Fight? Nov 06, 2025

Show notes

Go ahead, Democrats. Enjoy your victory parties. But after that, brace yourselves, because Republicans may not be playing by the same rules a year from now. Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term—indeed, since his loss in 2020—he has shown his willingness to subvert the rules of free and fair elections. In various ways, he’s used his power to intimidate potential opponents, Democratic donors, and even voters who might oppose him. We talk to the Atlantic staff writer David A. Graham about this week’s election as a test run for 2026, the gerrymandering arms race, and future possible scenarios of election meddling.

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Strike First, Explain Never Oct 30, 2025

Show notes

So far, the U.S. has blown up 14 boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, killing at least 57 people. In the two months since the strikes began, the administration has consistently offered the same explanation: The U.S. has a fentanyl overdose problem, and these boats are a source of that drug. The federal government has stuck to that line despite the Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Homeland Security saying most of the fentanyl brought into this country comes from Mexico, not through the Caribbean.

Nancy Youssef covers national security for The Atlantic. She joins the show to discuss the strikes, the administration’s changes to the military, and the lack of transparency in the transformed Pentagon.

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18 Minutes From Nuclear Annihilation Oct 23, 2025

Show notes

In Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, A House of Dynamite, the clock is ticking. The film’s fictional president of the United States has less than 20 minutes and very little information to decide whether or not to retaliate against a nuclear missile, launched at the United States, from an unknown source. As with Bigelow’s other war movies, the story is disturbingly plausible. During the Cold War, the likely scenario was a war with the Soviet Union. Now there are nine nuclear powers, which makes the possibility of error, rogue actors, or a total information vacuum more likely. We talk with “A House of Dynamite” screenwriter Noah Oppenheim and Tom Nichols, a national-security writer at the Atlantic,who consulted on the movie.

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If the Voting Rights Act Falls Oct 16, 2025

Show notes

This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the last remaining section of the Voting Rights Act, a civil rights law designed to ensure that states could not get in the way of nonwhite citizens voting.

We talk to Stacey Abrams, voting rights activist and former candidate for Georgia governor, and Atlantic staff writer Vann Newkirk about the case and a world without the Voting Rights Act.

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Saudi Arabia Gets the Last Laugh Oct 09, 2025

Show notes

The Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia concludes this week, but the outrage (from comedians who didn’t go) and self-justification (from comedians who did) continues. The festival is one small piece of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s grand vision to remake the kingdom for the 21st century and simultaneously draw global attention away from human-rights violations like the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In this episode, we talk to the Atlantic staff writers Vivian Salama and Helen Lewis about what happened at the festival and how to understand Saudi Arabia’s push for modernization.

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Weaponizing the Justice Department Oct 02, 2025

Show notes

President Donald Trump is using the Department of Justice to try to punish his political enemies. How much can the president bend the DOJ, an institution built on norms and ethics, to his will before it breaks? In this episode, we talk to the Atlantic staff writer Quinta Jurecic, who covers legal issues, and Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare, about who the Trump administration might target next, what legal strategies might work, and where the judicial system contains some surprising sources of resistance.

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An American Education | 2. Testing Teachers for 'Wokeness' Sep 25, 2025

Show notes

Hanna Rosin sits down with Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters to ask him about a purity test for teachers and a nearly scandalous incident that happened days before the interview. And two Oklahoma high-school teachers take very different paths.

This is the second episode of a two-part series from Radio Atlantic. (This episode has been updated from a previously published version to include additional news.)

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Live from The Atlantic Festival: ‘2026 Is the Battlefield’ Sep 21, 2025

Show notes

A live conversation about authoritarian forces in America with Anne Applebaum, an Atlantic staff writer, and Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and a lifelong democracy activist.

Speaking about the upcoming midterms, Kasparov says: “If Democrats do not retake the House, 2028 will be a formality.”

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David Letterman on the Threats to Late-Night Hosts Sep 19, 2025

Show notes

Yesterday, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was suspended indefinitely. It’s a shocking moment for free speech, given the order in which events unfolded. Earlier that day, FCC Chair Brendan Carr had suggested on a conservative podcast that ABC and its affiliates consider taking steps against Kimmel, saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

As it so happened, the late-night legend David Letterman was scheduled to speak at The Atlantic Festival the next day. Letterman and The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, sat down for an impromptu interview about the news.

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