Trump, Israel, and the Future of Liberal Democracy — with Ezra Klein

25:42Or dollhouse building you. Yeah, the kids are going to love this. Or maybe house DJ track building to the bass drop you. Oh yeah, the kids are gonna love this.

26:03Do you love it? Oh, that's a good you.

26:13It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. our coverage has something unique, fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say, so we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe, expose corruption wherever we find it, and give fresh perspective on everything, from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate, and more. Read, watch, and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.

26:53So you recently wrote a piece in the New York Times titled, Why American Jews No Longer Understand One Another. And I thought, by the way, it really resonated with me. And you write that the consensus that held American Jews together for generations is cracked, and that what is good for Israel is good for the Jews no longer holds. What do you think ultimately, A, say more about that, and what do you think ultimately broke that consensus? So the piece for me was motivated in this moment by seeing the fights in so many films I knew about Mamdani, where you would have young Jews in New York who were voting for him, who really liked him, older Jews.

27:28And I'm stereotyping a little bit, but this is mostly what I saw, who were horrified. I do Psalm as an anti-Semite, you know. And I've been, as I've been covering, you know, Israel and Gaza and also the politics of it here for, you know, a couple of years now, feeling this fissure widening. And there's a lot of dimensions to it. The thing I say in that piece is that the consensus that held American Jewry together for a very long time was fundamentally about Zionism. It was that Israel is good for the Jews and we need to be, even in America, committed to it. That opposition to Israel, particularly opposition to Israel as a Jewish state, is anti-Semitic.

28:09That Israel is seeking a two-state solution and will probably either find one soon or if it doesn't, it is not their fault. And as that consensus is broken down for a lot of reasons, but in this moment, because a two-state solution is nothing that Israel wants, And Israel is now, it seems, inflicting a mass starvation event on Gaza, which is broken through to the media and to people. This question of what is the relationship American Jews should have with Israel and through that with each other has really polarized. You've had a fair amount of the community polarized around Israel, right? We need to defend Israel.

28:52You know, they're living in a neighborhood where everybody wants to kill them, and Hamas could release the hostages if Hamas wanted to. So anything that happens on this is on their shoulders. And then another set that is moving away from it, that wants no part of what this is, not just no part of this war, but no part of government after government that is incredibly right-wing, that is building settlements in the West Bank at an expanding pace. And as a two-state solution has functionally dissolved as a live political project, it no longer exists as a kind of parking lot that can reconcile the liberalism of American Jews and their commitment to Israel.

29:27If Israel simply intends to rule over 7 million Palestinians who will not have rights, you know, Palestinian Israelis or Arab Israelis have some rights, but it's not like what Jewish Israelis have. And then in West Bank and Gaza, it's a horror show. There is not the capacity anymore to sort of explain that away. And so then what do you do? Do you believe in equality everywhere but in the place meant to be your spiritual home? Do you support what has become the structure of apartheid? You know, people don't love the word, but we don't have that many for it. Where do you end up? And there's not an answer right now.

30:02There isn't a solution, a policy move or anything that can sort of reunite these two questions. And Israel itself, its politics have changed dramatically. And it is seeking alliance with other right-wing ethno-nationalist governments in a way that's really changing the meaning of Israel on the world stage. So it's a tricky and very heartbreaking moment. Yeah, I would love to hear more about how you personally feel. As someone who is an atheist and never felt much connection with Judaism, mother's Jewish, I consider myself Jewish, but never really connected with Israel or Judaism. And then October the 8th, I decided I was a full blown Zionist.

30:44And since then, it's become increasingly hard. It's just, you know, the diaspora, I think, is really conflicted. And when I think about Brand Israel, the strongest component of brand Israel, I think used to be that they were seen as the good guys. And the David to the Goliath, if you will. And I think that's no longer the case. At the same time, and curious to get your take here, I think the rest of the world and a certain element of America is really drawn to the strength and victory of Israel. I mean, if you take a look at the Houthis, if you look at Hezbollah, obviously Hamas. I mean, Israel's taken out Iran, effectively, or at least now rules the skies over Iran.

31:27And I think strength is a fantastic brand association. So the brand is shifting, but there are some, I would argue, elements of the brand that are very aspirational and getting a lot of recognition from around the world. Your thoughts? I think if you look on the right, Zionism has come to mean, this actually goes, I think, back to our conversation about masculinity at the beginning, Zionism has come to be a symbol of a certain belief in strength. Israel is Sparta, or the closest thing this world still has, in a way, to a Sparta. The issue for that, I mean, I can't say I really think about it too much in terms of brands, but the issue with that is, one, it is losing vast amounts of other kinds of support.

32:12I mean, France just came out and said it was going to recognize a Palestinian state. That has not happened before. When you say what Israel means around the world, Israel's reputation around the world, you look at how Israel is seen around the world, and it is terrible, right? I mean, whatever debates we're having in America, that is not the dominant debate in the rest of the world. The rest of the world is moving very, very, very far away from Israel for the most part. You know, if you go look at, say, global polling on Israel. But, you know, back sort of to how I think about it here, one, American Jews overwhelmingly are liberal.

32:45They believe in human rights. They believe in multi-ethnic democracy. And that's not accidental. That is the set of ideas and ideals on which American Jews, to some degree now European Jews, on which the safety of the diaspora is built, right? If the view is you can just dominate your ethnic minorities, then the Jews of the diaspora are fucked, right? Because we are an ethnic minority wherever we are. And so it is not accidental that this deep commitment to liberalism as a mode of politics, right? Not talking here about like the American left, but the broader thing we mean when we say liberalism.

33:29It runs very deep in American Jewry. And so, yes, Israel is moving to where its allies are. People like Donald Trump, right? J.D. Vance, Viktor Orban, sort of right-wing, ethno-nationalist strongmen. What does that mean for Israel? Next time Democrats are in power, and the Democrat who is in power is not 80-some years old and remembers Israel at its founding. What does that mean for Israel in 10 years if it is just accepted that it's an apartheid state? When there's no more excuses left to be made. So in terms of the long term, I don't think that's a very safe place to be. What does strength get you?

34:16I mean, the ability to execute military operations. But Israel is not using its strength wisely or judiciously. This morning, I woke up and an Israeli commentator I know, I don't know if it's published yet, so I don't want to say who it is, but sent me a piece that he's been writing. And he's not a person like on the far left, just saying, if we don't do something, Senoir will have won from beyond the grave. Because the way the world is looking at us is Hamas's ultimate dream. That they wanted, Hamas wanted the world to see us as butchers. They wanted to see us as having no respect for Palestinian life and to be invested in only domination.

34:54And now that is beginning to be what they're seeing. And so, you know, it's like in any war, right? The bombings are the easy part if you have the firepower. It's always been easier to take out. I mean, Israel has done amazing military operations, functionally for its entire history, right? It's knocked out nuclear reactors before, although it needed us in this case to help with that. and we don't really know how much was done. Like for all we know, in a year, Iran is going to pop up with a nuclear weapon, right? They're just going to do a sprint in the background. So I don't know that we know how these stories have ended.

35:27But, you know, as with Iraq, as with Afghanistan, as with so many of these, the invasion, the bombing, the shock and awe, if you have the military technology, is often the easy part. It's what do you do when you're ruling over those ruins? And it is very telling that almost two years now after October 7th, Israel still has never put forward a day after planning Gaza, right? It doesn't have a vision of how it should be governed because it doesn't know. Could a lot of these problems with the brand perception or the perception, the erosion in the sentiment or goodwill towards Israel around the world, which I agree with, do you think a lot of that could be repaired, quite frankly, if Netanyahu leaves the stage and Israel does a hard pivot away from these policies?

36:10You know, that might go a long way to repairing their reputation. And also at the end of the day, isn't it? I mean, what the world thinks of them is very important, but what the kingdom thinks of them and their neighbors believing that they have kind of exhausted their ability to invade or eliminate Israel, that obviously hasn't worked. I mean, at the end of the day, could Israel argue this has been worth it? I don't know. I mean, you'd have to ask Israel if they think it's been worth it. And I think obviously, at least its government currently does, not obviously worth the deaths of October 7th, but the cost of their military operations.

36:49I guess maybe the place I probably part, I don't think what Israel has is a brand problem. I think what they have is a reality problem. I mean, they are currently committing war crimes. There is just no other way to describe. They have choked off food to Palestinians in Gaza, a people under occupation from them. No matter what the insurgent or terrorist group that you're dealing with wants or doesn't want or will agree to or will not agree to, under the rules of war, you cannot do that. You cannot hold the entire civilian population responsible. The idea that Hamas was stealing the aid has now been looked into and has proven false at any systemic level.

37:24You know, in the West Bank, they're building settlements at a torrid rate. There's a lot more violence against West Bank Palestinians from the treetop or the hilltop youth. So, yes, I mean, it is the case that Israel could emerge as a kind of brutal ethnostate, I mean, or maybe is a brutal ethnostate that just rules over this and nobody can really do anything about it. In the long run, I don't think that's stable in the world we live in. But I'm not going to, I don't want to tell you that, you know, you cannot have brutal states in modernity. You certainly can. I just think that's a bad thing.

37:54I think that it's going to be a bad thing for Jews worldwide. I think it's going to be a bad thing for what it means to be Jewish. I think it's obviously going to be horror for the Palestinians. I mean, my problem with this is not really so much Israel's brand. I think we often filter a lot of American conversations when we're among people who are sort of like committed to the long-term health of Israel and the Jews through the question of, is it good for Israel and the Jews? but even some world where you can say for israel's interests as a state ongoing domination and apartheid like structure is good for the way they have defined their interests i still think it's bad right that violates my values as a human being and like as a political thinker and so in the long run it will lose support for that but i'm not you know you could certainly make an argument that it'll find other it'll pick up on a support maybe become very close with russia right you know There's always ways to sort of rejigger your alliances alongside your values.

38:48But, you know, it comes with a kind of deep cost as well. And the term war crimes obviously is a serious term. Do you think America is guilty of similar war crimes across almost every war it's engaged in since World War II? America has been guilty of some war crimes. Mass starvation of civilian populations is usually not one of them. There's a grid. I don't know if you've read the New York Magazine cover story on this. It'd be worth having her on. Like, this has been the people I know who do this work. They think this has moved out of just normal war. We're going to need a bigger boat. So we're going to move on to local New York politics.

39:24Mom Donnie, your turn. You know, we'll see, right? The guy ran an amazing campaign. I often say that there are two kinds of politicians. the kind that communicate about policy and the kind that communicate through policy. And Mamdani is the kind that communicates through policy, right? Every one of his policies, free to rent, free buses, free daycare, you know, government-owned grocery stores, they say something about him, right? They're about his values, about how he views society, right? They're mimetic. The question is, if he wins, and I think you've got to see him as a favorite at this point, can he govern effectively?

40:03So a bunch of those policies need a bunch of money. he does not have any control over taxes. He would have to go to Albany and Governor Kathy Hochul, who has said she will not raise taxes. So he, under virtually any scenario we can see, is not going to have the money to do the things he wants to do. You know, some of them, free buses actually would not be that expensive. You could probably, you know, get that from somewhere else in the New York City, you know, budget. But in terms of big things, it's very unlikely he'll be able to pull together the money for that. I also think that if he wins, Donald Trump is going to see him as a kind of soft target.

40:35and go to war with Mamdani. And that will include taking a lot of money or trying to take a lot of money, the federal government, that flows from the federal government into New York City away from it. So that could be a sort of crisis that there's real questions about how he'll be able to respond to it. Then there's the freeze of the rent dynamic, which for a year or two, and I get why that policy is popular, if you're living in rent-controlled or stabilized housing or housing that is meant to be affordable and the rent is going up by 10 or 12 percent, that's terrible for you. If you do an extended rent freeze, you're going to reduce the incentive by a lot to repair those buildings and to build new ones, right?

41:16There's no way of getting around that. So you need to be really opening the floodgates some other way on construction. And when I look at Mamdani's proposals, when I've, you know, talked to him and heard him talk about this, I think a lot of his head is in the right place, I'm not sure he's willing to disappoint the people he would need to disappoint or wield enough power to really unleash a building boom at an affordable cost for him. Really, most of his plans have focused on public housing, which is great, but New York City has not built public housing at that level in a very, very long time.

41:49And whether or not it still can is a little bit unknown. And whether it can under the kind of laws that it currently has and regulations and deals it has made. It probably can't if you don't change those. Will Mom Donnie be willing to disappoint his friends and pick the fights to change those? I don't know. So he's somebody who has an incredible amount of talent. I think it'll matter a lot who we see him surrounding himself with. Who does he listen to? Who would his police chief be? What would his relationship with the police be like? Who will be, you know, helping him run all of this, right? Will Brad Lander be his first deputy mayor?

42:22That would be, I think, you know, one world. And I think that would be an encouraging sign. But I think there is still a lot that is unknown. The transition from being a movement leader, which is what Mamdani is in a campaign context, to being an executive is a very big transition, as you know better than me. And the question of can he sort of wield executive power and, you know, tack when policies aren't working out or come up with alternatives when he doesn't have the money, you know, or kind of browbeat people or make allies you wouldn't expect them to make and listen to people you wouldn't expect them to listen to.

42:58You know, all that remains to be seen. Strikes me that it's a no brainer if he just has lunch very publicly with Michael Bloomberg once a week up until the election, that if he just pivots to sort of the old guard or softens his image a little bit, kind of rough, you know, sands out the rough edges that he's but he's a lock, I would think. And I think a lot of people feel a little bit conflicted. They'd say, okay, I don't love his policies. Some of the things he's said in the past are somewhat troubling. But at the same time, I think it's difficult not to be inspired, right? My understanding is 4 ,000 young Democrats or people under the age of 40 filled out paperwork to run for office after he won, which is a good thing.

43:41And what also struck me, and I'm curious to get your thoughts, was how similar it was to the Trump campaign, a focus on affordability and weaponizing these new mediums. Isn't, regardless of what you think of his politics, doesn't it potentially, Mamdani's victory, potentially sort of illuminate a path for Democrats moving forward in terms of how they should be acquitting themselves or prosecuting a campaign? I'm not sure. There are a lot of lessons from Mamdani, obviously, but I think one of it is find incredible political talents that are well-matched to the places they're running. So, look, I mean, the guy wins by, I forget the exact margin in the primary now, but you're talking about a win that I think was in the, a little bit over 10 points range in a New York City primary.

44:26That's great, right? That's a very impressive victory. Cuomo came in with a lot more money than he had. First, he hasn't won the general yet. I think he will, but let's not totally get ahead of ourselves. And Cuomo was a very, very, very weak and obviously scandal-ridden candidate who ran a terrible campaign. So the question is, can you run like Mamdani trying to win a Senate seat in Kansas City or Wisconsin? Can you win the governorship in Wisconsin that way, right? There are these elections that are going to have to be fit to the place where the person is running. I think the thing you see in some of these figures who are overperforming, Mamdani or, you know, in a very different way, Ruben Gallego in Arizona.

45:05I've been impressed with what I'm seeing from John Ossoff in this reelection campaign he's running in Georgia, is what you need is not like the one recipe. You need candidates who are compelling on their own. And one reason they are compelling on their own is that they know who they are and they're willing to stand up for it. And sometimes that is to the left of where, you know, much of the electorate is comfortable with them being. And sometimes it's like a little bit to the right, but there is something about being willing to unleash the energy of some conflict around yourself, right? Not being so careful and cautious and poll-tested and mealy-mouthed that everybody feels when they hear you talk.

45:47Like the first thing happening in your mind is a filter that is catching anything you might say that anyone might not like first. People really sense when they're not quite talking to you. And when you talk to Momdani or you hear him talking, you're talking to him. When you talk to Gallego or you hear him talking, you're talking to him. or that's true for Angie Craig, right? That's true for Elise Slotkin. There are a lot of really good candidates, but one thing that those candidates tend to have is an authenticity. And you watch and you're like, yeah, I would keep listening to this person. One other thing I will just say about Mondani that I've always found to be a big part of his appeal and what makes him a real political talent is he feels very motivated by his sympathies and not his resentments.

46:31That's not, in my view, how Donald Trump feels, but it's also not how a lot of people on the left feel. Oftentimes, people in politics, they feel more motivated by who they hate than who they're in this for. And Mamdani, who took a lot of flack, right, you know, who got a lot of unfair attacks. Nevertheless, there is a fundamental friendliness to his campaign, a sense that even if you disagreed with him, he didn't hate you. He wasn't looking to push you out of his circle. He wanted you in there. He wanted you in that tent. and that idea that there is a political value to what you might call like a high political theory level pluralism and what you might call as a normal human being like friendliness and openness to other people i think that's easy to underestimate i think that a real failure of the left and i don't just mean like the democratic socialist left i mean like the the broad you know left of the center was developing a politics that seemed like it was more interested at times and a communication style and figure out who wasn't on our side and making that clear than inviting people, even people who didn't agree with us, in at least halfway.

47:42And Mamdani, though he's into a lot of people's left, he doesn't feel that way. He's looking for where you agree with him, not where, you know, he can kick you out. You've likened Trump to a living Twitter algorithm, which I love, saying that his focus generally drives from being from thing to thing. not because he's trying to distract us, but because he himself is easily distractible. I would, my sense is right now that may in fact not be true that he's, the majority of his focus right now is on weapons of mass distraction from Epstein. I'm curious what has surprised you about the most recent iteration of the Epstein scandal, and if you have any speculation around where it heads and what it means for both parties and Trump.

48:33I mean, there's a level of obvious panic around it. I can't tell you what's at the center of that panic. But as you say, he has been quite consistent on his anger about this, his desire that these files now are not released, whatever he was saying at another point. And Mike Johnson recessing the House rather than allowing that vote, it was a moment that I think even if you've been a bit skeptical, that, you know, that beneath the smoke, this fire certainly made a lot of people look at it differently. Where it goes from here, I don't know. It doesn't feel to me like it's going away. I feel I've said on Pivot, the fix is in.

49:16That all of a sudden they've decided they want to speak to Jolene Maxwell after she's been there for several years. That it has been communicated to her that she will get a pardon if in fact her comments come across as exonerating the president. To me, this feels just plain as day. Your thoughts? I think the fact that so many people believe that is going to make that move a little bit hard to run. Now, look, like my view is not that Epstein is going to bring down Donald Trump. and, you know, the Wall Street Journal reports that he is somewhere in those files, maybe multiple times, you know, where he is in them, I don't know.

49:50It could just be notes of them being at parties together. It's one of these things that I wonder how much what's in there would confirm what we know, which is that they were good friends and he knew about Epstein, right? Trump is the first person, to my knowledge, on record in this New York Magazine story from, what was it, 06, saying publicly, Jeffrey Epstein likes young women. Right? He says, a lot of people say Epstein likes beautiful women almost as much as I do, and he likes them young. Trump knew. Whatever else you want to say about it, Trump knew. And we know Trump knew. But sometimes there's something more sticky about finding it in the official files than reading into a quote from 20 years ago.

50:41So, yeah, maybe they try to trot out Ghislaine, and maybe she does give testimony that seems exonerating. And in a world where it seems like she got something for that, or people suspect she did, I'm not sure how persuasive that will be. I think there's still going to be a lot of calls to release these. Then at some point, Democrats, if they take the House in 2026 and then, you know, have it in 2027, I think you should expect that to be passing a bunch. and Republicans have the Senate. Now you have like the Senate and the House fighting over this legislation. Maybe you have oversight committees that are subpoenaing people, again, under a Democratic House to get information and to have testimony and people are actually paying attention to that testimony.

51:23It's one of the first places where I think Democrats have seen real weakness with Trump. And so I don't expect that it is simply gonna dissolve, but nor do I think that one should expect that it's gonna become what liberals once hoped, you know, the Mueller report would become. And something will happen, and that's the end of the Trump administration. If you were advising the Democratic Party on how to handle the whole Epstein scandal, what would your advice be? If I were advising them, I mean, you keep up the pressure. Ro Khanna's been very sharp on this, and he's been very smart on this. And you focus on issues that are going to crack the other side's coalition, and you weave this into a larger argument about corruption.

52:05This is one of many examples that Donald Trump and the people around him are astonishingly corrupt. And, you know, John Ossoff has been doing this on the campaign trail in a way I think is effective. But this is a place where, you know, these powerful people banded together to pull one over on you, right? You know, whip you up about the Epstein files. And as soon as they got what they wanted from you, which was your votes, your support, your faith, they turn around and spent it on tax cuts for themselves. And you don't get the Epstein files. You get Medicaid cuts. You get food stamp cuts. You know, meanwhile, Trump is taking Qatari jets and he's taking, you know, making billions of dollars on crypto meme coins.

52:44And he is over and over and over and over again, screwing people over to line his own pocket and out of his friends. And this becomes, in a kind of an oversight structure, one of many things Democrats will be going after to build a case about what has always been to me the very soft underbelly of this administration, which is that they said they would come here and govern on your behalf and they're just making themselves rich and they're screwing you over. We'll be right back after a quick break.

53:19What do walking 10 ,000 steps every day, eating five servings of fruits and veggies, and getting eight hours of sleep have in common? They're all healthy choices. But do all healthier choices really pay off? With prescription plans from CVS Caremark, they do. Their plan designs give your members more choice, which gives your members more ways to get on, stay on, and manage their meds. And that helps your business control your costs, because healthier members are better for business. Go to cmk.co slash access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent. That's cmk.co slash access.

54:01Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We resolve queries fast. We work 24-7, and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic. We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve. Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI. No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration. Visit sierra.ai to learn more.

54:31Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

55:01We're back with more from Ezra Klein. You and Derek Thompson, who were big fans of, put out Abundance earlier this year. what surprised you most about the response to it? What issues do you think got more attention than you were expecting or less attention than you were expecting? I mean, the level of response to it surprised me. You know, you release a book that is about, in substantial portion, you know, how strong the state is in city capacity and zoning policy and housing and, you know, how hard it is to build transmission lines and issues in scientific institutions. you know you you you could see a world for that book probably the modal world is some respectful reviews and then you kind of everybody moves on with their life so the fact that it became this huge discourse object that it's you know at least as of last week still on the bestseller list whatever it is 18 weeks later um that's been amazing i didn't expect the backlash from like the i'd call it like the neo-populist left that we got we didn't get a backlash from all parts of love, but that wasn't one I was expecting, sort of Brandeisian, people very focused on corporate power, because I didn't see it coming because I don't see Abundance as in conflict with that.

56:12What I came to realize over time and over talking to them was that Abundance's sort of more underlying theory of politics, which I think is more liberal theory of politics, which is that power is ill-used in a lot of places. There's no one kind of power that if you just broke it, you would get the society you wanted, For abundance, the kind of list of enemies is not just like corporations and rich people. Sometimes those are your problem, and sometimes you have lots of other problems that those don't fix. So I think that became—it became, in my view, the fight over abundance became a version of a fight that is inside the Democratic Party between what we may call liberalism and populism, which are more structurally different ways of viewing politics.

56:58Of course, those can be synthesized, and I think skilled politicians will do that. But I do think it is a very real divide in people's implicit way of thinking about what the problem is and how to solve it. Yeah, the thing I was disappointed with, Democrats, it seemed like an argument over the theories as opposed to trying to inspire a thoughtful conversation around specific programs. And the thing I took away from it and that you and Derek kind of inspired in my mind was, and one of my disappointments with the Democratic Party is they're long on rhetorical flourish and short on actual programs and big, bold ideas.

57:33But the thing I took away from listening to your interviews in the book was, you know, 8 million houses in 10 years. let's build 8 million manufactured homes which cost 30 to 50 % less than on-site homes and create little cool communities for young people which will create cool and basically just say to Americans your kid's going to be able to afford a house if they're making a decent living. Like right there, just one program, specific number, specific cost, let's get on it. And we got, seems like, diverted into this existential argument over what abundance means and the externalities of it. So was your intent to foment a conversation around some sort of federally backed or tax credit, private sector unleashed inspired housing program?

58:20I mean, I think that'll come as people are coming up with their 2028 plans and trying to think about how, you know, what abundance means to them and how they instantiate in policy. I think you're going to see a lot of versions of that. I mean, hell, Zoran Mamdani was talking about abundance on the campaign trail. uh the thing i think what you're getting at which i feel is true but i may be more um uh placid around is the focus was really on the critique um and the critique unleashed a lot of energy because it unleashed a lot of conflict right we're saying government has worked poorly we have failed in a lot of the places where we liberals democrats people on the left have governed, we have not made life affordable for people.

59:04We have not delivered, you know, big mass infrastructure projects. People have lost faith in the government for a lot of reasons, but this is one of them, and they're not wrong to do so, right? If you, you know, if California comes back to you and says, we'd like to try building high-speed rail again, I think you should say, well, what did you learn? Because like right now you're failing. I do think that there could be, and hopefully will be more conversation about what does abundance actually look like? As you were saying, maybe it's 8 million homes in 10 years. I think we could do a lot more on defining and really pushing for clean energy abundance, right?

59:38Having a lot more energy, having energy that is on the path to truly being too cheap to meter. That'd be an incredible, genuine step forward in human wealth. There's so much around innovation and healthcare and healthcare supply and what people have access to. Like, for an extended period of time, the question of GLP-1s is going to become a very, very, very important political question. Because right now, Medicaid and Medicare do not cover them as anti-obesity drugs. If they did at current prices, it would probably bankrupt the system. So this question of how do you create abundance of, you know, new technologies and new medications and, you know, there is a lot there.

1:00:19So there is a critique of how government works and in some ways of how the sort of Democratic Party has governed, which has been the focus because people are fighting over that. I do think being a party that can offer people a vision that they can actually feel of what a more abundant America would look like, what it would look like if not just you, but your children could afford a home in the place they actually wanted to live. what it would look like if we really were world leaders in next generation energy, what it would look like if we really did have a lot more great public infrastructure, and then proved ourselves, you know, ruthless enough to change government, to slaughter our own sacred cows to get there.

1:01:03I think that's very compelling. But yes, that part, that kind of visioning, I think has been, even though we start the book with it, has been less a part of the conversation than I would like to see. I just want to do, I'd love to do a lightning round around just specific policy ideas and get, just get your quick response to it. Lower Medicaid eligibility by two years every year for 10 years brings it down to 40 or 45, which effectively is socialized medicine because I think 70 to 90 % of all healthcare costs are people over the age of 40. But basically a slow but steady march towards socialized medicine.

1:01:41i've always been pro lowering the medicare age by a lot and and also doing something like medicare for kids so there's been a theory for a long time that you can basically do um a medicare-like program for kids we're pretty cheap in general call it up to 18 and bring medicare eligibility down to 45 now it's worth saying that eligibility is different you have to tell you're going to subsidize them at the same rate you subsidize people over 65 right there's all all kinds of questions. Probably nobody gives a shit about this anymore. In the Affordable Care Act, there was almost one of the public options getting killed, a compromise to do Medicare eligibility at 55, and Joe Lieberman personally killed it, which I've never forgiven him for, the late Joe Lieberman.

1:02:21But I have always been a big fan of increasing the age ranges that Medicare can cover and building a very clear healthcare system for kids built on public insurance alternative minimum tax of 50 for anyone making over say three million dollars elimination of the exemption for estate tax yeah one of my one of my views about 2028 is that the tax code is now too too broken and democrats should figure out smart democrats will figure out an actual simple tax reform that you got to throw out the code and start over and doing something much flatter, but highly progressive, right? And much simpler, you know, that has much simpler rules and not a billion different carve-outs and, you know, all of the lobbyists poked holes that we have here.

1:03:15So, you know, something very heavily built around a value-added tax, I think would make sense. You can do progressive consumption taxes, right? There's a lot of ways to do it. Your version is another one of that sort of more oriented towards richer people. But I think a flat but highly progressive and flat, I should say broad, but highly progressive tax code is the way to go. so just we wrap up here and we do appreciate how generous you've been with your time i'm just curious with the kind of there are i remember thomas friedman at davos 25 years ago talking about the emergence of the supranational the basically nation states as individuals and i thought that was actually quite if you look back quite prescient but i also think the same thing has happened there's a certain number of people in media who have developed whose work is so outstanding and that it breaks through.

1:04:04But in addition, they're able to sort of weaponize different mediums and kind of become bigger than the platform itself. And I think you're one of those people. I'm curious what your strategy is. And please don't tell me you don't have a strategy. You just want to do great work. Well, you can say it, but I won't believe you. But what is your strategy around these different mediums? Where are you allocating more of your precious human capital around different technologies, different platforms, and where are you spending less time? When you think about yourself as a content producer, and a lot of it is the medium is the message, which mediums are you over and under investing in?

1:04:40Well, one thing that I think is a little different about how I approach this than other people is that I tend to be fairly all or nothing. So I want to have an absolutely amazing podcast, right? I want my show to be amazing. I put a lot of time into that right I want to be a really good columnist I put a lot of work into those two things and then I don't do social media so I'm not really on Instagram I'm not on X I'm not on Blue Sky the the podcast is on YouTube which I think is important but I think of that as an as one project I'm not myself on TikTok we put my stuff on TikTok and actually does really well there, but that's part of the kind of podcast, in my view.

1:05:27I just, you know, and I wrote a book, but I don't write tons of books, right? It's my second book. And I've been doing this for more than 20 years. It's my second book. I try to really, really, really fully put my energy into creating a fairly discrete number of journalistic products that are really good and that create conversation. So, I mean, that piece you mentioned on American Jews Don't Understand Each Other Any Longer, that piece took me time. There are, you know, I think six interviews in that piece. Not anything made it into it, but behind it at the very least. It took me weeks to do.

1:06:04I held it beyond when it was supposed to initially run. We then did a version in audio where we actually wove more of the interviews into it. I wanted that to be something that would create conversation and it really has. And so I think one of my, and this might also be, you know, I have advantages and, you know, a big platform. So I can, I have the privilege of being able to do this, but I try to be more engaged in like the role of starting conversations than kind of jumping into them. And that's because I find that if I'm jumping into a lot of conversations, I find it very, very distracting.

1:06:37The other thing that is not a medium that I participate in the way I participate in podcasting, but I just spend a lot of time reading things on paper. And I think it's a huge advantage. I think it makes me smarter, lets me see things that other people aren't seeing. I just, I think compared to a lot of people, a lot more of my information diet is books and printouts and a lot less is scrolling. And that keeps my work a little bit more different. and uh just in terms of we have a lot of uh young people listen to podcasts a lot of young men actually i think we're 70 or 80 young men and they people are going to look at you and think wow 41 i want to be ezra klein right you you have my senses i don't i know you i don't know you but i sort of know you and my sense is you're doing something you have a lot of influence you seem to like what you do you're making an exceptional living uh you're relevant and a lot of people will probably look at you and think, you know what, I'd like to be in those shoes.

1:07:30I'd like to be in that seat. Can you talk about the one or two biggest influences and what young people can take away in terms of getting you to where you are now? I came up through blogging, which was a very different way to come up, at a time when that was a very open space, which it isn't now. And so I started a blog when I was a freshman at UC Santa Cruz. And at that time... I didn't know I could like you more, Ezra. Well done. UCLA and Berkeley. Greatest gift from government. I got rejected from Berkeley repeatedly. I got rejected from Berkeley when I applied first and then when I tried to transfer there.

1:08:04But then I went to UCLA a bit too for a year. But I think of myself primarily as a banana slug. So that, I think, allowed me to go through a backdoor. When I started blogging, nobody thought of that as a career, nor did I. You know, it sounded like like something that will grow on your foot. And there was, one, an amazing community around that of like really, really excellent people who are still like amazing figures today, right? You know, Matt Iglesias was an early inspiration for me as a blogger because he was another college kid. You know, Andrew Sullivan was like one of the big bloggers of that era.

1:08:39Unfortunately, Kevin Drum passed away. I think he was austere now, but he was a real figure in that. And so I think I was able to build my own sense of how to do my work. And then got brought in repeatedly to institutions in this kind of protected space where I was doing something they wanted, right? Blogging in different formats and later podcasting. And so they come in and they're sort of like almost like acqui-hire me to do this thing they didn't really know what to do yet. And that gave me a lot of freedom that not everybody else had. So you have a cow and an early blogger and a big influence on me.

1:09:15So one, I think the blogosphere. I still in some ways think a lot of who I am is formed by that. And then, you know, the other thing that I think has always been very important in my own work is that I'm actually a reporter. I'm not just, I don't think of myself primarily as a takes writer. And I think something that keeps my work pretty fresh is that it's not just my voice over and over and over again. And for that, I give credit to a bunch of my early editors. You know, Mike Tomaski, who I remember at the American Prospect, I came and brought him one of my early features. And he looked at me and he said, this isn't even a piece of journalism.

1:09:48I was like, what do you mean? That was such a mean thing to say to me. He was like, there's no other voices in it. It's just you. And that made a big impression on me. And so, you know, my podcast is, you know, primarily interviews with other people. My columns, they're not literally all interview-based, but they are heavily. If you look at Abundance, the book, it's a lot of reporting, much of it on the ground in different places. I think it is, people think so much about what they're telling other people and whether other people are listening and are they like, you know, how did they get in the algorithm?

1:10:18I think the first question is how to actually be interesting and have something that is worth saying. What kind of work are you doing that you're bringing to the audience? Why, what service are they hiring you to do? Because nowadays there's so much political opinion out there, so much writing, so many voices. You really got to be able to offer something that other people aren't offering. And for me, a lot of the time that comes from other people, right? It comes from being able to kind of, you know, interview and show them at their best. But yeah, that sort of mixture of blogging is a kind of constantly iterative learning in public, you know, opinionated and then merged with like a real commitment to reporting, which I think I still have.

1:10:59any thoughts on um you have two kids any thoughts or learnings or advice uh to young dads on how to be a good father or your learnings as a father and being trying to be a good a good partner this will sound not cliche but like a little i think something but parenting yourself is hard it's harder than parenting your kid and what i mean by that is that it's really important, first and foremost, how you show up for your kid. How good of a parent you are going to be is going to have a lot to do with, are you sleeping? And if you're not sleeping, are you taking care of yourself in other ways? Are you feeling good in your marriage with your partner if you are married?

1:11:46Are you feeling good at your work? Are you working out at all? And a lot of the place where parenting gets really tough is when you have poorly parented yourself and now you are poorly parenting your child because you're pissed off because you're a distraction from what you really want to be doing because you can't give them your attention and i don't say this from the mountaintop where it never happens to me i say this from the place where it happens to me all the time where i'm like i'm just being a bad parent today like not terrible i'm not beating my kids but i'm you know mentally checked out and i'm tired and i'm not and see parents not do a good job, not even sort of realize like they're part of the equation too.

1:12:30And that, you know, in the same way that how their kid responds to their parenting is going to depend on has a kid eaten recently? Have they slept? Like what's going on in their lives? How they parent is going to depend on how they're eating, how they're sleeping, whether they're working out, whether they're going out on a date with, you know, the person they love or finding a person they love or whatever it might be. Parenting yourself is hard. You got to pay attention to it. Your kids, first of all need you to be present. Is it difficult, and I struggled with this my whole career, between being great at what you do and having your own relevance and your own economic security, what your family benefits from, and quite frankly just being fucking exhausted or just not having the time to be a very engaged partner or father.

1:13:11Is that something you struggle with? Yeah, all the time. I mean, one of my worst feelings is feeling like the podcast often gets the best of me and sometimes my family gets the worst. and they get me at the end of the day when I'm tired, when I'm, you know, worn down, when the caffeine is worn off. I feel like I spend so much time running from my own exhaustion, right? The thing that I feel the most often that I fight the hardest is feeling tired.

1:13:44And it's also just a part of my life, right? There's not some way of doing what I'm doing or the number of things I'm doing and not having to wake up earlier than my body would like to. You know, there isn't a way to do it all. And so just accepting that you're in, you're going to be in triage all the time. And, you know, sometimes you will flex too far in one direction and you'll have to flex back for a while. I mean, the first six months of this year with abundance kind of blowing up and, you know, asking more of me than I had quite anticipated, that was stress on my home life. That was stress on my wife.

1:14:19That was stress on my kids. And so at a certain point, some, what is it, it's July now. So I think really right about the beginning of July, I just called a full four month stop to any work travel. And like for three or four months, I'm just a hard no. And I'm still working, right? I'm not disengaged, but I just find sometimes I have to do that. Like I pushed really hard in that direction, but that could just attain its own momentum after that. And then you just start doing it and doing it and doing it. And everything you do spins off more, you know, options and panels. And you should come here.

1:14:55And can you come talk at the policy school? And so I gave it everything I had for a while. And then kind of full stop. And now I'm focusing back on, you know, my column, my podcast, my family life, my friendships, my partnership, my health. There are seasons for things. and but you got to know when one season's ending and another is starting and we always end with the same question um you got a time machine you go back you're plopped in front of you your 25 year old self and you have 15 seconds what do you say to your 25 year old self my 25 year old self so i'd be in dc it's really hard because i like i'm happy with how my life has turned out there isn't a lot here that i want to change there's not a lot i think i could have told my 20 because advice is so, advice is bullshit.

1:15:44It's all execution, right? We all know to a large extent what we should be doing. I mean, I would have invested in Tesla. Buy Tesla, buy Nvidia. Buy Bitcoin. Yeah, buy some Bitcoin. Yeah, that's my, I think that is, that would have changed a lot. You just would have said the word Bitcoin over 15 times. I love that. All right. Look, man, there's a lot I could have told myself that I wouldn't have been able to put into practice, but that I would have. There you go. Ezra Klein is a New York Times columnist and the host of Ezra Klein Show. Previously, he was the founder, editor-in-chief, and then editor-at-large of Vox.

1:16:15By the way, there's a lesson in there. I find that the most relevant people doing the best work have the shortest bios. Ezra joins us from New York. Ezra, I'm a huge fan, and I just, let me, this will be the third time I reference it. When you read your stuff, when you listen to your pods, when you read your books, it's just clear, and I think this is a really important lesson for young people, you can tell you just work really fucking hard that you bring it that you show up you run through the tape success is in the last 10 percent you just hear it and feel that you are laboring over sentences and words and fact checking and very much appreciate the role model you set for professionals just in terms of you just quite frankly my brother you just bring it really appreciate you and your work thanks god it's incredibly kind of you to say

1:17:12Support for this show comes from Airbus. It took 100 years for electric vehicles to catch on. Modern solar panels? Half a century. Lithium batteries? Decades to go from their debut to daily use. It's a pattern. Energy tech breaks through, stalls, and then something tips the scales. But for every success, there are even more almosts. So what if there was a breakthrough sitting at this crossroads right now? SAF, or sustainable aviation fuel, could forever change the future of flight. Learn more about how Airbus is contributing to accelerate this journey at fly.airbus.com slash theflightpath. Whether you're a founder, investor, or innovation company executive, you need a bank that truly understands your business inside and out.

1:18:04A bank that offers uniquely specialized solutions for your unique needs. A bank like Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank is still the SVB you know and trust. The only difference? SVB is now backed by the strength and stability of First Citizens Bank. Yes, SVB. Learn more at svb.com slash box. They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Well, why not make it a limited edition Groonie Smith Apple Vitamin Snack Pack from Groons? This isn't a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some. And bonus, it tastes great. All Groons Daily Gummy Snack Packs are vegan, not gluten dairy free, and packed with more than 20 vitamins and minerals.

1:18:49Grab your limited edition Groonie Smith Apple Groons available only through October. Stock up because they will sell out. Get up to 52 % off when you go to gruns.co and use the code VOX. you