Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed Is “Not a Burn-It-Down Kind” of Candidate

Michigan’s Senate seat is a must-win for Democrats hoping to take control of the Senate in 2026. The midterms are reflecting a surge of energy behind left-leaning Democratic candidates—sometimes known as the Mamdani effect—challenging their party’s establishment and its tarnished image. Abdul El-Sayed, a former health official, firmly supports Medicare for All and the abolition of ICE. He’s ahead of his moderate Democratic rival, Haley Stevens, in most polls. But that has some Democrats worried that El-Sayed is too radical to win the general election in a state that narrowly voted for Trump in 2024. El-Sayed talks with David Remnick about being “radicalized in medical school,” the trap of expressing righteous anger as an Arab candidate, how Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-science views have taken such a hold on the public, and why AIPAC and other lobbying groups have spent sixty million dollars opposing him in this election.

Episoder(1076)

Has MAGA Lost Faith in Donald Trump?

A growing portion of the electorate appears to recognize the mayhem President Donald Trump has instigated since returning to the Oval Office. That segment includes some of the people who put him back ...

16 Okt 30min

The Reporter Nicholas Lemann on California’s Battle to Pass a Billionaire Tax

In California, progressives have crafted a ballot initiative that calls for a wealth tax—a one-time, five-per-cent tax on wealth above a billion dollars, earmarked to shore up the state’s health-care ...

13 Okt 18min

Canada’s Plans for Donald Trump

The economic punishment and threats of aggression that Donald Trump has launched against Canada are so severe that its government has looked at how to prepare for U.S. military action. David Remnick s...

9 Okt 31min

An American Journalist Imprisoned as a Spy in Russia

In 2023, Evan Gershkovich was working as a young reporter in Moscow for the Wall Street Journal, when he was arrested by Russian authorities. He was eventually convicted on blatantly false charges of ...

6 Okt 21min

Jeremy Strong on Playing Mark Zuckerberg and Other Unpopular Characters

In Aaron Sorkin’s latest film, “The Social Reckoning,” the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg deals with multiple federal investigations and a whistle-blower’s revelations about the damage that the comp...

2 Okt 28min

Min Jin Lee on “American Hagwon,” Her First Novel After the Phenomenon of “Pachinko”

Min Jin Lee gave up climbing the ladder of conventional success by quitting her corporate-law job and then spending more than a decade working on her début novel, “Free Food for Millionaires.” Ten yea...

29 Sep 28min

Ari Emanuel on Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Mixing Business with Politics

Ari Emanuel is the executive chairman of W.M.E., one of the biggest talent agencies in Hollywood. He has overseen the careers of Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift, Meghan Markle, Martin Scorsese, Dwayne (th...

25 Sep 31min

Grandmaster Flash on “Birth of a Culture”

Grandmaster Flash has been an innovator in the art of d.j.’ing since he was practically a child growing up in the Bronx. As a young man named Joseph Saddler, he spent his days trying to figure out how...

22 Sep 34min