Best Interpreter Magazine Podcasts (2025)

1
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English” 28:38

2d ago28:38

28:38

When Elissa Slotkin narrowly won her Senate seat in Michigan last fall, she was one of only four Democratic senators to claim victory in a state that voted for Donald Trump. It made other Democrats take note: since then, the Party has turned to her as someone who can bridge the red state–blue state divide. In March, Slotkin delivered the Democrats’…

1
"Isn’t That Typical?" LW Searching Scripture, May 2025: Typological Connections Throughout Scripture 24:50

5d ago24:50

24:50

“Type” has to do with forms, shapes, patterns, images. People demonstrate “typical” behavior when they act in a similar pattern time and again. In typesetting, a block with a typographic character on it makes an image of that character on the page. Our first four Bible studies in this year’s series have focused on straightforward messianic propheci…

1
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism 18:10

5d ago18:10

18:10

For a long time, Republicans and many Democrats espoused some version of free-trade economics that would have been familiar to Adam Smith. But Donald Trump breaks radically with that tradition, embracing a form of protectionism that resulted in his extremely broad and chaotic tariff proposals, which tanked markets and deepened the fear of a global …

1
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food. Plus, Kelefa Sanneh on the Long Influence of Kraftwerk 32:29

9d ago32:29

32:29

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been undermining public trust in vaccines and overseeing crippling cuts to research across American science. And yet his “make America healthy again” highlights themes more familiar in liberal circles: toxins in the environment, biodiversity, healthy eating. Kennedy has put jun…

1
A Historical Epic of the Chinese in America 19:30

12d ago19:30

19:30

In recent years, there’s been a stark uptick in the level of violence and hate crimes that Asian Americans have experienced, but the “precarity of the Asian American experience is not new,” Michael Luo tells David Remnick. Luo is a longtime New Yorker editor, and the author of a new book about the Chinese American experience. He looks at how tensio…

1
Cory Booker: “America Needs Moral Leadership, and Not Political Leadership” 30:27

16d ago30:27

30:27

As Donald Trump continues to launch unprecedented and innovative attacks on immigrants, civic institutions, and the rule of law, the Democratic response has been—in the eyes of many observers—tepid and inadequate. One answer to the sense of desperation came from Senator Cory Booker, who, on March 31st, launched a marathon speech on the Senate floor…

1
Nikki Glaser at the Top of Her Game 26:36

19d ago26:36

26:36

In the past few years, the comedian Nikki Glaser has breathed new life into the well-worn comedic form of the roast. Last year, she performed a roast of the football legend Tom Brady for a Netflix special, to much acclaim—with Conan O’Brien opining that “no one is going to do a better roast set than that.” Glaser has been on a hot streak since then…

1
How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE 28:09

23d ago28:09

28:09

Elon Musk, who’s chainsawing the federal government, is not merely a chaos agent, as he is sometimes described. Jill Lepore, the best-selling author of “These Truths” and other books, says that Musk is animated by obsessions and a sense of mission he acquired through reading, and misreading, science fiction. “When he keeps saying, you know, ‘We’re …

1
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners” 22:27

26d ago22:27

22:27

Ryan Coogler began his career in film as a realist with “Fruitvale Station,” which tells the story of a true-to-life tragedy about a police killing in the Bay Area. He then directed the class drama of “Creed,” a celebrated “Rocky” sequel. But then he moved to the epic fantasy of Marvel’s hit “Black Panther” movies. In his newest project, “Sinners,”…

1
Episode #34: Horse Whispering 22:47

28d ago22:47

22:47

Send us a text Loli Jane, an Animal Communicator, Pranic Healer, and Horse Whisperer, shares how horse whispering or animal communication and energy healing can help with all kinds of equine issues including behavioral or physical issues. Loli also and shares inspiring stories and messages from a remarkable group of horses she worked with along her…

1
Will the Supreme Court Yield to Donald Trump? 27:55

30d ago27:55

27:55

Ruth Marcus resigned from the Washington Post after its C.E.O. killed an editorial she wrote that was critical of the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos. She ended up publishing the column in The New Yorker, and soon after she published another piece for the magazine asking “Has Trump’s Legal Strategy Backfired?” “Trump’s legal strategy has been backfiring,…

1
The Writer Katie Kitamura on Autonomy, Interpretation, and “Audition” 18:16

1M ago18:16

18:16

Katie Kitamura’s fifth novel is “Audition,” and it focusses on a middle-aged actress and her ambiguous relationship with a much younger man. Kitamura tells the critic Jennifer Wilson that she thought for a long time about an actress as protagonist, as a way to highlight the roles women play, and to provoke questions about agency. “I teach creative …

1
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously 31:44

1M ago31:44

31:44

The microchip maker Nvidia is a Silicon Valley colossus. After years as a runner-up to Intel and Qualcomm, Nvidia has all but cornered the market on the parallel processors essential for artificial-intelligence programs like ChatGPT. “Nvidia was there at the beginning of A.I.,” the tech journalist Stephen Witt tells David Remnick. “They really kind…

1
“The Suffering Servant” LW Searching Scripture, April 2025: Isaiah 52:13–53:12 and Psalm 22 24:36

1M ago24:36

24:36

Jesus says of the Old Testament Scriptures that “they … bear witness about Me” (John 5:39). This is especially true of two central messianic prophecies, Isaiah 52:13–53:12 and Psalm 22, which feature prominently in Holy Week services. In Isaiah 52–53, we gain remarkable details about Jesus’ crucifixion from a prophecy that was written more than 700…

1
Elaine Pagels on the Mysteries of Jesus 26:17

1M ago26:17

26:17

Thirty years ago, David Remnick published “The Devil Problem,” a profile of the religion professor Elaine Pagels—a scholar of early Christianity who had also, improbably, become a best-selling author. Pagels’s 1979 book, “The Gnostic Gospels,” was scholarly and rigorous, but also accessible and widely read. She changed how a lot of people thought a…

1
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared” 24:23

1M ago24:23

24:23

With congressional Republicans unwilling to put any checks on an Administration breaking norms and issuing illegal orders, the focus has shifted to the Democratic opposition—or the lack thereof. Democrats like Chris Murphy, the junior senator from Connecticut, have vehemently disagreed with party leaders’ reversion to business as usual. Murphy oppo…

1
A West Bank Family on the Verge of Annexation 21:57

2M ago21:57

21:57

The far right in Israel has long dreamed of settling all of the West Bank, and Gaza, too—annexing the territories to create the land they refer to as Greater Israel. The Trump Administration might not object: Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick for Ambassador to the United Nations, has agreed that Israel has a “biblical right” to the West Bank. “I think I…

1
Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job 28:48

2M ago28:48

28:48

Kaitlan Collins was only a couple years out of college when she became a White House correspondent for Tucker Carlson’s the Daily Caller. Collins stayed in the White House when she went over to CNN during Donald Trump’s first term, and she returned for his second. Trump has made his disdain for CNN clear—and he’s not a big fan of Collins, either. A…

1
We the Builders: Federal Employees Stand Up to DOGE; Plus, Celebrating 100 Years: Michael Cunningham on “Brokeback Mountain” 23:40

2M ago23:40

23:40

Across the federal government, the number of federal workers fired under Donald Trump and DOGE currently stands at over a hundred thousand. Some of those workers have turned to a website called We the Builders. It was created by federal workers associated with the U.S. Digital Service as a resource for employees who have lost their jobs, who are af…

1
Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw” 27:00

2M ago27:00

27:00

Two weeks after the Inauguration of Donald Trump, Elon Musk tweeted, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into a wood chipper.” Musk was referring to the Agency for International Development, an agency which supports global health and economic development, and which has saved millions of lives around the world. “A viper’s nest of radical-left lunati…

1
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars 23:51

2M ago23:51

23:51

Recently, the former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to eleven years in prison for accepting bribes in cash and gold worth more than half a million dollars. He is the first person sentenced to prison for crimes committed in the Senate in more than forty years. Menendez did favors for the government of Egypt while he was the senior Dem…

1
What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine 37:50

2M ago37:50

37:50

Since emerging on the national political scene a decade ago, Donald Trump has openly admired the dictatorial style of Vladimir Putin. Trump’s lean toward Russia was investigated, it was psychoanalyzed—yet many were still shocked when recently Trump and Vice-President J. D. Vance berated President Volodymyr Zelensky, of Ukraine, in the Oval Office, …

1
“Covenant or Testament?” LW Searching Scripture, March 2025: Jeremiah 31:31–34 27:03

2M ago27:03

27:03

On Ash Wednesday (March 5), the church enters the holy season of Lent, in which we focus on Christ’s righteousness, sufferings and death, and the new testament in His blood. Much ink has been spilt over the decision of St. Jerome to translate the Greek "diatheke" as "testamentum" in his Latin Vulgate, which ultimately influenced the King James Vers…

1
Alan Cumming on “The Traitors” and His Brush with Reality Television 16:04

2M ago16:04

16:04

When Emily Nussbaum introduced Alan Cumming at the New Yorker Festival, she said, “Plenty of actors light up a room, but Alan Cumming is more of a disco ball—reflecting every possible angle of show business.” Cumming appears in mainstream dramas such as “The Good Wife,” and also more indie projects like his one-man version of “Macbeth”; his perform…

1
Does Tim Walz Have Any Regrets? 34:47

2M ago34:47

34:47

Democrats in Washington have seemed almost paralyzed by the onslaught of far-right appointments and draconian executive orders coming from the Trump White House. But some state governors seem more willing to oppose the federal government than congressional Democrats are. In January, Governor Tim Walz, of Minnesota, tweeted, “President Trump just sh…

1
Episode: #33 Interpreting What Your Animal is Trying to Tell You 14:45

2M ago14:45

14:45

Send us a text Ever wonder what your pet or animal is trying to tell you. I’ll help you understand what they are trying to show or tell you and How Animal Communication can help. Animal Communicator, Loli Jane shares secrets of interpreting your pet’s communication whether they are trying to talk to you about their physical needs or trying to tell …

1
Richard Brody Presents the 2025 Brody Awards 16:15

3M ago16:15

16:15

David Remnick is joined by Alexandra Schwartz, the co-host of the podcast Critics at Large, and The New Yorker’s august film critic Richard Brody. They talk about the past year in film and predict the victors of the Academy Awards. Brody dismisses “The Brutalist”—a film that merely uses the Holocaust “as metaphor”—and tells Remnick that “Wicked” mi…

1
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong 34:35

3M ago34:35

34:35

Since the election, Senator John Fetterman—once a great hope of progressives—has conspicuously blamed Democrats for the electoral loss. Fetterman tells David Remnick that the Democratic Party discouraged male voters, particularly white men. He has pursued a lonely course of bipartisanship by meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before his Inauguration,…

1
Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive 16:15

3M ago16:15

16:15

Staff writers and contributors are celebrating The New Yorker’s centennial by revisiting notable works from the magazine’s archive, in a series called Takes. The writer Jia Tolentino and the cartoonist Roz Chast join the Radio Hour to present their selections. Tolentino discusses an essay by a genius observer of American life, the late Joan Didion,…

1
The A.C.L.U. v. Trump 2.0 33:44

3M ago33:44

33:44

In Donald Trump’s first term in office, the American Civil Liberties Union filed four hundred and thirty-four lawsuits against the Administration. Since Trump’s second Inauguration, the A.C.L.U. has filed cases to block executive orders ending birthright citizenship, defunding gender-affirming health care, and more. If the Administration defies a j…

1
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary 23:41

3M ago23:41

23:41

The film “No Other Land” has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was directed by four Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, and to unpack the film’s message David Remnick speaks with two of the directors, Basel Adra, who lives in the West Bank, and Yuval Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem. The documentary takes a particu…

1
Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I. 26:32

3M ago26:32

26:32

Many of the most draconian measures implemented in the first couple weeks of the new Trump Administration have been justified as emergency actions to root out D.E.I.—diversity, equity, and inclusion—including the freeze (currently rescinded) of trillions of dollars in federal grants. The tragic plane crash in Washington, the President baselessly su…

1
"The Prophet Like Moses" LW Searching Scripture, February 2025: Deuteronomy 18:15–19 27:05

3M ago27:05

27:05

On the Epiphany of Our Lord (January 6), we followed the Wise Men as they brought gifts (Matthew 2:11) predicted by the Old Testament (Isaiah 60:6) to Jesus, “He who has been born king of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2). The Wise Men even found Christ using the Old Testament: at first, through the fulfilled prophecy of Numbers 24:15–19 concerning a star an…

1
The New Yorker Celebrates a Hundred Years as a Poetry and Fiction Tastemaker 18:19

3M ago18:19

18:19

David Remnick talks with The New Yorker’s literary guiding lights: the fiction editor Deborah Treisman and the poetry editor Kevin Young. Treisman edited “A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker,” and Young edited “A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker,” both of which were published this month. “When you asked me to do this,” Young remarks to David …

1
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago 32:31

3M ago32:31

32:31

In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, Bill Gates was the best known of a new breed: the tech mogul—a coder who had figured out how to run a business, and who then seemed to be running the world. Gates was ranked the richest person in the world for many years. In a new memoir, “Source Code,” he explains how he got there. The book focusses on Gates’…

1
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires 12:17

3M ago12:17

12:17

The staff writer Dana Goodyear has reported on California extensively: the entertainment industry; a deadly crime spree in Malibu; Kamala Harris’s rise in politics; and the ever more fragile environment. She covered the destructive Woolsey Fire, in Los Angeles, in 2018. Recently, Goodyear found her own life very much in the center of the story. Liv…

1
Episode #32: How Animal Communication Can Help With Dog Aggression, Overprotectiveness or Obedience Issues 14:54

3M ago14:54

14:54

Send us a text How Animal Communication can greatly help with dog aggression, reactivity and overprotectiveness or canine obedience issues. Animal Communicator, Loli Jane shares how animal communication can find the root cause of your dog aggressive behaviors whether at home or going on walks, territorial or attacking behavior at other dogs or peop…

1
How “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years Ago 37:50

4M ago37:50

37:50

“Saturday Night Live” turns fifty this year. Profiling its executive producer, Lorne Michaels, the New Yorker editor Susan Morrison sheds light on one of the most important people in show business. Morrison spent years talking to Michaels for her new book, “Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live,” and she includes recordings of those inter…

1
The Political Scene: Big Money and Trump’s New Cabinet 36:27

4M ago36:27

36:27

The Washington Roundtable—with the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos—discusses this week’s confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and the potential for a “shock and awe” campaign in the first days of Donald Trump’s second term. Plus, as billionaires from many indust…

1
Antony Blinken’s Exit Interview 49:38

4M ago49:38

49:38

As President Biden took office in 2021, he aimed to rebuild alliances that Donald Trump had threatened during his first term. That effort was challenged by an onslaught of international crises, from Ukraine to Gaza. The person tasked with trying to restore the old order was Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He spoke with David Remnick days before …

1
One Environmental Journalist Thinks that the U.S. Needs More Mining 17:31

4M ago17:31

17:31

Donald Trump loves mining, and he would like to expand that effort in the U.S. At least one environmentalist agrees with him, to some extent: the journalist Vince Beiser. Beiser’s recent book is called “Power Metal,” and it’s about the rare-earth metals that power almost every electronic device and sustainable technology we use today. “A lot of peo…

1
Representative Ro Khanna on Elon Musk and the Tech Oligarchy 32:45

4M ago32:45

32:45

Representative Ro Khanna of California is in the Democrats’ Congressional Progressive Caucus. And although his district is in the heart of Silicon Valley—and he once worked as a lawyer for tech companies—Khanna is focussed on how Democrats can regain the trust of working-class voters. He knows tech moguls, he talks with them regularly, and he think…

1
"The Blessed Seed" LW Searching Scripture, January 2025: Genesis 3:9-15 26:49

4M ago26:49

26:49

The Old Testament is about Jesus, which is reason enough for us to open our Bibles and read it regularly. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus opens our minds to understand the Hebrew Scriptures (Luke 24:45) and teaches us how to read the…

1
Sara Bareilles Talks with Rachel Syme 18:45

4M ago18:45

18:45

Sara Bareilles broke out as a pop-music star in the late two-thousands. But she’s gone on to have a very different kind of career, writing music for Broadway and eventually performing as an actor on stage and on television. At the New Yorker Festival, in 2024, she played her early hit “Gravity,” and spoke with staff writer Rachel Syme about the pre…

1
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets 31:41

4M ago31:41

31:41

Rachel Aviv reports on the terrible conundrum of Alice Munro for The New Yorker. Munro was a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and perhaps the most acclaimed writer of short stories of our time, but her legacy darkened after her death when her youngest daughter, Andrea Skinner, revealed that Munro’s partner had sexually abused her beginning w…

1
Episode #31: Messages for Humanity: Mari the Asian Elephant 23:09

4M ago23:09

23:09

Send us a text Mari, the Asian Elephant shares about herself, the earth and valuable messages to help awaken humanity. She and the other animals in the zoo have shared with me that they are teacher for the humans, and have chosen this incarnation to help us learn. Animals are much more intelligent, insightful, and connected to the earth and all the…

1
Julianne Moore Explains What She Needs in a Film Director 24:07

4M ago24:07

24:07

Introducing Julianne Moore at the New Yorker Festival, in October, the staff writer Michael Schulman recited “only a partial list” of the directors Moore has worked with, including Robert Altman, Louis Malle, Todd Haynes, Paul Thomas Anderson, Lisa Cholodenko, Steven Spielberg, the Coen brothers, and many more legends. It seems almost obvious that …

1
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten 27:05

4M ago27:05

27:05

With the Food Network program “Barefoot Contessa,” Ina Garten became a beloved household name. An essential element of her success is her confiding, authentic warmth—her encouragement for even the most novice home cook. Garten is “the real deal,” in the opinion of David Remnick, who has known her and her husband for many years. Although she is a gr…

1
Christmas in Tehran During the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis 29:37

5M ago29:37

29:37

In 1979, as Christmas approached, the United States Embassy in Tehran held more than fifty American hostages, who had been seized when revolutionaries stormed the embassy. No one from the U.S. had been able to have contact with them. The Reverend M. William Howard, Jr., was the president of the National Council of Churches at the time, and when he …

1
Willem Dafoe on “Nosferatu” 20:58

5M ago20:58

20:58

Willem Dafoe has one of the most distinctive faces and most distinctive voices in movies, deployed to great effect in blockbuster genre movies as well as smaller indie darlings; he’s played everyone from Jesus Christ to the Green Goblin. His most recent project is the highly anticipated “Nosferatu,” which opens Christmas Day. Robert Eggers’s film i…

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