#462 – Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: Politics, Trump, AOC, Elon & DOGE

Lex Fridman Podcast

Ezra Klein is one of the most influential voices representing the left-wing of American politics. He is a columnist for the NY Times and host of The Ezra Klein Show. Derek Thompson is a writer at The Atlantic and host of the Plain English podcast. Together they have written a new book titled Abundance that lays out a set of ideas for the future of the Democratic party.
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Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/ezra-klein-and-derek-thompson-transcript

CONTACT LEX:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Abundance (new book): https://amzn.to/4iZ1S8J
Ezra’s X: https://x.com/ezraklein/
Ezra’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/ezraklein
Ezra’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/EzraKleinShow
The New York Times: https://nytimes.com/by/ezra-klein
Derek’s X: https://x.com/dkthomp
Plain English (podcast): https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/plain-english-with-derek-thompson
The Atlantic: https://theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/

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OUTLINE:
(00:00) – Introduction
(03:17) – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(10:33) – Left-wing vs right-wing politics
(19:54) – Political leaders on the left and the right
(44:29) – Internal political divisions
(47:29) – AOC
(58:50) – Political realignment
(1:10:32) – Supply-side progressivism
(1:17:42) – Wealth redistribution
(1:27:50) – Housing problem
(1:44:09) – Regulation and deregulation
(2:00:43) – DOGE, Elon, and Trump
(2:59:46) – Sam Harris
(3:09:24) – Future of America

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