The Atlantic has long been known as an ideas-driven magazine. Now we’re bringing that same ethos to audio. Like the magazine, the show will “road test” the big ideas that both drive the news and shape our culture. Through conversations—and sometimes sharp debates—with the most insightful thinkers and writers on topics of the day, Radio Atlantic will complicate overly simplistic views. It will cut through the noise with clarifying, personal narratives. It will, hopefully, help listeners make up their own mind about certain ideas.The national conversation right now can be chaotic, reckless, and stuck. Radio Atlantic aims to br...
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Sep 28, 2026 · 29:09
As some Republicans back away from President Trump over Iran, diesel prices, and affordability, something unusual is happening: Trump is not getting mad at them. Is this what his…
Sep 26, 2026 · 11:39
Less than two weeks before the October 7 attack, Egypt’s top spy flew to Israel with a warning about Gaza. In this special episode of Radio Atlantic, host Adam Harris talks to…
Sep 24, 2026 · 31:28
Since he left Google in 2023, Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel laureate commonly known as the “Godfather of AI,” pops up in the press now and again to issue dire warnings, for example,…
Sep 21, 2026 · 31:18
Chinese President Xi Jinping is coming to Washington this week amid a rapidly shifting global order. Entrenched wars, raging oil markets, and AI regulation will hang over the…
Sep 17, 2026 · 35:27
A psychologist wanted to conduct a study showing the benefits of meditation. But the results—and some of her own unsettling experiences—turned everything she thought she knew…
Sep 14, 2026 · 26:01
President Trump insisted last week that Canada is “dying to make a deal” on tariffs with the United States. But dealmaking hasn’t been working out well for him lately. And even…
Sep 10, 2026 · 32:19
Despite his message at the first-ever Republican midterm convention this week, President Trump’s brand is weak. His approval rating is hanging at about 35 percent, and even…
Sep 7, 2026 · 30:13
Long DMV lines, endless tax forms, and paperwork-heavy safety-net programs aren’t just annoyances—they’re “time taxes,” the administrative burdens that waste people’s time and…
Sep 3, 2026 · 25:41
The breakout crime drama “Furious,” which had its series finale this week, centers around a female serial killer who is exacting revenge on the men who abused her. We talk with…
Aug 31, 2026 · 28:43
Midterm elections are almost always referendums on the policies of the party in power; President Trump is hoping that Republicans steer into the skid. Last week, my colleagues…
Aug 27, 2026 · 35:02
Bill Gates has generally been an AI optimist. Three years ago, he wrote that AI had downsides, but the risks were “manageable.” This week, Gates wrote a new memo, headlined: “The…
Aug 24, 2026 · 30:06
This back-to-school season, higher education finds itself at a crossroads. Amid rising costs, pressures from the Trump administration over admissions and ideological diversity,…
Aug 20, 2026 · 24:53
What does it take to win Jeopardy? Drew Goins—an Atlantic staff writer, a Jeopardy champion, and the creator of The Atlantic’s new trivia game, Rabbithole—shares his secrets on…
Aug 17, 2026 · 38:01
In 2013, Julia Curlee became the first CIA officer to transition openly and keep serving the agency.She felt more effective at her job living as the person she always believed…
Aug 13, 2026 · 39:11
Gen Z has romanticized the technology of the ’90s—or the era’s lack of it. Young long for a time when people were looking at each other instead of their phones. But could that…
Aug 10, 2026 · 18:16
Radio Atlantic host Adam Harris speaks with former Republican U.S. Senator and former U.S. Ambassador Jeff Flake about his recent endorsement of Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in…
Aug 6, 2026 · 29:59
We’ve entered the era of the great romance slump. Fewer people are moving in together and getting married, and a shrinking number of young adults say they have experience in a…
Aug 3, 2026 · 24:34
Ebola is ravaging the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in what may soon become the worst outbreak of the disease ever recorded. This particularly deadly…
Jul 30, 2026 · 39:04
Opposition to data-center construction is the bipartisan issue of the moment—70 percent of Americans are against construction in their communities. Recently, New York passed the…
Jul 27, 2026 · 25:00
Nationwide attention and endorsements are flooding into Michigan as voters get ready to pick their Senate candidates Aug. 4. Why is everybody from President Trump to Bernie…
Jul 23, 2026 · 30:00
People may be reading now more than ever (emails, texts, social-media posts). But fewer and fewer people are reading actual books. The Atlantic’s staff writer Rose Horowitch, who…
Jul 20, 2026 · 23:13
The fatal shootings of two men in Texas and Maine by immigration officers have put the Department of Homeland Security back under renewed scrutiny. Host Hanna Rosin is joined by…
Jul 16, 2026 · 49:38
Today’s episode is a dispatch from Georgia, where election skeptics run elections. Lately, the president has gone into an election frenzy, trying to spread the idea that…
Jul 13, 2026 · 24:00
Though President Trump has said he would not enter any “forever wars,” America seems to find itself headed toward one. With the latest cease-fire “over,” is there a way out of…
Jul 9, 2026 · 35:28
This week saw the first fatal ICE shooting since Minnesota. In Houston, an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. It’s been six months since the deaths of Renee Good…
Jul 6, 2026 · 28:12
The military has historically been a powerful force for integration in America—even as its top ranks have been slow to reflect the racial makeup of the country. Host Adam Harris…
Jul 2, 2026 · 38:00
The Florida Department of Education recently announced an alternative to the Advanced Placement history course that it described in a press release as “free from ideological bias…
Jun 29, 2026 · 20:04
The drama around the algal bloom in the Reflecting Pool may seem like a shallow issue. But it’s part of a much broader pattern as President Trump tries to “beautify” Washington,…
Jun 25, 2026 · 34:37
In his classic book How Soccer Explains the World, the Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer theorized that the sport was a mirror of the world, particularly in its shift from…
Jun 22, 2026 · 20:59
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Trump administration’s executive order limiting who can be born an American is constitutional, and whether “all persons born or…
Jun 18, 2026 · 25:13
Throughout her career, Nancy Pelosi has known how to get things done: whipping up votes, negotiating bills, and, in what is probably her crowning achievement, pushing through the…
Jun 11, 2026 · 25:53
The MAGA movement has fully embraced masculinism, which The Atlantic’s staff writer Helen Lewis defines in her cover story this month as “a movement to fight back against the…
Jun 4, 2026 · 27:36
For most of his second term, Donald Trump has successfully conveyed the message that defiance is not an option. Republicans who ignored that message generally wound up out of…
May 28, 2026 · 37:14
Not long after U.S. commandos swiftly extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him to the United States, Donald Trump set his sights on the next target: Cuba. Some…
May 21, 2026 · 31:35
Universities tried to be all things to all people. That model may not be working anymore. Adam Harris is joined by Ian Bogost, Atlantic contributing writer and a professor at…
May 14, 2026 · 35:55
There is an ongoing battle for House seats. And it’s playing out not so much in elections but in congressional maps. The Atlantic staff writers Russell Berman, who’s been…
May 7, 2026 · 31:31
The author Caro Claire Burke discusses her debut novel, Yesteryear, about a tradwife influencer suddenly transported back to 1855 and faced with the harsh realities of actual…
Apr 30, 2026 · 31:41
Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar. Napoleon Bonaparte. Donald Trump The Atlantic staff writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer reported this week on the president privately…
Apr 23, 2026 · 33:48
Last week, The Atlantic published a story about how FBI Director Kash Patel’s colleagues are alarmed by what they describe as erratic behavior and excessive drinking. Sources…
Apr 16, 2026 · 28:44
Whatever happens next in Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s stunning downfall contains obvious warnings for MAGA and Donald Trump: Propaganda has its limits. Concerns about affordability…
Apr 9, 2026 · 32:08
Last weekend, on Easter Sunday, President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!” On…
Apr 2, 2026 · 25:17
The manosphere helped Donald Trump win the 2024 election. Now that he’s started a war with Iran and failed to keep some core campaign promises, the coalition cemented by podcast…
Mar 26, 2026 · 28:25
ICE at airports. TSA lines out the door. And a new boss at DHS amid its funding shutdown. After the deaths on the streets of Minneapolis, after the theatrics of Greg Bovino,…
Mar 19, 2026 · 29:21
Iran is blocking oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Consumers around the world are already seeing higher gas prices as a result, but the global oil supply…
Mar 12, 2026 · 32:45
Gambling is ever-present in America these days. After the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to legalized sports gambling, Americans went from legally betting $4.9 billion on…
Mar 5, 2026 · 30:05
The president is trusting his gut, not Congress. The Atlantic staff writer Missy Ryan covers national security and has spent years reporting on American wars in the Middle East.…
Mar 2, 2026 · 30:40
President Trump claimed victory after American strikes killed Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran who had terrorized his own citizens and people all over the world for…
Feb 28, 2026 · 15:50
This week, the Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey was covering a campaign rally in Texas when she was ushered out. Elaine has been covering national politics for years, and has…
Feb 26, 2026 · 30:43
President Trump has given plenty of signals recently that he is prepared to take military action against Iran. The exact reasoning, however, is less obvious. The Atlantic staff…
Feb 19, 2026 · 27:30
The Trump administration is trying to sanitize U.S. history by removing mentions of slavery on historic monuments, scrubbing words such as “oppression” from government websites,…
Feb 12, 2026 · 29:22
The writer-director Jafar Panahi’s new film, It Was Just an Accident, is the second Iranian film ever nominated for multiple Oscars. Panahi is in the United States for the awards…
Feb 7, 2026 · 25:49
The Melania movie is pitched as a documentary following the first lady of the United States in the lead-up to her husband’s second inauguration. But it’s missing all the…
Feb 5, 2026 · 30:32
In a dismal morning Zoom call on Wednesday, The Washington Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, announced that they were laying off roughly a third of its already diminished…
Jan 29, 2026 · 25:09
The Minnesota governor warns of a national unraveling and shares the view from his state. “ The way you win this is through nonviolence, that you cannot do violence,” Governor…
Jan 25, 2026 · 30:04
A second American was shot and killed by federal agents. The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer joins from Minneapolis to describe what he’s seen there in recent days, describing…
Jan 22, 2026 · 30:26
Last year, there was a mass exodus of federal workers: Some were pushed out, while others left on their own. All in all, more than 300,000 Americans left government jobs. The…
Jan 15, 2026 · 31:28
Tensions are high in Minneapolis this week. The Trump administration is sending more federal agents. Protesters are calling for justice for the killing of an unarmed citizen. But…
Jan 8, 2026 · 26:01
President Donald Trump likely won’t listen to this podcast, but Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona has a warning for him: Any attempt to take Greenland using military force will…
Jan 5, 2026 · 32:11
After the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured by U.S. forces over the weekend, President Donald Trump announced that America would now “run” Venezuela.…
Jan 1, 2026 · 23:16
In July, we published a series of stories about San Francisco’s attempt to address a crisis unfolding on the city’s streets. We followed Evan, who had been homeless for years, as…
Dec 25, 2025 · 26:13
It was a great year for Warner Bros. Discovery: Two of its movies (One Battle After Another and Sinners) are front-runners for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it had a…
Dec 18, 2025 · 28:00
More than a decade after its peak, the Islamic State has changed, but it isn’t defeated. This past weekend, the jihadist group reemerged in connection with two disparate acts of…
Dec 11, 2025 · 39:05
A young Chicago couple—one is an undocumented immigrant from Poland, and the other is a U.S. citizen—face a choice: stay in the place they’ve called home—or give up on the place…
Dec 4, 2025 · 30:24
Australia is about to become the first country in the world to ban kids under 16 from having social-media accounts. Other countries have attempted partial restrictions, but…
Nov 27, 2025 · 33:21
In Alison Roman’s newest cookbook, “Something From Nothing,” her pantry is her primary inspiration. In this live conversation, we talk with Roman about her family Thanksgiving,…
Nov 20, 2025 · 40:21
When the Trump administration promised a mass deportation campaign they initially relied on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Disappointed with ICE’s pace and tactics, the…
Nov 13, 2025 · 27:49
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…
Nov 6, 2025 · 27:10
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…
Oct 30, 2025 · 24:37
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…
Oct 23, 2025 · 34:51
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…
Oct 16, 2025 · 35:00
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…
Oct 9, 2025 · 28:49
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…
Oct 2, 2025 · 40:32
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…
Sep 25, 2025 · 41:12
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…
Sep 21, 2025 · 41:17
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…
Sep 19, 2025 · 21:57
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…
Sep 18, 2025 · 44:31
American public education is changing. And, in many ways, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters is at the center of it, trying to push for Bibles in schools, new curriculum…
Sep 11, 2025 · 32:55
He was, after all, the eldest boy. The family drama that inspired HBO’s Succession ended this week with a settlement that ensures Rupert Murdoch’s conservative media conglomerate…
Sep 4, 2025 · 29:37
As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to dismantle the national vaccine infrastructure, states have started going their own way. Governors in…
Aug 28, 2025 · 35:48
President Donald Trump recently deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and has talked about federalizing the Guard in other cities across the country. In this episode…
Aug 21, 2025 · 33:22
There was so much symbolism in President Donald Trump’s two most recent international summits—in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then at the White…
Aug 14, 2025 · 38:09
In July, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for an expansion of involuntary commitment—forcing people into treatment facilities—in response to the…
Aug 7, 2025 · 35:01
At the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, U.S. cities began trying new ways to stop the spread of infection among drug users. Ideas that were first seen as radical,…
Jul 31, 2025 · 33:29
For the past five years, American cities have tried—and often failed—to meaningfully address worsening homelessness and addiction. In San Francisco, a city that has become…
Jul 24, 2025 · 27:55
The Trump administration is again going after undocumented minors—but their approach is different than it was during his first presidency. – – – Read more from Nick Miroff. Read…
Jul 17, 2025 · 28:32
Donald Trump and his Department of Justice kicked the conspiracy-theory beehive last week when they rescinded previous promises to make public the government’s secret files on…
Jul 10, 2025 · 31:27
In the United States and many other Western countries, the decision to have children or not is sometimes framed as a political affiliation: You’re either in league with…
Jul 3, 2025 · 28:21
The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg talks to Ken Casey, frontman for the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys, about the time he called out a fan in the audience who was…
Jun 26, 2025 · 28:43
We talk with the writer Arash Azizi about what kinds of seismic changes could be coming for his home country of Iran, and whether he thinks they could make things better—or much…
Jun 19, 2025 · 30:41
A few years ago, Olga Khazan, author of Me, But Better, set out to change her personality, which even she found unpleasant. After consulting with experts on personality…
Jun 13, 2025 · 19:37
In this bonus episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with staff writer Tom Nichols about how all the pieces fit together: the military parade, the president’s speech at Fort Bragg,…
Jun 12, 2025 · 35:33
Explaining how Musk tanked his reputation has many ways: First, he alienated environmentalists by teaming up with Trump, and then he alienated Trump fans by insulting their hero.…
Jun 5, 2025 · 28:51
In April, 250 former Israeli intelligence officers signed their names to an open letter of protest asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to proceed with his plans to…
May 29, 2025 · 29:28
The Atlantic’s Jocelyn Frank reports on the detailed system that may be unintentionally leading pilots to avoid the mental-health care that they need, and increasing risks to…
May 22, 2025 · 25:07
We talk with Eric Garcia, author of We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation and a political reporter at the Independent, about the myths spreading about autism under…
May 15, 2025 · 24:55
Lavender carpets. Golden swords. Arabian horses. President Trump arrived in the Gulf to a royal welcome. Both sides seem delighted about what they’re getting out of one another.…
May 8, 2025 · 31:34
Recently, Donald Trump mused that “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know?” We talk with a doll manufacturer and a policy analyst about tariffs and…
May 1, 2025 · 35:27
In the past few years, Donald Trump has changed his mind about cryptocurrency. He’s gone from believing it was “based on thin air” to wanting the U.S. to become the “crypto…
Apr 28, 2025 · 39:51
Why would President Donald Trump invite The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Trump has attacked as a “total sleazebag,” to meet with him in the Oval Office? We…
Apr 24, 2025 · 29:56
For a while, it seemed as if DOGE Elon and Tesla Elon could exist in the same space-time continuum. One of them carried out Donald Trump’s ruthless cost-cutting mission while the…
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