How the War Has Reshaped Life in Iran

The reporter Cora Engelbrecht joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what life is like for the people of Iran as war unfolds. They talk about Engelbrecht’s reporting, which is based on dispatches from a dissident in Tehran who maintained contact during an internet blackout, and about how his account reveals some of the challenges of daily life under bombardment from the U.S. and Israel—and under a government that continues to police dissent. They also explore how the conflict has complicated the hopes of many Iranians who once saw foreign intervention as a path to liberation, and the growing fear that, whatever the outcome of the war, everyday citizens will continue to bear the cost.This week’s reading: “What the War Has Done to Iranians,” by Cora Engelbrecht “A Former Prisoner of the Iranian Regime Watches Trump’s War,” by Jason Rezaian “How Donald Trump May Have Sabotaged His Chances for a Deal with Iran,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Distant Promise of Iran’s Would-Be King,” by Azadeh Moaveni “Is Cuba Next?,” by Jon Lee Anderson The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The staff writer Jon Lee Anderson has reported from Cuba for many years, and recently wrote about the deteriorating economic conditions on the island. His newest piece for the magazine dives into the potential outcomes of Donald Trump’s desire to pursue regime change. Anderson explores the economic impact of the United States blocking Venezuelan oil from reaching Cuba, which could be a death knell for the Communist government. Anderson and David Remnick discuss the current negotiations between the two countries, Marco Rubio’s strategy, and what cards the Cuban government might still hold. “They’re going to go into this,” Anderson suggests, “like maybe a canny poker player.”Plus, the historian Ada Ferrer won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2022 book, “Cuba: An American History,” and she has one of the clearest views of the long and vexed relationship between the island and its giant neighbor. Ferrer left Cuba as an infant, coming to the United States with her mother in 1963 when Fidel Castro’s regime was arguably at its peak. David Remnick talks with Ferrer about the impact of U.S. sanctions, the economic collapse of Cuba, and what Donald Trump’s threat of a “takeover” means to the Cuban people and to Cuban Americans in the U.S.The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable is off today, and will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy an episode of The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast about the FX series “Love Story,” which drops audiences into the lives of one of the most talked-about couples of the nineties: J.F.K., Jr., and the style icon Carolyn Bessette. The hosts Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, who are staff writers and critics at The New Yorker, discuss how the show re-creates the look and fashion of the era in granular detail while reducing the relationship itself to a generic fairy tale. “Love Story” ’s focus on style underscores how much the Kennedy legacy lives in aesthetics, which risks obscuring some of the darker chapters of its history. “It does seem like we have ever more efficiently stripped the Kennedys and their image, and their style, from any notions of political power,” Cunningham says. “The look of something and the sort of moral thrust of something are not always one to one working in parallel.”New episodes of “Critics at Large” drop every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the escalating standoff between the A.I. company Anthropic and the Department of War. They consider recent reporting on the use of Claude—Anthropic’s family of large language models—in military operations in Venezuela and Iran, and how that news has pushed the company’s relationship with the Pentagon to a breaking point. They also explore how the tech industry is responding to the conflict between the Trump Administration and Anthropic, and the thorny question of whether A.I. should be subject to greater safeguards and more oversight than previous technological innovations.This week’s reading: “The Pentagon Went to War with Anthropic. What’s Really at Stake?,” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus “Israel’s Gulf-State Gamble in the Iran War,” by Ruth Margalit “The Iran War Is Another Reason to Quit Oil,” by Bill McKibben “Trump’s Mass-Detention Campaign,” by Jonathan Blitzer “How Should We Remember the Hippies?,” by Jay Caspian Kang The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the book “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, argues that social-media platforms are detrimental to youths’ well-being, and that society needs to treat them as literally addictive. It has spent nearly a hundred weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and has helped galvanize a movement seeking limits to social media in legislatures, in school districts, and in the courts. David Remnick speaks with Haidt about an Australian law to verify the age of social-media users, the first of its kind in the world, and about lawsuits in California that are aiming to pin liability for harms on social-media companies themselves. Further reading:  “World Happiness Report 2026,” featuring a contribution from Jonathan Haidt and other researchers  “Mountains of Evidence,” by Jonathan Haidt The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable considers how the ideological commitments of Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, are at play in the conflict with Iran. Their guest, the journalist Katherine Stewart, has covered the MAGA right and is the author of “Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.” The panel discusses how Christian nationalism has moved from the fringes of the culture to the center of American military power, with Hegseth driving the shift. “This is a movement that at its core has never believed in democracy,” Stewart says. “It rejects the principles of equality and pluralism, and, frankly, the rule of law that represents the best of the American promise.”This week’s reading: “The War Trump Doesn’t Want to Talk About,” by Susan B. Glasser “Trump’s Inexcusable Unpreparedness for the Iranian Oil Crisis,” by John Cassidy “What the Selection of Iran’s New Leader Might Mean for the War,” by Robin Wright “War in the Age of the Online ‘Information Bomb,’ ” by Kyle Chayka “How Putin Views Trump’s War on Iran,” by Joshua Yaffa “The Limits of Iran’s Proxy Empire,” by Sudarsan Raghavan The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Kristi Noem’s removal from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security. They talk about the lead-up to her firing—which included accusations of fiscal mismanagement and self-promotion—and her controversial tenure as the head of one of the largest and most powerful departments during Donald Trump’s second Presidential term. They also explore the history and evolution of the Department of Homeland Security and how its founding in the wake of the September 11th attacks laid the groundwork for the sweeping—and, according to some legal experts, unconstitutional—powers it wields today. This week’s reading:  “Kristi Noem’s Fireable Offenses,” by Jonathan Blitzer “How Donald Trump’s Iran War Is Destabilizing the Gulf,” by Isaac Chotiner “The Zombie Regulator,” by E. Tammy Kim “What the Selection of Iran’s New Leader Might Mean for the War," by Robin Wright “The G.O.P.’s Latest Voter-Suppression Plan,” by Sue Halpern  The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

As Iran’s retaliation hit American allies throughout the Middle East this week, David Remnick was joined by two New Yorker writers with decades of experience reporting from the region. Robin Wright has reported from Iran extensively, and she met with Ali Khamenei before he became the Supreme Leader of Iran; Dexter Filkins covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has been reporting on the Pentagon and military readiness. Filkins and Wright discuss the possibilities for future leadership in Iran; the Administration’s chaotic statements in regard to its goals and time frame; and the economic impact of the war, which is already being felt around the globe. The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses the war that the United States and Israel have started with Iran, how the conflict might evolve and affect the whole region, and the Trump Administration’s rationale for launching the strikes. “I don’t think we have yet heard a clear explanation of what this war is about, what they intend to achieve, what the strategic goals are, and how it’s supposed to end,” the staff writer Jane Mayer says. The group also reflects on the lessons that they learned while reporting on the Iraq War about how conflicts such as these can transform societies. This week’s reading: “Can Donald Trump Win a War with Iran If He Can’t Explain Why He Started It?,” by Susan B. Glasser “Do U.S. Presidents Have the Power to Declare War?,” by Jill Lepore “In the Texas Primaries, a Good Night for James Talarico, and a Bad One for John Cornyn,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “What Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Meant to Iran, and What Comes Next,” by Robin Wright “Has Trump Thought Through the Endgame in Iran?,” by Ishaan Tharoor To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The foreign-affairs journalist Ishaan Tharoor joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the fallout from the United States’ joint military operation with Israel in Iran. They talk about the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—who was among the hundreds killed by drone and missile strikes—and how the country has retaliated against the U.S., Israel, and several of its Arab neighbors. Their conversation explores what comes next for the Iranian government and people, how the conflict fits into President Donald Trump’s broader foreign-policy vision, and whether this latest attempt at regime change in the Middle East is likely to succeed when past American interventions have failed. This week’s reading: “Has Trump Thought Through the Endgame in Iran?,” by Ishaan Tharoor “What Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Meant to Iran, and What Comes Next,” by Robin Wright “Trump’s Reckless Decision to Pursue Regime Change in Iran,” by Isaac Chotiner “Donald Trump Launches a War of ‘Epic Fury’ on Iran,” by Robin Wright “What Mehdi Mahmoudian Saw Inside the Iranian Prison System,” by Cora Engelbrecht The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices