~ cueing up the show ~
~ pulling every episode ~
Radio Atlantic — Every episode — OmList
om
list
Swipe
Tournament
Lists
Friends
All
Movies
TV
Books
Games
Music
Podcasts
People
▾
Sign in
Every episode
Radio Atlantic
30 episodes
The Trump Administration Wanted Her Expertise, Just Not Her
Ep 205 · Aug 17, 2026 · 38 min
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 she was—and years ago she wrote about her experience under a pseudonym in The Atlantic. Her performance proved her effectiveness: She became the daily intelligence briefer for Vice President Pence during the first Trump administration and a director on the National Security Council in both the Biden administration and the…
Longing for a Time Before Smartphones
Ep 204 · Aug 13, 2026 · 39 min
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 nostalgia for a smartphone-free society actually help guide the future? That’s one of the driving questions from the latest season of How to Touch Grass, co-hosted by Julie Beck and Natalie Brennan. This week on Radio Atlantic, we’re sharing the first episode, with an introduction by Hanna Rosin. --- Get more from your fav…
Never Trump, Still a Republican
Ep 203 · Aug 10, 2026 · 18 min
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 the Georgia Senate race and why character in politics still matters. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also g…
The Death of Romance
Ep 202 · Aug 6, 2026 · 30 min
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 committed relationship—all this despite people saying that they want to find love. So why aren’t they getting it? The Atlantic’s staff writer Faith Hill explains what’s driving the romance decline and reports on life inside the slump. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy un…
What ‘America First’ Means for Global Health
Ep 201 · Aug 3, 2026 · 25 min
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 strain is spreading amid a weakened global-health infrastructure, including the Trump administration’s cuts to USAID. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to f…
The Town That Wants a Data Center Next Door
Ep 200 · Jul 30, 2026 · 39 min
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 country’s first statewide data-center-construction moratorium. Maine was supposed to have been the first. For this week’s episode of Radio Atlantic, the reporter Ethan Brooks traveled to Maine to understand why one tiny town killed what would have been America’s first data-center moratorium. - - - Get more from your favo…
Can a Progressive Win a Purple State?
Ep 199 · Jul 27, 2026 · 25 min
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 Sanders so interested? The path to win the Senate runs straight through this purple state, and that has Democrats battling over whether the progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed or the more centrist U.S. Representative Haley Stevens is the right candidate to put forward. Host Adam Harris talks to Atlantic writer Russell Berman…
Is the Age of Reading Over?
Ep 198 · Jul 23, 2026 · 30 min
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 wrote the August cover story, “The End of Reading Is Here,” explains what might be lost in a “postliterate” age—and it’s a lot more than books. - - - Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on break…
What We Know About the Recent ICE Killings
Ep 197 · Jul 20, 2026 · 23 min
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 Atlantic staff writer Nick Miroff to discuss the recent killings and what role traffic stops played in them. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating ex…
The Election Deniers Are in Charge Now
Ep 196 · Jul 16, 2026 · 50 min
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 elections are rife with fraud. He seems to be laying the groundwork for the argument that if Republicans lose the midterms, it can be only because someone cheated. The place to truly advance the idea that elections can’t be trusted, however, is in the states, where officials have authority over the building blocks of elections.…
The War Trump Can't Control
Ep 195 · Jul 13, 2026 · 24 min
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 the conflict with Iran? Host Adam Harris is joined by Tom Nichols and Nancy Youssef, who cover the military and diplomacy for The Atlantic, to discuss the conflict that is beginning to feel more like a permanent condition. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited acce…
Another Fatal ICE Shooting
Ep 194 · Jul 9, 2026 · 35 min
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 and Alex Pretti, and the federal government hasn’t properly investigated either one. And it has stood in the way of state agents trying to find out what happened—failing, for example, to give state investigators access to Good’s car. The face of this federal response is Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who is f…
The Black Patriots Pushing for a Better American Future
Ep 193 · Jul 6, 2026 · 28 min
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 speaks with the Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith, who wrote in the July issue of the magazine about what it means that the gradual, visible racial progress in the military is being degraded as Black officers are pushed out. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to…
American History as Rorschach Test
Ep 192 · Jul 2, 2026 · 38 min
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 or indoctrination.” For its new curriculum, Florida recommends one textbook: Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, by Wilfred McClay. As American patriotism plummets, McClay partly blames history class, which he thinks isn’t teaching students a “love of country.” Ahead of July 4 and America’s 250th, H…
Trump’s Battle for Washington
Ep 191 · Jun 29, 2026 · 20 min
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, D.C., and cement his legacy. Host Adam Harris talks to the Atlantic staff writer David Graham about Trump’s attempts to remake the city physically, culturally, and politically. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed ana…
How the World Cup Explains the World
Ep 190 · Jun 25, 2026 · 35 min
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 tribalism to interdependence. More than two decades after the book came out, the world is different in many ways, but he says the title still holds true. Foer joins to discuss the World Cup. Who he’s excited to watch. How the global game has changed over the years. And how this year’s World Cup offers global audiences a gent…
What Will Happen to Birthright Citizenship?
Ep 189 · Jun 22, 2026 · 21 min
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 naturalized in the United States”—save for those who are here under unique circumstances, such as children of foreign dignitaries—are citizens of the union. This week on Radio Atlantic, Adam Harris is joined by Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer to explore birthright citizenship and what it means to be an American. Get more…
Live: Nancy Pelosi on the Midterms
Ep 188 · Jun 18, 2026 · 25 min
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 Affordable Care Act as speaker of the House. At the end of her current term, she plans to retire, after nearly 40 years in Congress. Hanna Rosin recently sat down with Pelosi at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, in Seattle, to talk about the midterms, if Democrats could take back Congress, and what exactly she was thinkin…
When Both Parties Try to Out-Macho Each Other
Ep 187 · Jun 11, 2026 · 26 min
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 advances of feminism and reassert the primacy of men.” Democrats have a more complicated relationship with it. After the last presidential election, when Donald Trump made inroads with young men, even those of color, some Democrats began wondering whether their party did indeed have a man problem. This campaign season, one…
Is the GOP Starting to Defy Trump?
Ep 186 · Jun 4, 2026 · 28 min
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 office, so they largely toed the line. Lately, though, that seems to be changing. Republicans recently pushed back against the president’s proposed “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” and the administration ultimately scrapped it. Trump asked for nearly $1 billion in security funding for his ballroom, and Senate Republicans forced h…
Is Cuba Next?
Ep 185 · May 28, 2026 · 37 min
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 administration officials seem interested in Cuba’s nickel and cobalt deposits. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shares the dream of many Cuban exiles for regime change on the island. Although, from the Cuban perspective, the prospect of the U.S. bringing regime change is fraught, coming after centuries of conflict and colo…
Higher Education’s Identity Crisis
Ep 184 · May 21, 2026 · 32 min
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 Washington University in St. Louis, to discuss the state of higher education. On campuses across the country, students are graduating into a job market with questions on their mind. What kind of career is stable in 2026? Will AI make it even harder to get an entry-level job? Was my education worth all the money it cost? For…
The Gerrymandering Wars
Ep 183 · May 14, 2026 · 36 min
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 covering the redistricting wars for the past several months, and Vann R. Newkirk II, who’s long followed the Voting Rights Act (and now its demise), explain how this new era of tit-for-tat gerrymandering is different than ever before. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited acc…
The Tragedy of the Tradwife
Ep 182 · May 7, 2026 · 32 min
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 pioneer life. The book is a No. 1 New York Times best seller, and its film rights have already been sold and Anne Hathaway is attached to star. Seen one way, the tradwife is just a social-media trend, sometimes soothing to watch, sometimes infuriating. But the fantasy that fuels the phenomenon—that women should be subservie…
The 'Great Man' Presidency
Ep 181 · Apr 30, 2026 · 32 min
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 comparing himself to the three norm-defying, world-historical figures highlighted in the work of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The president has also sought to make his mark across seemingly every manner of federal real estate, including national monuments and even currency and passports. If Trump’s…
Kash Patel's FBI
Ep 180 · Apr 23, 2026 · 34 min
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 told staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick that, on multiple occasions, members of his security detail had trouble waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated. Patel called the story a “lie” and earlier this week sued The Atlantic for defamation. Fitzpatrick joins Radio Atlantic to talk about her reporting inside the FBI, an…
If Hungary Can Do It
Ep 179 · Apr 16, 2026 · 29 min
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 are real. True democracy can reassert itself in a single election. Reality can bend only so far. The Hungarian journalist Veronika Munk of the news outlet Denník N shares her view from the streets of Budapest. And the Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum, who covers autocracy, democracy, and Europe, explains why the electi…
Trump Is Wishcasting Victory in Iran
Ep 178 · Apr 9, 2026 · 32 min
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 Tuesday, he posted again: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Hours later—after ongoing talks, and condemnation by world leaders and American lawmakers from both parties—the United States agreed to a two-week cease-fire with Iran. The Atlantic’s Adam Harris talks to the staff writers Tom N…
The Manosphere Feels Betrayed
Ep 177 · Apr 2, 2026 · 25 min
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 bros and Austin-area commentators is starting to crack. The Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey has been tracking the political shifts among a small but influential group of manosphere podcasters. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism…
The Department of Homeland Security Theater
Ep 176 · Mar 26, 2026 · 28 min
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, after the drama of Kristi Noem, ICE may be entering a new era. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the new DHS head, having struck a softer tone than his predecessor during hearings. He told senators that he would stop the practice of agents entering people’s houses without judicial warrants. But what will this new era look li…
← Back to the show
