The New Yorker Radio Hour

“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 incl

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

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 w

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 technolo

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 wit

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 w