Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

A stalemated war. Fractured alliances. A rival waiting in the wings. It feels to me that we’re having an “end of the American empire” moment. My guest this week, Ray Dalio, is an unlikely prophet of doom — the billionaire Bridgewater investor conquered Wall Street by studying history and mastering global trends. He foresaw the 2008 financial crisis,and these days he’s warning that the U.S. is repeating the patterns that ended great empires of the past.

0:00 - Intro

01:24 - The rise and fall of empires through big cycles

08:35 - Geopolitical tensions: China, Iran and the Suez Canal

14:27 - Fiat currency or gold?

24:19 - America’s coming ‘heart attack’

30:37 - Acts of nature, A.I. and technology

43:37 - ‘Could we have a Japanese future?’

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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Self-driving cars are here. But what kind of future will they bring: safe roads and extra time or dystopian traffic jams? My guest this week is Andrew Miller, who writes about self-driving cars and transportation policy. I love the open road, so I press him on what’s lost when we give away driving to the robots.

0:00 - Intro

01:27 - The sales pitch for Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox 

12:24 - How autonomous are autonomous cars? 

20:14 - Liability: Who is responsible for an accident?

31:56 - Political obstacles: Spying, data, labor

38:53 - 20:35: The good and bad scenarios

48:25 - Are we losing the “romance of the road”?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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One question has haunted my investment strategy for years: What is cryptocurrency actually for? It feels as though the vibes are constantly shifting — one day it’s the dollar’s successor, and the next it’s little more than a meme. My guest this week is bitcoin evangelist Anthony Pompliano, the chief executive of ProCap Financial. We get into whether crypto is a bet against the American empire and whether its volatility is actually a strength.

0:00 - Intro

01:27 - Physical to digital: The evolution of financial assets

05:00 - The wealth inequality gap

09:58 - The global adoption of crypto

14:51 - Bitcoin vs. Ethereum

20:26 - Why "stability" is a financial lie

29:30 - A “digital savings account”

41:57 - The role of Bitcoin in political dynamics

56:05 - “A bet against America”

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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President Trump has tested the limits of presidential power since he returned to office — from his assertion of total control over federal agencies to his war in Iran. But so far, many of Trump’s most aggressive moves have been stopped by the Supreme Court. 

My guest this week is Sarah Isgur, a conservative court watcher, who argues that the Supreme Court isn’t just a firewall against Donald Trump, but the real power center in American politics today.

0:00 - Intro

01:28 - Remaking the presidency: The hundred-year experiment

04:26 - Trump’s legal retribution campaign

09:15 - The Supreme Court’s strategy in the face of Trump

18:15 - “Looming" cases: Tariffs and birthright citizenship

28:23 - Supreme Court internal dynamics

43:32 - The future bench

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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How would you live if you knew when you were going to die? I sat down with the former Republican senator Ben Sasse to hear how he is facing his own mortality after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis. For Sasse, cancer brings pain, but also clarity, sharpening his focus on the state of our politics, his wife and three children, and the God he expects to shortly meet.

0:00 - Intro

01:51 - Ben Sasse’s terminal diagnosis

07:14 - Oncology navigation and clinical trials

16:10 - Sasse’s career in the Senate and reflections on politics

32:55 - What could a civic-minded Senator achieve?

38:15 - Reforming academia and liberal arts

54:49 - Facing mortality: The “final enemy”

59:27 - Advice for the living

1:01:10 - The “prayer of pancreatic cancer”

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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