The Ezra Klein Show Folgen

Risk has been on my mind this year. For Democrats, the question of whether Joe Biden should drop out was really a question about risk – the risk of keeping him on the ticket versus the risk of the unknown. And it’s hard to think through those kinds of questions when you have incomplete information and so much you can’t predict. After all, few election models forecast that Kamala Harris would have the kind of momentum we’ve seen the last few weeks.Nate Silver’s new book, “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” is all about thinking through risk, and the people who do it professionally, from gamblers to venture capitalists. (Silver is a poker player himself.) And so I wanted to talk to him about how that kind of thinking could help in our politics – and its limits.We discuss how Harris is performing in Silver’s election model; what he means when he talks about “the village” and “the river”; what Silver observed profiling Peter Thiel and Sam Bankman-Fried, two notorious risk-takers, for the book; the trade-offs of Harris’s decision to choose Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro as a running mate; and more.This episode contains strong language.Mentioned:The Contrarian by Max Chafkin“Nancy Pelosi on Joe Biden, Tim Walz and Donald Trump” by The Ezra Klein ShowBook Recommendations:The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by John CoatesThe Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard RhodesAddiction by Design by Natasha Dow SchüllThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It’s been remarkable watching the Democratic Party act like a political party this past month — a party that makes decisions collectively, that does hard things because it wants to win, that is more than the vehicle for a single person’s ambitions. But parties are made of people. And in the weeks leading up to President Biden’s decision to drop out of the race, it felt like the Democratic Party was made of one particular person: Nancy Pelosi. Two days after Biden released a forceful letter to congressional Democrats insisting he was staying in the race, the former speaker went on “Morning Joe” and cracked that door back open. And Pelosi has pulled maneuvers like this over and over again in her political career. When an opportunity seems almost lost, she simply asserts that it isn’t and then somehow makes that true. Sometimes it seems like Pelosi is one of the last people left in American politics who knows how to wield power.Pelosi has a new book, “The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House,” and I wanted to talk to her about her role in Biden’s decision to drop out and what she’s learned about power in her decades in Congress.Book Recommendations:The Island of the Day Before by Umberto EcoLove in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García MárquezThe Age of Wonder by Richard HolmesThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jonah Kessel, Emily Holzknecht, Kristen Cruzata and Sonia Herrero. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In picking Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris is after more than just Pennsylvania.Mentioned:“Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need?” by The Ezra Klein ShowThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by our senior editor, Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.