Platner’s Top Campaign Strategist on What Went Wrong

What is the Democratic Party? What Could It Be?

President Trump is very unpopular right now. But polls show the Democratic Party is just as unpopular – if not more so. So what can the party do about it?  But to answer that question, you first have to understand what the Democratic Party is. That is, mechanically, what is it? What powers does it have? When you call the Democratic Party, who picks up the phone? And how can that party, the official party, be reinvented for this era? Ben Wikler has a unique perspective on this question. He transformed the Democratic Party of Wisconsin into a fund-raising, door-knocking powerhouse when he served as chair from 2019 to 2025. And he’s shared some of his insights from winning elections in a swing state in his new book, “This Is The Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy.” In this conversation, we discuss Wikler’s vision for a reinvigorated party, as well as the kinds of changes he thinks Democrats need to embrace if they want to build a bigger tent and a national majority.  Mentioned: “This Is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ben-wikler.html]” with Ben Wikler on The Ezra Klein Show “GOP midterm strategy: Make it a ‘hate election’ [https://www.axios.com/2026/07/19/republicans-midterms-hate-election]” by Marc Caputo Book Recommendations: Master of the Senate [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/24307/master-of-the-senate-pulitzer-prize-winner-by-robert-a-caro/] by Robert A. Caro Seeing Like a State [https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-state/] by James C. Scott Sal & Gabi Break the Universe [https://www.readriordan.com/book/sal-and-gabi-break-the-universe/] by Carlos Hernandez Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com [ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com]. You can find the transcript 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.html This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Steph Khoury and Arpita Aneja. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Platner’s Top Campaign Strategist on What Went Wrong

Morris Katz helped orchestrate Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory and Graham Platner’s ultimately disastrous run for Senate. It’s quite a résumé  for a political consultant who is still in his 20s. Platner’s implosion could prove particularly costly for Democrats. It may mean the difference between winning and losing a Senate majority. But before the rape accusation that ended his campaign, Platner had come out of nowhere to beat Janet Mills, the sitting governor of Maine, who was Chuck Schumer’s hand-picked candidate. The lessons to take from that campaign remain angrily contested.  Katz, a senior adviser to Platner, has been central to many of the most attention-grabbing, populist campaigns in recent years: Besides Mamdani’s New York mayoral upset, he worked on John Fetterman’s 2022 Senate campaign and Dan Osborn’s 2024 independent Senate run in Nebraska. He has figured something out about this political moment. Along the way, he has become a controversial figure himself. So what has he gotten right? And what has he learned from what he’s gotten wrong?  This episode contains strong language. Ask Me Anything: We’re going to be recording an “Ask Me Anything” episode soon. If you would like to submit a question, email ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com with the subject line “AMA.” Mentioned: “Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html]” by Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer “How Economic Anxiety Is Driving the Democratic Socialists’ Surge [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/nyregion/dsa-economy-nyc.html]” by Emma Goldberg “The search for Carter [https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/26/archives/the-search-for-carter-carter.html]” by Norman Mailer “The warrior and the priest [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-mar-25-op-brownstein25-story.html]” by Ronald Brownstein Book Recommendations: Life and Fate [https://www.nyrb.com/products/life-and-fate] by Vasily Grossman The Shame [https://milkweed.org/book/the-shame] by Makenna Goodman The Fourth Branch [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/811851/the-fourth-branch-by-daniel-squadron/] by Daniel Squadron Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com [ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com]. You can find the transcript 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.html This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu, Annie Galvin and Marie Cascione. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley. Video editing by Dani Dillon, Julian Hackney and Jan Kobal. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick and Marina King. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Rebecca Shaid. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Best Of: A Breath of Fresh Air With Brian Eno

How Brian Eno expanded the possibilities of what music and sound can be. Eno is a trailblazing musician and producer who’s worked on seminal records by U2, David Bowie, the Talking Heads and Coldplay, among others. But Eno isn’t just a great collaborator with other artists; he’s also a great collaborator with machines. Long before we started worrying about A.I. replacing human creativity, Eno was tinkering with generative systems to pioneer ambient music – a genre that has deeply influenced how we listen to music today. We recorded this conversation in 2025, and it’s one of my favorite recent episodes of the show. So I wanted to resurface it this summer for anyone who may have missed it the first time. This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: What Art Does [https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571395514-what-art-does-an-unfinished-theory/?srsltid=AfmBOoof8KJO5BMKixtU0NGYyw8OV7o0j1t19XH5VuLJ6ovtbyD5HTzq] by Brian Eno and Bette Adriaanse East West Street [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227917/east-west-street-by-philippe-sands/] by Philippe Sands Silence [https://www.weslpress.org/9780819573650/silence/] by John Cage Book Recommendations: Printing and the Mind of Man edited by John Carter and Percy H. Muir A Pattern Language [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-pattern-language-9780195019193?cc=us&lang=en&] by Christopher Alexander Naples ’44 [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/norman-lewis/naples-44/9780306835254/?lens=grand-central-publishing] by Norman Lewis Music Recommendations: The Rural Blues [https://folkways.si.edu/rural-blues-a-study-of-the-vocal-and-instrumental-resources/music/album/smithsonian] “The Velvet Underground” by the Velvet Underground [https://www.discogs.com/release/6777637-The-Velvet-Underground-The-Velvet-Underground] The Consolers [https://www.discogs.com/artist/1262916-The-Consolers] Thoughts? 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 [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast], and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker, Kate Sinclair and Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Alyssa Jane Moxley, Sophie Abramowitz, Geeta Dayal, Jack Hamilton and Victor Szabo. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What Xi Jinping Wants

You can’t understand China today without understanding its president, Xi Jinping. Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has doubled down on communist ideology and significantly consolidated his own power while transforming China into an industrial juggernaut unrivaled in the world. And Xi’s ambitions for China go far beyond that. So what does Xi want for China in the coming years? And how should the United States respond? Kevin Rudd has a unique perspective on these questions. He first met Xi in the 1980s, when Rudd was a China analyst in Australia’s foreign service and Xi was a local party official. Decades later, when Rudd was the prime minister of Australia and Xi was China’s vice president, the two men got to know each other better. And after leaving office, Rudd decided to really try to understand Xi; his latest book, “On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World [https://academic.oup.com/book/58156],” is built off the doctorate he pursued at Oxford after his time as prime minister. Rudd recently finished a stint as Australia’s ambassador to the United States and is now the global president and chief executive of the Asia Society. In this conversation, Rudd explains Xi’s ideology and the forces that shaped it, his ambitions for China and strategy for achieving them, and what Xi thinks of the United States and Trump. Mentioned: On Xi Jinping [https://academic.oup.com/book/58156] by Kevin Rudd The Avoidable War [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kevin-rudd/the-avoidable-war/9781541701304/?lens=publicaffairs] by Kevin Rudd Book Recommendations The Party’s Interests Come First [https://www.sup.org/books/history/partys-interests-come-first] by Joseph Torigian The Souls of China [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241115/the-souls-of-china-by-ian-johnson/] by Ian Johnson Magnifica Humanitas [https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html] by Pope Leo XIV Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com [ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com]. You can find the transcript 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.html This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Marina King. Video editing by Steph Khoury, Dani Dillon and Kristen Williamson. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker and Diane Wong. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Joseph Torigian and Eyck Freymann. Transcript editing by Sarah Murphy and Marlaine Glicksman. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Very Good and Very Bad News on Climate

Already this summer, there have been huge wildfires in the Southwest and Great Plains and an extraordinary heat wave in Europe, as the world stares down the barrel of a powerful El Niño. Climate change is accelerating, and yet climate politics right now is in disarray. But something else is happening, too. Advances in clean energy technology mean it is now possible to build a world of energy abundance that was the stuff of dreams just a few years ago. That means a new kind of climate politics is possible — one that doesn’t just talk about sacrifice and disaster prevention but also can present decarbonization as a path to somewhere better, where everyone has more, not less. Bill McKibben is one of the best people at articulating that vision. He’s a founder of the climate action groups 350.org [http://350.org] and Third Act, and he’s been at the vanguard of the climate movement for decades. His 1989 book, “The End of Nature,” is considered the first book on global warming written for a general audience. His latest book, published last year, is “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.” Mentioned: “Global Electricity Review 2026 [https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/]” by Ember The End of Nature [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/111998/the-end-of-nature-by-bill-mckibben/] by Bill McKibben “The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-helen-lewis-gender-right.html],” The Ezra Klein Show with Helen Lewis “We’re All Living in the ‘Mirror World’ Now [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-naomi-klein.html],” The Ezra Klein Show with Naomi Klein Book Recommendations: The Glorians [https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-glorians/] by Terry Tempest Williams The Beginning Comes After the End [https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2617-the-beginning-comes-after-the-end] by Rebecca Solnit The Carbon Wave [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/828107/the-carbon-wave-by-leah-c-stokes/] by Leah C. Stokes Brought to You By [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/brought-to-you-by-9781639736331/] by Amy Westervelt End Times Fascism [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621384/endtimesfascism/] by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast]. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html] This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley and Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Dani Dillon and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.