The Ezra Klein Show

Fareed Zakaria on the Moral Cost of Trump’s War

When President Trump didn’t annihilate “a whole civilization” on Tuesday, as he had threatened to do, much of the world exhaled. But the damage of his statements — a U.S. president, the commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military, threatening to commit war crimes — continues to linger in the shadow of an uncertain cease-fire. Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” and the author of “Age of Revolutions” and other books. In this conversation, we discuss whether Trump’s threats on Truth Social worked as a negotiating tactic, the significance of crossing this kind of moral line and how the decline of American leadership is already reshaping the world. This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: Age of Revolutions [https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393239232] by Fareed Zakaria “The Predatory Hegemon [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/predatory-hegemon-walt]” by Stephen M. Walt “Iran is an imperial trap. America walked right in. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/03/13/britain-empire-trump-iran-decline/]” by Fareed Zakaria Book Recommendations: A World Safe for Democracy [https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300271010/a-world-safe-for-democracy/] by G. John Ikenberry The Irony of American History [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo5864609.html] by Reinhold Niebuhr The Quiet American [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/354836/the-quiet-american-by-graham-greene/] by Graham Greene 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 Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Jack McCordick, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio 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.

Why Iran Believes It Has the Upper Hand

In a prime time address on Wednesday, President Trump proclaimed that America was “on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat.” But he also kept open the option of boots on the ground. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is also about to start really biting – as countries get hit with shortages, which would spike prices across the globe. So what are Trump’s options? What would happen if he just declared victory and walked away from the fight? What kinds of military operations are on the table? If Trump ended the war without achieving his strategic goals, what would that mean for the United States, for Iran and for the world? “I don’t see a victory in real terms at the end of this crisis…,” Suzanne Maloney told me. “And that is a very dangerous outcome for the long term.” Maloney is one of Washington’s leading Iran experts. She has advised several presidential administrations and has written or edited a number of books on Iran. She is the vice president and director of the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program. Note: This conversation was recorded on Wednesday morning, before Trump’s speech on the war. But the speech reflected Maloney’s analysis almost perfectly. Mentioned: The Iranian Revolution at Forty [https://www.brookings.edu/books/the-iranian-revolution-at-forty/] by Suzanne Maloney President Trump Addresses Nation on War with Iran [https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-addresses-nation-on-war-with-iran/676697] “Trump tells Post war against Iran won’t last ‘much longer’ —Strait of Hormuz will reopen ‘automatically’ after US exit [https://nypost.com/2026/03/31/us-news/trump-tells-the-post-the-war-against-iran-wont-last-much-longer-strait-of-hormuz-will-reopen-automatically-after-us-exit/]” by Steven Nelson Book Recommendations: The Twilight War [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307277/the-twilight-war-by-david-crist/] by David Crist American Hostages in Iran by Warren Christopher and Paul H. Kreisberg Democracy in Iran [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674545045] by Misagh Parsa 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 Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. 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, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio 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.

Michael Pollan’s Journey to the Borderlands of Consciousness

Consciousness is this amazing, mind-bending riddle. It’s the only thing any of us truly knows. We experience everything else in life through it. And yet we barely understand it. We don’t know what it’s made of or how it works or why it exists. But scientists and theorists have been trying to answer those questions, and have made some startling discoveries. The science writer Michael Pollan, known for books like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “How to Change Your Mind,” spent five years on the vanguard of this research. And his new book, “A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646644/a-world-appears-by-michael-pollan/],” shows that the closer you look at consciousness, the weirder it gets. I asked Pollan to walk through some of the places his mind wandered on this journey — including the role of the body and feelings in consciousness, fascinating studies that provide evidence for plant sentience, the researchers who have abandoned their old theories after trying psychedelic drugs, and the possibility that consciousness may not emerge from inside us at all. “I’ve entered this ‘never say never’ realm with this research,” Pollan told me. Mentioned: “The Descriptive Experience Sampling method [https://www.hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/hurlburt-akhter-2006.pdf]” by Russell T. Hurlburt and Sarah A. Akhter “What Is It Like to Be a Bat? [https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf]” by Thomas Nagel The Hidden Spring [https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393542011] by Mark Solms Descartes’ Error [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297609/descartes-error-by-antonio-damasio/] by Antonio Damasio “The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought [https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38694?login=true]” by Kalina Christoff and Kieran C. R. Fox Book Recommendations: The Blind Spot [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262048804/the-blind-spot/] by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser and Evan Thompson Ducks, Newburyport [https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/paperback-shop/ritegxpqvavi286gp91sd0he23hzx4] by Lucy Ellmann Being You [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566315/being-you-by-anil-seth/] by Anil Seth 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 Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Kim Freda. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio 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.

Will Iran Break Trumpism?

Is Trumpism crashing on the shoals of the Iran war? That is what Christopher Caldwell thinks. Caldwell is a prominent thinker on the right. He’s a contributing editor at the conservative publication the Claremont Review of Books,and he’s one of the people who’ve been trying to define, and even craft, a coherent Trumpism. So his recent article in The Spectator, “The End of Trumpism,” sparked a lot of debate on the right. At the core of this debate are some fundamental questions that I think remain unresolved, despite Trump’s decade-long dominance of the Republican Party: What is Trumpism? Is there Trumpism, or is there just Donald Trump? Caldwell is a contributing writer for Times Opinion and the author of “The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.” In this conversation, he explains how he understood Trumpism as a movement of “democratic restoration” — and why he believes the Iran war betrays that. And I ask him why he sees the seams of Trump’s base fraying, despite polling that suggests otherwise. Mentioned: “The end of Trumpism [https://spectator.com/article/the-iran-war-is-likely-to-mark-the-end-of-trumpism/?edition=us]” by Christopher Caldwell The Age of Entitlement [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Age-of-Entitlement/Christopher-Caldwell/9781501106910] by Christopher Caldwell “Is the West Becoming Pagan Again? [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/opinion/christianity-paganism-woke.html]” by Christopher Caldwell Self-Rule [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3646425.html] by Robert H. Wiebe “Trump as Alexander the Great [https://www.notus.org/perspectives/trump-as-alexander-the-great-a-theory-that-explains-iran-and-everything-else]” by John B. Judis Book Recommendations: The Gulag Archipelago [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-gulag-archipelago-aleksandr-i-solzhenitsyn?variant=39307360632866] by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn Common Ground [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/104456/common-ground-by-j-anthony-lukas/] by J. Anthony Lukas Ball Four [https://turnerpublishing.com/products/ball-four-the-final-pitch?srsltid=AfmBOooSIcljW3SUnyj1lGqxtvm82Y2cr-eGZbT6vZGvz947XiNvE8O0] by Jim Bouton 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 Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. 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, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio 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.

How Bad Could the Iran Oil Crisis Get?

Iran has currently shut off more than 10 percent of the world’s oil supply. If that goes on for a lot longer — or if the war escalates to include more strikes on energy infrastructure in the region — the price of oil could go through the roof, and the damage to the global economy could be catastrophic. So what would that look like? What tools does the United States have to avert it? And how is this crisis already reverberating in countries around the world? Jason Bordoff is the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a founding dean of the Columbia Climate School. He served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for energy and climate change on the National Security Council. In this conversation, Bordoff answers all my questions about the crisis so far and how things could spin out from here, the strategic positioning of the United States, Europe, Iran, Russia and China, the developing countries likely to suffer the most and the lessons the world might take from this. Mentioned: “Making the U.S. More Resilient to Oil Price Shocks [https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/17/trump-oil-iran-gas-prices-consumers-crude-energy-taxes/]” by Jason Bordoff and Spencer Dale “The Return of the Energy Weapon [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/return-energy-weapon-bordoff-osullivan]” by Jason Bordoff and Meghan L. O’Sullivan Book Recommendations: Material World [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/703268/material-world-by-ed-conway/] by Ed Conway More and More and More [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/more-and-more-and-more-jean-baptiste-fressoz?variant=43719184416802] by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz Deliver Me from Nowhere [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/647205/deliver-me-from-nowhere-movie-tie-in-by-warren-zanes/] by Warren Zanes 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, 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. 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.