Noel King
Appearances
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
Can manufacturing jobs be brought back to places like the Lehigh Valley as the people there would like? Vox's Dylan Matthews has been trying to answer this question, and we're going to start with what has been happening.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
Because our spending drives the kinds of jobs that make up our economy. OK, so what replaces manufacturing?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
And some of those jobs are extremely well-paid. Doctor, lawyer can make a ton of money. Some of those jobs are not as well-paid. Home health aid, for example. So when people talk about manufacturing jobs as good jobs and we say service sector jobs replace them, is manufacturing being replaced by good jobs? Yeah.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
And it's not just the stock market anymore. The national economy, we learned today, shrank in the first quarter of this year. Down three-tenths of a percent.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
So the trend is, it's not just in the United States, you said. The trend is, as a country gets richer, it moves from a manufacturing economy, a lot of manufacturing jobs, to a service economy, more service jobs. They can be great jobs or they can be less well-paid jobs. There are a lot of people still in America like John, the guy we heard from in the first half of the show, who...
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
have seen this shift and what they have seen is not progress, not getting richer. It is the community is hollowed out. People lose their jobs. How do we square this narrative of broad progress with the facts in a specific place like the Lehigh Valley?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
Vox's Dylan Matthews. Miles Bryan produced and reported today's episode. Jolie Myers edited. Laura Bullard checked the facts. Andrea Kristen's daughter and Patrick Boyd engineered the show. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
The American economy is starting to shake under the weight of President Trump's tariff chaos.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
If it shrinks in the second, that's the dictionary definition of a recession, folks. Chinese exports to the U.S. are plunging. Keep your third eye open for shortages. And around the country, tariff layoffs are underway.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
All true. This is a very well-known brand. So is this a good job?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
OK, so you were at the union hall. Are Dan and the other men and women in the union, are they mad about the tariffs?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
All right, so you have a union that is facing layoffs because of the tariffs, making the argument for tariffs. Why do they say tariffs are a good tool?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
All of this, says the press, to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., except, as we're going to hear, the tariff layoffs are hitting manufacturing now, too. Coming up on Today Explained, we take a trip.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
What did Dan and the others that you spoke to think of Trump now?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
Does everyone in the union come down on the same side as Dan in this?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
Like people who might vote Republican or might vote Democrat based on whoever they think is doing the best job for them. You said this is a swing area. How do you hear local politicians trying to capitalize on what's going on with the tariffs?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
This is the argument of the last 20 or 30 years that the American economy is moving on to other types of jobs. And we got to make sure that those jobs are good jobs and not spend so much political capital on people like the guys who work at Mac. What are the guys who work at Mac think about this argument?
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
John Tanizer there in the Lehigh Valley, brought to us by Miles Bryan. Thanks so much, Miles.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
Coming up, we know that what replaced the manufacturing economy was the service economy. Can that ever be as good? We're going to ask.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
It's Today Explained. Miles Bryan is a senior producer and reporter on the show. And Miles, you live in Pennsylvania.
Today, Explained
Tariffs hit like a Mack truck
President Trump's tariffs were supposed to bring manufacturing back to the United States. They're supposed to create jobs. But in Pennsylvania, some people are losing jobs as a result of the tariffs. What's happening?
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
In every company, there's a whole system of decision makers, challenges, and strategies shaping the future of business at every level. That's why we're running a special three-part Decoder Thursday series, looking at how some of the biggest companies in the world are adapting, innovating, and rethinking their playbooks.
Today, Explained
How America went MAHA
We're asking enterprise leaders about some of the toughest questions they're facing today, revealing the tensions, risks, and breakthroughs happening behind closed doors. Check out Decoder, wherever you get your podcasts. This special series from The Verge is presented by Adobe Express.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Rachel Cohen had decided that volunteering her time wasn't really worth her time.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
I'm Noelle King with Vox's Rachel Cohen. Rachel covers some of the most fraught topics in America. Abortion, child care, housing. Then earlier this year, she wrote a more personal essay that got a very big response. It was about how she changed her mind about volunteering. Rachel had grown to think it was kind of a useless thing to do. And then she came around in a big way.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
It does make sense. Does the data bear it out? Because it feels like we're more isolated now. It definitely does. And it felt that way when you wrote Bowling Alone 25 years ago. Is it true?
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Okay, so at the moment, we're at a low point for social connection. What brought us here?
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
At some point in her life, Rachel stopped volunteering. Many people have done the same. I am one of those people, incidentally. But when she started volunteering again, she found that it really helped her. If the idea is we do have to get people back to volunteering for the sake of society.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Could it work to sell joining clubs, volunteering, in-person engagement as this will make you feel good? I promise. And the side effect is that it's good for society. It's good for democracy. But if you're going to do it, do it for yourself. Think of it as a kind of self-care.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
You're going to live longer and also you're going to save American society.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Robert Putnam. You won't find him bowling alone. Miles Bryan knew that you needed something good in 2025. He produced today's show. Matthew Collette edited. Laura Bullard fact-checked. And Patrick Boyd engineered. The rest of our team includes Avishai Artsy, Halima Shah, Peter Balanon-Rosen, Hadi Muagdi, Victoria Chamberlain, Andrea Christian's daughter, and Rob Byers.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Amina El-Sadi is a supervising editor. Miranda Kennedy is our executive producer. And we use music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Are you thankful for Sean Rama's firm this holiday season? I sure am. Why don't you drop him a five-star review on Apple and tell him I sent you? We'll be off tomorrow, so you have plenty of time. Today Explained is distributed by WNYC, and the show is a part of Vox.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
You can support our journalism by joining our membership program. Go to vox.com slash members to sign up. Our archives, like our hearts, are free and open to the public, as it should be. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. I'm Noelle King for Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Okay, sort of a savage burn by your mother. But you were like a little volunteer.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
But then she changed her mind. And then that changed her life.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Was it just you that stopped volunteering when you were hearing those messages?
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Okay, so rich people are not the problem. I never said they were. You never said they were. What is the problem? What does Jane say?
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Ahead on Today Explained, you will need something good in 2025. And we have an idea for you.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
All right, so Jane is speaking directly to someone like you, someone who said it isn't worth it. What made you change your mind?
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
You know, I'm very happy for you. It sounds like you changed your own life for the better. I want to ask you about something that you said earlier, which was when you were in college, you got the sense that volunteering really didn't mean anything in a larger sense.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Is volunteering just a form of you taking care of yourself or do you feel like the volunteering you're doing actually does have a larger purpose?
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Rachel Cohen, thanks so much for volunteering to take the time for us today.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Support for Today Explained comes from Koala. There are lots of awesome things, says Koala, that have come out of Australia. On the beach, the book, not the movie, Joel Edgerton, Wake in Fright. Who wrote this? And now, says Koala, you should also consider Koala. Koala says they make the most comfortable mattresses with Instagram-worthy color options inspired by the Australian Outback.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Unlike traditional sofa beds, Koalas are designed just for comfort, no extravagance. They say they have tool-free assembly, no Allen wrenches, no stress, no tears. Everything comes in the box, which you'd expect, but also it easily slides and clicks and screws together. Koala promises fast shipping and free returns.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
You can upgrade your space with what they call the most stylish, customizable, and elevated sofa bed available. To get $100 off your new sofa plus fast shipping, go to us.koala.com. That's us.koala.com to get $100 off your new sofa. Koala. Comfy. Easy. Sustainable.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
25 years ago, Bob wrote a book called Bowling Alone. It was grounded in data and it offered a simple premise. Once upon a time, Americans joined bowling leagues. Now they're going bowling by themselves. He extended the metaphor, positing that our declining social connections were leading to a decline in our democratic society. Lonely Americans, he wrote, are not great for America.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
The book was a strike. It's still influential today. Bob Putnam is nothing if not game, and so we asked him to read Rachel's essay and to give us his thoughts.
Today, Explained
Why volunteering is worth it
Rachel essentially is writing, and you've just said the same thing, volunteering is good for the person who is doing the volunteering, right?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
So let me ask you lastly, you've laid out how school lunch in a lot of ways illustrates what American priorities have been for a century, right, since the Depression. And we see how lunch becomes something that is good for kids, but also convenient for business. In 2025, people like RFK and the Maha movement that has aligned behind him, they are starting to look very differently at food.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
not just school lunch, but at the way we eat. And it feels like we really are having a moment. And I wonder, first, whether we are really having a moment. And second, if we are, if this moment has real potential, real promise.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
I remember sad lasagna shrink-wrapped in little containers. I remember avoiding it.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Red Rabbit's mission is to serve kids, you know, basically the opposite of chicken nuggets. Fresh, healthy, unprocessed.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Jane Black, the newsletter is consumed. Check it out. The long haul that Jane spoke of begins in a place like Idea Charter School in Washington, where Red Rabbit is serving unprocessed meals and where Miles and I set out to ask, Will the youths eat real food?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
How important is healthy to you guys? Like how important is it to, do you feel like to be eating not unprocessed foods and vegetables, things like that?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Alright, we got spaghetti. Whole wheat. We got meat sauce. It's good.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Thank you to Idea Charter School in Northeast D.C., Wesley Parr, Jamar Jackson, Latia Gregory, and Kiara Roundtree. Thanks, kids. Today's show was produced by... Me, Miles Bryan.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Jolie Myers is our editor. Laura Bullard fact-checked the show. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christensdottir are our engineers. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Gilded Age and Appalachia, those are your interests?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
A CN label, that's a child nutrition label. It shows how a food fits into the federal rules around what goes on the plate. You see them a lot on prepackaged school foods.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
So Reese Powell and Red Rabbit, they have to go the extra mile to make their fresh chicken work for the USDA, which runs the school lunch program. They've got to replicate that process with all their food, and they've got to do it all within the budget the federal government provides, which is about $4 per lunch per kid.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
And even if you can solve for all of those challenges, you still have to cook the food, which requires a real chef. In this case, in Northeast D.C., that is Darian DeVar.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
I actually liked them. But in addition to being very tasty, those nugs were very processed. And at the moment, America has got processed foods in its crosshairs.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Let me ask you about these green beans because I am dipping in the past, but you do remember the green beans. I do. You remember they were colorless. Yes, flavorless. What's the word? Slimy.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
You got peppers in there. You got onions in there. You got spices in there.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Yeah, that meal looked beautiful. But as the father of a young daughter, Noelle, I have to tell you something. The only thing that really matters here is, are the kids going to eat it?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Are the kids going to want to eat their vegetables? We're going to leave you in suspense for a bit because here's the thing. School lunch has a history. It is a rich history. It is a vivid history. It is classic Americana.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
And it's the purview of Jane Black. She's a longtime food journalist who writes the newsletter Consumed. And she's sort of an expert on school lunch. We went to her house in D.C.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
It's true. We are collectively very down on processed food right now. None more so than Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Where do we start if we're going to tell a history of school lunch in the United States? Where does it come from, the idea that if a kid goes to school, the school's going to feed him?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
I had always wondered that, how ag became so involved. And it's because, oh, it always was involved in this thing. From the very beginning. What's on the plate back in the earliest days?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Penn, the man who once saved a dead bear cub for a snack, fixed school lunches.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
You're saying like within our lifetime, this is... This is something that was done on site. And then, so the food is what we'd expected to be, no real surprises. But then a change did come, and it was at a point in American history when a lot of things were changing. What happened?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
So we move from the bread is baking in the kitchen in West Virginia to what?
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
Coming up, Jane Black comes back to tell us what happened when we tried to make the kids eat some vegetables.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
She writes the Consumed newsletter and has covered school lunch for many years.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
So when we left off, American kids were getting mostly processed foods in their school lunch. And then one woman risked it all.
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
You're listening to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King, and last week, Miles Bryan and I went to Idea Charter School in Northeast D.C. Okay, Miles, the challenge for American school lunches is to get the ultra-processed foods out. And the challenger is...
Today, Explained
Cafeteria wars
And pizza, which kids and all of us do love, kind of becomes a bit of a flashpoint here. Remind us of this embarrassing chapter.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Have you heard of social annotation? It's kind of like the annotation you used to do in a textbook or a novel with a pencil or a pen, except now we're marking up the margins as a group on our screens with our machines. Social annotation is actually how we edit every episode of Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. But you know where else social annotation is huge?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Are we missing out when we read a dozen articles before we go to bed on our phone or first thing when we wake up? Are we missing out if we decide to listen to Moby Dick as an audiobook while we commute over the course of a month instead of sitting down and reading it every day when we get home from work?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Okay. You're a senior writer, but we're here to talk to you about reading. Why are we talking to you about reading? What's going on with reading?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Are you worried? You've clearly pointed out that, you know, reading books opens up our minds to a world of possibilities that otherwise we wouldn't be open to. And yet we're seeing this downward trend.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
How do we convince kids that they're missing out? Because the phone is just so much easier and so much more available. And there's quick hits of dopamine, the kind of hits that you'd have to wait to get to the end of the chapter or the end of the novel. They're just waiting for you on TikTok every six seconds. How do you win against that?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
And Lady Gaga, I believe, also calls it the shallows.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Marianne Wolff, she is a cognitive neuroscientist and the director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA. We sincerely hope she feels better soon. Peter Balanon-Rosen likes big books and he cannot lie. Amina Alsadi edited, we can't deny. We were mixed by Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd who are great listeners.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
And Laura Bullard fact-checked she packs all of her books into her suitcase.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
on college campuses. Students are completing their reading assignments on social annotation apps where they can comment and ask questions in the digital margins of a reading assignment. And teachers can track how much time students spend with a given article, essay, or journal. And our old friend AI will even grade students' reading for teachers. And why would teachers need these kinds of tools?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
And so I take it a class that might require students to read, what, four or five books? Is it functioning the way it used to when I was in college 15 years ago?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Hey y'all, I'm Nick and this is my video blog and podcast.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
How did we get here? This didn't happen overnight, did it?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Because college kids just aren't that into reading anymore. What on earth are we going to do about that? ahead on the show today.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
You know, this might be an insensitive question, but do we have any data that suggests whether, in addition to reading less, students are, I don't know, getting dumber?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
So is that an argument professors can make here? If nothing else, if you want to be as smart as your predecessors in your position, do the reading.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
What? Is that not what it says? Marianne Wolfe has probably read more books than you this year.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
Marianne is so big on reading, we had to ask, Professor, are you in the pocket of big book?
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
We also asked her some questions she could answer, like why it seems that most people are choosing the opposite path she is when it comes to reading books.
Today, Explained
The kids aren't reading all right
I'm sure there's a lot of people in our audience who know exactly what you mean. But for all the people listening who need to be convinced that they're actually missing out on something... What do you think they're missing out on?
Today, Explained
The autocrat's prison
Now, assuming, let's just assume, and I'm not saying this is the case, because I think there's high fidelity and confidence that, in fact, that's exactly what every single one of them was. But if one of them turns out not to be, then they're just illegally in our country, and the Salvadorans can then deport them to Venezuela. But they weren't supposed to be in our country to begin with.
Today, Explained
The autocrat's prison
They were here illegally. We're all here illegally with all the people that are on that list.
Today, Explained
Life after Ozempic
Support for the show comes from CyberArk. Did you know that 93% of organizations have experienced an identity-related breach in the last year? With cyber attacks on the rise, every identity in your organization is a potential target. So securing each one of those identities with the right level of privilege controls is essential.
Today, Explained
Life after Ozempic
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Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
Plenty of people have been caught up in President Trump's emergency declarations. The most high profile are undocumented immigrants. But there's also Victor Owen Schwartz, who imports wine. Georgina Terry, who sells bikes for independent women. Why pay me to fix a flat tire when you can figure it out on your own? David Levi, who makes kicky little musical toys like a banana keyboard.
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
So eight emergencies sounds like a lot, especially because for most Americans day to day, I don't think we feel like we're living in a time of eight distinct emergencies that we weren't living in, you know, six months ago. Why does the president do this?
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
I can certainly see that. And President Trump sometimes behaves as if the emergency powers were, you know, granted from upon high by God. But actually what you're saying is they come from Congress. This is Congress saying we will allow you to have additional power in times of emergency. When and why did Congress initially do this?
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
How far can the president go with emergency powers? Like, what kinds of things could he do?
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
Ian Millhiser covers the Supreme Court for Vox, and he has written two books about the Supremes. All right, Ian, so this week there is a small court hearing a very big case. Are President Trump's tariffs legal? Tell us what's going on.
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
You've laid out why granting some of these powers does make sense in times of emergency. Some of them, though, really seem like a lot, just a lot of power. Donald Trump is a highly unusual American president. Is it possible that Congress made a mistake in assuming that every American president would be like the guy who came before? Yes. Yeah.
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
Elizabeth Goitin with the Brennan Center. She co-directs the Liberty and National Security Program. Amanda Llewellyn and Hadi Mouagdi produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited. Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd are our engineers. And Laura Bullard checks the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
Who are the plaintiffs in this case? Who is suing Trump?
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
and Dan Pastore, who sells fishing gear. This week, they're all in court suing President Trump because his tariffs hurt their businesses. Trump says he can unilaterally levy tariffs because he has declared an emergency. The court is going to decide whether that's legal.
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
And what is the government's defense of the tariffs, as you heard it yesterday?
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
OK, so we have three judges, as I understand it, bipartisan. This is not a court that typically gets a ton of attention, right? This is it's not the Supremes. Right. What vibe were you getting from them yesterday? Do you get the sense that they seem to favor either the government's argument or the argument that the plaintiffs are making?
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
Ian, in the second half of the show, we're going to be talking about the frequency with which President Trump has said he must do something because it's an emergency. He's got to do tariffs because it's an emergency. Some of the moves on immigration because it's an emergency. If this court rebukes the president on tariffs and says, hey, you called it an emergency, but we don't think it is.
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
Does that mean that we might be looking at a near future in which courts are far more skeptical of the president using it's an emergency as an excuse to do what he wants?
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
Vox's Ian Millihiser. Up next, an expert on presidential emergencies is getting a little worried.
Today, Explained
Trump’s emergency powers grab
I'm Noelle King. Elizabeth Goitin is with the Brennan Center, where she co-directs the Liberty and National Security Program. Elizabeth is an expert, maybe even the expert, on presidential emergency powers. And she says President Trump has sure been using his.
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil faced a judge in a federal courtroom in Manhattan today, while outside, protesters demanded his release.
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
So I wonder what we should make of this dynamic. The numbers of deportations are falling short of what Trump promised. But his administration is making a lot of news with these very high profile cases.
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
Khalil is a green card holder who was detained by ICE over the weekend. The Trump administration has lobbed some serious accusations at him.
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
My guess would be that the Trump administration at some point will start to take flak because the number of deportations that it promised is not matching the reality. Are you seeing new strategies by this administration to kind of get deportation numbers up?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute. Today's show was produced by Avishai Artsy and Gabrielle Berbet. Amina El-Sadi is our editor. Laura Bullard and Amanda Llewellyn check the facts. And Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter are our engineers. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
but hasn't backed them up with any evidence. The attempted deportation has created some unlikely allies here, including conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who tweeted, There's almost no one I don't want to deport. But unless they've committed a crime, isn't this a violation of the First Amendment?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
What rights does Mahmoud Khalil have as a green card holder in the U.S.?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
And what case would the Trump administration have to make in order to get him deported? Like, how does this generally work?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
On Today Explained, can the Trump administration kick out of the country a man who is charged with no crime and who is here legally? Coming up.
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
There were many students involved in these protests on college campuses and many students all across the country. Do we know why this one student was singled out?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
President Trump said on Truth Social the following, we know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity and the Trump administration will not tolerate it. It sounds like a threat. There will be more of this. Should we expect more of this?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
Let me ask you, Lesley, What does this tell us about how President Trump and his administration are thinking about deportations, about how to do them, about how to utilize them, about who to target for deportation?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
That was The Verge's Gabby Del Valle. Coming up, President Trump promised mass deportations, not just high-profile ones. How's that going?
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
It's been just under two months, Colleen, since President Trump took office. On the campaign trail, he promised mass deportations. We heard this again and again and again.
Today, Explained
Deporting Mahmoud Khalil
Now, in the meantime, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is more transparent perhaps than I think a lot of people realize. They do have a color-coded spreadsheet online. It shows us all of the detention data from this year. What does that spreadsheet tell us about detentions, if not deportations, since Donald Trump took office?
Today, Explained
A win in the opioid crisis
Our movement is about single moms like mine who struggled with money and addiction but never gave up. And I'm proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober. I love you, mom. He has also made this a signature issue. I want more of you and more of the families here in Philadelphia to get that second chance with a loved one.
Today, Explained
A win in the opioid crisis
I want them to have another opportunity to get back on that horse and get clean.
Today, Explained
A win in the opioid crisis
It was definitely something I saw growing up. And I remember when, you know, addiction hit our family and I found out that mom was addicted to prescription pain pills, as we called them back then. I just didn't understand it, right? I didn't understand why anybody would.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
President Trump addressed the Congress last night. You heard that. Uganda. But let's check in on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He tweeted from the car on his way to the address.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Noelle King here with Haley Britsky. Haley is CNN's Pentagon reporter and producer, and she's been following the DOD's plan to separate transgender service members from the military. Haley, what does this new Pentagon policy say exactly?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
How is this new policy going to affect you? What does it mean for your career?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
The Department of Defense is offering some terms for people who voluntarily leave the military in 30 days. We learned that in the first half of the show. Would you ever volunteer to go?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I'm hearing you say you wanted to and you plan to stay in the military until retirement.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
The Department of Defense has said that being trans is contrary to the, and here I'm going to quote Sam, high standards for service member readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity. You've been in the service since 2015. You know what this is driving at here. Let me ask you how you respond to that statement.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
He tweeted again a thank you after Trump mentioned him.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Listener, did you know that every branch of the U.S. military has a creed? It must be memorized and sometimes quickly recalled. Petty Officer Second Class Sam Rodriguez can recite it without a hitch.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Then he went on Fox News this a.m. to discuss enlistment numbers.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
President Trump and Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, have they come out and said why they think people who are trans are unfit to serve their country?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
So the military is using the word separation, which is the word that it generally uses in cases like this. But it means people are losing their jobs. For people who are losing their jobs and didn't expect to lose their jobs, what are they receiving?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Neither Hegseth nor the president mentioned their plan to force transgender service members out of the military. Today on Explained, we're going to do that.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
We're assuming there will be legal challenges and we're in an environment where it's hard to tell what a legal challenge might lead to. But during President Trump's first term, as I recall, there were legal challenges to some of what he tried in the Pentagon.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Can you take us back and tell us, as we start to see lawsuits and look for lawsuits, what we might be looking at here?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
That was Haley Britsky. She covers the Pentagon for CNN. Coming up, so you've been serving honorably, and now you're out. We're going to hear what that's like.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Today Explained is back. So this is kind of a universal experience. Your job changes a policy that affects you, and it is terrible because change is very hard. For most of us, this doesn't happen all that often. But Navy Petty Officer Sam Rodriguez's military service has been upended again and again and again by policy changes. Sam joined the Navy in 2015.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
In 2016, a ban on transgender service members was lifted. Then Donald Trump was elected. And in 2017, Trump banned transgender service members. In 2020, Joe Biden was elected. Biden reversed the ban. And then in 2024, President Trump was elected. And his DOD is now firing trans service members.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Noelle King, host of Today Explained. We're here at 100 days of Trump part two. They say they like to flood the zone. And boy, did the zone feel flooded.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
But when John Bolton was asked about John Kelly's assessment, he basically said Trump's too dumb to be a fascist. I wanted to ask him if he still feels that way a hundred days into Trump 2.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
So you would quibble with the term fascist because it's just, what, simplistic or it's a slogan?
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
What was your impression of his approach, if not something leaning towards fascism or authoritarianism when you were in his administration the first go-round?
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
What have you thought of the first 100 days of the second administration so far?
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
I think you're getting at something that I'm constantly struck by, which is while this seems like a serious administration with serious ideas, Project 2025, what have you, there's also all of these distractions that make this seem like a bit of a clown car. The Doge firings and then hiring back of nuclear safety personnel, the infamous Houthi PC small group chat.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
The tariffs, no tariffs, tariffs, just kidding, no tariffs. I saw someone say, I wonder if the fall of the Roman Empire was this stupid. And that really hit for me. But at the same time, you've got the campaign of retribution we've spoken about. You've got defying court orders and challenging the judiciary. You've got the silencing of speech, left and right, the First Amendment.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
I mean, when you see these constitutional infringements, are you worried for the state of the republic?
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
You, of course, I believe, have worked under four presidential administrations from Reagan to George H.W. Bush to George W. Bush to, of course, President Trump. Does that, you know, historical long view that you personally possess, you know, work to your advantage in these trying times of ours?
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Since you were looking ahead to the 2028 election, let me ask you quickly before we go about the 2024 election. I believe you said you wouldn't vote for either candidate and that you would write in a true conservative like Dick Cheney. Of course, Dick Cheney went on to endorse Kamala Harris. Did that change your mind when you were in the voting booth there?
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Well, no one's ever said that on this show before, sir. I appreciate you bringing that to light. Thank you for your time, Ambassador Bolton. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. John Bolton of the Bolton Pack, Noelle.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Laura Bullard and Gabrielle Berbet were on The Facts. I'm Noelle King. Sean Ramos-Furham. Today Explained.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Thank you. The penny. They were going to get rid of the penny. I think I still see pennies. Showerheads. Showerheads. Immigration. Daylight savings. I think we still have that too. Deporting some people who are citizens. Fighting with the courts. Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords. Doge.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
We got actually someone who was a victim of President Trump's retribution season. I don't think he got mentioned in your conversation with Andrew, but former Ambassador John Bolton, who also lost his security clearance on day one. We're going to hear from him, Noelle. Support for today's show comes from Upwork. Enough with downwork. It's time for Upwork.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Just like their name suggests, they want you to be able to up your level of work. Because as a small business owner, you want to be able to grow your business. But you don't want to take on more than you can handle. It's all about scalability. And with Upwork, they say they'll help you find the right people to grow your business at your own pace.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Upwork says they can help you find specialized freelancers in marketing, development and design. Experts that can help you take your business to the next level. And even more, they say companies at every stage turn to Upwork to get things done by assessing a global marketplace filled with top talent in IT, web development, AI, design, admin support, marketing, and more.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
You can visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to post your job for free and connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's Upwork.com. Support for Today Explained comes from the NPR Politics Podcast. Politics might move fast, but the NPR Politics Podcast is there to help declutter it all for you. Every day. It comes on every day.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
The NPR Politics Podcast team focuses on one thing and boils it down to 15 minutes or less. Each episode makes it easy for you to understand what's going on in politics today. from the complete restructuring of the federal government to immigration policy to tariffs and trade to unpacking the first hundred days of Donald Trump's second presidency.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
You can tune in to hear about what's been done, what's to come, and what might change, and of course, what it means for you. You can listen now to the NPR Politics Podcast, only from NPR, National Public Radio, they call it, wherever you get your podcasts.
Today, Explained
100 days of payback
Today, Explain is back, and here's the reason I wanted to hear from John Bolton today. Bolton served in the first Trump administration as a national security advisor. He served alongside former Chief of Staff John Kelly, who last October told the New York Times that he thinks Donald Trump is a fascist.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
How do you hear President Trump talking about this?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
All right, let's run through that list of countries that you just gave us. Ukraine. How do we hear President Trump trying to hone in on Ukraine when it comes to critical minerals?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
You also mentioned DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is an interesting one because the U.S. does not generally spend a lot of time thinking about that nation. But not long ago, we saw the president of DRC on Fox News basically saying to President Trump,
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
OK, and then finally, although this is happening in many more places, but Greenland. President Trump has talked about annexing Greenland.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
And initially, when he first took office, I think everyone was really confused. And then it almost immediately emerged again. This is about critical minerals.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Then there are the parts of the world that are not nations. President Trump wants to issue licenses for deep sea mining. President Trump signing an executive order to fast track deep sea mining off the U.S.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
All right, Ernest, we promised the people we'd explain what is going on with the president and his fixation on critical minerals. Go ahead.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Critical minerals are, in fact, critical. That's become clear throughout the course of this episode. They're critical for national security. They're critical for the economy. They're critical for our climate future. President Trump does seem to be taking this much more seriously, at least publicly, than his predecessors. Is that fair to say?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Has he has he seized on something here that maybe the American public was missing?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Gracelyn Baskerin directs the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Next week, we're going to ask, what does it take to find critical minerals here in the United States? And could we possibly innovate our way out of a tricky situation? Avishai Artsy produced today's show. It was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Jolie Myers is our editor. Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd engineered. And Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
All right. So President Trump, as he sometimes does, has become obsessed with something. But it's something, as you're telling us, it's something quite important. What are critical minerals exactly?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Those are the loud stories of the Trump administration. There's a quieter story, though. President Trump's obsession with critical minerals.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
What are they in that I might not know about, that I might not realize?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
And are critical minerals just things, I'm guessing here, that you dig up out of the ground?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
In South Africa, Ukraine, China, Greenland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the ocean. What exactly is going on right now? That's coming up on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Yes. And in fact, your book is called The War Below, which which nods to some of the tension. What are the sides in that war?
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
The Trump administration's interest in critical minerals, which appears to be profound, almost makes it seem as if this is an existential struggle. This is one of the most important things that the American government can and should be thinking about.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Everyone in this room agrees that we must proactively manage the minerals that are crucial for our country's energy future.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Ernest Scheider, he's a senior correspondent for Reuters. His book is called The War Below Lithium, Copper and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives. Coming up, the art of the minerals deal. Support for today's show comes from Quince. Quince for Father's Day.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Quince says they have tons of pieces that your dad will actually want to wear, such as organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from weekend hangouts to those nice dinners that dads go to. Quince says everything they sell is priced 50-80% less than what you find at similar brands.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Quince also says that by working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, they can give you luxury pieces without the crazy markups. Our colleague Claire White, believe it or not, got her dad some presents from Quince, and here's what she had to say about what he had to say.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
For the dad who deserves better than basic, Quince has you covered. Go to quince.com slash explained for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash explained to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash explained.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
I'm Noelle King. Gracelyn Baskerin is a mining economist by training. She now directs the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And she says critical minerals at this moment are at the center of a lot of U.S. foreign policy.
Today, Explained
The minerals that rule our world
Let's talk about the countries that do have what we want. And let's start with China. China is the leading producer of critical minerals. It has more or less cornered the market on refining them. What are the stakes here for the United States?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has always been an odd guy. As a state senator, he made a video explaining how to search your kid's room for contraband.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
We called Barb because a relatively tiny number of people have held these jobs. And we wanted to know what she makes of the DOJ pressuring New York prosecutors to drop their case against Eric Adams.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Walk us through who gave the prosecutors in New York their marching orders and what exactly those orders said.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
After the resignations, I heard people ask whether resigning is the best move, because if everybody resigns, then eventually somebody does give in and do it. And the people who are ethical, who have, you know, backbones, they're not there anymore. What do you think about that tension?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Katie Honan is a senior reporter at the nonprofit news site The City. Katie also hosts the FAQ NYC podcast. Yesterday, minutes before Katie dashed into a press conference with Eric Adams, we reached her in the rotunda of City Hall to ask her about the life and times of New York's mayor.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
And I think that puts us in a worse place. What do you think this scandal tells us about the Justice Department in the second Trump administration?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
How do we get out of this? Do you think that Congress is going to do anything here?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
The issue, of course, in New York is the quid pro quo. Donald Trump wants something from Eric Adams and Eric Adams wanted something from Donald Trump. But the vast majority of mayors in the United States and governors in the United States and other people in the United States who Donald Trump might want something from are not under indictment. Right.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
So is this situation in New York City just a one off or do you think it's part of a playbook?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Barbara McQuaid, UMich Law School, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Amanda Llewellyn and Devin Schwartz produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited. Laura Bullard checked the facts. And Patrick Boyd is our engineer. I'm Noelle King. This has been Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Before we get to the events of the past couple of weeks, what's his reputation as mayor been? What do New Yorkers think of him?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
As mayor, there was the Urban Rat Summit. There was the baptism, his, at Rikers Island. And then there was the alleged corruption, the wire fraud, bribery, the indictment. And then came the order from the Department of Justice that all those charges had to be dropped. Ahead on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Mayor Adams is a Democrat. Yes. OK, but he claims he was targeted by the Biden administration and then President Trump is elected. And that leads us to where we are today. What happened?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
So is the case, are the charges against Adams really going to get dropped? We don't know yet.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
So you're a native New Yorker, and politics in New York can get weird. In your time covering politics in New York, where does this kind of stand on the scale of 1 to 10? Oh, I would say this is probably an eight.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
The city's Katie Honan getting ready to go into a Mayor Adams press conference. Good luck in there. Enjoy. I'll need it. Thank you so much.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Support for Today Explained comes from Greenlight. Greenlight believes that most people learn about saving and budgeting much later than they should. Greenlight wants to give you the opportunity to give your kids a head start with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app that's made for families. Parents can send money to their kids.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
They can keep an eye on the kids' spending and saving. Meanwhile, the kids are building confidence and financial knowledge. With the Greenlight app, kids learn how to save, invest, spend wisely, thanks to games that teach money skills in a fun, accessible way. Here's our colleague, Otis Sham, who has used Greenlight with her thoughts.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Millions of parents and kids are learning about money on Greenlight. You can start your risk-free Greenlight trial today. Greenlight.com slash explained. That's Greenlight.com slash explained to get started. What's that? Greenlight.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Barbara McQuaid teaches at the University of Michigan's law school. She served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. There are 93 U.S. attorneys in these United States, and it is their job to enforce federal law. As all U.S. attorneys are, Barb was a presidential appointee. She was appointed by Obama in 2010, and she served until 2017.
Today, Explained
Mr. Project 2025
You're listening to Today Explains. Is it Today Explain or Today Explains? Explained. Explained.
Today, Explained
The right to die
Well, they said it couldn't be done, but for the second day in a row, Today Explained leads with news from the 51st state, Canada. Just a few days ago, the Canadian government released some new data about deaths there. Around 1 in 20 people in Canada now die with medical assistance. Voluntary euthanasia, medically assisted suicide, medical assistance in dying or MAID.
Today, Explained
The right to die
On a recent Saturday afternoon in Sydney, euthanasia advocate Dr. Philip Nitschke held a workshop about the best way to end your life.
Today, Explained
The right to die
Oh, good lord. Yeah. So only one person in Switzerland has actually used the sarcopod. What happened? Like, what was the discussion around it like? Who was this person? What do you know?
Today, Explained
The right to die
That... What you just said is really quite disturbing. You know, if it's proven to be true, if somebody's making this choice for financial reasons, like the mind boggles, right?
Today, Explained
The right to die
I would say I'm fairly, if not very, uncomfortable with all of this. I think my knee-jerk reaction is, look, for thousands of years, we did not do this. For thousands of years, we did not do this, and we were fine. And yet, it seems based on what we've learned this episode, I might in fact be in a minority here.
Today, Explained
The right to die
I wonder, why do you think it's so important that we continue to engage with this fight and not just say... OK, folks, we experimented at the beginning of the 21st century. Let's just wrap it up and go back to not doing this.
Today, Explained
The right to die
You've been covering this debate around what people are calling the right to die there in the United Kingdom. What is going on?
Today, Explained
The right to die
Vox is Maren Kogan in Switzerland. Miles Bryan produced today's show. Matthew Collette edited. Laura Bullard fact-checked. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter engineered. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The right to die
All right. So there's a lot of restrictions here. You have to be terminally ill. You have to have only less than six months to live. It doesn't sound like it's going to be easy to just do this should you want to do it. When people advocate for assisted dying, why do they say it's needed?
Today, Explained
The right to die
There are several terms that we now use as the world debates whether or not this is OK.
Today, Explained
The right to die
Honestly, I don't... In the UK, Parliament just voted to advance the cause and other countries seem poised to follow. The push for a right to die gains steam. Coming up.
Today, Explained
The right to die
I feel like if this debate was happening in the United States, it would be like everything else. It would be like the country is split exactly 50-50 right down the middle. What do the numbers tell us about whether or not this is actually popular in the UK?
Today, Explained
The right to die
Okay, so this movement really is picking up steam. And it's not just in one country. It's not just in one place. It's all over Europe. Fascinating. What are you thinking about as this option becomes more of a reality in the UK?
Today, Explained
The right to die
When we return, the details. When death with dignity collides with reality. Now listen, if talk of suicide is not really for you, how about you take a break and we'll see you back here again tomorrow.
Today, Explained
The right to die
Today Explained returns with Maren Kogan, Vox senior correspondent and resident of Switzerland, which was the first country to legalize assisted dying.
Today, Explained
The right to die
And I assume there is some disagreement about how far these laws can and should go, or does everyone agree?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Representatives from the U.S. and Iran sat down last weekend to try to strike a deal on Iran's nuclear program. These were the highest level talks between the two countries since 2018. And the big surprise is that they're going to meet again this coming Saturday. President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday was asked about Iran, and he said this.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
And Trita has been writing that there are real reasons to be optimistic about these talks. And he says this past weekend proves his point.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
How far away are the U.S. and Iran on an agreement? Like, what is a sticking point here or the sticking points here? Do we know?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Yes, Obama struck a deal with Iran in 2015. President Trump in his first term pulled out of it. Since Trump exited that deal in 2018, how much progress has Iran made on its nuclear program?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
You recently wrote a very good piece for Time magazine in which you said you are optimistic that a deal is possible here for three reasons. Walk through those three reasons for me, beginning with your first. Both sides, as you said, have strong incentives to reach a deal. What are the incentives you're talking about?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Reason number two you cited, you say that Donald Trump appears to not be following Israel's lead here. What do you mean by that? Why does that make you optimistic?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
The third reason you cite is that Tehran has been making some interesting overtures to the United States regarding investment. Tell us what Iran's leaders have been saying and what you think it is they're offering exactly. Yeah.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Let's go back to the first Trump administration and to two moments that appeared at the time to be really definitive on Iran. The U.S. and Iran did have a nuclear deal, and then President Trump pulled out of it. Why did he do that?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
So Donald Trump is the businessman president and Iran is saying, we see you, we recognize that, and we want to speak your language.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
On Monday, President Trump gave a press conference in the Oval Office, and he was asked about Iran a couple of times. He did not have the most articulate answers. He said, you know, Iran wants to do a deal with us, but they don't know how.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
He wasn't saying this is going to get done, but he also wasn't saying this is not going to get done. When you look at his remarks on Monday, coming as they did off the back of successful talks last Saturday, more talks this coming Saturday, where do you predict this all might be headed?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Trita Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Trita's written several books on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Iran. Gabrielle Berbet and Travis Larchuk produced today's episode. Amina El-Sadi edited. Laura Bullard checked the facts. Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd engineered. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
OK, so tensions in 2018 go higher after Trump pulls out of the Iran deal. And then in early 2020, there was kind of a shocker of an assassination.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
In the heart of Iran, a public outpouring of grief, overwhelming the streets of its capital. Trump made a big mistake. Tell us what happened with Qasem Soleimani.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Maybe it's the weave, but President Trump seems to have profoundly mixed feelings about Iran. He believes that Iran tried to kill him last fall and the Department of Justice agreed and filed charges. But Trump is also reaching out to Iran in some ways that have Iran watchers thinking he might be very serious about making a deal. That's coming up on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
OK, so now let's move into the present day. Your book, Revenge, contains some really shocking information about what was happening in 2024 while Donald Trump was running for office. There were concerns that Iran was trying to kill him. What happened?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
President Trump and the people surrounding him were legitimately terrified that he could be killed. Do we know ultimately how far this went? I mean, if at the time there were people in the United States with access to surface to air missiles, we would have to assume that they're still here.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Does the Trump administration today, as we speak, do they still worry about Iran and a threat to the president's life?
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Alex Eisenstedt, this was great. Thank you so much for your time and your insights. We really appreciate this. Thank you. Alex's book is called Revenge. Now, we should note that in January, a week before Inauguration Day, Iran's president, Massoud Pazeshkian, gave an interview to NBC's Lester Holt in which he denied that Iran had ever tried to assassinate Donald Trump.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
Support for Today Explained comes from Udacity. Every day brings a new AI breakthrough, a new app. And yet for a lot of people, AI still feels quite mysterious. That's where Udacity comes in. Udacity can help you demystify AI, master some tools, build some real skills. For what, you ask? How about a higher salary, better job opportunities and a future-proof career?
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Art of the (Iran) deal
According to Udacity, Udacity offers courses in AI, data programming, and so much more. Our colleague here at Vox, Alison Hamlin, got to try Udacity. Here's what Alison thought.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
The tech field is always evolving. Maybe you should be too. You can try Udacity risk-free for seven days by heading to udacity.com slash explained and using the code explained for 40% off your order. Once again, that's udacity.com slash explained and use the code explained for 40% off.
Today, Explained
Art of the (Iran) deal
I'm Noelle King. So the big news from this first round of Iran talks is that there will be a second round of talks this coming weekend. Trita Parsi, who joins us now, was not as surprised as many analysts. Trita is executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He's also the author of several books about U.S. foreign policy in Iran.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Today on the show, we ask, can a diet help us live much, much longer? We do know that someone will always be trying. There's venture capitalist Brian Johnson and his vegetables for breakfast.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
So Dan Buettner is a person who became famous for effectively riding their bicycle lots of interesting places and founding a company, a marketing company off the back of that. And he decided while he was cycling places for the National Geographic that he wanted to know about the secrets of longevity.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
He read this paper about the Blue Zones in Sardinia and he went around applying that concept to a large number of places. He effectively had pitched this to National Geographic as a story and the story was wildly successful.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And it makes sense, right? You open up your National Geographic, there's a story about these places in the world where people seem to live forever. You can see why it's popular. You're a researcher on aging. When did you start looking into blue zones?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
I started looking into blue zones when I had published a theoretical paper that effectively says most of our old age data in the world should be statistical junk. And then when I started to look at individual cases, I instantly found out that the way that extreme age cases are validated is terrible.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
The world's oldest man was one of the first cases I investigated and it turned out that he had three birthdays and no birth certificate. Huh? Yeah, it's remarkable. And he's still on the record books. Now, when I started digging deeper and deeper, I, of course, came across the blue zones. And at the time, I had mapped more than 80% of the world's 110-year-olds.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And what was striking is that those 110-year-olds were not falling in regions with good health. They were falling in regions that had terrible health. And surprisingly, that was the shared characteristic of most blue zones. I found that centenarians in the blue zones were missing or dead when the study was conducted. A centenarian is someone who is 100 years old or older.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
I found that the health in the blue zones was poor before, during and after they were established. I found that none of the supposed lifestyle patterns that were happening in the blue zones were actually happening.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And I found that pension fraud was absolutely rife throughout many of the blue zones, so that many of these people were collecting the pension from the graveyard, in effect, where they were getting older on paper, but they were already dead.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
When you discovered that the places in the world that were said to be blue zones had some pretty shoddy record keeping and may even have had some fraudulent record keeping, where did your mind go? What did you think?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Well, I mean, I was shocked at the depth of this. You know, I was expecting that there were going to be errors. There were going to be problems there. But this is like discovering that 82% of data from the Hubble Space Telescope is just dust on the lens.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And this got even worse when I started looking at these Power 9 claims for lifestyle that were supposed to support this remarkable attainment of blue zone longevity. What did you find? First case I investigated was Okinawa because Okinawa has, it's Japanese and has beautiful surveys and none of the Power Nine claims stood up to independent scrutiny.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
The central claim that people in Okinawa eat a lot of plants. was nonsense. We have an extraordinary detail of people's diets in Okinawa going back to 1975, and they are dead last for root vegetable consumption, leafy vegetable consumption, pickled vegetable consumption. On the front page of the Netflix documentary is some purple sweet potatoes.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Okinawa eats the least purple sweet potato or any sweet potato in all of Japan out of 47 prefectures, and they always have. So it's completely at odds. with the characterization that's occurred in these cookbooks. The diet looks absolutely nothing like what's in the cookbooks.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Anahad O'Connor is a nutrition reporter for The Washington Post's Wellbeing Desk. He's been writing about food and health for more than two decades. Anahad, for maybe 10 or 15 years now, we've heard about these tech guys in Silicon Valley trying to hack their health and live forever. When did people start thinking diet equals health and health equals longevity?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
We do hear in a lot of news stories about Japanese people tending to live longer than other people. Is that wrong?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
On average, no. But the reason is much more simple. And that's that Japanese people are rich. They have universal health care. And they have a generally healthy lifestyle. But in the details, this all falls apart because Okinawa is the least healthy province. It has twice the poverty rate of any other region. They eat huge amounts of meat. Most of it is highly processed.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Even the simple claims do not match the claims made by the Blue Zones people.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
So Okinawa, not looking good. Any of the other Blue Zones leap out at you as places where, oh boy, this is just not great.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
It's all not great. The American Blue Zone, Loma Linda. Dan Buettner has said to the New York Times that the way he found Loma Linda... It was that his editor at the magazine has said, you need to find an American blue zone. And so he's gone out and found Loma Linda. I should add, the CDC measures Loma Linda for life expectancy, and it's pretty average.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
We learned in the first half of the show that there are some things you can do, there are some ways in which you can eat that seem to extend your life. And they fall in line with what the Blue Zones seem to endorse. Limit your stress, eat whole foods, eat oatmeal, eat organic if you can.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Are you taking issue with the fundamental idea that if people in Okinawa did eat the way the Blue Zone cookbook claims that they eat...
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
What is going on here is that none of these recommendations bear any connection to the region's actual behaviours. Are they healthy? In some cases, of course. Sure, exercise is good for you. That's fine. But that's not because it looks like anything like what people do in these regions. So...
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
I think the takeaway there is that, yes, there are healthy behaviors, but this is not the person you should listen to for advice. If you want to be healthy, go and talk to your GP. Don't listen to someone who's selling you a cookbook.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
All right. So if living in Okinawa or Loma Linda is not the key to living to 100, what is the key to a longer life? What do you think and what do you know?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Well... I know that the CDC estimates this. They estimate the life expectancy cost of different behaviors. And they're very simple. If you don't smoke, you'll gain seven years of life expectancy. And if you exercise, more is better, but generally four to six years. And those are the biggest, most important things you can do.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Food. Food is a mess. We can't even decide if eggs are good for us after 50 years. I can't make any judgment on this because it's a mess. One striking thing about this is that Ansel Keys, who came up with the Mediterranean diet, he based the Mediterranean diet off the concept that people in southern Italy lived past 100 at remarkable rates.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
That was Dr. Saul Justin Newman of the Oxford Institute for Population Aging at University College London. We did reach out to Blue Zones LLC for comment about Dr. Newman's claims, and we didn't hear back. In other publications and on the Blue Zones website, Dan Buettner disputes the claims that Dr. Newman makes. Today's episode was produced by Zachary Mack and Hadi Mouagdi.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
At least thousands of years. So it is not 10 to 15 years. And in the Bay Area, I was wrong about that. Tell me about some of the kind of luminaries or the people that we've chosen to follow over the years when they tell us what we should eat.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
There's David Murdoch, the 101-year-old chairman of Dole Foods and his somewhat bizarre fruit-forward diet.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Let's talk about some of the other diets that we hear a lot about these days that we're told will help us live longer, if not forever. What springs to the top of your mind?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Breakfast, for example, is like eggs, avocado, bacon or sausage, things like that.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
There's the Blue Zones diet, which is taken from places in the world where people are said to routinely live to 100.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Our listeners will know that about a year ago, I got really obsessed with ultra-processed foods. We did an episode. I was refusing to buy bread from the supermarket. I was insisting that I didn't get it at home. And it went on. It's really hard to do. That went on for maybe three months, four months, five months. I gave it up.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
This morning, I was in a crappy mood and I ate a Snickers bar, like literally 6 a.m. So which diet are you on?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And then there's the possibility that this is a lot of nonsense. Coming up on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
We're going to talk about those accusations later in the show, but what seems to be at the heart of the skepticism about any of these diets is that diet research does not seem that trustworthy. We hear that something is really bad for us, and then we hear, no, it's fine for us.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Remember the, I guess this has been playing out over the last year or so, but remember we were all told that like, a glass of wine is great for you. And then we learned, no, actually we don't think it is. Why is that? the research into what we eat and drink and how it affects our health, why is it so dicey?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
All right. So you've been covering food and health for 20 years. I've been reading articles like yours for 20 years. Surely, I would guess there is a new diet trend coming. Do you agree? And have you any idea what it is?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
That was Anahad O'Connor of The Washington Post. Coming up, the man who blew up the blue zones. Support for Today Explained comes from Koala. There are lots of awesome things, says Koala, that have come out of Australia. On the beach, the book, not the movie, Joel Edgerton, Wake in Fright. Who wrote this? And now, says Koala, you should also consider Koala.
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A live-forever diet?
Koala says they make the most comfortable mattresses with Instagram-worthy color options inspired by the Australian Outback. Unlike traditional sofa beds, Koalas are designed just for comfort. No metal frame. They say they have tool-free assembly, no Allen wrenches, no stress, no tears. Everything comes in the box, which you'd expect, but also it easily slides and clicks and screws together.
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A live-forever diet?
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Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Dr. Saul Justin Newman is a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Population Aging at University College London. He's currently writing a book on EAP fraud and wishful thinking in aging research. And he says he found both of those things in the blue zones. What is a blue zone?
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Well, a blue zone was originally claimed to be a region where people reached a remarkable age at a remarkable rate. And the usual cutoff that they provide is age 100. So the general idea is that somewhere in the world there are these remarkable regions where people reach age 100 at extraordinary rates.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And where are they? Well, there were claimed to be originally five. There was one in Costa Rica, one in Japan, one in Greece, one in America, and one in Sardinia.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Well, there are nine claims for lifestyle that go along with the Blue Zones, and they're sort of called the Power Nine.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
There's the idea that people move naturally, that they have a sort of life purpose, that they eat a lot of plants, that they drink, that they have a sense of belonging, that they put loved ones first, and that they have a sort of what's called a right tribe, which is a bit of a vague definition. But the general idea is that they have a social circle.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
President Trump said on Truth Social today that he had a great call with South Korea's leader aimed at making a deal on the tariffs that have set the global economy on edge. In that same post, Trump said he's waiting for China to call. The administration says these Liberation Day tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back to America. Why is that so important?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Critics of the tariffs will concede that there are very good arguments for reshoring production of things like semiconductors or electric vehicles. Those things are the economy of the future. We should make them here. But across the board, tariffs don't aim to do that. The way the Trump administration talks, we want to bring everything back to the United States.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
And that's why we're putting tariffs on T-shirts and screws and picture frames and bicycles and not focusing. Right. Once again, I'm just going to ask, do you think the Trump administration is doing it wrong?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Who in your mind is financing reindustrialization? At the moment, every time you turn on CNBC, there's a CEO cursing or crying. Confidence is not high. Who's paying for the t-shirt factory? Like if I'm a CEO, I say, oh, semiconductor factory. That's interesting to me. You know, am I going to take a risk building a factory that makes shoes or shoelaces? No, probably not. But
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
It's arguably a pretty good idea to put tariffs on chips that are coming in from elsewhere.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
No, because the shoes are going to cost a lot of money and Americans probably won't buy the $600 shoes. And therefore, to build the shoe factory to make shoes that people probably won't buy because they're super expensive doesn't seem like a good way to spend money. I mean, I could be wrong. I'm a journalist. I'm not an economist.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Do you think Americans are willing to pay more for stuff because it's made here?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Why do you think that? Is there data that suggests that's the case? Donald Trump was elected because people were concerned, people were furious about inflation, about high prices.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Oh, no, I totally get you. In fact, I'm sorry, I don't want to step on your answer. I thought your answer was compelling, but it does seem like we're both going on vibes. Is there data suggesting that Americans, if given the opportunity to pay more for a TV that was made in Michigan, for example, would do so? Like, surely somebody's done the studies on this. Yeah.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
In the first half of our show today, Vox reporter Eric Levitz talked about how some in your camp hope and believe that the return of manufacturing to the U.S. will lead to higher marriage rates, maybe even higher birth rates, more social stability. Is that your hope as well, that this is not just an economic revolution, but a social one?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Oren Kass of American Compass. Oren advises the Trump administration and some on Capitol Hill. Miles Bryan produced today's episode. Jolie Myers edited. Amanda Llewellyn fact-checked. And our engineers are Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christian's daughter. And a quick clarification before we let you go.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
On yesterday's show, our guest overstated the relationship between the combat anti-Semitism movement and Project Esther. The combat anti-Semitism movement supports some ideas outlined in Project Esther but has not endorsed the document itself. I'm Noelle King. This has been Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
What is the America that did exist? What's the thing that the Trump administration is nostalgic for?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
There are some really dumb ways to answer that question. When you sit behind a screen all day, it makes you a woman. Studies have shown this. Studies have shown this. And some much smarter ones.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Are the two linked? I mean, yes, it's true that once upon a time, more Americans worked in factories. And it's true that once upon a time, more Americans got married and stayed married. Are those two things linked to each other, though? Yeah.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
So the idea is slap tariffs on everybody. That'll bring manufacturing back to the United States. That'll make our gender relations and our cultural relations, in addition to our economy, more like it was in the 1950s when, from the perspective of these guys, America was a more stable country. Could this plan actually work?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Coming up on Today Explained, the best minds. The White House advisor who's gone ham on tariffs defends his position.
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Vox's Eric Levitz. Coming up, the gentleman begs to differ. An economist explains why he's been telling the Trump administration that tariffs are the right move. So
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
Oren Kass and I talked on Monday afternoon. It was another day of big swings in the markets, a sign of global anxiety about the tariff plan. Oren is somewhat unusual for an economist. He's a supporter of tariffs and he has the administration's ear. He knew that Liberation Day would shock the economic system. So I asked him, did you know the shock would be this big?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
So do you think the Trump administration rolled this out wrong?
Today, Explained
The nostalgia economy
It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Senior correspondent Eric Levitz recently wrote for Vox about the nostalgia that the Trump administration feels for a time when American manufacturing was at its peak. Manufacturing things in the U.S. makes a lot of sense if we're talking about stuff that we want to get ahead on, cutting-edge technologies like semiconductor chips, for example.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
She and Timu, very popular among American consumers. How are consumers reacting to the changes?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
That actually makes complete sense because the advantage that Shein and Timu have is, I mean, it's not quality. We've all seen like the croissant lamp. It is. It's price, right? So if Americans can no longer buy Shein and Timu stuff at rock bottom, rock bottom, rock bottom prices, what happens to those companies? Are they kind of screwed?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
OK, so we're talking about very cheap items, but an enormous volume of them for every person who buys a four dollar shirt from Shein. The government now will collect taxes on it that it didn't used to. Logistically, how does that work?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
President Trump has been making what you might call an anti-materialist argument to the American people. In some ways, it is a messy argument. You know, be content with your kid having two dolls instead of 30. But it does speak to the fact that Americans can get a lot of stuff and have a lot of stuff and buy a lot of stuff very, very, very cheaply. How do you think about that tension?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
Much of what we like about being Americans is our ability to buy cheap stuff. And the president is now telling us, I don't think you guys should be able to do that anymore.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
Liz Young covers supply chain and logistics for The Wall Street Journal. Truly, the supply chain girl is time to shine. Miles Bryan produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter engineered. Laura Bullard is our senior researcher. And I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
Then he had some time to think about it further and decided he's right.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
President Trump was put on the spot last week when a reporter asked whether Americans should expect shortages as a result of his trade war. He gave a classic off-the-cuff answer.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
I remember in the days before Liberation Day, friends and family members told me they were panic buying stuff. We're going to go and get new tires. We're going to go and get a car. Somebody was buying wine. I can't even remember who. Does it make sense to panic buy anything right now?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
You're saying that even if President Trump does backpedal, which he's been known to do when things get dire, that doesn't negate the conversation we're having.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
wild. Economists say if you look at what's coming into the U.S. on ships from China, shortages are nearly guaranteed. Shortages of what, though, other than dolls and pencils? Answers to come on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
Laurie, over the last 10 days, right up until Monday, the stock market, instead of looking wobbly, has been on an upward tear, making back a lot of the losses that followed Liberation Day. I would think that the markets would be paralyzed as they await this shock. What do you think is going on? What does the market know that we don't?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
You get to talk to people like Secretary Lutnick, which is very cool. If you were able to give him advice to tell him, look, here's what you and the Trump administration should do now, what would your advice be?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
Lori Ann LaRocco, she covers the supply chain for CNBC and she wrote Trade War Containers Don't Lie. Up next, yet another reason you're now paying more for those cheap goods from China. It's de minimis. Stay turnt.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
Okay, so we're gathered here today to commemorate the policy known as de minimis. What is de minimis?
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
I just want to make sure I have this right. The idea is if I'm ordering something from overseas and it costs less than $800, there's no tax on it coming into the country? That's correct. Okay, so I'm assuming that it's used less on souvenirs these days and more on things that I am buying on the internet, yeah? Yeah.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
All right, so President Trump was also seeing them grow at this huge rate, and he decided that... De minimis is a big deal.
Today, Explained
The two dolls economy
The de minimis rule wasn't working or needed to be changed. What did he do exactly?
Today, Explained
DeepSeek deepdive
I'm definitely conscious of the things that are in my kitchen, in my pantry. I prefer products that are organic and that have a shorter label. A lot of the things that I saw on Thrive Market totally fit that bill. Also with my first order, I got a free gift from Thrive. I received a Thrive Market cookbook and some almond butter and ghee, all things that are staples in my kitchen already.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth came into his job promising a war on wokeness and weakness in the U.S. military.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Emily Van Ass served in the Army for seven years as an infantry officer. She was, in fact, in the first group of women to commission as infantry officers. That was in 2016. And she was among the first women to graduate from the Army's elite ranger school.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Most of us didn't. OK, so when you wanted to give up, I'm going on a tangent here just because I find this fascinating. I'm so sorry. I'm of the age where like I was like 13 when G.I. Jane came out. So I just think this is so badass. When you wanted to give up. Why didn't you? Like, what did you tell yourself? Was it like, I'm a woman and I must prove a point?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Or was it like, fuck no, I, Emily, am certainly not going to pull out of something that I want? Like, what was going through your head?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Did you ever feel when you were in ranger school like they had lowered the standards for you compared to the men who were alongside you?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Let me ask you a question about six pull-ups. Were there any men who you were physically superior to? Like in ranger school, were there any men who could only do five pull-ups? Or was it basically like, look, women have different... Women have different levels of strength, upper body strength. And so six is good, but that's sort of the low point.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
So in ranger school, there's only one standard for the fitness test. Everybody's got to meet it. Correct. And that allows you to get out of ranger school and say, look... Fellas, I took the same test as the men and I passed. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is saying that Army combat jobs should only have one standard of fitness for both men and women.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
And there's part of me that thinks, doesn't that allow the women who meet the standards to be like, look, we met the same standards as the men? Nothing suspicious here, guys.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Secretary Hegseth has a lot to say about women, and sometimes he says it directly and sometimes he alludes to it. What he often does is he talks about lethality as something that is critically important for the military. He says the Army in particular needs more of it, but he never really defines what he means by lethality. What is the definition as you understand it?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
To your average civilian like myself, I hear lethality and I think, I do, I think of the dictionary definition, the ability to kill. Does this definition of lethality involve the ability both physically and emotionally and psychologically to kill another person? Yeah, absolutely. And so when Secretary Hegseth cast doubt on the ability of women to be as lethal as men, do you think there's...
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Do you think there's some stuff baked in there that maybe gets to his idea of what women are willing and able to do? Yeah, possibly.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
So what's your response then to hearing the Secretary of Defense say women don't belong in combat?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I'm Noelle King. Sana Kurt is an investigative reporter at The War Horse. This is a national nonprofit newsroom that covers the military and veterans. Sana recently wrote a piece titled, Women Have Served in Combat Roles for a Decade. The Pentagon is Reopening the Debate.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Do you think that if Secretary Hegseth could take a look at what you did in ranger school and he could hear from you that there were no second chances, there were no excuses, there was no babying, the men didn't treat me nicer just because I was a woman, do you think that he'd change his mind about women serving in combat?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Uh-huh. So you have that and the Secretary of Defense doesn't. He does not, though he has a lot of opinions about ranger school. So Emily Van Ness, she has since left the military and today she works for a defense technology company. That song you're hearing is This Will Defend by the Army Rappers. They're part of the U.S. military.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Today's episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlain with an assist from Denise Guerra. It was edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Hegseth has taken aim at women. He's challenged the idea that women should serve in combat roles, as they have for 10 years now. He's danced around whether women make the military less lethal, including at his Senate confirmation hearing.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
What are the physical fitness standards that he's referring to? What does he mean?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Okay, so the standards for the Army are going to change. What were they and what are they changing to?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Okay, if I'm a literal-minded person, I might say, you know, it makes sense to me that women should have to meet the same standards as men, especially, maybe even only, if they weren't doing their jobs as well as men. So we now have some years of data on this. In those combat jobs, did we have evidence that women were not doing them as well as men, not doing them well enough?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Next month, he's updating the Army fitness test to make it more difficult and to make the standards the same for men and women. Coming up on Today Explained, the war over women warfighters.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Is there anything else that the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth is doing that suggests it might want to reopen the question of whether women should be in combat?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Is there any sense that Secretary of Defense Hegseth is overstepping and some of this may be relitigated later on?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Pete Hegseth is an unusual choice for Secretary of Defense. He has, in some ways, I think it's fair to say, targeted women in the service. What do you hear from your sources, from your women's sources in the military about what they think of him and how they're feeling about all these proposed changes?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Sonner Kurtz, she's an investigative reporter at The War Horse, which is a national nonprofit newsroom that covers the military and veterans. Find them at thewarhorse.org. Coming up, a lady veteran who did something that Secretary of Defense Hegseth couldn't.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Support for today's show comes from NPR's Planet Money. Here's the Noel King unified theory of everything. They will try to pull the wool over your eyes. They will try to keep you in the dark. Who are they exactly?
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I don't actually know, but I do know that if you understand the economy, if you understand why you get paid what you get paid, if you understand why you pay what you do for gasoline and eggs and rent, if you understand why your 401k was doing so well a week ago and then today it's in the toilet, then you become a person who cannot be fooled.
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Should women be in combat?
Understanding economics is a very important thing, maybe even one of the most important things, but it is not always easy stuff. This is where NPR's Planet Money comes in. I worked at Planet Money for a couple of years, and the whole job there is to take big economic concepts, ideas, facts on the ground, and to make them understandable to with storytelling and humor and really great interviews.
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Should women be in combat?
And Planet Money, I will tell you, for my money, delivers week after week after week and has been for more than a decade. It is an important show if you want to understand the world around you and I highly recommend it. You can tune into Planet Money every week for entertaining stories and insights about how money shapes our world, stories that cannot be found anywhere else.
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Should women be in combat?
Listen now to Planet Money from NPR. Support for the show comes from Greenlight. Growing up, did your parents ever tell you money doesn't grow on trees? Mine didn't, but their Nissan was duct taped together. So point made. You can pick up where my parents or yours left off and help teach your kid about money with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families.
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Should women be in combat?
It helps kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely. You can send money to the kids. You can keep an eye on what they're doing. And they, in the meanwhile, will build financial confidence and skills in a fun way, like with games. One of our colleagues at Vox, Oda Sham, has used Greenlight. Here's Oda.
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Should women be in combat?
You can start your risk-free Greenlight trial today at greenlight.com slash explain. That's greenlight.com slash explain to get started. greenlight.com slash explain.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
This job is overseeing a bunch of federal agencies that have a lot to do with health, including but not limited to the CDC, the FDA or the Food and Drug Administration. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, lots and lots of important agencies that together really chart a course for the health of our nation.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
He has a lot of beliefs about health-related issues that are based in conspiracy theory lore.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And I think kind of at the heart of that is a distrust of the scientific process and of the people who do it and a tendency to really confuse causation with association. You know, the fact that two things kind of happen at the same time in the same place to him is proof that one caused the other, where the whole scientific process exists to disentangle those things from each other.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And science really drives a lot of the way America's health develops. agencies function, and he fundamentally distrusts the process that makes science. So this is a person deeply at odds with the way that these organizations function.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
I mean, his involvement with it starts in the 2000s. He had been, prior to that, an environmental lawyer. He'd done a lot of work with cleaning up polluted water systems.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
A group of people with the World Mercury Project reached out to him to see if he would help them push back against vaccines. Basically, they felt on the basis of some since disproven research purporting to link vaccines with the presence of a preservative in vaccines that did contain a little bit of mercury not present in vaccines anymore. But
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
No matter where a person stands on the political spectrum, they can probably find something to agree with Kennedy on. He's the personification of the growing distrust of science and the public health establishment that many Americans have felt in the post-pandemic era.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
They asked him to get involved in informing the public about the scourge, quote unquote, of thimerosal and of mercury in vaccines and its impacts on health. Again, not proven by science, not really rooted in reality. He got involved with this group, eventually became its head. It has now changed names to the Children's Health Defense.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Arguably has been one of the most influential groups in anti-vaccination research. advocacy worldwide. He became the face of it internationally and brought his platform, his fame, a lot of money, and a lot of attention to their cause.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
I think he has seeded doubt in a million different ways on the utility and the life-saving nature of vaccines, which, you know, by the way, we should just say have saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide. So, you know, he's cast doubt on the process of creating them and the process of administering them and of recommending them for decades in so many different ways.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Oh, gosh. You know, he said a lot of stuff about fluoride, which has also saved a lot of teeth. Hundreds of millions of teeth. Maybe billions. Who knows? Who can say? You can never be sure.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
He has linked chemicals in water with sexual dysphoria in children, not based in evidence.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
He has linked antidepressant use with mass shootings not founded in evidence.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
There are a lot of non-scientific beliefs that he has espoused publicly and just cast doubt on how much we know about the causes of a whole bunch of health conditions.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, it is funny. You know, when somebody is a shapeshifter the way he is, a lot of people can find a lot of things he said to agree with. You know, he fundamentally distrusts big institutions. And I think a lot of Americans across the
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
big institutions, big government institutions deserving of distrust, including in the eyes of a lot of scientists, is that they are to some degree under the influence of the lobbies for big business interests that they interact with a lot. Pharma and agriculture have a lot of interactions with the FDA, and their lobbies do too.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And so they drive some of the policy that comes out of FDA that drives the way Americans eat, the drugs Americans have access to. So on that, he and a lot of legitimate scientists and members of the public in the United States agree.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
I mean, he holds... our agriculture system responsible for the high levels of chronic disease in this country, right? He says it's their fault that we're fat. It's their fault that we have such high rates of diabetes. It's their fault that we have such high rates of heart disease. He's not wrong. I mean, it's, you know, we have a really unhealthy food system in this country.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Our, you know, his goals, you know, reducing chronic illness in this country, reducing our unhealthy weight epidemic and our epidemic of chronic disease is the same as the goals of I would guess probably more than 90% of health experts in this country. It's just the way that he wants to get there and the ground-level causes of these things. He often has a lot of disagreement with those experts.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
So there are several different ways that he could kind of attack vaccines. One of the ways is to simply weaken the recommendations or do away with the recommendations that the CDC makes and that states and healthcare providers all over the country rely on to determine who should get vaccinated and when. He could influence how vaccines are paid for.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
So there's a program called Vaccines for Children that pays for low-income kids nationwide to get vaccines for free. And he could simply direct or pressure whoever is appointed to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to do away with that program, to ask Congress to defund that program. And that could theoretically happen.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
And I think, you know, perhaps one of the biggest things he could do is just by having his enormous platform cause a lot of Americans to doubt vaccines more than they did before. and cause Americans that didn't really doubt the FDA or the CDC's authority before to really distrust it now.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
So there's a lot of new distrust that he could bring to the system and that he could affirm amid people who already distrust these big institutions. So there's a lot of damage to be done on vaccines. Can he take fluoride out of the water? He cannot. That is something that's usually determined by municipalities. It's sometimes determined by voters.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
But in as much as he could lead a lot of people to distrust fluoride for the first time and to question the science that shows fluoride has done far, far more good than harm, he could cause a lot of people to lobby their elected officials or their municipalities or to even vote to remove fluoride from their water, which would harm the dental health of hundreds of millions of Americans. Yeah.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, I think, you know, somebody pointed out to me the other day that he speaks the same anti-intellectual language that Trump does. And he also, he seems like a vengeance pick, right? Like he has a list of grievances that he moves through life with, and even though they may come from a different place than Trump does. He ends up in the same place where he distrusts experts.
Today, Explained
Robert Fluoride Kennedy Jr.
He distrusts big institutions. He feels wronged by a lot of the world. I think a lot of Americans really are attracted to conspiracy theories as well, in part because of how excluded from society they have felt over the past few decades. So I think he seems like a really sympathetic character to a lot of Americans for a lot of those reasons. Yeah.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Vox's Rachel Cohen, who covers, among other things, family policy. OK, everybody has been talking about who's having babies. For my money, it's given none of your business. But you've actually been covering this as a news story. What's going on?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Yeah, I know. This is such a good point. And so the question becomes, like, what do we do that doesn't simultaneously make us feel like we are losing personal civil liberties? Like, the government could take my phone and send me to speed dating, but that would feel like a real invasion of... A real invasion. And, you know, personal freedoms, people feel pretty strongly about those.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
So in terms of how we should change the conversation around what went wrong here, what is going wrong here and what we should do about it, what's your best idea?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Alice Evans of King's College London. Today's episode was made in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. It was produced by Miles Bryan. Edited by Jolie Myers and Miranda Kennedy. Fact-checked by Laura Bullard. And engineered by Andrea Kristen's daughter.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Yes, I do remember. These gents, and they are mostly gents, call themselves pro-natalists. What do they actually want to happen here? Or do they just want to criticize?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Yes. And it makes you wonder, is there a similar thing happening on the left of the American political spectrum?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
But the movement to get us to have more children, publicly led by people like Vice President J.D. Vance and Vice President Elon Musk, is also controversial because it is led by Elon Musk, who has as many as 14 children by four different mothers. And by J.D. Vance, who has suggested that non-parents should get fewer votes than parents.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Many of us are concerned about climate change, concerned about what human beings are doing to the planet, concerned about limited resources on planet Earth. And some people choose to have no kids or have fewer kids because of that. So what is the argument that there should be real concern that people are having fewer children?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
All right. So I understand in the relatively immediate term that fewer people means fewer young people, fewer workers, fewer people paying taxes. The pronatalists seem to think we are heading toward like a near term disaster.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
China's one child policy went on for, I don't know, 35 years. And that was a freak out over too many people.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Do we have data showing that women really want more children and can't have them or are being barred in some way? Or is this just what we want?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Birth rates around the world are declining. Women are having fewer children. The question of why this is is hotly debated. And on Today Explained, we're going to talk to an expert who says she has an answer.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
What should we make of the pro-natalist movement that's coming up?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Well, fortunately, the pronatalists in the U.S. now have a lot of power. And therefore, I imagine they can make policy to get us all to have more kids. What policies have they introduced?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Throughout history, Rachel, having children or not has often been viewed as a very personal, private decision. We're at a time in which the government seems to want to insert itself into that decision to help us make choices one way or the other. The one way being to have more kids. What does it mean for the government to be involved in this decision?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Vox's Rachel Cohen. She covers housing, homelessness and family policy. Coming up, the baby bust isn't just an American phenomenon. Basically, no place in the world is having as many kids anymore.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
I'm Noelle King with Alice Evans. She's a senior lecturer of international development at King's College London. Her research focuses on gender and babies not having babies. And Alice has been everywhere.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
So birth rates are going down all across the world. What are the leading theories as to why this is happening?
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
I wonder if J.D. Vance knows any of this. You should call me up. All right. So that's on the right. And then we heard earlier that on the left, there's one theory that you often hear is that it's just become too expensive. Women would like to have more children, but they can't afford to. There's not enough support. People aren't making enough money, etc.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
Are we sure that sexy singles are to blame? Because for many years, people have had kids without being married or without living with someone, without being in relationships.
Today, Explained
No kids on the block
All right. So I'm assuming you looked into why more people are staying single and also saying, I want to be single. What's going on?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
The South African situation is very, very dangerous and very bad for a lot of people. There's tremendously bad things going on, including the confiscation of property and worse, much worse than that. You know what I'm talking about.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
So the Afrikaners went from having all of the power and from having this system, apartheid, that basically kept them in power. After the negotiated settlement, what happened to this group?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
So in the mid-1990s, there's this process of land reform, and it's now 30 years later. Is that process still underway?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
This is Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Chris McGreal. Chris is a reporter for The Guardian who covered South Africa for many years, including the end of apartheid and the start of South Africa's democracy. Recently, Chris wrote a piece about the influential white South Africans in President Trump's orbit.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
President Trump doesn't always speak with a great deal of accuracy. When he talks about South Africa now, as he has been doing recently, he will say things like the land of white South Africans is being stolen. Is this an idea that Donald Trump just came up with himself or is this idea prevalent in South Africa also?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
Could you dig in a bit more on violence against white farmers? What does that mean? What does that look like?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
And so responding to this, President Trump has made this offer to help resettle Afrikaners in the United States. Have any of them said, yeah, we'd like to go? What's the response there?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
So if Afrikaners are not interested in coming to the United States, and many of them, as you've laid out, will say, look, the politics in this country are messy, but it's not like a genocide is being committed against us, which is another rumor that we've talked about. Why do you think President Trump is making this offer? Do you have any sense of what is really behind this?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
Johnny Steinberg. He teaches at Yale. His latest book is Winnie and Nelson, Portrait of a Marriage. He's also the author of Midlands. Avishai Artsy and Travis Larchuk produced our show today. They were edited by Miranda Kennedy and Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
You might not know what he's talking about. We got you. President Trump says that Afrikaners, white South Africans who decades ago architected a brutal system of segregation laws known as apartheid, are now themselves victims of discrimination after the passage of a law that allows their land to be expropriated without compensation.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
What are these so-called racist laws? What's Trump referring to?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
When does Donald Trump become interested in South Africa and why?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
In the meantime, President Trump has become very close to Elon Musk, who, of course, is a white South African. Do we know whether Elon Musk's ideas about South Africa have influenced Donald Trump at all?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
Trump is offering these white South Africans resettlement in the U.S. and they are gently turning him down.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
What would life have been like in the 1980s for a kid like Elon Musk growing up under apartheid? What was the deal?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
But what got Trump interested in South Africa? And is it unelected white South African Vice President Elon Musk? We're going to ask on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
So to bring us back to the present day, has Elon Musk said anything about white South Africans and what he believes is happening in that country right now?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
One thing we learned during the first Trump administration was that Donald Trump and the people close to him often have more than one motive for their beliefs. And some things that might seem ideological are not ideological or less ideological than we might think.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
Does Elon Musk have any other incentive to push Donald Trump to take a stand on this other than thinking white South Africans are being discriminated against?
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
That was The Guardian's Chris McGreal. Coming up, what do Afrikaners think about President Trump's offer? And we're going to dig into the accusation that white farmers' land has been stolen in South Africa.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
We're back. I'm Noelle King. This new law that has caused so much controversy in South Africa allows the government in certain cases to take white South Africans land without compensating them. It has divided the government and it's being challenged in court. For more on who the Afrikaners are, we called Johnny Steinberg.
Today, Explained
Elon's African roots
Johnny is an award winning South African writer, author of many books, including Winnie and Nelson Portrait of a Marriage and Midlands, which is about the murder of a white South African farmer. Johnny, what are Afrikaners?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
You can go to zbiotics.com slash explain to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use the code EXPLAINED at checkout. Zbiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money. No questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash explain and use the code EXPLAINED to check out for 15% off.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
You are Syrian-American. Do I have the right? Can you just tell me about your ties to Syria?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
I want to get a sense of the scale of movement that happened as a result of Syria's decade-plus-long civil war. There were people who left the country. There were people who moved around inside the country. What are we talking about in terms of numbers? And where did people tend to end up?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
What are you hearing from Syrians who were displaced outside of the country now that Bashar al-Assad is gone? Do they want to go home?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
I'm Noelle King. Before Omar al-Shugri got to Sweden, where he now works for the Syrian Emergency Task Force and for a tech company that makes self-driving cars, he had seen a lot of Europe and a lot of Europe didn't want him.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
This has been a contentious issue in some European countries. Have any of them come out since al-Assad was forced out and said, we actually plan to do things differently now?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
If people were to choose to go back, what are they going back to? What does Syria look like now?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
We talked to a young man named Omar earlier in the show who's 29 years old. He said his hometown is the most beautiful place in the world. But he's been in Europe since he was about 19 or 20. He has a whole life there. And so this is going to be a very, very hard call for someone like this young man.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
I imagine you're going to hear those types of stories again and again and again over the coming months and years.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
Now, before all that, he was 15 and he was thrown in prison like thousands of other people for protesting Bashar al-Assad's regime. Omar was shuttled to something like nine prisons, but he ended up in Sidnaya, the most notoriously brutal. His memories of Sidnaya are still very sharp.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
Dr. Amani Kador is the director of Syria Relief and Development. She's also an associate faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Avishai Artsy made our show today. He was edited by Amina El-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by Andrea Christen's daughter and Rob Byers. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
That was when Omar al-Shugri was 19 years old. Today he's 29. He's living and working in Stockholm. And he was watching as Syria's dictatorship fell.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
And this was all in prison where you met the doctor and the psychologist and the engineer and the teacher all imprisoned with you?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
Now Omar has a choice to make. His happy life in Sweden or his newly freed country. Coming up on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
And now it's nine years later. Omar has an adopted family in Sweden. He has friends to eat dinner with, even though he can't just go knock on their door at seven in the morning to ask if they want to have coffee. Swedes don't like that. That's something Syrians do. And so then there's Syria.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
So things in Stockholm, things in Sweden have gone very, very well for you. I want to look at what is on the other side. I want to look at what might be in Syria for you. So we did an episode about this group, HTS, the group that overthrew al-Assad. They are an Islamist group. They have links to al-Qaeda. The leader says he would like to govern as a moderate, that he considers himself a moderate.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
What do you think of this group that overthrew al-Assad? And is there anything that they could say that might make you more likely to want to return to Syria?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
29, handsome. I can attest we are on Zoom and happy. You seem very happy. I've seen stories about people in Turkey, in Lebanon, lining up at the borders to just basically walk back into Syria to try to get back in immediately. When your mind goes to when might it be safe for us to return, what do you think?
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
Omar El-Shugri. He works for the Syrian Emergency Task Force as their director of detainee affairs, and he's based in Stockholm. Coming up, millions of Syrians fled during the country's civil war. How others are thinking about the question of when and if to return.
Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
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Today, Explained
Will Syrians return home?
They say it's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration that's to blame for rough days after drinking. They say they're pre Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Just ask Claire White.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
When President Trump fired Timothy Hawk, the head of the National Security Administration and U.S. Cyber Command last week, he didn't say why. But Laura Loomer, who'd met with Trump a day earlier, took credit. She said on Twitter that Hawk was disloyal to President Trump. Laura Loomer, chaos agent, activist, proud Islamophobe, her words, influencer, trickster, trespasser.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Does Laura Loomer have either an official or unofficial position in the Trump White House?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Why did Laura Loomer set her sights on the NSA? Of all the agencies she could have taken a look at, Doge is going hard after just about everything in Washington. Why did she pick on the NSA?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
The NSA keeps a rather low profile. What kinds of threats to the country does it work on? What's its job?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Does the firing of these officials at the NSA, does it leave the United States more vulnerable to attacks, to cyber attacks, for example?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Vera, you're kind of the perfect person to talk to on this story because you are a national security reporter, but you also spent many years looking into right-wing figures on the internet, including Laura Loomer, which means you didn't just learn about her last week, like many people. Now that she has pulled this off, this is an enormous thing that Laura Loomer has managed to do.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Do we know anything about what she will ask President Trump to do next or who... she might target next?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Vera Bergen-Gruen is a national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com. Gabrielle Berbet and Victoria Chamberlain produced today's show. Miranda Kennedy edited. Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd engineered. And Amanda Llewellyn checked the facts. The rest of us, Hadi Mouagdi, Peter Balanon-Rosen, Miles Bryan, Avshai Artsy, Jolie Myers, Devin Schwartz, Sean Ramosferm.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
There's a story about Laura Loomer that I heard a while back that I really love. When she was in college, she tried to start a chapter supporting ISIS on her college campus.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Carla Javier, Amina El-Sadi, and Laura Bullard. Today Explained is distributed by WNYC. The show is a part of Vox. You can support our journalism by joining our membership program today. In this economy? Yeah, if you can. It's optional. Go to vox.com slash members to sign up. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Laura Loomer is like, she's like a prankster. Tell us about some of the pranks.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
She has Trump's ear, maybe even his respect. You don't want to be loomered. If you're loomered, you're in deep trouble. And she's just getting started in Washington. That's ahead on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Laura Loomer seems to have a thing with President Trump and loyalty. Can you just talk a bit about loyalty? How she seems to be pegging people as loyal or disloyal to the president and how long that's gone on for?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
The provocateur right, which she's a part of, is full of conspiracists and coconuts and etc., Where does she fit in?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
So last week, Laura Loomer got herself an audience with President Trump. They met at the White House and you've done the kind of TikTok reporting on this. What happened?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Vera Bergen-Gruen of The Wall Street Journal coming up. Who's Laura Loomer's next target? And is it you? JK, JK, JK. We'll be back in a minute.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
We're back with Vera Bergen-Gruen. She's a national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal. President Trump fired several national security officials last week, but the firing that got the most attention was the head of the NSA and of U.S. Cyber Command.
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
Someone is running the NSA now, though. Yes, they have an acting director now. Gotcha. OK, so the question is, President Trump likes people who are loyal to him, for sure. But really, one wonders, how on earth could Laura Loomer have enough influence to get the president, her claim, to fire people in his national security agency?
Today, Explained
Laura Loomered the NSA
It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. And some of the best reporting I've seen on Laura Loomer comes from The Wall Street Journal's Vera Bergen-Gruen. Vera is a national security reporter who also covered the online right for a time. And so she knows her Laura Loomer lore.
Today, Explained
The Zizian "death cult"
Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs? Or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?
Today, Explained
Chaos in Congo
We'll be answering questions from C-suite execs and business leaders about how to market efficiently and effectively in today's chaotic world. So tune into PropG Office Hour special series brought to you by Adobe Express. You can find it on the PropG feed wherever you get your podcasts.
Today, Explained
Chaos in Congo
Hey, it's Scott Galloway. In today's marketing landscape, if you're not evolving, you're getting left behind. In some ways, it's easier than ever to reach your customers, but cutting through the noise has never been harder. So we're going to talk about it on a special PropG Office Hour series.
Today, Explained
Reigniting Syria's civil war
As dictators fell from power following the fervor of the 2011 Arab Spring, peaceful protesters in Syria also demanded a change in leadership.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Let me ask you about the president's argument on reciprocity.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Reciprocal. That means they do it to us and we do it to them. Very simple. Can't get any simpler than that.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
So when Trump held up his chart, it showed that Vietnam, for example, levies a 90 percent tariff on goods coming from the U.S. South Korea, 50 percent tariff. Donald Trump is saying these countries put tariffs on American goods and I'm going to fix it. Is he right? And if so, why was this going on?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
All right. That's a good clarification. We should be we should be skeptical of what we saw on the chart. Let's talk about China. Trump put tariffs on China in his first administration. Joe Biden then kept some of those tariffs on China and then Trump comes back into office and he puts more on. Was China ready for what happened yesterday?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
The golden age of America begins right now. On Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
I'm Noelle King with Abdullah Fayyad. He covers policy at Vox, including trade. And this week, Abdullah wrote a piece about how tariffs are not all bad. Abdullah, in his first term, President Trump utilized tariffs. Then he was elected again, and he's utilized them even more. As of Liberation Day and this big announcement, do you understand what his philosophy on tariffs is?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
China is not a U.S. ally, but Donald Trump, as we've said, did put big tariffs on countries that are our allies, Japan, South Korea. Do you think that this move forces them to rethink how they deal with the United States?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
I was reading over the weekend that Japan, South Korea and China met for the first time in about five years to talk about trade among the three of them.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Do we know what goes on in a meeting like that? I mean, it seems deliberately timed to Trump's announcement. Does a meeting like that make America nervous?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
If China becomes a more trusted trade partner to American allies than America is right now, what are the long-term implications of this for China?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Mike, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you very much. Mike Bird, he's the Wall Street editor at leading newspaper, The Economist. Devin Schwartz and Gabrielle Berbet produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited. Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd are our engineers. And Laura Bullard and Amanda Llewellyn kept us honest. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
They've treated our farmers badly. Look, our country's been ripped off by everybody. That stops now. They manipulated their currency, subsidized their exports, stole our intellectual property.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again. It was Liberation Day.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
April 3rd, the day after, won't be remembered, if we're being honest, although there was some notable news. The stock market fell freely and precipitously. People panic bought everything from cars to wine to almonds. And those were just the texts that I got. CEOs lost their minds.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
You know, because every point in tariffs is worth more money than TikTok.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
So economists will often tell you that tariffs are a tool. And Donald Trump seems to be saying, yes, they are. And they're not, you know, a hammer or a wrench. They're a Swiss army knife. You can do anything with them. Why is that a problem, if indeed it is?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
So you wrote about when tariffs can be used beneficially, narrowly. What are some examples of when tariffs are a good idea? What did economists tell you?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Right. So when President Trump made his announcement in the Rose Garden and he said he's going to put tariffs on imported cars and the goal of that is to make sure that Americans buy American cars. That seems like that really narrow focus that economists are telling you is useful if you're going to implement a tariff. So would they approve of the tariffs that Trump has placed on foreign autos?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
And America's allies, Mos Def, got on a call with China. Today on Today Explained, we celebrate our day after Liberation Day.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
One thing that President Trump and members of his administration say again and again that sounds very compelling on its face is that tariffs are going to make America money. In fact, there's a number they've been throwing around, $6 trillion.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
$6 trillion, and that's going to be much higher by the end of the year.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
When the administration says these are going to make us much richer and we can actually put a dollar figure on it, what are they talking about?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
All right. So the American economy is made up of many different things. We've got Main Street, Wall Street. We've got the markets. We've got who is employed. We've got what things cost. Americans deeply worried about inflation for a while now.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
When you talk to economists, what do they tell you about how all of these new tariffs that Donald Trump announced on Liberation Day, what do they tell you about how they'll affect the American economy?
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Abdullah Fayyad, his article, What a Better Tariff Policy Could Look Like, is at Vox.com. Coming up, we pivot to Asia.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards. These days, you can earn points in so many places. At the grocery store, the gas station, on a flight. Points, points, points. Wouldn't it make sense to earn points on one of your biggest monthly expenses? No. I'm talking about your rent. Built Rewards is here to help. Built says there's no cost to join.
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The day after "Liberation Day"
Just by paying your rent, you unlock flexible points that can be transferred to hotels, airlines, future rent payments, your next Lyft ride. So much more, says Built. You can also gain access to exclusive neighborhood benefits in your city. Extra points on dining out, post-workout shakes, unique experiences available only to Built members.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
And when you're ready to travel, they say built points can be converted to miles and hotel points around the world. You can start paying rent through built and take advantage of your neighborhood benefits by going to joinbuilt.com slash explained. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash explained. Joinbuilt.com slash explained to sign up for built today.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
We reached Mike Bird in New York. He was based in Asia, where many of the Liberation Day tariffs are aimed for many years. And Mike's first response when he heard the list of tariffs yesterday.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
It's really extensive, it's broad, and it's throughout Asia. We've got China, Taiwan, Japan, India, South Korea, Thailand. What are we hearing today from leaders of those countries? Anything notable?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
If you open your Maps app and you type in Snailbrook, Texas, you will get nothing but a prompt. Do you maybe want Scenic Brook, Texas or Springbrook, Texas? Snailbrook is not a town just yet. It is currently under construction outside of Austin. The builder, one Elon Musk, says Nailbrook will be a company town for employees of his boring company and ex and etc.
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
And you have some amount of specialty, I'm told, in company towns?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Why were the heads of companies creating towns for their employees in the first place?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
And if the company is just trying to do the right thing and build housing so that they can get employees there, okay. So how did things go right and how did things go wrong with the initial company towns?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Are there any American towns that started as company towns before? but we don't know that?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
There are a couple of perils here. The company has a lot of power. The town is often isolated. In early American company towns, what sorts of negative consequences did we see?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
What are some examples of when it goes right and what tend to be the circumstances when it goes right?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Ronnie Mola is a senior correspondent at Sherwood News who recently took a trip to Texas.
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
It sort of seems at this point that company towns in 2024 couldn't really be that successful. But maybe I'm wrong. It seems like we have more choices now. We have cars now. So even if you're out in the boonies, you can drive to the city for work. Is this a thing independently of what's happening in Texas, which we'll talk about in a minute? Is this a thing that still happens?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Now, let me ask you a question. Elon Musk, a lot of what Elon Musk does is interesting for various reasons. He does seem to have an enormous ego. And so the idea that he's building a company town seems somewhat about the company and the need to do it and somewhat about him. Does a company town need a charismatic founder like Elon?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Now, our reporter in the first half of the show, Ronnie Mola, tells us that at the moment, Snailbrook is not particularly impressive, not a particularly impressive place, but it's early stages. When you look at what Elon Musk does and is, do you think that he could make this into something?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Price Fishback. He's a professor at the University of Arizona. Victoria Chamberlain produced today's show. Matthew Collette edited. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter are our engineers. And Laura Bullard is our fact checker. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Is the idea that the town is under construction, we're still building it, but at some point people will move there. Like, what is the actual plan to populate this place?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Coming up on Today Explained, Elon Musk takes us back to the days of the company town, whether we care to go or not.
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
There is a long and very interesting history of company towns in America. I remember reporting from Oneida, the silverware maker, a few years back. And what I recall were that there were these nice little houses that in the 40s and 50s and 60s the employees had owned, I believe. They either got them at a really good price or been given them.
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
The 110 homes that Elon is building here, is he incentivizing his workers by selling them at a good price? Like, what is the advantage to living there?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
So these days in this economy, one can own and run a company and not build a town for the company. It's pretty common. Does building a town for Boring and Tesla and X, does building a town like Snailbrook figure into Elon Musk's business goals?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Do you think that Snailbrook has the potential of becoming a thriving town?
Today, Explained
Elon's company town
Support for today explained comes from Thrive Market. They say their shipping is fast and carbon neutral, and when you sign up, they say you get to pick a free gift worth up to $60 with your first order. Our colleague Claire White has tried Thrive Market. I wonder what her gift was.
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Elon's company town
You can head over to thrivemarket.com slash explained to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift. That's thrivemarket.com slash explained thrivemarket.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes autism is preventable. He believes science can find the root cause. And he believes the root cause is something in our environment. Here he is at a press conference last month.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
See, I fumble with my words. That's okay. I do, too, and I talk for a living. It's totally fine.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I think that's a pretty common thing. Keep going. Tell me about Henry. What's so cool about Henry?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I am so happy for both of you. I really am. Why, thank you.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
So one of the reasons that we're talking today is that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made some comments not long ago about autistic people having limitations. What did you think about what he said?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
James, what did you think when you heard Secretary Kennedy make those remarks?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
What do you mean by experience? Do you mean you've heard lots of people criticize autistic people in a way that you think is unfair?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Let me ask you both a question. And Danny, I'll start with you. The thing about those comments that got a lot of attention was when Secretary Kennedy kind of listed the limitations, as he sees them, of people with autism.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I think that sounds fair. Okay, so after Secretary Kennedy made those comments, a lot of people were clearly upset, including a lot of people like the two of you who have autism. I also read some essays by parents of kids who are severely autistic who said, you know, this actually does speak to my experience.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
My kid is really having trouble and probably won't ever get a job or write a poem or date. And they said, I feel like Secretary Kennedy really saw me and was speaking to me, whether I like his position on vaccines, whether or not I think he addressed the issue sensitively enough or not. He is talking about what it's like to be me as a parent of a kid like this.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Do you think that he has a point when it comes to autistic people whose needs are much greater than the two of yours?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
We talked to a reporter earlier in the show who said one of the distinctive things about Secretary Kennedy is that he came out and he said, we are going to find what causes autism quickly and we're going to do something about it.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
You're listening to Today Explained. RFK Jr. 's conviction that autism is caused by something in the environment, in the air or water or vaccines, simply cuts against what most science suggests, that environment may be a factor. So where did he get this idea? Catherine Wu is a science writer for The Atlantic, and she recently set out to answer that question.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a lot of power. He is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, which means in his role, he can do things for people with autism. He can order that research be conducted. He can draw attention to the cause. What do you want RFK Jr. to know about you? And what do you want him to do, if anything, about people who live with autism?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Thank you both for taking the time to do this. You both articulated your point of view really well. And I'm very happy for both of you that you've met nice people out in the world. It's very hard out there. So good for you. Thank you very much.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Danny Bowman and James B. Jones. Love on the Spectrum is on Netflix. Gabrielle Berbet and Avishai Artsy made today's show. Amina El-Sadi edited. Laura Bullard fact-checked. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter are our engineers. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Right now, the science suggests there may be environmental factors, among other things, at the root of autism. But it was RFK's description of autistic people that stoked outrage. This is the same press conference.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Now that RFK Jr. is heading up the Department of Health and Human Services, how is he changing the way that department approaches autism?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
On Today explained what RFK gets wrong according to science and according to some people who did date and who found love on the spectrum.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
As they attempt to find the cause of autism, we know that RFK thinks vaccines cause it. Do we have a sense that he wants government scientists to prove that is true?
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
That was Catherine Wu of The Atlantic. Coming up, life and love and RFK's mess, too, on The Spectrum. Support for Today Explained comes from Betterment. Learning how to invest is one way to set up future you for success. But have you seen the markets lately? If you ever find that investing has started to feel like a second job, you can turn to Betterment for a little work-life balance.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
It's the automated investing and savings app that says they handle the work so you don't have to. Betterment builds and manages your portfolio and says it can help you with daily savings and spending and long-term financial needs. They say they want to make it easy for you to invest for what matters.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Their automated tools are meant to simplify the complex and put your money to work, optimizing day after day. You can take time to rest and recharge because while your money doesn't need a work-life balance, girl, you do. You can make your money hustle with Betterment. Get started at Betterment.com. That's Betterment. B-E-T-T-E-R-M-E-N-T dot C-O-M. Investing involves risk.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Today Explained is back with James B. Jones, who works in technical support.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
and Danny Bowman, the founder and CEO of Dannymation.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Now, if you know those voices, and you very well might, it's because James and Danny are cast members on the hit show Love on the Spectrum about autistic people searching for love, which is not always easy.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Tell me just quickly, tell me about Shelly. What's so great about her?
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
The rap on the Democrats in 2024 was that they only spoke to the very rich and the very poor, so they lost the working class. But not all of them lost. Marie Glusenkamp-Perez did not just win, she won in Trump country.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
In politics in 2024, a lot of the analysis that we're seeing about the Democrats losing the presidency, the House and the Senate is suggests that Republicans are going to go ham and roll over their colleagues, get done what they want to get done. It's almost some of the analysis almost suggests that it's like kind of punitive. You guys lost. And so we are going to trample right over you.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
Last week, I went to Capitol Hill to talk to Representative Marie Glusenkamp-Perez, who represents Washington's 3rd District. This is a swing district. It was held by a Republican for 12 years before she won in 2022. And this time around, Donald Trump backed her opponent, Joe Kent. So I asked her, why do you think you won?
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
OK, so in the first half of the show, we talked to a young congresswoman who kind of made her name by crossing over the aisle. She's a Democrat and voting with Republicans. And the think pieces that have been written about her suggest that, oh, my God, she's a traitor. How could she do this? I think what I hear you saying is once upon a time, it wasn't that way. It hasn't always been that way.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
We've talked about how people at times have crossed party lines, teamed up on things. There does seem to be another way that the minority party can get things done, and that is to not get things done, to hold things up to whatever extent they can. And I think in 2024, a lot of people are wondering, oh, will they try it this time? Can you tell us what it looks like when that happens?
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
Sarah Binder of George Washington University and Brookings. Today's team, Victoria Chamberlain, Peter Balanon-Rosen, Amina El-Sadi, Patrick Boyd, Andrea Christen's daughter, and me, Noelle King.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
Just to clarify for listeners who may not know, you voted against President Biden's student debt relief. People looked at you and said, a Democrat.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
The thing about national office, and I think this is where the pushback comes in, is when you vote, when you're in national office and you vote, you vote on something that affects everybody in the country. So not many people in your district ended up in a lot of college debt, but all across the United States, many, many, many young people did. You're in national office.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
You don't just vote for this little corner of Washington because your vote, as one of 435, it affects the whole country. How do you respond to that?
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
Whether you support Donald Trump or are a critic of his, one thing that you can say he successfully did is he turned local issues national, right? Springfield, Ohio was struggling with an influx of immigrants. There is no reason that somebody in Maine or Florida or Texas should have cared at all about Springfield, Ohio. That was a local issue.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
Skamania County in Washington state has a national forest and a population of about 12,000 people.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
Donald Trump took that local issue, made it a national issue. Some analysts say that is what helped him win.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
In her first term, Glustenkamp-Perez crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans on behalf of her rural and working class constituents. And she horrified some Democrats along the way. Her plans to get things done despite a Republican majority in Congress coming up on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
The person who gets their Honda Civic to 500,000 miles, as you said, is not usually identified as like, wow, that person's a great environmentalist. It's like, oh, that person is broke, right? And that's why they've run their car at a half a million miles. Good for them.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
But do you think there's a kind of snobbery within the Democratic Party where maybe the heroes that the party's choosing are the wrong heroes?
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
It is also, if we're being honest, in a tradition that more closely hews to what Republicans think. You're pointing to overregulation and you're saying this is ridiculous. And I can imagine... Democrats saying, but what about listeria? Every time you turn on the news these days, there is listeria in something, there's E. coli in something. You're going to give it to the kids.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
How do you square the party that you're in and the historical positions that it's taken on things like regulation?
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
I think there's a conception that being the minority party in the House, the Senate, and not holding the presidency means you cannot get anything done. Certainly, you don't seem like somebody who wants to spend two years just spinning your wheels. What's the plan?
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
Representative Marie Glusenkamp-Perez, Washington State's 3rd District, thank you so much for taking the time. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Coming up, so you're the minority in Congress. How to get things done anyway. Support for Today Explained comes from Koala. There are lots of awesome things, says Koala, that have come out of Australia.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
On the beach, the book, not the movie, Joel Edgerton, Wake in Fright. Who wrote this? And now, says Koala, you should also consider Koala. Koala says they make the most comfortable mattresses with Instagram-worthy color options inspired by the Australian Outback. Unlike traditional sofa beds, Koalas are designed just for comfort. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Mercury.
Today, Explained
The Democrat who won in Trump country
I'm Noelle King with Sarah Binder. She teaches political science at GWU. She's a fellow at Brookings. All right, Sarah, for the next two years, Democrats will be the minority in the House and the Senate. They will try to get things done anyway. Are there moments in the past where you can look back and say, dang, the minority really pulled that off?
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Germans went to the polls this weekend and how it was the biggest election turnout in a generation. More than eight in 10 eligible voters cast a ballot. Friedrich Merz, a conservative from the CDU party, is on track to be chancellor. He said today it's time for traditional Democratic parties to start getting things done.
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Constanze, Germany has gone so far as to talk about banning the far-right AFD, which banning a political party is a really serious thing in a democracy. And I want to get a sense of why so many Germans are so concerned about the AFD. Is it something that this group is doing or is it something that they're saying? Both of those things. OK, go ahead.
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Earlier this month, Vice President J.D. Vance got on stage at the Munich Security Conference, and he talked about laws throughout Europe that he says restrict free speech.
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Here he says he believes that allowing citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger.
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Vice President Vance never said AFD, but it seemed very clear to everyone in Germany that he was talking about the AFD.
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Noelle King here with Nina Haase. Nina is chief political correspondent for Deutsche Welle. That's Germany's international broadcaster. All right, so Nina, big election in Germany this weekend. What's the headline today?
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Constanze Stelzenmüller. She's director of the Center on the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Travis Larchuk produced today's show with help from Avishai Artsy. Amina El-Sadi is our editor. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter engineered. Laura Bullard and Victoria Chamberlain checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
What were the other issues that led the Conservatives to do so well this time?
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
All right. So immigration, the economy, Ukraine, that sounds familiar. This party that came in second, the AFD, tell me about it. Where does it come from?
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
The party that came in second place, the Alternative for Germany, or AFD, is from the far right fringe. So it is perhaps inevitable that America's unelected vice president, Elon Musk, has spoken in support of the AFD. But so has America's elected vice president, J.D. Vance. Coming up on Today Explained, the transatlantic alliance no one wants.
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
What does their second place finish mean? Does this mean that they now help write German law, that the Conservative Party, that one has to deal with them on a regular basis? Like how much power do they have coming in where they did?
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Your new chancellor, Mr. Merz, has already spoken this morning. What is he saying about working with these parties, primarily the AFD?
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
What do these results mean for Germany over the next year or two?
Today, Explained
Germany's rightward march
Nina Haase of Deutsche Welle. Vice President J.D. Vance shocked Germans earlier this month in Munich when he suggested that their posture toward the AFD violates the principles of free speech. What's he talking about? Stay tuned.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
One of the big challenges of hiring remote workers is you don't really know who you're hiring. Recently, the FBI warned that many companies really don't know who they're hiring. Big American companies like Google and SentinelOne have been tricked by compelling resumes and LinkedIn profiles into hiring North Koreans.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
Kim Jong-un is a very strange guy. He has interesting priorities. And this now, based on everything you've told us, really does appear to be one of them. How has he made this kind of cyber training a priority in North Korea? What could you find out about that?
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. The life of a freelance investigative reporter is not an easy one. A lot of time is spent figuring out what story is going to justify your time and talents. Such was the problem for reporter Bobby Johnson, who's based in the Bay Area. Late last year, Bobby had been hearing about people using AI to run scams, and he decided to see if there was anything there.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the American who... ends up talking to one of these people in North Korea and figures it out. He's like, uh-oh, this person is definitely not in Knoxville. And I wonder what you do about it. Like, you can't call the police and say somebody fraudulently applied for a job at my company. But also, this isn't right. It doesn't seem legal.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
What can law enforcement and what does law enforcement actually do here?
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
There is something about all of this, Bobby, that is just not particularly clever. It's working, but you don't have to have a beautiful mind to think up a scam like this one. I wonder, though, as you were reporting out this story, where your mind went when you thought about... What are the perils in the future that we're facing?
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
What doors are opened by this little scam that five years from now or 10 years from now might be even harder to combat?
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
Bobby Johnson, investigative reporter. Gabrielle Burbey produced today's show. Amina El-Sadi edited. Patrick Boyd is our engineer. And Laura Bullard checks the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
Now to the story of spies in the break room. The US, the UK and South Korea have jointly accused North Korea of using a cyber espionage group to steal sensitive and classified data.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
So by the time you met Simon at that event, he had clearly copped on that something was up here. Had Simon actually hired anyone in North Korea?
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
Ahead on Today Explained, we talked to a reporter about what it's like to sit in on a job interview with a North Korean operative.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
Bobby Johnson, he's a freelance investigative reporter. He ended up writing this story for Wired. Coming up, Bobby goes to the flip side. Who are the North Koreans? Support for today's show comes from Delete Me. More than likely, there is a lot of your personal information online. Some of you may have even willingly posted it.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
But having your name, address, phone number, and family members' names hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the real world and makes you vulnerable, says Delete Me. According to Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exposed.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
You can take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. You can get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash today. Use promo code today at the checkout. The way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash today and enter code today at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash today.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
Code today. Support for today's show comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile doesn't make crisp mint iced tea despite what the writers of this ad think you might be thinking. No, they sell low-priced phone plans. Cool. With Mint Mobile, all those low-priced plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the country's biggest 5G network.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
You can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. You can get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for $15 a month. This year, you can skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. You can get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at mintmobile.com. That's mintmobile.com.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
An upfront payment of $45 for a three-month 5GB plan is required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plan options are available. Taxes and fees are extra, guys. See Mint Mobile for details.
Today, Explained
My colleague, the scammer
We're back with Bobby Johnson who wrote about North Korean operatives getting hired by American companies for Wired. The companies don't like to talk about what is happening. Neither does North Korea. So Bobby relied on defectors who understand how the scam works from North Korea's end.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
In the two months since President Trump's inauguration, the U.S. has levied tariffs on goods from China, Mexico and Canada. Many more tariffs, in fact, than in Trump's first term. And more and bigger tariffs are coming on April 2nd. Reporters asked Trump about them yesterday aboard Air Force One.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
The Smoot-Hawley tariffs no longer exist today. When and how did we decide to get rid of them?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
Jeff Stein, chief economics correspondent for The Washington Post. Welcome back to Today Explained. Jeff, are we in a trade war now?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
What are you thinking about as you watch the Trump administration undertake what potentially could be the next great trade war?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
Chris James Michener. He's a professor of economics at Santa Clara University. He also works with the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Center for European Policy Research. Amanda Llewellyn produced today's show and Jolie Myers edited. Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd engineered and Laura Bullard and Travis Larchuk chucked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
And as of today, what have China, Mexico and Canada done to us?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
So it's early, but what has been the effect of the tariffs on the American economy as a whole?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
In his first term, Trump famously tweeted, The problem now is consumer confidence is weakening, retail sales are slowing, layoffs are up, the markets are selling off in technicolor, everyone's talking about a recession, and the president won't rule one out.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
President Trump went on Fox News recently and Maria Bartiromo asked him, Are you expecting a recession this year? And he did not rule it out.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
And that led to some speculation, including among informed people, that Trump is planning for there to be a recession or at least a downturn. And he's accepting that there will be some pain, but that the American economy will reorient and it will be stronger. I mean, he has effectively said this himself. work?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
All right, so he's saying a weaker dollar might be better for American manufacturers. Like, in theory, that makes sense. If the dollar were to get weaker, if it were no longer the backstop of the world economy, what else would happen?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
And the Trump team is likely betting that Americans, many Americans, want a transformation. What is happening now, though, is very different than the picture that Donald Trump sold to voters on the campaign trail.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
We all remember that during the first Trump administration, he took cues from the markets. When the markets dropped, Donald Trump tended to change course. This time feels very different. And again, we're only two months in, but the president has held steady with his tariff plans largely, despite protests from business leaders, despite what we're seeing in the markets even today.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
Is there any sense of what it would take at this point to get Donald Trump to stop what he's doing?
Today, Explained
An America First trap
Jeff Stein is The Washington Post's chief economics reporter. Jeff, thank you so much.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
Today Explained is back with the story of America's other great trade war, which starts with the first great war, World War I. You probably remember learning this one in school.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
Listener, did you know that Flanders fields, before becoming a World War I graveyard, was actually farmland? In fact, much of Europe before that war was farmland. But when the war started, tons of bombs and shells and hand grenades exploded both the farmland and, sadly, the farmers. So someone else had to grow crops. And America stepped in. American farmers tripled down to feed the world.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
They took out loans. They bought more land. It was boom time until the war ended. European farmers went back to work. And the Americans couldn't sell their corn and oats and milk even at home. Stuff from elsewhere was now just cheaper. And so the Congress and President Herbert Hoover decided to place tariffs on goods coming into America to protect our farmers.
Today, Explained
An America First trap
This was called the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, and the immediate effect, says Chris James Michener of the University of Santa Clara, was outrage from the rest of the world.
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
What is the state, Nick, of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policy, which promised big things right now today?
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
Hey, so Jeff, is Donald Trump actually doing anything that we weren't already doing? Like, this has made so much news. Why?
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
Jeffrey Kahn, UC Davis Anthropology, spent time at Guantanamo Bay interviewing Haitian migrants in the early aughts. Victoria Chamberlain produced today's show. Amina El-Sadi edited. Laura Bullard and Amanda Llewellyn checked the facts. Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd are our engineers. And I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
President Trump promised to send 30,000 migrants to Guantanamo Bay, and his administration is now doing it. Here's Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on CNN this weekend after making a trip herself to Gitmo.
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
All right. So President Trump has directed that migrants be sent to Guantanamo Bay. What did his order say exactly? What are the specifics here?
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
Is it accurate that we don't have facilities inside the continental United States for that many people? What do you know about that?
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
Now, it's impossible to fact check that statement at the moment because the government hasn't released the names of four dozen or so men who've been sent there so far. Coming up on Today Explained, what we do know about Trump's big moves on immigration.
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
What is going on at Guantanamo Bay right now? Has anyone arrived there? Are things being built?
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
What do we know about the men? And I'm assuming they're all men who have arrived so far. Are they? I mean, President Trump says we're going to send the worst of the worst there. Are these men criminals? What are they accused of other than being in the U.S. illegally?
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
As the Trump administration said what the plan is for people when they get there, like, is the idea that we detain them indefinitely? Is the idea that we deport them as quickly as we can? What...
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
Let me ask you lastly, this particular move has gotten the Trump administration a lot of attention. Probably, possibly because of the way the American public conceives of Guantanamo Bay, right? What we've known since 9-11. How does sending people there fit into the administration's larger plans for illegal immigration?
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
Nick Miroff covers immigration for The Washington Post, coming up the last time the U.S. held migrants at Guantanamo Bay. Support for Today Explained comes from Thrive Market. Yes, you want to eat healthy food, but in this economy? Thrive Market says they're like your favorite health food store, but online and thus way more affordable. The site is super easy to shop, I'm told.
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
You can filter by diet, you're gluten-free, you're paleo, you're keto, you're low sugar, you're vegan, so you're not wasting time reading all the labels. They say their shipping is fast and carbon neutral, and when you sign up, they say you get to pick a free gift worth up to $60 with your first order. Our colleague Claire White has tried Thrive Market. I wonder what her gift was. Here's Claire.
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
You can skip the junk without overspending. You can head over to thrivemarket.com slash explained to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift. That's thrivemarket.com slash explained thrivemarket.com slash explained. You are listening to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Jeffrey Kahn, who has been to Guantanamo Bay.
Today, Explained
Guantanamo’s other history
Jeff's a professor of anthropology at UC Davis, and he studies how border policing in the U.S. evolved. And he says it began to evolve at Guantanamo Bay in the 1970s with an influx of Haitian refugees to the United States.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
So that's more of a direct threat to what Target does. Yeah, I always thought of Walmart as the place you go when you're broke and Target as the place you go when you're flush. Walmart wants to eat up Target's flush customer. What counts as an upper income earner these days?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Wow. Okay, so you're making six figures, but you're still shopping at the Walmart, maybe even for like clothing and food. What is Walmart doing to attract six-figure earners?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
What has it done? What would I find at Walmart today that maybe I wouldn't have a couple of years ago?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Walmart still does have a traditional kind of customer, and that traditional customer does not make $100,000 or more a year. Correct. Is there any risk of losing your, you know, your sort of legacy customer if you're like, let's go after the richer ones? Yes. Yes, definitely.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
After the election, Walmart made some very big news about its plans for DEI. What happened there?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Sarah Nassauer, you are a retail reporter for The Wall Street Journal. I think I first heard the Target name when I was maybe 19 or 20 or 21. And my friend very earnestly said Target. And I was told that it was a fancy thing, like it was an event to go shopping there. So that would have been, I guess, the early 2000s. Where did Target start and how did it expand?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
All right, so the story of retail is one of ebb and flow. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, sometimes you're fancy, sometimes the other guy is eating into your fancy clientele. Target is not in a great spot right now. Walmart is booming. What is the takeaway here?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Sarah Nassauer of The Wall Street Journal. Today's episode was produced by Amanda Llewellyn, edited by Matthew Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Rob Byers, and hosted by me, Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Target Corporation third quarter earnings release conference call. The next 68 minutes of that call in November were a mess. Oh, sure, Target's CEO talked about having confidence in our proven long-term strategy, but the company's earnings had missed their mark, their target, if you will.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
I did not realize it started all the way back in 1962. I would have guessed, honestly, the 80s maybe, the early 90s. How does Target go from being a department store in Roseville, Minnesota in 1962 to being literally everywhere in the country?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
2,000 stores around the country. And to this day, they're selling the food. They're selling some department store stuff. What else has Target added over the years?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
And you will also buy a candle and you will also buy a throw pillow. You don't need either one, but you will definitely pick them up at Target on that same trip.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
And truthfully, I mean, Target is not just it's not just a store. I mean, like SNL has that character, the Target lady. It's like a piece of Americana at this point. For sure.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
But why? Well, on another November earnings call just across town, not literally, Walmart CEO Doug McMillan was gloating.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Me too. So given all of this, all of its successes in making me buy things I need and don't need, what's going on? Why is it not doing well?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Have you done the retail reporter thing where you run around the parking lot of the Target and you ask customers, like, why don't you like it as much as you used to?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
I got kicked out of a Ralph's in Los Angeles once. It was like a violent ejection, but I had a microphone. Yeah, that makes it harder.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
So what are customers actually saying about their, what is the nature of their discontent?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Coming up on Today Explained, retail wars. How Walmart ate into Target's business.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
I'm not even getting anything because everything I went in there for is completely out of stock.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Yeah, I want to have a good time. So what is Target doing to try to combat this problem?
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
And so the feeling about Target among people in your profession who know what they're doing is there's still some meh-ness here. There's still some potential problems here. Is this a Target problem or is this a problem for every store that is like Target? Right now, it's a Target problem.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
The Wall Street Journal's Sarah Nassauer. Coming up, Walmart's brilliant strategy. It is stealing Target's higher income customers. It's going organic. It's coming for Whole Foods. It's rolling back DEI. Can one single store appeal to everyone? Walmart's going to try.
Today, Explained
Target misses the mark
Okay, let's see here. Today. Today. Explained. Explained. We're back with The Wall Street Journal's Sarah Nassauer, who reports on retail. All right, let's talk about Walmart. So I have long been under the impression that Target is fancier than Walmart, possibly even fancy. But maybe I'm just a rube. Are Walmart and Target comparable stores?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
The Trump administration is justifying the arrest and detention of protester Mahmoud Khalil and Rumaisa Ozturk, who wrote an op-ed in a student newspaper, by calling them Hamas supporters. But when asked for evidence, the administration doesn't offer any. Here's a DHS official on NPR.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
I'm Noelle King with Russell Contreras. He's a senior reporter at Axios who wrote that the Trump administration's actions to combat anti-Semitism by calling people Hamas supporters stems from a specific playbook. Russ, what's the playbook?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
Project Esther is named after figure Queen Esther. What's Queen Esther's story?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
We heard in the first half of the show about the actions that Project Esther recommends to fight anti-Semitism. Your reaction on reading it is what exactly? Do you think what they're suggesting will work, would work? No.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
We've seen the Trump administration come out and, for example, insist that Mahmoud Khalil is a supporter of Hamas. When asked for proof, when asked for evidence, the administration hasn't been able to provide anything. Now, Project Esther names a, quote, Hamas support network as the root of a lot of anti-Semitism. We heard in the first half of the show that this is not like a real organization.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
So what is the goal of saying Mahmoud Khalil and people like him are part of the Hamas support network?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
What does all of this mean for Jews in the United States?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
Dov Kent is a senior director with the Diaspora Alliance. If you're interested in this and you want to read Project Esther, you can find a link in our show notes today. Amanda Llewellyn produced, Jolie Myers edited, Laura Bullard and Victoria Chamberlain checked the facts, and Patrick Boyd is our engineer. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
Okay, so Project Esther comes from the Heritage Foundation. Who wrote it exactly?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
Why are these Christian conservatives so invested in fighting anti-Semitism?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
So where is this allegation coming from? On Today Explained, it might be coming from the same people who wrote Project 2025. Project Esther largely flew under the radar until now.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
All right. So Project 2025 was 900 some odd pages. I read many of them, but I didn't read all. Project Esther is only about 33 pages. It's very easy to get through. Both of the projects are kind of built on thesis statements. What is the thesis statement of Project Esther?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
What is this thing, the Hamas Support Network? Is that a real organization?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
The Jewish community in the United States is very large and runs the political gamut. There are progressive Jews, there are centrist Jews, there are very conservative Jews in this country. How are Jewish groups responding to Project Esther and to what the administration is doing now?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
Russell Contreras is a senior reporter at Axios. When we return, many American Jews are deeply concerned about Project Esther, and we're going to hear why. Support for today explained comes from NetSuite. You don't know what the future holds. Just take a look at your 401k. It may be impossible to predict the future, but you can still prepare for it, according to NetSuite from Oracle.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
NetSuite from Oracle says they've helped over 40,000 companies future-proof their operations. NetSuite says it can bring your accounting, financial management, inventory, HR all together in one unified platform, giving you visibility and control. NetSuite says it can transform real-time data into actionable insights and forecasting.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
Doesn't matter how big your company is, NetSuite can help you respond to your biggest challenges. If you don't want to get caught looking backwards, you can get ahead of the curve and stay focused on what's coming with NetSuite by Oracle. You can download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
That guide is free to you, courtesy NetSuite at netsuite.com slash explained. netsuite.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
One thing that we've learned, many of us have learned over the last 18 months or so, is that there are different definitions of anti-Semitism. How do you and the Diaspora Alliance define it?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
Okay, so you kind of nailed it there, the really important thing. There's a spectrum of beliefs even within the Jewish community about how questioning Israel relates to anti-Semitism. Where do you personally fall on this spectrum?
Today, Explained
Project 2025’s next chapter
All right, let's get into the topic at hand, which is Project Esther. Do you remember when you first heard about Project Esther? Yes.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
It's January 6th, and Congress met today at 1 p.m. to certify Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 election. Four years ago, you may recall, Congress was meant to do the same, but the certification was delayed when thousands of Trump supporters marched on the Capitol.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
So they're claiming that alt-right ideas have been incorporated into mainstream Republican politics. When did that start and what do they point to?
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
I'm Noelle King with Tess Owen. Tess is a freelance journalist who writes for, among others, New York Magazine. Late last year, Tess wrote a piece for New York, a very vivid piece called The Patriot Wing, inside the jail block run by January 6th rioters. Now, her story begins, as does ours, in that cell block on the day in July that Donald Trump was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
So the intent is clear. What we would like the world to look like in five or ten years is clear. What are you expecting from white nationalists in a second Trump term?
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
I'm here with Thomas Russo from the notorious Patriot Front. Patriot Front, a white supremacist group.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
Experts say these people are members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front, founded in 2017 after breaking off from the group that led the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. A downtown march with Patriot Front flags and a banner that read, Reclaim America.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
Let me ask you a serious question that will get me in a ton of trouble. So you've got men in flash mobs wearing outfits, embracing Christianity only a couple hundred at a time. You've got Nick Fuentes. Like, again, if I'm not online, like, I don't think my mom knows who Nick Fuentes is. And one thing I worry—I know she doesn't know who he is, as a matter of fact. One thing I wonder is, like—
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
The president-elect has said repeatedly, and he told NBC again last month, that he's going to pardon at least some of the insurrectionists.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
What did Dempsey and the others tell you about what life is like in the swing of the D.C. jail?
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
All right. So a group of men who have engaged in violent behavior, allegedly because they haven't been tried or sentenced yet, who share an anti-establishment point of view or ideology. Why do D.C. prison officials make the decision that they should all be housed together?
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
You had to be there. Antifa was actually not there four years ago, but members of several extremist groups were at the Capitol on Jan. 6th. And today on Explained, we're going to ask, whither American extremism on the eve of a second Trump administration?
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
Was there any evidence tests that these men were treated better or worse than other people in the D.C. jail?
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
In the past few days, you actually got some information suggesting that the patriot wing inside the D.C. city jail has dissolved.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
We don't know for sure whether Donald Trump is going to pardon these guys, but I wonder what they told you about what they plan to do when they get out. Did anyone say, I want to stay in this life? I want to, you know, do more insurrections. What are the plans for these men?
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
That was journalist Tess Owen. Coming up, the extremists who are not in jail.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
Support for Today Explained comes from Thrive Market. Yes, you want to eat healthy food, but in this economy? Thrive Market says they're like your favorite health food store, but online and thus way more affordable. The site is super easy to shop, I'm told.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
You can filter by diet, you're gluten-free, you're paleo, you're keto, you're low sugar, you're vegan, so you're not wasting time reading all the labels. They say their shipping is fast and carbon neutral, and when you sign up, they say you get to pick a free gift worth up to $60 with your first order. Our colleague Claire White has tried Thrive Market. I wonder what her gift was. Here's Claire.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
You can skip the junk without overspending. You can head over to thrivemarket.com slash explained to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift. That's thrivemarket.com slash explained, thrivemarket.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
"Happy Sixthmas"
We're back with Ellie Reeve. Ellie's been reporting on far-right extremism for years. She's a correspondent with CNN and author of the book Black Pill, and she was watching to see how extremist groups reacted late last year after Donald Trump was re-elected.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Harvey Weinstein is back in court this week. An appeals court overturned his 2020 conviction in New York, saying he hadn't gotten a fair trial. And so his accusers must now testify again. Weinstein has always had very good lawyers, but the court of public opinion was against him. Until now, it seems.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Support for today's show comes from Delete Me. More than likely, there is a lot of your personal information online. Some of you may have even willingly posted it. But having your name, address, phone number, and family members' names hanging out on the internet can have actual consequences in the real world and makes you vulnerable, says Delete Me.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
According to Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exposed.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
You can take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, you can get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash today. Use promo code today at the checkout. The way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash today and enter code today at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash today.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Code today. Support for Today Explained comes from Fresh Air from NPR. Terry Gross, the host of Fresh Air, pushes public figures to reveal personal motivations behind extraordinary lives. I didn't write that. NPR didn't write that. Former President Barack Obama wrote that. He is a fan. Fresh Air is an award-winning podcast hosted by Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
They've interviewed Jeremy Strong, Selena Gomez, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Billie Eilish, so many more. One episode I will never forget is where Terry is interviewing Jay-Z and she asks him why so many hip hop artists grab their crotches, like cover up their junk when they perform. It is it is an amazing question. But hear me.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
It is actually an even more amazing answer from Jay-Z. Google that one. Fresh Air has an enormous archive. And with Fresh Air Plus, you can get curated lists of interviews spun forward for the issues of today. With Fresh Air, you can stay in the loop and dive deep into conversations on culture, crotches, news, and other issues.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
You can tune in Fresh Air from NPR to hear some of the most insightful interviews anywhere, wherever you get your podcasts. Today Explained. Constance Grady, Vox senior culture writer. What's going on with Harvey Weinstein?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
All right, so Candace Owens is making the argument for him. Is she making the same argument that his lawyers are making?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Candace Owens is a 36-year-old far-right commentator who made her bones taking positions that are reliably aimed at owning the libs and occasionally spin out into country crazy. E.J. Dixon, a writer for New York magazine's The Cut, recently profiled Owens, whose telling of her own story begins with a terrible experience when she was quite young.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Who is she convincing with this argument? For one thing, she has convinced Joe Rogan.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Has Harvey Weinstein said anything about Candace Owens' crusade to exonerate him?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Around the time that Me Too was in the public consciousness, so seven or eight years ago, I'm guessing that someone like Candace Owens would not have been given a lot of leeway to defend someone like Harvey Weinstein. The public was disgusted overwhelmingly. People did not like this man. People wanted to see him pay. But now she's defending him and she's getting new fans by defending him.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
What do you think has changed in the culture that's making Candace Owens' defense of Harvey Weinstein not only acceptable but popular?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
The commentator Candace Owens, who has previously defended Kanye and Andrew Tate. Andrew Tate and his brother were actually a response to a misandrist culture, women that hated men. Before Andrew Tate, there was Lena Dunham. Has taken up Weinstein's cause, and it seems to be gaining her followers. Coming up on Today Explained, when Candace met Harvey.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Once she takes a turn to the right, what kind of opinions does she begin espousing and where does she begin espousing them?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Once upon a time, a person spouting these kind of takes would have been broadly viewed as kind of deranged and probably not given a lot of oxygen. It's 2025 and it's been 2016 for about a decade now. How do people respond to Candace Owens? Like who's in her audience and do they think she's crazy but funny or do they think, yes, this woman's a truth teller?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Yeah, in your piece, you talk about a turn that she made into new territory that surprised a lot of people.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Why do you think her pro-Baldoni message is so popular, like popular enough to just jack up her YouTube following?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
So she's representative of something that is bigger than her. And her videos, the appeal of her videos goes beyond, hey, here's a woman saying a provocative thing about Blake Lively or a mean thing about Blake Lively.
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, that story has kind of peaked. It's now on the downswing. So presumably she wants to continue capitalizing on this. What is she covering now?
Today, Explained
The Harvey Weinstein apologist
E.J. Dixon of The Cut. Harvey Weinstein back on trial in New York, but this time the momentum behind Me Too has stalled and it may even be running in reverse. Coming up, Candace Owens and the Me Too backlash.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Bombas says they also offer those white tees, those waterproof slides and those sweat wicking mudans. Nisha Chichal is our colleague here at Vox and she's tried Bombas herself.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Bombas also wants you to know about their mission, which is for every comfy pair you purchase, they say they donate another comfy pair to someone facing homelessness. You can head over to Bombas.com slash explained and use code explained for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com slash explained. Code explained at checkout. Bombas.com slash explained and use the code explained.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Umair Irfan covers the environment and energy at Fox, and he's been looking beyond the geopolitical dealmaking at some of the lesser explored areas where critical minerals can be found.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Okay, so if the ocean is slow going in terms of the legal and environmental implications, where else are people looking?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
All right, so go ahead and give me your full name and tell me who you are.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
How realistic is it? Because I hear asteroid mining and I wonder... What exactly are people thinking when they say it, and how would it work?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Indeed you are. Okay, so we've established, Avishai, that the United States really wants critical minerals, really believes it needs critical minerals. And in fact, it's trying to find them in this very big country we call home.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Is there anyone saying we could figure out a way to manufacture critical minerals or to develop other technologies so that we need less of them? Like how much of this is trying to get around the problem of critical minerals?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
You cover energy and the environment for Vox, and I want to ask you, as we've asked other people throughout the course of our two-part series, why do you think it's so important that we get the critical minerals race right?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
You went to a place where they're making an effort. Where'd you go?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Umair Irfan. You can find him at Vox.com. Avishai Artsy produced today's show. It was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. Jolie Myers is our editor. Andrea Kristen's daughter and Patrick Boyd engineered and Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
I've definitely heard of the Salton Sea, but I've never been there. What's it like out there?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
China controls 90% of these minerals, and this worries the U.S.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
We call them critical minerals because they're critical. A handful of elements that we need for modern technologies.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
So the U.S. needs to find them stat. Some of the places we're looking are uneasy about the attention.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
OK, so this place is really down on its luck. But then they discover lithium there.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
A critical mineral that President Trump is genuinely interested in. I am imagining that this is good news for the area, for its economy.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Some, like the ocean, are as yet unexplored, and some asteroids are on the bleeding edge of what we can even imagine. Coming up on Today Explained, Minecraft. Support for today's show comes from BetterHelp. June is Men's Mental Health Month. And according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, six million men in the U.S.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Man, except they don't have the infrastructure yet. Is that really the only thing standing in the way? If Rod is able to build a way to get the lithium out of the ground, then we're good to go?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
All right, so they went ahead and sued. And is that the reason that Rod is not able to build the infrastructure to get the lithium out? Like, are they really holding him up?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
suffer from depression every year and it often goes undiagnosed. BetterHelp says they make it easy to find a therapist. You can join a session at the click of a button and you can switch therapists anytime. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp says they can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
All right. So Ryan has actually been trying to get this done since before Donald Trump was president, since before Donald Trump was even a politician. And here we are. We've got a president that really wants to get this kind of thing done. And it doesn't seem like it's any closer to becoming a reality.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
What do you think this drama playing out in the Salton Sea tells us about trying to get critical minerals in other places in the United States? Does it tell us anything?
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com. That's BetterHelp.com.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Avishai Artsy, he's a senior producer at Today Explained. Next up, oh, the places we'll go for critical minerals.
Today, Explained
The white gold rush
Support for today's show comes from Bombas. Bombas wants to make your summertime in the sun a little more comfortable with socks that they say are perfect for your next marathon or just your next trip down to the bodega. Bombas says their running socks help wick sweat, keep you cool and fight blisters. And they don't just stop at socks.
Today, Explained
How Abercrombie made a comeback
Yes, hi, I'd like to order a pizza. Okay, can I ask you a question? Is the cute blonde guy delivering tonight?
Today, Explained
How Abercrombie made a comeback
Hold up, shorties. Each photo costs $10. And the proceeds go to charity.
Today, Explained
How Abercrombie made a comeback
That's public.com slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. All investing involves risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities, options, and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing Incorporated, member FINRA and SIPC. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
British writer and critic Jude Cook announced last month that he's starting a small independent press that will publish mainly literary fiction and memoirs by young men.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
So some of it is internal. Maybe there are fewer men who want to be great novelists, but maybe publishers are saying, hey, we're just less interested in the perspectives of straight white men. When you approach publishers with your novel Glass Sentry, Did you hear that?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
What do you think we lose when we lose the perspective of those young white men?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
But I did actually see that in one book in the last year, Rejection by Tony Tulinthamudi. There were characters who were highly online. The most acclaimed story was about an incel. That book was incredibly powerful. And it got praise, right? It did get the cycle. What do you think about that?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Mr. Cook told The Guardian that literary fiction, this is highbrow stuff, has come to be dominated by women, quote, giving rise to a situation where stories by new male authors are often overlooked with a perception that the male voice is problematic. After that, we reached out to Jude Cook, who told us he'd rather not talk because, quote, the discourse has got slightly out of hand.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Earlier in the show, we heard from an economist, Professor Joel Waldfogel, that if you look at the stats going back to, you know, the year 1800, women back then are made up about 5% of published authors. It's 10% through about the 1900s. And then in 2015, women surpass men. More women are publishing books than men, although both genders are still publishing a lot of books, it should be said.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Are you at all sympathetic to the argument that you guys had your turn for centuries, the attention, the prizes, the accolades, and now doors have been opened to women and they're putting out really good stuff. So we're just leveling the playing field out.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Ross Barkin. His novel is The Glass Century. You can find links to some of the novels we discussed today in our show notes. You really should read Rejection. Miles Bryan produced today's episode. Amin El-Sadi edited. Patrick Boyd and Brandon McFarland engineered. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
All right. The reason that we called you, Joel, is because you wrote a very interesting paper about gender in publishing. Tell me how you became interested in that.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Take me back in time and tell me where this story starts.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Do you think there's also been a change in attitude? Because, yes, college education did free women up to do many things. But also, along with that, attitudes had to change. Like, is a woman worth reading is a question that is not answered by, does she have a college degree? Do you think there are other societal changes going on here?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Today Explained loves nothing more than out of hand discourse. And so we're going to examine the claim that young white straight men are being shut out of high end fiction.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
What about the industry that gives you the opportunity to publish a book? That would be the publishing industry. Is it also changing starting in 1970?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Right. You think about other creative outputs, as you would term them. Netflix shows. I'm joking with you, of course. But if you want to be in film, if you want to be in television, there's an enormous industry that you have to work your way through. I could self-publish a novel tomorrow, and perhaps I will. There are not gatekeepers the same way that there used to be.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
So as you're looking through this vast trove of data, did you get a sense of what kinds of books women are writing?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
If the number of women publishing books is growing, does that necessarily mean the number of men publishing books is shrinking?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
We were inspired to do this episode because we read about a new publisher, Conduit Books, and the man who created Conduit says that He wants to publish literary fiction and memoirs written by men, especially men under 35, because he believes they are not getting published enough. When you look at the data and when you look at the industry, is this a demographic that is being underserved?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
That's coming up. Support for Today Explained comes from Adio. Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management platform that Adio says is built for the next era of companies. A powerful data structure adapts to your business model, syncs in all your contacts in minutes, and enriches your business with actionable data.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Joel Waldfogel of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Business sees a win-win, but coming up, it wouldn't be high-end literature without the sad young literary men. What do they think?
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
I'm Noelle King with Ross Barkin, writer, journalist, columnist, essayist, novelist. Ross wrote an essay called From Misogyny to No Man's Land, The Vanishing Male in Contemporary Literature.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Adio says it also allows you to create those email sequences, those real-time reports, those powerful automations online. which they claim can help you build what matters most, your company. You can go to addio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year. That's addio.com slash todayexplained.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
Yeah? Okay. I wonder about the kind of driving force for this essay and whether you are the vanishing male writer of what you wrote.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
I'm inclined to find your argument very compelling. I was a teenager in the 90s, a young adult in the 2000s. That's when you read a lot of fiction, right? And I do remember David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Safran Ford, Jonathan Franzen.
Today, Explained
All the sad young literary men
And so what you're saying actually really does track to me. The question I wonder about is... the why. And let me ask you first to answer the why from your personal perspective. You're a novelist. You're 35 years old. You're a straight white guy. Do you feel like those identities are holding you back in some way?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
I'm Noelle King with friend of the show Talman Joseph Smith. Tal was early to the story of the Great Wealth Transfer. He's an economics reporter for The New York Times. And a while back, he wrote this viral piece where he laid out that we're living through a decade in which $16 trillion, trillion with a T, will pass from the boomers to their children and grandkids.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Why are the baby boomers so rich? Where does all this money come from?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
OK, so if you have spent the past 40 years as an adult, you bought a house for seven raspberries and now it's worth three million dollars. You can sell it or you can borrow against it.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
And also, if you put money into the stock market in the 1980s, it again, your return has been incredible, especially compared to, you know, what we think of in the last decade or so when the market has also been good. We should note. Yes. So let me ask you. We're saying boomers broadly here, but it makes me, well, I know personally it's not all boomers. Love you, mom.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Which boomers are able to give to their kids? Is this like the 1% that we're talking about?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
All right. So the boomers who are giving inheritances, who are part of the $16 trillion transfer, are in the top 10 percent in America. And that would mean, I'm guessing, that demographically they have one big thing in common.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
What are the implications of all this? Some chunk of younger Americans are getting a lot of money from some chunk of older Americans. And we should care about that. Why?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Joe Biden got slammed for releasing almost $2 trillion into the economy over a couple of years and causing inflation, right? If $1.6 trillion is being transferred a year for the next 10, getting us to $16 trillion, is this actually inflationary?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
A couple of people have pointed out that you can't really blame people for passing money on to their children, right? This is the way it's always worked from time immemorial. You get stuff and you give it to your kids, maybe just your sons, maybe just your first son. But like this is how life works. So why is now the time to pay attention to this?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Madeline and her colleagues recently put together a package of stories on one of New York City's biggest open secrets.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Is it just for fun because it's kind of fun to talk about? Or are there real reasons to be watching very carefully as this happens?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Talman Joseph Smith, New York Times. Tal's writing 2026's most hotly anticipated by me book, Clout and Capital. Victoria Chamberlain and Devin Schwartz produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited. Laura Bullard checked the facts. And Patrick Boyd is our engineer. Here's what else you need to know today. On Sunday, March 9th, you'll be getting a treat in this feed.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Explain It To Me, hosted by Jonquil and Hill, will be dropping now every Sunday. Hey, JQ.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Explain It To Me will be right here in the Today Explained feed every Sunday starting March 9th. Catch us here.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
We inquire about it gently. How can you afford this neighborhood or that school?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
I remember living in New York for about a decade and seeing this vividly. And to be honest, because I'm kind of a busybody, I would very politely try to figure out like, oh, hey, girl, what's going on? Why do you think we get so curious about this? Like, what's the impulse behind wanting to know? I think part of it is class resentment, right? But at least we can laugh about it.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
So as you were looking for themes in your reporting, what are some of the ways that boomer parents are helping their adult kids in New York?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
I like to think that if my mom was like, oh, I'm going to put a down payment on a house for you in New York, an apartment in New York for you, I would just be thrilled. I would just walk around on a cloud and be like, I'm so damn lucky.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
And yet, the emotions that you describe in your reporting and some of the emotions that we heard, in fact, many of them, when we asked our listeners to reach out and tell us what they'd experienced, they're not walking around on a cloud.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
When you talk to people about what social class they were in, did you find confusion? Did you hear pushback? Everybody thinks they're middle class.
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
$59,000. Correct. So half of the millennials in New York are making under $59,000, half are making over $59,000. That's right. So there's always going to be a question of what most people have and what most people are doing. Has New York City become the kind of place where you can't survive there unless your parents are giving you money? Is it necessary to have this, this kind of help?
Today, Explained
Sugar daddies and mommies
Madeline Leung Coleman. She's a features writer for New York Magazine. Coming up, it is not just New York City. The trillions of dollars are flying all over America. Who's getting what?
Today, Explained
Generation Gentle Parent
It's just exhausting. They just go round and round and round talking.
Today, Explained
Generation Gentle Parent
Today. Today. X-ray. So cute. Growing up, we had a wooden paddle that was just always sitting out. And if we misbehaved or acted out or talked back, we would get the paddle. And even though I think this is effective because we were well-behaved kids, When I first had to try to spank my son, I could not bring myself to do it. It just broke my heart.
Today, Explained
How to "fix" your face
I have Botox up here, here. I've had filler in my cheekbones, filler in the chin, filler in the jaw, and my lips, so pretty much my whole face except my nose.
Today, Explained
How to "fix" your face
I am by no means against Botox. And anytime I can get it free, I double up.
Today, Explained
How to "fix" your face
If you think you have a double chin, you actually probably don't. Probably just excess lymph fluid that's sitting in this part of your face.
Today, Explained
When docs cry
Amy's blood alcohol level was four to five times higher than drink driving limits. Maybe a combination of her eating disorders and the alcohol just made her heart stop.
Today, Explained
When docs cry
You don't do anything in this life by yourself, and you know, like, the confidence of the group is your superpower, and those four guys unlocked that for me.
Today, Explained
When docs cry
What was your thought when Love Dove got the rebound? It was freaking like a song started playing.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
No Buy 2025 is a TikTok trend that invites you to imagine, what if you just stopped shopping? People are doing it for all kinds of reasons. Debt.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Today explained, I'm Noelle King. Aja Barber loves clothing. She also loves knowing how things were made. About two decades ago, Aja started wondering about her clothes.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
The answer, of course, is the people making those clothes are often overseas and frequently paid very little. Eventually, Aja quit buying fast fashion. She quit buying from Amazon. And she wrote a book called Consumed, The Need for Collective Change. It was published in 2021. And we called Aja this week to see how it feels to be vindicated. So you've been banging the drum for a decade.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Ten years ago, nine years ago, were you embraced online? Like, what was the reaction to what you were saying?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
We've probably been asking ourselves this since time immemorial, but where do you think the need to consume so much comes from?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
I want to ask you to wrestle with something for me. We do have consumer economies. It is true that when people buy less, our economy suffers. People lose jobs. The markets might go down, which matters to people who have their retirement in the market. So there's lots of things about our economy that do make it necessary for us to consume.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
As you grapple with that and also still want to like, you know, have have like friends and be able to be someone who like lives in the quote unquote real world. How do you like what's that tension like for you?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
There's something that's been happening, and I am sure that you've seen it and are aware of it, and I am desperate to know what you think. So we're at this point in American history where people who have very different politics are converging on a shared view.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
President Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Besant made big news recently because he was defending tariffs, which of course will make Chinese and Canadian and Mexican imports more expensive for Americans. And he said...
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
That sounds to me like something that you would agree with wholeheartedly. It's not from the Green Party. It's not from the Socialist Party. It's from the Republican Party.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
All right. So many of us live in the U.S. It is a consumer economy. It's a capitalist society. The question then, I guess, is how can we be more responsible? No Buy 2025 is one option. What else do you see as useful?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Aja Barber. Her book is called Consumed, The Need for Collective Change. And you can get it at the Public Library. Victoria Chamberlain produced today's show, Jolie Myers edited, Matthew Billy and Andrea Kristen's daughter engineered, and Laura Bullard checked the facts. Today Explained is produced by Peter Balanon-Rosen, we miss you, bud.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Avishai Artsy, Gabrielle Berbet, Miles Bryan, Carla Javier, Travis Larchuk, Amanda Llewellyn, Hadi Malagdi, and Devin Schwartz. Patrick Boyd mixes, masters, makes decisions. Amina El-Sadi is our managing editor. Miranda Kennedy is our executive producer. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder. It is March 14th, and do you know what that means? Sean Ramosfirm turns 50 today.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Happy birthday to this man. And here's to the next 50. Today Explained is distributed by WNYC and the show is a part of Vox. If you wish, you can support our journalism by joining our membership program today or whenever the markets rebound. Go to Vox.com slash members to sign up. And do remember, we make a show on the weekends now, too.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
You can check out Explain It To Me, which will be in our feed on Sunday morning. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
You are like that person who thinks your Venmo is private. Exactly. Exactly.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Bye. Mia Westrap, 27, English, social worker, sometimes goes to extremes.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Let's talk about those behaviors and what your financial circumstances were that animated this whole thing. What was going on with your money?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
So as many of us do, you took to TikTok and you told TikTok, I am not going to buy anything for a full year. Let me ask you what you did spend money on and what you skipped.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Coming up on Today Explained, what happens when so many of us decide we have enough?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
We are on Zoom, and I am noting that your hair is quite cute. You have nice bangs. Your eyebrows are on fleek, as we said five years ago. What about beauty, hair care, makeup? What'd you do?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
Okay, so you got through the end of your year and you worked really hard. How much money did you end up saving?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
It's about a thousand, close to a thousand dollars a month.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
What was the hardest thing? What was the thing that you wanted to buy and couldn't stop thinking about buying, but for that year you just weren't allowed to? Clothes.
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
All right. So at the start of your year, you were just a girl standing in front of a TikTok asking, no, asking your friends to support you in your endeavor. You, like all of us, did not have millions of friends, but you woke up after posting this and you found that... a million people or so had seen it. That is the definition of virality for my money. Why do you think this went so viral?
Today, Explained
What if we stopped shopping?
And you did. Mia, congratulations. Thank you. That was Mia Westrap. Coming up, why it seems like everyone is starting to agree that we buy too much crap.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
On Today Explained, way back in the mists of time, 1998, a new beauty store hit the scene. Its appeal was choice.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
We're asking enterprise leaders about some of the toughest questions they're facing today, revealing the tensions, risks, and breakthroughs happening behind closed doors. Check out Decoder, wherever you get your podcasts.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
It's a big deal to get your brand into Sephora stores. How do brands become part of the portfolio? What do they have to do?
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Fast Company senior writer and friend of the show, Elizabeth Segrin. Hey, Liz. Hey, it's so good to be here. You recently wrote a big piece about Sephora and just how much power it has in high-end beauty. What is Sephora's deal?
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
What do the founders say when they're asked about the really big tradeoffs that brands have to make in order to get into Sephora?
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
I would imagine, Liz, that it's really hard for a company to go on record and say, you know, being associated with Sephora, being in the Sephora store was bad for us. Is anybody, will anybody talk openly about the downsides?
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
And it's tough. It's tough to be independent. To be a small brand sounds great, full creative control, all wonderful, but But as you've laid out, if you're not able to poke your head up above the parapet, so to speak, no one ever sees you.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
So, Liz, it was capitalism all along. Everyone listening to this episode will be inside of a Sephora this weekend. I personally guarantee it. What should we think about this when we walk in for our concealer?
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
Fast Company senior writer Liz Segrin. Liz, thank you so much. Thank you. Amaska Llewellyn produced today's show. Amina El-Sadi loves a red lip. Andrea Kristen's daughter exfoliates with coffee grounds. And Laura Bullard enjoys a little red light therapy. Patrick Boyd shampoos with Atelier Bloom. Most luxe on the list. Go figure.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
The rest of our team, Abishai Artsy, Hadi Muagdi, Victoria Chamberlain, Peter Balanon-Rosen, Miles Bryan, Travis Larchuk, and Devin Schwartz. Jolie Myers is our deputy EP, and Miranda Kennedy is our EP, also pretty. Keep your third eye open for Sean Ramos' firm at South by Southwest in Austin on March 8th. He's going to be talking to New Jersey native Rami Youssef. I'm Noelle King.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
You no longer had to be Teen Clinique or a Lancome lady. Maybe for you, it wasn't solely Maybelline. And that was fine. In Sephora, you were free. Consumers loved this new way of shopping. Sephora became a kingmaker. It is still a very big deal to get your little brand into a Sephora bay. But now comes a reckoning. Does Sephora have too much power? Get in, loser. We're going shopping.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
Is there a brand that helps us understand just how much power Sephora has here?
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
So Glossier is one of those companies that really makes its bones in the age of the Internet has democratized anything. We can be close to the customer. We can work with a third party chemist. We can get the influencers to wear our stuff on Instagram. It is boom times for Glossier, but you would not be Fast Company's Liz Segrin if things had stayed that way. What happened next?
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
Fast Company's Liz Segrin coming up. What, Liz? Coming up, coming up, coming up.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
Thank you so much for having me. They say their shipping is fast and carbon neutral, and when you sign up, they say you get to pick a free gift worth up to $60 with your first order. Our colleague Claire White has tried Thrive Market. I wonder what her gift was.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
You can head over to thrivemarket.com slash explained to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift. That's thrivemarket.com slash explained thrivemarket.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
In every company, there's a whole system of decision makers, challenges, and strategies shaping the future of business at every level. That's why we're running a special three-part Decoder Thursday series, looking at how some of the biggest companies in the world are adapting, innovating, and rethinking their playbooks.
Today, Explained
The making of a beauty king
Today Explained is back with Fast Company senior girl boss Liz Segrin. Liz, you report that before Sephora was the behemoth it is today, it, in fact, was an innovator. Tell us about the beginnings.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
If you are a woman on God's green earth on Al Gore's internet, then your algorithm has at some point served you Nara Smith, the soft-spoken model who loves to cook for her husband and kids.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
Can I tell you about one that I found fascinating? Sure. So it was a first-person article. It was titled, We Had Sex in a Car with Strangers Zooming By, and it was the most thrilling quickie of my life. Did you read that one? I did not. Okay, so this woman is newly married. She's on her honeymoon.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
And then they proceed to have sex in the car. But here's the thing. After the first paragraph where you're hooked, you're like, I'm going to hear this wild tale of this sexy time. There is a disclaimer that says, this is educational material for married women only. Only. It made me think, what exactly are you trying to do with this disclaimer? First of all, is Evie magazine serious?
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
Am I really supposed to avert my eyes from the sexy tale because I'm an unmarried woman? Like, what do you think that's trying to say there? And who is it for?
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
I think in the past couple of years, there's definitely been a reckoning about the kinds of magazines that women were sold for many years. Things like Cosmo, right? And we're looking back and we're like, was Cosmo good for women? And I think the answers are mixed, right? And so what I'm wondering about is like I was like I was like a Cosmo girl in like the early 2000s and whatnot.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
Sarah Peterson, author of Momfluenced and the substack In Pursuit of Clean Countertops. What is a trad wife?
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
I was reading about how to like make an appletini. And I do wonder, in 2024, we've got this magazine that is very popular that appeals to be growing that is selling a very different story about what it means to be a woman. And I'll use one of their kind of lines that I read repeatedly, which is, it's great to be feminine. It's not great to be feminist. Right.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
And I'm just wondering if you think EV Magazine tells us something about the time that we're living in, in the way that I think Cosmo really did tell us something about where we were 20 years ago.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
E.J. Dixon of New York magazine's The Cut. Victoria Chamberlain produced today's show. Amina El-Sadi edited. Senior researcher Laura Bullard has some questions for you, Evie. Andrea Christen's daughter and Rob Byers are our engineers. And I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
Nara's Capri Sun doesn't have any added sugar or citric acid or any of those sus natural flavors that are in the store-bought one. It's all from scratch.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
So is the word tradwife, is it something that this group of women embraces? Like, is it offensive if I call a woman a tradwife?
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
But then she does put it in a little plastic pouch with the straw, just like it's a real Capri Sun, which is incredibly cute. And now somehow you've lost 10 minutes and there are hundreds more of these videos. And really, you need to get offline and go do something with yourself, but you cannot look away. What is happening to you? You have entered the world of trad wives.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
Producer Victoria Chamberlain, notably not a trad wife. She buys French salt from Ballerina Farm and then she posts images on our work slack. She loves the content. She watches it on Instagram. I do, too. I don't want to be a trad wife. Why do I want to watch it so much? Why do we want to buy the salt? Like, what is the allure here?
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
I think a defender of Hannah Nealman might say... But she's not doing anything bad. She and other women like her are just living their best lives, however realistically, on Instagram. And that's not a real problem. And if that's a real problem, then anybody who pretends their life is better than it is on social media is a problem.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
Sarah Peterson, Momfluenced is the book and In Pursuit of Clean Countertops is the sub stack. Coming up, Evie magazine, Cosmo for conservatives. What's the sex column like? We're going to get into it.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
Support for today explained comes from Thrive Market. They say their shipping is fast and carbon neutral, and when you sign up, they say you get to pick a free gift worth up to $60 with your first order. Our colleague Claire White has tried Thrive Market. I wonder what her gift was. Here's Claire.
Today, Explained
Trad wife takeover
You can head over to thrivemarket.com slash explain to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift. That's thrivemarket.com slash explained thrivemarket.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
Beige, don't kill my vibe
Support for this show comes from Degree. When you have a lot on your plate, you don't want to worry about how you smell. Degree can help make sure you stay fresh. Degree Whole Body Deodorant Spray is designed to keep away odor while feeling light on your skin so you can feel light on your feet through your busiest days.
Today, Explained
Beige, don't kill my vibe
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Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
A math major and big moment for Villanova, the first Augustinian pope. How surprised was Terence Sweeney?
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
He loves ceviche, in fact. He's 69 years old. He loves to play tennis, like you. He's got Creole roots from New Orleans. A beautiful thing. An American thing. Oh, he loves Christmas movies. What did he major in in school? He was a math major.
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
Amanda Llewellyn and Avishai Artsy produced today's show. They had help from Jolie Myers, Laura Bullard, Gabrielle Burbay, Andrea Christen's daughter, Patrick Boyd, and the two of us. I'm Noelle King. I'm Sean Ramosroom. This was Chicago Pope.
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
All right. So tell us who he is. Who is Robert Prevost or Pope Leo XIV?
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
When Pope Francis died, there was a big conversation about whether the church would pick somebody who was more traditional or who was viewed as more progressive the way Pope Francis was. What kind of choice is Pope Leo XIV? Where does he fall on that spectrum?
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
Same, actually. All right. So you've mentioned several times that he is an Augustinian. What is an Augustinian exactly?
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
So after Robert Prevost was chosen yesterday, immediately it came to the surface that he had expressed some opinions on immigration. And I saw people, and you had written about this in the past, kind of drawing a line between the Augustinian tradition and the current controversies that the United States is facing over immigration. What is the Augustinian position on immigration?
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
Pope Leo XIV has very strong thoughts about immigration. We're going to talk about why.
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
It is very 2025 for a new Pope to be retweeting criticism of a vice president who's had a number of controversies. What do you think it tells us about Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV?
Today, Explained
Chicago Pope
Terrence Sweeney Villanova, thank you so much for taking the time today. We really appreciate it.
Today, Explained
Whey too much protein
Hello. Okay. So this week on the show, we're going to go on a journey to help a man in the love department. You know, Noelle, we've talked about this. Dating is changing and it's changing very quickly. A lot of guys feel like they've been left behind. So I talked to a listener who told me he's never tried to approach a woman in person because he's worried about coming off creepy. Poor guy.
Today, Explained
Whey too much protein
Yeah, it's rough out here. I fell for him. But we hit a men's group at a bar in Austin, Texas, and found some inspiration from a bunch of guys that get together to help each other with stuff like this. You can hear that show on Sunday morning in the Today Explained feed. And people can call you if they have a question they want you to answer. What's the number?