The Daily

by The New York Times
This is what the news should sound like. The biggest stories of our time, told by the best journalists in the world. Hosted by Michael Barbaro, Rachel Abrams and Natalie Kitroeff. Twenty minutes a day, six days a week, ready by 6 a.m. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.
Episodes

At the Super Bowl, It’s Nice Guy vs. Underdog
For football fans nationwide, this year’s Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks is inherently exciting. For non-football fans like the Daily host Michael Barbaro — not so much. In this episode of “The Sunday Daily,” Natalie Kitroeff — who is a big Philadelphia Eagles fan — makes it her mission to draw Barbaro and other non-football fans into the excitement and drama of this year’s matchup through storytelling. She talks with two reporters who cover the teams for The Athletic: Chad Graff, a senior writer covering the Patriots; and Michael-Shawn Dugar, who covers the Seahawks.

'The Interview': Michael Pollan Says Humanity Is About to Undergo a Revolutionary Change
The best-selling author grapples with big questions about A.I., consciousness and the distractions polluting our minds.

When Anesthesia Fails and the Patient Is Cut Open
Women’s pain is too often dismissed in medicine. An alarming number of women report feeling major surgery and dealing with doctors and nurses who make light of their complaints. Susan Burton, reporter and host of the podcast “The Retrievals,” shares stories from just a few of the many cases of women who felt significant pain during their C-sections.

Bezos Guts The Washington Post
When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post more than a decade ago, journalists inside and outside the newsroom were cautiously optimistic. But those hopes were dashed on Wednesday, when the paper carried out widespread layoffs. Erik Wemple, who covered the developments, discusses what went wrong and what comes next.

How to Bet on (Literally) Anything
The explosion of prediction markets in the United States, where people bet on everything from Taylor Swift’s wedding date to election outcomes, has radically expanded the universe of gambling. David Yaffe-Bellany, a technology reporter, explains how these platforms became so widespread so fast, and how betting on everything could change the way we live.

The F.B.I.’s Extraordinary Seizure of Voting Records
Last week, F.B.I. agents searched an election center in Fulton County, Ga., seizing truckloads of ballots from 2020. The move escalated the investigation into President Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the state after his 2020 defeat in the state. It has since been learned that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was present during the search. Devlin Barrett, a Times reporter who covers the F.B.I., discusses the presence of the nation’s top intelligence official and the stunning phone call that shows how personally involved Mr. Trump has become in the investigation.

Can Trump Force Blue Cities to Cooperate With ICE?
Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, traveled to Minneapolis a few days ago with a message: the faster local officials cooperate with federal immigration agents, the faster those agents will leave. Hamed Aleaziz and Ernesto Londoño, New York Times reporters, explain why that kind of cooperation is so difficult to pull off.

The Sunday Daily: Bad Bunny Takes Over America.
At the Grammy Awards tonight, the Puerto Rican pop sensation Bad Bunny is the first Spanish-language artist to be nominated for album, record and song of the year simultaneously. For most artists, this would be the high point of their year, if not their career. For Bad Bunny, this is just an appetizer for what’s in store for him next week. Next Sunday, he will headline the Super Bowl halftime show. His performance comes in the middle of a nationwide crackdown on immigration — an issue he’s been vocal about — and follows a backlash against the N.F.L. for booking him in the first place. Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, the hosts of The Times’s pop music show “Popcast,” discuss Bad Bunny’s rise to the heights of pop stardom, and explore what it means for a Puerto Rican artist to headline the world’s biggest stage.

“A Terrifying Line Is Being Crossed”: Mayor Jacob Frey on the Turmoil in Minneapolis
The Minnesota Democrat on the battle between his city and the federal government.

Trump 2.0: The President’s Affordability Problem
President Trump was elected in 2024 on the promise that he would fix the economy. Now, a new poll from The New York Times/Siena reveals that the issue may be driving voters away. Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst at The Times, explains what the poll tells us.

Social Media on Trial
For years, social media companies have relied on an impenetrable first amendment protection to shield them from legal claims that their products are dangerous to children. But now, a cluster of plaintiffs are trying a different tact. Cecilia Kang, who covers technology, explains why these new lawsuits pose an existential threat to social media giants, and how those companies are likely to defend themselves.

Trump Changes Course in Minneapolis
The intense fallout from Alex Pretti’s death has forced President Trump to publicly change course in Minneapolis.The White House reporters Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Tyler Pager discuss the changes, and whether they are real or merely symbolic.

The ‘Ghost Fleets’ Moving Oil Around the World
Since December, the U.S. has been stopping and seizing oil tankers traveling in and out of Venezuela. They are part of what is known as a ghost fleet — tankers that try to secretly move oil around the world, funding states such as Venezuela, Iran and Russia. Christiaan Triebert, a reporter on the Visual Investigations team, explains what these ghost fleets are and why their days might now be numbered.

10 Shots: Federal Agents Kill Another Person in Minnesota
Warning: This episode contains strong language. Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a Minneapolis resident, on Saturday. It was the second fatal shooting by federal agents in the city during protests against a ramped-up immigration enforcement effort by the Trump administration. Devon Lum, from the Visual Investigations team, and Ernesto Londoño, who covers the Midwest, explain how the shooting unfolded and what may come next.

The Sunday Daily: We Underestimated the Neanderthal
Pop culture has not been kind to the Neanderthal. In books, movies and even TV commercials, the species is portrayed as rough and mindless, a brutish type that was rightly supplanted by our Homo sapiens ancestors. But even 40,000 years after the last Neanderthals walked the earth, we continue to make discoveries that challenge that portrayal. New research suggests Neanderthals might have been less primitive — and a lot more like modern humans — than we might have thought. The Times science reporters Carl Zimmer and Franz Lidz discuss recent discoveries about Neanderthals, and what those discoveries can tell us about the origins of humanity.

'The Interview': Chloé Zhao Is Yearning to Know How to Love
The “Hamnet” director on trying to overcome her deepest fears — and open her heart.

Trump’s Investigator Breaks His Silence
Three years after his appointment as special counsel, Jack Smith finally delivered the legal argument against President Trump on Thursday that he was never allowed to make in court. Glenn Thrush, who reports on the Justice Department, explains what Mr. Smith told Congress and why his message is likely to make him Mr. Trump’s next target.

The Global Showdown Over Greenland
President Trump has been raising tensions around the world for weeks by claiming that he would stop at nothing in his quest to seize Greenland from Denmark. But on Wednesday, he appeared to back down, announcing that he’d reached the framework of an agreement with NATO over Greenland’s future. Mark Landler, the London bureau chief, explains the ups and downs of Mr. Trump’s Greenland gambit, and why it may signal the beginning of a new world order.

On the Front Line of Minnesota’s Fight With ICE
For weeks, protests around Minneapolis have caught nationwide attention as the city shows open defiance to a federal immigration crackdown. But behind the scenes, a quieter organized resistance has taken shape. Anna Foley and Michael Simon Johnson, producers for “The “Daily,” go on the ground in Minneapolis to capture that effort, and Charles Homans, a New York Times reporter, explains why the city has become ground zero in the fight over the government’s deportation strategy.

Trump 2.0: A Year of Unconstrained Power
In the 365 days since Donald J. Trump was sworn into his second term as president, he has fired, pardoned, prosecuted, tariffed, deployed, deposed, dismantled and deported his way to a new kind of American government, one designed almost entirely in his image. In the process, he has not only transformed the federal government, he has also changed, possibly forever, the very nature of the American presidency. On today’s episode, Michael Barbaro speaks with three longtime chroniclers of Trump’s presidency about how to make sense of what Trump has done over the past year and what his next three years in office might bring.