Summer Friday: Ben Rhodes; DSA & Climate; Phishing; Oligarchy; Belief in God

On this Summer Friday, we've put together some of our favorite recent interviews, including: Ben Rhodes, contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, co-host of "Pod Save the World," an advisor to former president Barack Obama and the author of All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches (Random House, 2026), talks about his new book that tells the history of the United States and its central conflicts  through public speeches, from Benjamin Franklin to Donald Trump. Robinson Meyer, founding executive editor of Heatmap, talks about the DSA's evolving relationship to the Green New Deal and climate policy in general, as its members keep winning elections in big cities. WNYC has been targeted by scammers who posed as hosts, and offered authors interviews -- for a fee (which WNYC would never do). Rachel Tobac, co-founder and CEO of Social Proof Security, and Kenneth Atkins, assistant director of IT and data security at WNYC, talk about how to spot sneaky online phishing scams, and how to deal if you fall for it. Jeffrey Winters, professor of political science at Northwestern University and the director of the Equality Development and Globalization Studies Program at Northwestern’s Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and the author of The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracies (Scribner, 2026), talks about the history of oligarchy, how to fight it, and why it maintains power in a democracy. Meghan Sullivan, professor of philosophy at Notre Dame and founder of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, offers her take on the contemporary context for belief, or doubt, in God as religious affiliation largely declines in the U.S.   These interviews were lightly polished up and edited for time, the original versions are available here: Speeches as a Key to American Identity (June 8, 2026) What the DSA's Popularity Means for Climate Policy (July 7, 2026) How to Avoid Sneaky Phishing Scams (May 5, 2026) When Voters Support Oligarchs (May 26, 2026) How Belief in God Has Changed (May 20, 2026)   Photo: Whimbrel on the beach at Fort Tilden beach, Queens. Rare shorebird for this location, 24 September 2021 (Remydee1, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.