Let’s Get to the Marrow of What Trump Just Did

On the first day of President Trump’s second term, he signed a record 26 executive orders. Some of them were really big. Others feel more likely messaging memos. And still others are bound to be held up in the courts. So what does it all amount to? What exactly in America has changed? In a former life, I co-hosted a podcast called “The Weeds” with other policy wonks at Vox, including Dara Lind and Matthew Yglesias. We’ve since gone our separate ways; Lind is currently a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, and Yglesias is the author of the Substack newsletter Slow Boring. But since this was such a big policy week, I wanted to get some of the band back together. In this conversation, we discuss how much Trump’s immigration orders will actually change our immigration system; whether any of Trump’s orders address Americans’ concerns over prices; how serious Trump actually is about tariffs; and more. Book Recommendations: The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer Left Adrift by Timothy Shenk Why Nothing Works by Marc J. Dunkelman Middlemarch by George Eliot Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our supervising editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.