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Central Air: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Josh Barro, Megan McArdle & Ben Dreyfuss
Central Air, the show where the temperature is always just right. Join Josh Barro, Megan McArdle and Ben Dreyfuss every week for a well-centered conversation on American politics.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 2 weeks ago27 min
The Ass Election (feat. Nate Silver)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: friend-of-the-pod Nate Silver prepares us for next week's elections and lays out why his model gives Democrats overwhelming odds to reclaim the House of Representatives and a nearly three-in-four chance to retake the Senate, despite the unfavorable map.Also this week, for premium subscribers: We talk about the spate of fake pollsters putting out made-up polls this cycle and we get Nate’s guidance for interpreting early returns on Election Night. In cocktail hour this week, we discuss Cheesecake Factory-gate and what kind of gay President Trump is.For that list of special opportunities to see us next week — online, and, if you are in New York, in person, go to www.centralairpodcast.com.
- 3 weeks ago41 min
Washington D.C. Is Fantasyland
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: Washington D.C. is in a recession, partly driven by DOGE and exacerbated by local policies that make it excessively costly to do business. Local elected officials want to copy the Mamdani playbook, but New York enjoys unique economic advantages other cities can’t rely on. We consider the diverging tracks of these two cities, and the lessons lawmakers can learn around the country. During cocktail hour: we consider New York magazine’s cover story that alleges, with some justification, that chocolate is getting worse, and we discuss l’affaire Clarkson — singer Kelly Clarkson’s feud with a curiosity shop in Brooklyn, and the social media consumers around the world who increasingly can’t mind their own business when confronted with disputes between strangers.
- 4 weeks ago58 min
Choose Your Own Religion
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: is it “depraved” to worry about whether AIs can feel pain? A lot of people in Silicon Valley really buy into the idea that they might be building the machine god, and they think this might even be a good idea, even if they also think we might end up enslaving the machine god and/or that the machine god might kill us all. Mike Solana, founder of Pirate Wires, joins us to help understand these influential weirdos and the influential weirdos they disagree with. We also, necessarily, talk some about what consciousness even is.In cocktail hour this week for paying subscribers:* SlutCon, an annual conference in San Francisco with lanyards and PowerPoints and what-not that is organized by an honest-to-god prostitute and which for some reason is popular among the AI safety crowd.* The Cornell Seven case — which, rather like Silicon Valley, is an object lesson in why straight people shouldn’t be allowed to do ketamine.* The bizarre conspiracy theory that James Talarico was in an mental institution, and how Republicans have mis-learned the lesson of the successful “they/them” ad.Upgrade your subscription at centralairpodcast.com to hear the entire episode.
- Oct 6, 202646 min
Eating the Elephant (with Sarah Longwell)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and host of the The Focus Group, joins us to discuss persuadable voters and the extensive conversations she has with them (the topic of her new book How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time). We talk about what drove these voters away from Democrats (high prices), what’s driving them back to Democrats (high prices), and what politicians should say and do in an economic environment where the government has limited ability to deliver relief from high prices. And since this is Central Air, we talk about the bond market, and why it’s very important to these voters, even if they don’t realize it.That’s for all listeners this week. Paying subscribers get to stick around for cocktail hour, when we discuss:The immigration trap facing the next Democratic president.The president’s odd choice to go nuclear on Tom Cotton over Daylight Saving Time, andIn the wake of the drama at Last Ditch Bar, are lesbians okay?Upgrade your subscription to hear the whole episode at www.centralairpodcast.com.
- Sep 29, 202649 min
MeanToo (with Dave Weigel)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: with another “MeanToo” scandal in the news — that’s when a politician gets in trouble, not for sexual harassment but because someone thinks they were mean — we thought it was a good opportunity to ask Dave Weigel, Semafor’s intrepid politics reporter, whether anyone in Alaska is likely to care that Mary Peltola, Alaska’s Democratic candidate for Senate, called someone a “retard.”Plus: other developments across the Senate map and what kinds of candidate oddities matter these days, and in cocktail hour (for paying subscribers), we talk about the revealing conversation Nikole Hannah-Jones had with her daughter on “This American Life” over the weekend, and we close with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s likely ambitions to run for Senate or president.Upgrade your subscription at www.centralairpodcast.com.
- Sep 22, 202642 min
A Declaration Against Interest (feat. Jonathan Chait)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: Jonathan Chait joins Josh, Ben and Megan to talk about Nikole Hannah-Jones' candid and thought-provoking essay reckoning with her decision to send her daughter to a neighborhood public school that was low-performing — and outrage from her daughter, now in high school, that she could have chosen a different path for her. We also discuss why Democrats have seemingly lost interest in making 'let's improve public education' part of their political project. And then we take on another thorny topic: the division within the Democratic Party about support for Israel. Paying subscribers hear that conversation and cocktail hour, in which we discuss pretty bad cocktails, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh raising rates last week, and the Paramount deal.To hear the whole episode, upgrade your subscription at www.centralairpodcast.com.
- Sep 15, 202637 min
Gays In Crisis
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: first, we are obligated to discuss Josh's newly blond hair and if it's a sign he's in crisis. Then: are we in the midst of a gay crisis? The first gay treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has failed at his quest to keep the 10-year Treasury yield under 5%. The gays Donald Trump detailed to the Kennedy Center have failed to produce a vibrant-yet-MAGAfied performing arts center. And now "the makers of AI keep saying AI might kill us all” has really broken through to the general public.For paying subscribers: the absurdity of the president’s inflationary promise of $5,000 checks for every American (if they re-elect Republicans), the Calvinball rules of standing that have let the president build his illegal ballroom, and his sad and petty (and losing) campaign to get his name installed on the Kennedy Center, and Donald Trump Jr.'s sad and pitiful oligarch-funded second wedding. Finally, the AIs weigh in on Josh's hair and whether it carries a deep meaning.Upgrade your subscription — and see Josh's hair — at www.centralairpodcast.com.
- Sep 9, 202652 min
Don't Forget to Never Forget
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.comThis week: how the attack that “changed everything” has come to define less and less of our politics. In part that's because many Americans today are too young to remember 9/11, and in part it's because of three subsequent crises — the global financial crisis, the migration crisis, and COVID — and it's also because many Americans came to regret foreign policy decisions circa 2001-2003 that seemed like a good idea at the time.Josh, Megan and Ben also talk about whether we’re entering yet another phase of politics, defined by AI, and how difficult it is to make economic policy right now when the outlook is much more uncertain than usual. During cocktail hour, Josh has notes from his trip to Europe about ice, driving and French superiority.To hear the full episode, upgrade your subscription at www.centralairpodcast.com.
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About Central Air
Central Air, the show where the temperature is always just right. Join Josh Barro, Megan McArdle and Ben Dreyfuss every week for a well-centered conversation on American politics.
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