Democrats Search For Answers

Warning: this episode contains strong language. In his first week as president-elect, Donald J. Trump moved at breakneck speed to fill out his cabinet with a set of loyalists who were both conventional and deeply unconventional, the U.S. Senate chose a leader who could complicate Trump’s agenda, and President Joe Biden welcomed Trump back to the White House. Times Journalists Michael Barbaro, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, sat down to make sense of it all. Guest: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers politics for The New York Times. Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times. Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times.

After single-handedly remaking the auto industry, social media and the global space race, Elon Musk is now turning his attention, and personal fortune, to politics. Over the past few months, he became one of the most influential figures in the race for president, and on Tuesday Donald J. Trump tapped him to help lead what the president-elect called the Department of Government Efficiency, Kirsten Grind and Eric Lipton, investigative reporters for The Times, explain what exactly Musk wants from the new president, and why he is so well placed to get it. Guest: Kirsten Grind, an investigative business reporter at The New York Times. Eric Lipton, an investigative reporter at The New York Times.

Last Tuesday, voters across the country approved measures to protect abortion rights, while rejecting the presidential candidate who claimed to champion those same rights. Kate Zernike, who covers the issue for The Times, explains that gap and what it tells us about the new politics of abortion. Guest: Kate Zernike, a national reporter at The New York Times, writing most recently about abortion.

When Maggie Jones’s marriage collapsed after 23 years, she was devastated and overwhelmed. She was in her 50s, with two jobs, two teenage daughters and one dog. She didn’t consider dating. She had no time, no emotional energy. But then a year passed. One daughter was off at college, the other increasingly independent. After several more months went by, she started to feel a sliver of curiosity about what kind of men were out there and how it would feel to date again. That meant online dating — the default mode not just for the young but also for people Ms. Jones’s age. Her only exposure had been watching her oldest daughter, home from college one summer, as she sat on her bed rapidly swiping through guy after guy — spending no more than a second or two on each. Ms. Jones tells her story of online dating in later adulthood, and what she learned.

The former House Speaker reflects on Donald Trump’s victory, Kamala Harris’s candidacy and the future of the Democratic Party.