Chuck Klosterman discusses his alternative rock history, in which the Velvet Underground supplants the Beatles, and considers why hits happen through craft, mystery and chance. The conversation also follows the shrinking audience for nonfiction, the fractured monoculture and the growing authority of metrics in culture and sports.

Derek Thompson and Ross Douthat map the fractures opening inside Trump’s coalition as the Iran war strains the movement’s old promises and exposes its internal contradictions. Their conversation tracks the growing fights over foreign intervention, religion, Israel, health politics and AI, and asks what kind of Republican Party might survive after Trump.