David Remnick (2016)

We should do our jobs---write and broadcast fairly, rigorously, and fearlessly. That is a good start. And we can get out into the country more deeply, and into the world more widely. And that is, I know, a hard thing in an era of cost-cutting. But it is absolutely necessary.

The truth? I never edited anything other than my high-school newspaper until, in 1998, while working happily as a writer at The New Yorker, I was asked to edit the magazine. Crazy, right? That was 18 years ago...

The President said he would tell me all about his first meeting with Donald Trump---but only off the record and over a beer. So far, no beer. I'm waiting eagerly for that beer summit.

Well, yes. It seems pretty clear that Vladimir Putin wanted Trump over Clinton; we also hear that American intelligence is convinced that Russian hackers worked in that quest, beginning with the hack of the DNC. Putin clearly wants a weaker, more chaotic, more pliable figure at the top. And he appears to have gotten his wish.

The best thing to do here is read Mary Norris's book The Comma Queen and watch her videos on newyorker.com. http://video.newyorker.com/watch/comma-queen-an-episode-of-diaeresis?mbid=social_reddit

I don't think he will---or not completely. Once people have a benefit, a boon to their lives, that they did not have before, they are loath to give it up. Twenty million people have health care who didn't have it before. So, start with that....Does Trump want to take that away? I bet not, and he has already said as much.

Beyonce would be fun. She so rarely gives a truly open interview, and I would love to see if she would speak more openly and freely about the impact she's had lately, and her life. Oh, and the Bobster. Bob Dylan. He's always fascinated me and, try as I might....

There are more than a couple of ways to do this. When I was in Moscow, for the Washington Post, my bureau chief there was Michael Dobbs, a truly great correspondent. And the way he started was to set himself up in Eastern Europe (Belgrade) as a stringer. He barely got by at first, but he was writing a ton for various places about the late communist era. That led him to The Washington Post, which shifted him to Warsaw, then Paris, then Moscow. What I mean is, there is a freelance route, too---not just waiting forever to work your way up the line.

Milder? Hmmm. The appointments of Mr. Bannon, Senator Sessions, and Gen. Flynn hardly seem "mild" to me. As for his use of Twitter, it doesn't evoke confidence in me. I'm not really sure the best use of a President-elect's time at 2 AM is to rant about SNL or a polite dissent on the stage of "Hamilton." But I admit it sure was an effective tool during the campaign.Effective and deeply worrying...

Well, even though my Russian is far from perfect, it was essential to my work abroad. it would have been a bit of a problem to land in Siberia with only my "Hi how are ya!" to offer.

I think it's a fair charge to some degree and it helps puncture one's own bubble and disconnectedness from so much. But at the same time, I've travelled and reported in the world an awful lot and no one person can be everywhere, experience everything. But it is useful to absorb the criticism and take it on board and find ways to make things better. And I think if you read the work of George Saunders, Evan Osnos, Larissa MacFarquhar, and others in The New Yorker you will find very fair reporting.

Great question. I think the leading role of journalism is the honest and rigorous application of pressure on power. And we will go on doing that, more than ever. But I also want the magazine and web site to be funny and literary and much more. So the sense of variation and surprise will not go missing, I promise.

No kidding, the answer is easy: work with the most talented writers and editors in the world and at a place where we are afforded absolute editorial freedom. What could be better?

Kindly. His Administration made the hard decisions to rescue a failing economy; got as close to universal health care as it is politically possible to get; embodied a level of tolerance never seen before in the White House; went eight years without scandal; etc etc

Remember this: Sanders is 75 and Warren in her late 60's. And so the Democratic Party is going to need to do the hard work of developing and surfacing younger talent, too.

I'm so glad to hear that! I love doing the Radio Hour---it's a totally different way to reach people and a completely different medium. And it's exciting to think of it in its infancy. Who knows where it will go? https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/id1050430296?mt=2

Not entirely, no. And I don't think Obama is convinced of his own language of hope. He is, after all, playing a role: the assuring still-in-office President, who is hoping against hope that Trump will be less bad than feared. We shall see.

Katz's deli, pastrami, rye, mustard, cole slaw on the side. Can't beat it with a stick.

I knew Bill when we were kids playing basketball in his driveway. He didn't have much of a shot but his wisecracks never missed their mark!

He quit smoking ages ago, though he chews Nicorette. Glad you like Etgar: he's very very funny.

I really hope not. Because that book was about the utter collapse of a system and its institutions. I think democracy is in infinitely greater condition than Soviet communism in the late 80s.

Alex is wonderful!

As for Obama: He seems to me quite similar in public: the equanimity, the poise, the determined quite optimism, the cerebral aspect....In private he is a little looser, less buttoned up, funnier

I don't agree. The Washington Post and The New York Times published a series of brilliant pieces throughout the campaign. There are many examples elsewhere. But we have also seen that all of these places need to get out of New York and LA etc as much as possible. Not too many years ago, when they were struggling economically, the Wash Post closed all of their domestic bureaus to save money. Thankfully that trend is being reversed, at least there. What is insufferable, to use your word, is the rise of the post-fact press, the conspiracy-theory press, a yellow press for the 21st century online. That holds out all kinds of dangers, especially when someone like Donald Trump thrives on it, finds advisers in its midst, etc.

Wow. I love so much music, jazz included, that we could be here all day with this one.....but, I am a huge fan of Louis Armstrong's stuff in the Twenties and Thirties; Ellington; Basie; Billie Holiday; Miles Davis; Albert Ayler; Sinatra is a great musician......take a look at the list of top 100 jazz albums that I did with my colleague Richard Brody; easy to find on our site newyorker.com

I think I get the impulse behind the question. No, she did not lose the popular vote. But we live in the system we live in---and the Electoral College persists. Alas. But it persists. And were there, to put it politely, "irregularities"? Well, starting with the DNC hack courtesy of Russian hackers and WikiLeaks.....that seems pretty damn irregular to me.

I always forget my dreams

The grizzly, definitely.

There are many, from Dante's Divine Comedy to Middlemarch, from Dead Souls to Anna Karenina, Pnin and Invisible Man, all of Jane Austen....and Homage to Catalonia....OK, enough.

Cash.

Honestly, I think that there are millions of people who want deep, honest, rigorous journalism. That doesn't mean that every publication that thrived in 1977 will continue thriving....but I think there is a future for the best and (yes) the luckiest.

Fiction? Dead Souls. Is there a better book on the absurdity of life. And there is nothing wiser than Middlemarch. Nonfiction: The Collected Essays of George Orwell---those are everything to me.

A book on Trump? I really doubt it. Check out Marc Fisher's book on Trump written with his colleagues at the Post: it's terrific.

I think Obama will write a memoir, pick his spots on speaking out on issues, rest for a while, do some good works in community building, and maybe make some money connected to Silicon Valley somehow.....on this last, I can't be sure

Well, it has been an especially political time, but I do want a mix. This week, for example, my own piece on Obama is side-by-side with a fantastic reporting piece by Daniel Zalewski about archaeology in Egypt....it's a wonder.

Anything by Saul Steinberg. And Roz Chast: she's killer, don't you think?

All kinds of things, yes: watch out for Rachel Aviv, Ben Taub, Vinson Cunningham.....OK, enough..... You know something? You're just gonna get me in trouble here!

Mainly my work. That's my contribution, really.

I leave the boxing beat to K Sanneh. He knows more about boxing than I ever will. http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/kelefa-sanneh?mbid=social_reddit

I'm so glad you think so. My favorite things of the week (usually) are the cartoon meetings (I get to pick about 16 our of a batch of 50 or more "roughs") and my meetings with Francoise Mouly, who develops the covers with our artists. Laughing is now, and always, as necessary as air.

Thank you. I think it would be a colossal mistake to conclude that every Trump voter is racist or sexist, etc. Obviously, some are; and, even more obviously, Trump played to the darkest reflexes in American life. But at the same time, there are many other factors in the Trump vote: a rebellion against globalization and de-industrialization; a distaste for the Clintons; the Comey letters and the WikiLeaks material....and more A positive side? Let me think. Um, let me think.....more.....

Recently we published a poem by Max Ritvo, a remarkable young man who was dying of cancer and had the clear-sightedness to write about his own failing body and therapy....Read him. You won't regret it.