On this episode of The Nation Podcast.
Minister of Labor and Social Economy Yolanda Diaz speaks during a plenary session in the Congress of Deputies, on 10 September, 2025 in Madrid, Spain. (Jesus Hellin / Europa Press via Getty Images)
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s high-profile labor minister, has managed a tightrope walk unthinkable in the country’s recent history. Much to the astonishment of her critics, she’s mitigated inflation while staving off the far right and delivering material improvements for the people of Spain.
Can her model of leadership and reform be adopted by a broader leftist international movement, as she hopes?
Labor journalist Sarah Jaffe wrote about Díaz in the latest issue of The Nation and joins us to discuss these questions. Shortly after we recorded this episode, the Spanish parliament shelved Díaz's proposal to shorten the workweek by two and a half hours.
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Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s high-profile labor minister, has managed a tightrope walk unthinkable in the country’s recent history. Much to the astonishment of her critics, she’s mitigated inflation while staving off the far right and delivering material improvements for the people of Spain. Can her model of leadership and reform be adopted by a broader leftist international movement, as she hopes?
Labor journalist Sarah Jaffe wrote about Díaz in the latest issue of The Nation and joins us to discuss these questions. Shortly after we recorded this episode, the Spanish parliament shelved Díaz’s proposal to shorten the workweek by two and a half hours.
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Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
It’s no surprise that liberal philanthropy — a longtime pillar of the Democratic establishment — has become one of the Trump administration’s latest targets. As David Callahan writes in our December issue, liberal foundations “have often been depicted as the great puppet masters of the left, bankrolling and directing a who’s who of progressive groups intent on destroying the American way of life.” In other words, catnip for MAGA madness.
But as Callahan points out, the reality of how these institutions operate is far from radical. As powerbrokers of the elite, liberal philanthropists are averse to challenging “the systems that spawned them.”
How have liberal foundations failed to mobilize working-class Americans? And how can they ramp up the fight to defend the democracy they claim to care so much about saving?
Joining us to discuss this is David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, and author of The Givers: Wealth, Power and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age.
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D.D. GuttenplanTwitterD.D. Guttenplan is a special correspondent for The Nation and the host of The Nation Podcast. He served as editor of the magazine from 2019 to 2025 and, prior to that, as an editor at large and London correspondent. His books include American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone, The Nation: A Biography, and The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority.
Sarah JaffeSarah Jaffe is a reporting fellow at Type Media Center and the author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt and Work Won’t Love You Back.