Michael Powell has been covering New York City life and politics for a long time.

As a reporter for the New York Times,

the Washington Post in New York,

and now the Atlantic,

he has actually been reporting about this city for decades.

Against that backdrop, he was recently on Columbia University's campus to try to better

understand this movement that we are watching play out. this

unravelling that has taken over the Columbia campus.

He joins us to report on what he saw and what he learned.

And I'm pleased to welcome to this podcast for the first time,

Michael Powell, who is staff writer for the Atlantic, previously a longtime

reporter and columnist for the New York Times and the Washington Post and throughout all of those stops on his

journalistic journey his career he's mostly been focused on New York City and

obviously what we are experiencing now is not only in New York City and obviously what we are experiencing now is not only a New York

experience but there is something very New York-centric about all of it.

Michael, thanks for being here.

Thank you. It's a pleasure, Dan.

Michael, I want to begin, we're going to talk about the piece you wrote for the Atlantic, the most recent piece,

but before we do, I just want to set up how we got here.

I think for most listeners of this podcast, in and around April 17th is when they started

focusing on Columbia University because it was on April 17th that the

president of the university, Safiq, she testified before Congress, so her actual testimony and those of her colleagues

...