Juan Manuel Benítez
34 episodes listed below
New York politics, patiently questioned.
Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know treats local politics as both biography and machinery. Its conversations move from campaigns, budgets, climate law, and congressional races into the experiences that shaped each guest’s sense of power.
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Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know is a measured interview show about New York City politics, public life, and the personal histories behind civic power. It is not built for quick hits. The conversations tend to sit with a guest long enough for policy, biography, and strategy to run into one another. Ross Barkan’s episode moves from Zoran Mamdani’s door-to-door campaign experience to the act of writing fiction about power outside the city. Julie Tighe’s conversation turns congestion pricing and climate law into a practical argument about buildings, costs, investment, and what average New Yorkers can absorb. Micah Lasher’s appearance frames a congressional primary through government service, Trump-era politics, Iran, Columbia, housing, gun laws, abortion rights, and disagreements inside Democratic coalitions. Antonio Reynoso’s episode treats a Brooklyn-to-Washington run as a test of where the left wants to go when it governs. Julie Menin’s conversation starts with property taxes and city budget pressure, then widens toward public safety, the Iranian community, and political negotiation. Luis Miranda brings the sharpest edge, talking about Trump, Latino voters, poverty, political language, and decades of building power in New York. Erik Bottcher’s episode is more intimate, joining public office to survival, family acceptance, marriage equality, and the purpose of government. The Off Topic reunion adds a looser current, bringing Grace Rauh and Zack Fink back into a familiar local-politics chemistry. Across these episodes, the show returns to a few steady questions. Who has power? How did they get it? What do they do with it once they have it? And what does any of that mean for ordinary New Yorkers? The appeal is in the accumulation. A listener gets campaign math, institutional memory, policy detail, and personal motive in the same sitting. The pace is deliberate. The payoff is a fuller picture of the city’s political class as people arguing over consequences, not just positions.
Made for: For listeners who follow New York City politics closely and want more than headlines, clips, or campaign spin. It especially fits people interested in how policy fights, elections, advocacy, and personal history shape local power.
What sets it apart: The show gives guests enough space to explain the route from lived experience to public decision. Its strength is the steady movement between immediate political stakes and the longer civic history beneath them.
"Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know" is a New York City-based interview podcast that gets inside the minds of the people shaping our world - from rising political heavyweights to policy architects to cultural influencers. Drawing on more than two decades of reporting experience on television and radio, and on his role as Columbia University’s Professor of Local Journalism, host Juan Manuel Benítez combines sharp policy questions with unexpected personal curiosity, exploring not just what his guests think, but how they think. Each conversation reveals the books, music, experiences, and obsessions that drive decision-makers, creating intimate portraits of p...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Detailed interviews connect New York political power to the personal histories, campaign work, and policy choices of the people exercising it.
Juan Manuel Benitez turns interviews with New York political figures into close examinations of how power is acquired, exercised, and defended.
A climate law meets your apartment budget, and Juan Manuel Benitez asks who pays.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient conversation about power, campaigns, and the fiction Ross Barkin wants to make dangerous.
Ross Barkin and Juan Manuel Benitez use a personal political relationship to reach something larger: how campaigns, books, and city power meet in New York.
A serious New York climate interview that keeps circling back to costs, policy, and what comes next.
Julie Tighe uses the conversation to treat New York's climate fight as a practical question: whether the state can still turn public goals into public investment.
A steady primary piece that leans on a long New York government record as the central case for the 12th Congressional District race.
It stays calm and policy heavy, with the candidate building his case through a long record in New York government. The path runs from campaign positioning into City Hall, Albany, the attorney general's office, and the governor's office, where he says he pushed school…
A clear-eyed political conversation about Latino power, New York affordability, and the hard work of building community influence.
The episode treats New York politics as a long game of power, coalition building, and practical tradeoffs. Luis Miranda and Juan Manuel Benitez circle Latino political identity, affordability, and the stubborn question of how communities move out of poverty, while Miranda keeps…
A reflective political interview that links personal history to public purpose.
Juan Manuel Benitez keeps the conversation moving through a life story that opens out in stages: a teenage crisis, a father's promise of unconditional love, a childhood in the Adirondacks, a move to New York City, and eventually a path into public service that reached the state…
North Dakota politics, argued at close range.
D.C. business with civic stakes.
Civic interviews from a San Francisco lens.
Juan Manuel Benitez opens with the plainest question: how did Ross Barkan meet the mayor?
Juan Manuel Benítez opens on Earth Day, the federal government’s dismantling of environmental protections, and New York’s late state budget.
The episode opens with a joke about Michael Asher being a teenage magician and showing up on the Today Show before shifting to the race to replace Jerry Nadler in New York's 12th Congressional District.
Antonio Reynoso discusses his congressional campaign, the stakes for the Democratic Party, and the progressive coalition in New York City.
Julie Menin discusses property taxes, budget negotiations with Mayor Mamdani, and support for the Iranian community amid security concerns.
Juan Manuel Benitez speaks with Luis Miranda about Latino political power, politics, and communities in New York.
Juan Manuel Benítez opens with Eric Butcher's account of a father who told his child he would be loved no matter what.
The original team of NY1's Off Topic podcast reunites to discuss their career changes and local politics.
Jonathan Mahler discusses his book 'The Gods of New York' about how the years 1986-1990 shaped modern New York through figures like Ed Koch and Donald Trump.
Assemblymember Alex Bores discusses his tech-focused legislative work, AI regulation, and his campaign for Congress in NY-12.
Grace Rauh discusses her transition from journalism to civic advocacy and the upcoming New York City mayoral election.
Brian Lehrer discusses his role as a public radio host, his approach to journalism, and the upcoming New York City mayoral election.