More than most any journalist I know, Nicholas Kristof’s reporting has had a tangible, recurring, real-life impact on the world. A lifelong Timesman, Kristof served as the paper’s correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, and has traveled to 170 countries on assignment. (I don’t think Donald Trump even knows there are 170 countries in the world, and I certainly couldn’t name them all.) 

Kristof won his first Pulitzer, along with his wife, Times reporter Sheryl WuDunn, for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Kristof’s reports on millions of kids in India and the developing world dying because of water contamination and diarrhea spurred the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to devote billions of dollars to the problem. Kristof won the Pulitzer again in 2006 for a series of columns, reported at great personal risk, on the genocide in Darfur. In a wide-ranging conversation, Nick and I discussed the state of the post-Biden Democratic Party, whether Barack Obama is right that most Americans want to get along, and why Nick’s first choice to replace Biden was Gretchen Whitmer. As usual, our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.