IC: But are you confident in, say, ten years, of being able to hand off a print magazine?

DR: Yes, yes. But there is no question the Web audience will grow. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that. I am absolutely convinced that there are a large number of readers who want something great. That word reeks of hubris and vanity but why not?

IC: Your rival and former New York Times editor Bill Keller just went off to basically start a criminal justice–focused nonprofit.

DR: My old rival and everlasting friend. By getting my ass kicked by Bill Keller day after day in Moscow, I learned how to be a reporter. I respect enormously what he’s doing. He’s ten years older than I am, and for him to try something entirely uncharted and new and clearly with an impulse to do good in the world is admirable.

IC: You’re really sticking it to him with that ten years older stuff.

DR: Yes—underline, heavily underline.

IC: Do you have the gene to go off and do something risky like that?

DR: Honestly, it’s very far from my mind.

IC: To use the term “brand” that everyone likes—

DR: I don’t like it. Sounds like soup.

IC: You want to protect the brand. But do you ever feel pressure to put celebrities in the magazine? You’ve run a few pieces by Tina Fey and Lena Dunham recently.

DR: I think when the writing is good, I have not a single qualm about it. Woody Allen began writing casuals here. He wasn’t printed because he was a celebrity. Same goes for Steve Martin. We are too young to remember what a celebrity S. J. Perelman was in his time, or Dorothy Parker. Groucho Marx wrote for this magazine.

IC: I want to ask about pop science in your magazine and Jonah Lehrer —

DR: Look, Jonah Lehrer. Making stuff up is not something that is tolerable. And the Dylan quotes. [Laughs] There is no one in the popular culture who has meant more to me since I heard the song “I Want You” in 1966, when I was eight years old. So the idea that what brought Jonah down was faked Dylan quotes is an irony. But it wasn’t in our magazine.

IC: What I thought was interesting about Lehrer—

DR: I am not going to argue with you about Jonah Lehrer.

IC: OK, but do you think people like Lehrer, who have quick and sellable ideas, get somewhat of a pass and make it quickly without being closely examined? They are salesmen.

DR: Ask me what you want to ask me.

IC: Well, just what you think of the pop science that you publish.

DR: To make the leap that somehow what Malcolm [Gladwell] does leads directly to the ultimately sad story with Jonah Lehrer is itself fake science. The fact that Malcolm is a terrific storyteller and is willing to do this thing that no one else was doing—you may not like it, but there is nothing in my mind fake about it. I find it at its best thrilling. And when he started doing this no one else was. I think Malcolm is an original.

IC: Putting aside—

DR: I am concerned with what I publish. The fact that he has imitators and some of them are lesser is not of my concern.

IC: I want to ask about Obama, whom you have written a lot about.

DR: Who?

IC: Obama. Our first Muslim president, from Kenya.

DR: Exactly.

IC: In your latest long piece about him, I thought it was frustrating how—

DR: I read The New Republic. I know.

IC: He couldn’t answer a question without laying out both sides in a condescending way and lecturing.

DR: I didn’t feel condescended to, and it is not my job to soothe your frustration. It is my job to reflect the way he thinks and speaks. But I share some of that frustration as a citizen. That’s his habit of mind. On the one hand. On the other hand. That is to say.

IC: He has rubbed off on you.

DR: No, I mean those are the locutions he uses. What is the shorthand? Professorial? And that leads to frustration. Here is another frustration: In many ways, his foreign policy is a reaction to his predecessor, who under the rubric of democracy-building was a disaster unfortunately. So why was he elected? The distinguishing feature between him and Hillary Clinton was a speech about Iraq. And he says he came to office to end wars. On the other hand, excuse me [laughs], I wish I could hear a lot more from him about, say, Ukraine, than I have, other than just, “We are keeping out.” I find that . . . [shakes his head, trails off]

One of the things he said was that he didn’t need a George Kennan. What Obama meant was that he isn’t in search of a grand vision, but what he needs are strategic partners. Reagan had Gorbachev, etc. OK, so he feels frustrated in the world he has to deal with, but so what? We know these things are complicated. Let’s begin, in Ukraine, with the fact that [Viktor] Yanukovych was elected! I don’t know what Obama thinks about it! And the complexity of Egyptian politics is beyond dispute.

IC: Right, if you ask him about Tahrir Square, you will get an answer that won’t say anything.

DR: [Grunts and nods.]

IC: Do you hear from him after you write?

DR: Never, never. It’s not like we chat on the phone once a week or ever, but the times that I’ve seen him after the publication of the book, I never heard about it from him, which suits me just fine. The only book of mine he ever mentioned was about Muhammad Ali. I am not so sure the best use of Barack Obama’s time would have been to read a six-hundred-page book about himself.

IC: It is your version of self-Googling if you are president.

DR: Yeah.

IC: If you were condemned to a desert island and could bring the works of either Bellow, Roth, or Updike, which would you take?

DR: Roth. Look, I am eternally grateful for the work of all three. And Herzog, of all the novels that the three produced, may be the best. But I grew up on Roth. I might even have extracurricular reasons. I am from Jersey. I am Roman Catholic. Oh excuse me, I am not. I grew up with these books. They meant and mean everything to me. We are in a period of extended celebration of the work of Roth. Some may find that tiresome. I really don’t.

IC: You don’t buy the misogyny criticism?

DR: I have read those arguments, but no I don’t. What’s amazing about him is that there has been a falling off only of length. He saw a distinct falling off in length and quality in Bellow and didn’t want to repeat the performance. He wanted to go out on top. One thing that is very unusual to sustain in old age is length—to hold a novel or big project in your head for an extended period of time.

Reporting is hard to sustain, too. You are lucky if five percent of what you get is good. It is sitting at the airport, missed connections, and your patience can fall off. I feel it myself sometimes. The temptation is to crunch the reporting process and not give free rein to your curiosity. As a writer I need something in front of me.

[His wife enters the living room and asks for fifty dollars.]

IC: Is that on the record?

DR: The fifty dollars is on the record. Just to finish the thought: I am a reporter. I am not a good polemicist. I write “Comment” but am not that great at it. If I am halfway decent, it is when I report.

IC: I have this image that in the Condé Nast building there are all these sharply dressed hip people, and then there’s The New Yorker staff.

DR: You mean you think we look like the Waltons upstairs?

IC: I reserve comment on that, but is there a culture clash?

DR: No one has ever cut me off on line in the Condé Nast cafeteria—we seem to be treated like full citizens.

IC: Anna Wintour treats you OK?

DR: More than OK. I have to say, we do a very different thing, but I’ve learned a lot by talking with her about how she does what she does. I once had a conversation with one of her deputy editors—this was early on, and I didn’t know much about her at all, and I think it even preceded the whole wave that came with The Devil Wears Prada. And I asked this person, why is she considered a terrific editor? And she answered: because she knows exactly what she wants. This was a bit of a revelation to me.

IC: Revelation how?

DR: This is the period I was talking to you about earlier—just getting your footing running something. It’s not always a natural thing to know exactly what you want. And I think sometimes when you’re dealing with writers or other editors, God knows if you’re running something larger like a country, Hamlet-like indecision may be interesting, but it’s highly ineffective.

Isaac Chotiner is a senior editor at The New Republic. This interview has been edited and condensed.