Q&A

Former Clinton administration aide Gary Ginsberg, author of "First Friends," talked about the personal confidants of U.S. presidents and the influence they wielded. He talks about banker and businessman Bebe Rebozo, who Richard Nixon knew for 44 years, and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan, one of Bill Clinton's closest advisers for much of his political career, among others. Learn more about your...

Washington Post syndicated finance columnist Michelle Singletary discusses how people should react financially during an economic downturn. She also talks about her love of budgets, her hatred of debt, and the future of the U.S. economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessica DuLong, the former chief engineer on NYC fireboat John J. Harvey, talks about the rescue of nearly 500,000 people, by boat, off the island of Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks. It was the largest maritime evacuation in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Ritchie, historian emeritus of the U.S. Senate, talks about the influence of Drew Pearson’s muckraking “Washington Merry-Go-Round” columns, which derailed many political careers in Washington and drew the ire of every president from FDR to Nixon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist and historian Craig Fehrman analyzes American presidents through the lens of the books they've written. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do people like to get intoxicated? Edward Slingerland, professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, tries to answer the question in his latest book, "Drunk," which looks at the evolutionary purpose of intoxication and the role that drinking has played throughout history.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Were government-mandated lockdowns in the U.S. necessary to stop the pandemic? John Tamny, director of the Center for Economic Freedom at FreedomWorks, says they weren’t and argues they have done more harm than good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Harvard professor Annette Gordon-Reed talks about the history and legacy of Juneteenth - June 19th - the day in 1865 that enslaved African Americans in Texas were informed of their emancipation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Osnos, a longtime reporter, editor, and publisher and the author of An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, talked about his family’s escape from Poland in 1939, working for I.F. Stone, covering the Vietnam War and publishing books by former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Osnos was vice president and s...

During World War II, the U.S. Army created a "Ghost Army" that used inflatable rubber tanks, sound effects, fake radio transmissions, and performance art to fool the Germans into miscalculating the strength and location of American troops. Its mission remained classified until 1996. Filmmaker and author Rick Beyer ("BY"-er) talks about the 1,100 men who served with the 23rd Headquarters Special Tr...

Attorney Greg Francis discusses his book “Just Harvest,” about a class-action discrimination lawsuit brought by black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1997, resulting in a billion dollar settlement two years later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Wall Street Journal reporter and Washington, DC, resident Neil King talks about his nearly 300-mile walking trip to New York City this past April to connect with American history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Theoretical physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein talks about subatomic particles, the mysteries of the universe, and the journey she took to become one of less than one hundred black American women to receive a PhD in physics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Investigative journalist Lawrence Roberts talks about the “Spring Offensive” of 1971, during which tens of thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters, including Vietnam War veterans, came to Washington, DC, in an effort to shut down the federal government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page, author of "Madam Speaker," talks about the life and political career of Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who became the first female Speaker of the House in 2007 and is currently serving her second term in the position.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Washington Post political columnist Karen Tumulty discusses her biography of former First Lady Nancy Reagan. She talks about the role Mrs. Reagan played as political adviser to Ronald Reagan and as a mother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julia Sweig, senior research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin, talks about the influence Lady Bird Johnson had on Lyndon Johnson’s decision-making, both before and during his presidency. www.oracle.com/goto/cspan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and Pedro Noguera, dean of the school of education at USC, debated education policy and talked about the importance of having civil discussions over political disputes, especially when principled differences of opinion are involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Elizabeth Becker tells the story of three women - Australian correspondent Kate Webb, French photographer Catherine Leroy, and American intellectual Frances FitzGerald - who reported on the Vietnam War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kansas City-based Susan Vollenweider and Beckett Graham, co-hosts of The History Chicks podcast, talk about the origins of the now 10-year-old podcast, its growing popularity over the years, and some of the women they've covered on their fortnightly look into U.S. history, including Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii and inventor Lydia Pinkham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

George Weigel, a Catholic theologian, author and distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, talks about some of the people he profiles in Not Forgotten, his new book of elegies and reminiscences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jayme Lemke, senior fellow with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center’s F. A. Hayek Program, talks about the social and economic disruption caused by the COVID pandemic and the response by the U.S. government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erica Armstrong Dunbar, professor of history at Rutgers University, talks about her book, "She Came to Slay," about the life and exploits of Underground Railroad conductor and Union Army spy, Harriet Tubman.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of Texas history professor Peniel Joseph talks about the activism and converging ideologies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the importance of their thinking on the fight for civil rights in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Rikha Sharma Rani discusses her profile of Vice President Kamala Harris’s late mother, Shyamala, who came to the United States from India in 1958, and Prof. Devesh Kapur talks about the larger story of Indian immigration to the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices