The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan

Buck Angel was a pioneering porn star — the only trans man to ever win Transsexual Performer of the Year at the AVN Awards — and today he’s a sex educator, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. Helena Kerschner is a 22-year-old woman who lived as a man on hormone therapy for several years before detransitioning. Buck’s transition saved his life, while Helena’s transition was a bit of a calamity,...

Nick is the supremely talented reporter at the Washington Post covering immigration and DHS, and before that he was a foreign correspondent based in Mexico City and Havana. We tried to break down what is actually happening on the Southern border, and how likely it is to get exponentially worse. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can c...

Emily has been the most fearless reporter on the fraught subject of sexual assault and due process on college campuses, first for Slate and then The Atlantic . She also wrote a hilarious book about a beagle, What the Dog Did . You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or just below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast...

Tim is simply the best political reporter in Britain. He’s their Bob Woodward, but he can also actually write. His two books, Fall Out , and All Out War , are indispensable to understanding the politics of Brexit. He knows the Westminster political class as well as anyone. In this episode, we talk about Boris Johnson’s astonishing luck and charm, as well as the Labour Party’s floundering. For thre...

Mickey is an old friend and colleague from way back. His 1992 book, The End of Equality , was hugely influential for welfare reform in the Clinton years. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. To hear three excerpts from my conversation with Mickey — on the h...

Sally Satel, the author of many books, is a psychiatrist and journalist who just came back after spending a year with opioid addicts in Ironton, Ohio. She writes about that experience, and her views on addiction — that it’s not as simple as a “brain disease” — for the journal, Liberties . We also discuss depression, mental illness, and modernity. You can listen to the episode right away in the aud...

The indefatigable Greenwald needs no introduction for Dishheads. He was once a demon for the pro-war right; and now for the woke left. You can pre-order his book on Brazil under Bolsonaro, Securing Democracy , and you can donate to the animal shelter he started. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed)....

Mara is a brilliant transgender rights activist and founding executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. I’m so grateful for her willingness to have a robust exchange of views on some issues, along with much agreement as well. Every few weeks, I hope to add another perspective to the debate over trans identity, a subject that has suffered from the mainstream media’s horror...

One of the leading intellectuals of Trumpism, Michael was a senior national security official in the Trump administration and is most widely known for writing “ The Flight 93 Election ”, an essay endorsing Trump in 2016. He’s out with a new essay, “ The Continuing Crisis ”, and a recent book, “ The Stakes ”. I think you’ll find our debate, er, lively. You can listen to the episode right away in th...

Kmele is co-host of the brilliant and funny Fifth Column podcast and the lead producer at Free Think. You may have seen him on a recent episode of Real Time . A friend and an inspiration, Kmele really opens up in this conversation. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dis...

David is a deputy editor at New York magazine and one of the sharpest journalists covering the Covid19 pandemic. (He edited my essay on plagues this past summer.) He’s also a clear-headed expert on climate change and the author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming . This pod is full of fact, insight and speculation on the virus, the vaccines, and the new variants. If you need to get your...

Chris is an old friend and, in my view, one of the sharpest right-of-center writers in journalism. A senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and contributing editor to the Claremont Review of Books, his latest book, The Age of Entitlement , is a constitutional narrative of the last half-century that is indispensable — especially for liberals — in understanding the roots of our polarization. Here’...

David Frum needs little introduction; he’s a long-time writer at The Atlantic and the author of many books, the latest being Trumpocalypse and Trumpocracy . We cover a range of issues in this episode. You can listen to it right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. To listen to two excerpts fr...

Michael (@hirschorn) is the Emmy-winning CEO of Ish Entertainment, which makes political documentaries, and the founder of The People PAC, which promotes democratic values. He’s also an old friend from Harvard, former house-mate, and one of the smartest people I know. We talk about race, class, the resistance, the Democrats, “deep canvassing,” the woke and the promise of the unwoke left. It gets p...

A senior fellow at Brookings and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, Shadi runs a podcast and pens articles with Damir Marusic at the Wisdom of Crowds . He’s been a strong advocate of the argument that American democracy is resilient, and that Trump never represented an existential threat to American democracy. We debated this before, so I asked him to come back and defend his case in the wake...

Caitlin is a longtime writer at The Atlantic and the author of several books — the most recent is “Girl Land” — and she’s a frequent guest-host on the Femsplainers podcast. I’ve long been a super-fan. To see why, here are two recent essays Caitlin wrote — one on the dark lessons of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer , and one on the abortion debate . We share a Catholic faith and encounters with morta...

Meghan is the author of many books — the latest being The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars — and she’s the host of her own podcast, Unspeakable . I hadn’t met Meghan until this week, but it was a pleasure. We talked about our generation; what it feels like, if anything, to be a man or woman; the truthful hyperboles of wokeness and Trump, the poison of Twitter, the l...

This week I did a simulcast episode with Damir and Shadi that will also air on their own podcast, Wisdom of Crowds . We discussed and debated the resilience of American democracy in this fraught time — with some sharp disagreements. (You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the D...

Olivia is the brilliant 27-year-old Washington correspondent for my old haunt, New York Magazine, who has been covering all things Trump. I talked with her about the man who has defined so much of the news these past five years. (You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishc...

Dana is a retired surgeon, a mother, a trans rights advocate, and the former executive director (and current board member) of Gender Rights Maryland. She’s also been on the boards of two Jewish LGBT organizations, A Wider Bridge and Keshet, and has blogged extensively for HuffPo . We’ve been friends for a long time, and I thought it could only help the debate a little to have a spirited but also h...

Matt Yglesias, contrarian progressive, joins the Dishcast to discuss the fallout of the 2020 election and his new book, “ One Billion Americans ,” a patriotic case for making America greater by inviting more immigrants. In the episode we talk about the 2020 election, wokeness and media, the cancel culture on the right, the progressives who find patriotism hokey, the black voters who support Biden...

Brian Muraresku is the author of the new book  The Immortality Key , currently the #10 audiobook on the NYT Best Seller list and the #9 hardcover on Amazon’s non-fiction list . A collection of reviews can be found on Brian’s website . My own review is here . The Immortality Key , his first book, examines the pivotal role that psychedelics may have played in the origins of Western civilization, fir...

Coleman Hughes is a brilliant young writer at Quillette on issues related to race, a contributing editor at  City Journal , and the host of the podcast  Conversations with Coleman . He famously faced off against Ta-Nehisi Coates at a congressional hearing on reparations. In this episode, I begin by wondering what I got wrong about Trump and how the electorate actually views him. We discuss what ki...

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, New York Times best-selling author, host of the Making Sense podcast, and creator of the Waking Up App. He’s also an old friend, jousting partner, meditation role model, and all round wonderful man. In thinking who might be an ideal first guest for the first Dishcast, and on the eve of an election, Sam came up immediately. Exactly four years ago, in an...