Jeff Greenfield On Trump And History
The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
4.6 • 836 Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jeff is a TV journalist and author focused on politics, media, and culture. He’s been a senior political correspondent for CBS, a senior analyst for CNN, and a political and media analyst for ABC News. He has authored or co-authored 13 books, including If Kennedy Lived, When Gore Beat Bush, and Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics.
For two clips of our convo — on how dangerous a Trump reelection would be, and how Biden trapped us with terrible prospects against Trump — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in NYC; working on the RFK campaign in ‘68; leaving a lucrative consulting job for journalism; the populist appeal of Pat Buchanan; Newt’s pivotal role in polluting politics; how Trump totalized the GOP; his cult following among evangelicals; why he won’t be as restrained during a second term; the civil service in his crosshairs; how Haley and DeSantis failed to deploy dissenters who worked for Trump; Mike Lee’s surrender as a constitutionalist; Mike Flynn wanting to use the military on Jan 6; the congressmen who didn’t vote to impeach out of fear of death threats; our plummeting trust of institutions; Trump countering Jeb over “my brother kept us safe”; Trump priming his base to disbelieve any media reports; the “pathetic miscalculation” of the Resistance that he was finished; the Dems’ lost opportunity to take seriously the concerns of his voters; Obama’s firm stance on illegal immigration; why legal immigrants dislike open borders; how crime has “bedeviled” the Dems since the '60s; why non-white voters are moving toward Trump; Fetterman changing his tune as a progressive; protesters today don’t understand civil disobedience like MLK did; Reagan as a “senior stud” compared to Biden; why Biden is stuck with Harris; how the Ivy League hearings could have been a “Sistah Souljah” moment for Biden; famous moments in debate history; people who could have been great presidents; and Jeff detailing many other counterfactuals from history.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jonathan Freedland on anti-Semitism and UK politics, Nate Silver on the 2024 election, Christian Wiman on resisting despair, Justin Brierley on his book The Surprising Rebirth of Belief of God, Jeffrey Rosen on the pursuit of happiness, George Will on Trump and conservatism, and Abigail Shrier on why the cult of therapy harms kids. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other pod comments to [email protected].
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Hey ya! |
| 0:29.6 | How you doing? |
| 0:31.6 | We're just after the Iowa caucuses here, and it's a very bright and clear day in Washington, D.C. and my lungs are a little |
| 0:41.0 | better. I spent last night absorbed in saltburn, this astonishing new movie, which I recommend |
| 0:50.5 | to anyone who's interested in, or I don't know what you'd be interested in this movie. |
| 0:57.5 | It's a sort of weird revisiting of Bright's Head revisited. |
| 1:03.1 | It's Bright's Head Gonzo. |
| 1:05.2 | It's Bricehead where Charles Ryder ends up actually going after the family rather than becoming a sion of it and is about as far |
| 1:15.8 | from Catholicism and even more as you could possibly imagine. But it brought back to me a huge |
| 1:21.2 | amount of my own feelings about Oxford, about showing up as a scholarship boy and being |
| 1:26.3 | surrounded by all these Etonians |
| 1:27.9 | and all these people with country houses and a whole way of speaking and living that I didn't |
| 1:32.9 | understand. |
| 1:34.5 | And it's a sort of class revenge fantasy as well. |
| 1:38.4 | I really was taken with this movie. |
| 1:40.7 | Not since I think the banshees of Inassurant have I been so kind of affected by something, |
| 1:46.4 | simply because it was so close to the bone, I guess, is what. And actually, there's scenes in it |
| 1:51.7 | where I can see the rooms that I actually lived in at Oxford, which brought back a lot. |
| 1:58.2 | Oxford was for me a whole world. It was the most amazing experience I ever had, really, |
| 2:04.1 | and loved it so much. I think I have forced myself to be distant from it for quite a while |
| 2:11.5 | because it's so seductive. It's such a beautiful, wonderful place. Anyway, thank you again for subscribing. |
| 2:18.7 | I shouldn't do this every week, but I will do. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Andrew Sullivan, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Andrew Sullivan and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.