Lamar Alexander: The Education of a Senator

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

News, Politics

4.4 • 783 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike talks with former Tennessee governor, U.S. senator, education secretary, and presidential candidate Lamar Alexander about his new book, The Education of a Senator, and what his long career reveals about how American politics actually works. Alexander argues that while Washington’s “dysfunction screen” gets most of the attention, the Senate can still produce major bipartisan accomplishments when members build trust, respect institutional roles, and accept the slow work of compromise. The conversation covers the difference between executive and legislative leadership, the decline of social relationships in Congress, the rise of social media incentives, the erosion of Article I congressional power, the filibuster, federalism, impeachment, presidential relationships, and why Alexander still believes “the republic will survive” if more people choose to be builders rather than performers. Senator Alexander on X. The Politics Guys on Facebook | X Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Attention all passengers.
0:04.2	The Uber ride for Mark and Jamal's romantic weekend will depart in four minutes from Platform 6.
0:10.5	Your ride comes with a rolling countryside sunset view and a table seat, ideal for playing footsie beneath.
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0:21.6	Trains on Uber.
0:24.1	Some follow the noise.
0:26.5	Bloomberg follows the money.
0:28.3	Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings.
0:32.5	There's a money side to every story.
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0:42.3	Atheists, agnostics, long-haired widows, short-haired widows, vand-roll, hooligans.
0:47.3	The government, hug the government, love. The government, hug the government, love. The government, hug the government. I'm political scientist Michael Baranowski, an emeritus professor at North Kentucky University.
1:00.4	My guest today is Lamar Alexander, who in a nearly 60-year career in public service, has been a two-term governor of Tennessee, chair of the National Governors Association,
1:12.0	president of the University of Tennessee system, secretary of education, a presidential
1:17.1	candidate, and a three-term United States senator from Tennessee.
1:21.5	Honestly, I'm betting there's not much he hasn't seen in his long and distinguished career,
1:26.7	and so I am just thrilled to be talking to him
1:29.4	today about his recently released book, The Education of a Senator. Senator Alexander, welcome to the show.
1:35.7	Thank you, Michael. Thank you for having me.
1:38.0	So I thought I'd start with kind of talking about getting your view on the state of Washington,
1:43.8	because, of course, Washington, D.C. these days, and for a while, I think, has been kind of talking about getting your view on the state of Washington. Because, of course,
	...

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