Political Gabfest - Is Biden The Last Politician?
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon and David Plotz are joined by The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer to discuss Joe Biden’s White House and The Last Politician; the war in Ukraine and the possible meeting of Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin; and Americans’ views on the value of higher education. Join us for Political Gabfest Live in Madison, Wisconsin on October 25!
Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:
The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future by Franklin Foer
Seung Min Kim, Stephen Groves, and Farnoush Amiri for AP: “How Biden and McCarthy struck a debt limit deal and staved off a catastrophe”
Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias: “This was Biden’s core promise …”
Jasmine Wright for CNN: “Kamala Harris found her voice on abortion rights in the year after Dobbs. Now she’s making it central to her 2024 message”
Imtiaz Tyab for CBS News: “Ukraine counteroffensive makes “notable” progress near Zaporizhzhia, but it’s a grinding stalemate elsewhere”
Paul Tough for The New York Times Magazine: “Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault Is That?”
Ramesh Ponnuru in The Washington Post: “How to restore intellectual diversity on college campuses
Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. in The Washington Post: “Could income-share agreements help solve the student debt crisis?”
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber
Sarah Wood for U.S. News & World Report: “Paying for Meals at College: What to Know About Costs”
Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences by Joan Biskupic
Here are this week’s chatters:
Emily: Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim for The New York Times: “Georgia Judge Says Two Defendants in Trump Case Will Get Early Trial Together” and Sam Gringlas for NPR: “In the Trump Georgia case, conflicting legal strategies complicate the path to trial”
Frank: The Dan Patrick Show: “Does Messi Make MLS Appear Inferior?”; How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer; Essays on Music by Theodor Adorno; and On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain by Edward W. Said
David: One Life: Frederick Douglass at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.; Michel Martin for NPR’s All Things Considered: “Picture This: Frederick Douglass Was The Most Photographed Man Of His Time”; and NPR: “’What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass’ Speech”
Listener chatter from Nicole Dorn: Jennifer Senior for The Atlantic: “The Ones We Sent Away”
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Frank, Emily, and David discuss the writing of The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, Emily, David, and John talk with Barbara Kingsolver about her best-selling book, Demon Copperhead.
Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com or X us @SlateGabfest. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth
Research by Julie Huygen
Hosts
Franklin Foer, Emily Bazelon, and David Plotz
Follow
@SlateGabfest on X / https://twitter.com/SlateGabfest
Slate Gabfest on Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/Gabfest/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, and welcome to the Slate Political Gap Fest. |
| 0:16.0 | September 7, 2023, the IS Biden-The Last Politician Edition. |
| 0:22.0 | I'm David Klotz of CityCast, I'm in Washington, D.C., Emily Bazelon, you are here, of the New |
| 0:27.4 | New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School, hello. |
| 0:29.4 | Hello, David. |
| 0:31.4 | And John Dickerson of CBS Prime Time celebrated his one-year anniversary as hosting CBS Prime |
| 0:38.2 | Time this week, and he's probably hung over from that raucous celebration. |
| 0:43.8 | But John is not here, he's actually out reporting, but that's okay, because in his place we |
| 0:48.3 | have Frank IV staff writer at the Atlantic, and the author, if you brilliant new history |
| 0:52.7 | of the Biden administration's first two years, the last politician Frank, welcome back |
| 0:56.9 | to the Gap Fest. |
| 0:57.9 | Honour of a lifetime to think that you, I'm up to filling John's chair while he's out |
| 1:03.2 | doing the shoe other work. |
| 1:05.7 | We get to sit here and be pundits while he's doing the real business of the trade. |
| 1:10.5 | So thank you. |
| 1:11.5 | So this week on the Gap Fest, our first topic is Biden Toast. |
| 1:15.2 | We're going to talk to Frank about his book, about Biden's accomplishments, and about |
| 1:19.3 | why he is rematching up so poorly against Trump, at least at this moment. |
| 1:24.6 | Then the Ukrainian counteroffensive is mired, what will happen next in the war, and in |
| 1:30.8 | the geopolitical game of pick-up sticks that it has caused. |
| 1:34.4 | And then a fascinating new story in the New York Times makes the case that Americans |
| 1:38.5 | are losing faith in colleges and graduate schools as a path forward for themselves and |
... |
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