Political Gabfest - Should Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Be Fired?
Political Gabfest
Slate Podcasts
4.4 • 8.5K Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2024
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon and David Plotz are joined by Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times to discuss the absence and silence of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, school absenteeism with Alec MacGillis of ProPublica, and Donald Trump’s claim of absolute presidential immunity.
Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:
Politico: Austin’s hospital debacle: A timeline of events
Fred Kaplan for Slate: Why the Secretary of Defense’s Mysterious Disappearance Means He Needs to Go
Max Boot for The Washington Post: Lloyd Austin doesn’t deserve to be the piñata of the day in Washington
Major General Patrick S. Ryder, Department of Defense Press Secretary
Alec MacGillis for ProPublica and The New Yorker: Skipping School: America’s Hidden Education Crisis
Jay Greene, Ph.D. and Jonathan Butcher for The Heritage Foundation: The Alarming Rise in Teacher Absenteeism
Natalie Kitroeff and Adam Liptak for The New York Times Daily podcast: Trump’s Case for Total Immunity
Bill Rankin and Katherine Landergan for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Could Willis allegations sink Trump case? Legal experts weigh in
Mariana Alfaro and Amy B Wang for The Washington Post: Chris Christie caught on hot mic, says Nikki Haley will ‘get smoked’
Here are this week’s chatters:
Emily: Past Lives and Anatomy of a Fall
Jamelle: Fist of the Condor
David: Amsterdam; EnglishLearning on reddit: Is there any English word that has three or more same and consecutive letters?
Listener chatter from Erin Bumgarner in Arlington, Massachusetts: The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David, Emily, and Jamelle talk about which presidents should be on a new Mount Rushmore. See The White House Historical Association: The Presidents; John Quincy Adams; Ulysses S. Grant; Franklin D. Roosevelt; Dwight D. Eisenhower; and Lyndon B. Johnson. See also National Park Service: Why These Four Presidents?; Mario Canseco for Research Co.: Americans Pick Four Presidents for “New Mount Rushmore”; Politico Magazine: Who Should Be on the Next Mount Rushmore?; and Chauncey Alcorn for Capital B: What to Do About Stone Mountain? Black Residents Talk Park’s Racist Past.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, John talks with Christine Coulson about her book, One Woman Show: A Novel.
Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth
Research by Julie Huygen
Hosts
Jamelle Bouie, Emily Bazelon, and David Plotz
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I love it off to this late political chemist. January 11th, 2024, the Should Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin be fired in addition. I'm given lots of Citycast. I fired. Edition. |
| 0:23.0 | I'm David Clons of Citicast. I'm in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:26.0 | John Jefferson of CBS Prime Time. |
| 0:28.0 | Not a much-deserved vacation. |
| 0:30.0 | Emily Bazelon, on your Trump magazine. The responsibility is here. Hello. Vac all-time favorites, of your all-time favorites, listeners. |
| 0:44.0 | New York Times op-ed columnist Jamel Bowie, |
| 0:46.3 | live from Charlottesville, Virginia, Hello, Jamele. |
| 0:48.7 | Hello, hello. |
| 0:49.8 | This week on the Gapfest, the Pentagon |
| 0:51.8 | and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are bumblingly trying |
| 0:55.2 | to explain away his secret illness and hospitalization. |
| 0:58.4 | Should he lose his job over this snafu, this mess up, then judges seem poised to reject Trump's immunity claims in DC |
| 1:09.0 | even as the Georgia case against Trump may fall apart over potential misconduct by the Fulton County DA. |
| 1:17.0 | Then we'll be joined by Alec McGillis to discuss the crisis in school absenteeism and what can be done about it. And of course we'll have |
| 1:24.5 | cocktail chatter and I have maybe the greatest cocktail chatter that's ever been. I'm just |
| 1:28.1 | previewing that. Wow that's setting a really high standard. Yeah it may also be the worst cocktail charter that's ever been. |
| 1:34.6 | I like that it could land on either extreme. |
| 1:38.0 | That makes me excited. |
| 1:39.2 | Embracing the icy crisp winter air, warming your hands with the Starbucks, |
| 1:46.7 | wrapping up in snugly layers upon layers. |
| 1:50.0 | The signs are all there. |
| 1:51.4 | You're entering your cozy era. |
... |
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