S2 Ep149: Andrew Weissmann: This is Why America’s Institutions Are Failing
The Illegal News with Sarah Longwell
The Bulwark
4.9 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sarah Longwell talks with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann about his new book: "Liar’s Kingdom"
They discuss how Donald Trump exposed weaknesses in American institutions, why misinformation has become so central to modern politics, and what that means for the future of democracy.
Weissmann explains why simply winning elections won’t fix the problem, explores how other democracies handle threats to the rule of law, and lays out reforms that could strengthen guardrails without rewriting the Constitution.
Buy "Liar's Kingdom":
- Chatham Bookstore signed copies: https://bit.ly/4aXHu4R
- Politics & Prose signed copies: https://bit.ly/4aALp8Q
- Amazon: https://amzn.to/3MHQ8MR
- Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/402H2xc
- Bookshop.org: Bookshop.org: https://bit.ly/3N5hVa3
Get 15% off OneSkin with the code ILLEGALNEWS at https://www.oneskin.co/ILLEGALNEWS #oneskinpod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. Welcome to the bulwark. I'm Sarah Longwell. And usually when I am with Andrew Weissman, it is because we are discussing the illegal news. But just recently, Andrew and I were chatting in the green room and he told me, Sarah, I write about this in my book. And I said, wait, there's a book. There's a book. There's always a book. There's always a book, Sarah. |
| 0:21.8 | Yeah. |
| 0:22.6 | Well, you know, they're hard to write. |
| 0:25.2 | They're hard to write. |
| 0:26.4 | So Liar's Kingdom being announced right here where you're launching it. |
| 0:31.8 | Is today the day? |
| 0:32.6 | Today the day you're making it public? |
| 0:34.3 | Exactly. |
| 0:35.2 | And I couldn't think of anyone better to celebrate with. |
| 0:38.3 | How do you feel having just written a book? |
| 0:40.3 | You know, I don't think people understand. |
| 0:43.3 | It's like you think of the idea and you think this would be a really good thing for a book. |
| 0:47.3 | And then you sort of don't focus on the pain. |
| 0:51.3 | And so, you know, it's just a long process. And there's like, you know, and there's |
| 0:56.6 | parts that are joyful and wonderful. And there are parts where it's a tough slog. And at the |
| 1:01.4 | very end where you're just looking for typos, you're like, what did I ever think of this? |
| 1:06.8 | But you know what? Now when it's over and you're just at the part where it's getting announced, and look, there's a reason I wrote it. And now it's just like all of that's gone. And you sort of forget about that pain and you think about this is why I did it. Yeah. Let's do. Oh, good. We've got your dogs. I know our viewers like to have. He's like all excited about the book. |
| 1:28.4 | He's pumped about the book. I'm so glad. Totally pumped. |
| 1:31.5 | This guys, we're going to do a preview for all of you about the book. I know Andrew has become, he is my sometimes co-host on the illegal news guest hosts. |
| 1:40.2 | People love it when you're here. And so I thought it would be fun for us to chat about your book and why you wrote Liar's Kingdom, what it's about. And just like give us the overview out of the gate. |
| 1:53.5 | So why did I write it? I wrote it because, you know, this is something we talked about either in the last time we met or the time before that. |
| 2:02.6 | And both of us were saying we have to think about the systems that are not working. |
... |
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