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Radio Atlantic

The Presidential Fitness Challenge

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.41.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As the anniversary of his inauguration nears, a new book filled with salacious claims about the Trump administration has become a bestseller. Faced with renewed questions about his mental and temperamental fitness for the office, President Trump has pushed back, declaring himself a “very stable genius” and attacking his critics. But no new claims or revelations, James Fallows wrote recently for The Atlantic, have been more telling than Trump's public behavior. If the stories presented in a book about the president constitute a scandal, Fallows asks, what does it mean that the scandal continues in public view? What dangers are courted by speculating about the president's mental acuity? What steps could be taken to make such speculation unnecessary? Fallows joins our hosts to discuss. If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey. Links - “It's Been an Open Secret All Along” (James Fallows, January 4, 2018) - ”Is Something Neurologically Wrong With Donald Trump?” (James Hamblin, January 3, 2018) - “The Case for Hillary Clinton and Against Donald Trump” (The Editors, November 2016 Issue) - “A Time Capsule of the Unpresidential Things Trump Says” (James Fallows, May 23, 2016, to November 20, 2016) - Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (Justin Frank, 2004) - “John Dean: Nixon ‘Might Have Survived If There’d Been a Fox News’” (Edward-Isaac Dovere, POLITICO Magazine, January 02, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Dangerous breaches of norms have marked the first year of the Trump presidency.

0:04.0

Some would argue that among the most dangerous is this.

0:07.0

Many people, reportedly including some close to President Trump,

0:11.0

are asking whether he's capable of discharging the duties of the office.

0:15.3

Is it irresponsible to ask that question?

0:18.6

Is it irresponsible not to?

0:21.0

This is Radio Atlantic.

0:39.0

Over in New York we have my esteemed co-host,

0:42.0

first Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic.

0:44.8

Hi Jeff.

0:45.8

Hi, Matt.

0:47.7

And...

0:48.7

Wait, what was funny about that?

0:51.4

That's the straightest like introduction I think we've ever had on right?

0:55.0

Not anymore.

0:56.0

Well, okay.

0:57.0

Thanks to our other co-host.

0:58.6

The other co-host who voice you here at this very moment is our esteemed co-host Alex Waggner. Hello Alex.

1:05.0

Greetings Matt and Jeff.

1:08.0

With me here in DC sitting right across the table for the first time in Radio Atlantic's tenure is James

1:15.8

Fallows who we know as Jim who has been a correspondent for the Atlantic for a low these

1:20.8

many years.

...

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