Hi, everyone from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm

Kara Swisher. The Cold War has been over for more than 30 years, but President

Trump and his Republican acolytes are still throwing around the C-word, that would be

communist, at anything that smells slightly progressive. It's not quite McCarthyism, but it feels

like we might be getting close and maybe even worse, which is why I want to talk to Clay

Risen today.

He's a New York Times reporter and the author of a number of history books, including his latest, Red Scare, Blacklist, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America.

It's been called the most complete history of the Red Scare that has ever been written, and it's a fascinating read.

And even though he doesn't write about

the MAGA movement, it's easy to see connections between the Republican Party of the 1940s and

50s, Joseph McCarthy's insane tactics and today's political climate, including that Roy Cohn,

former mentor and attorney to President Trump, was a big part of the story. I really enjoyed

the book. I devour everything about

the Red Scare and history before that, because I think history is obviously instructive, but at the

same time, we always think it couldn't happen here, and it has, actually, and we've managed to push

it back time and again in our history. So I think hearing about this era, which I think was one

of the more pernicious eras, and the heroes that push back on it is critically important today. I want to talk

to Clay, obviously, about the conservative anti-communist groundwork that led to the Red Scare why

McCarthy was so successful and where he sees parallels today. I think it's an important conversation

to have just ahead of the 4th of July,

as we're thinking about what actually makes our country great. And friends, it was not Joseph McCarthy.

It was great that we pushed back on him. Our expert question today comes from political analyst,

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