meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
FiveThirtyEight Politics

What Do 1,200 Books About Trump Really Tell Us?

FiveThirtyEight Politics

ABC News

Politics, News

4.620.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Carlos Lozada, the nonfiction book critic at the Washington Post, speaks with Galen Druke about what he learned from reading many of the books written about Trump from the past five years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast.

0:11.0

I'm Galen Druke.

0:12.4

As President Trump prepares to leave office in just over a month, it appears at least

0:17.3

for now to be the end of an era in journalism and literature.

0:22.2

For much of the past five years, Trump has been the sun around which so much of our political

0:27.9

and cultural thinking has orbited.

0:31.0

Journalists, authors and academics have all tried to understand him, his supporters,

0:35.9

his White House, and his impact on America.

0:39.0

And this podcast has probably been no exception as far as that goes.

0:43.8

So what conclusions did they or we come to over the past five years?

0:49.2

What have we learned about Trump and ourselves during the time he's been in the White House?

0:54.0

Well Carlos Lozada, the nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post, has some answers.

0:59.2

He read 150 books written in those past five years about Trump and the nation and reviewed

1:05.0

them in his book titled What Were We Thinking, a Brief Intellectual History of the Trump

1:10.1

Era.

1:11.1

So Carlos is here with me today to share the wisdom contained in the Trump canon.

1:15.3

Carlos, thanks for joining me.

1:17.0

Thanks for having me.

1:18.1

I have a lot of questions.

1:20.0

It was a good book.

1:21.0

I enjoyed reading it.

1:22.2

But just to start off, I'm curious on a personal level, what was it like reading all 150 of

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from ABC News, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of ABC News and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.