Month: January 2023

What to do When You Elect a Fictional Character and Get Stuck With an Abject Fraud

We begin with the election of a pathological liar to the House of Representatives whose new leader is defending him on the basis that George Santos was democratically elected by his constituents who voted for a completely fictional person and are now left stuck with an abject fraud. Joining us to discuss what can be done to get legitimate representation for the constituents of Long Island, New York is Julian Zelizer, a Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University whose recent books include Fault Lines, Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party, Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past and The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment. The co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast and a CNN Political Analyst, we discuss his latest article at CNN, “Why the House is incapable of dealing with George Santos.”

A Reporter Who has Been Covering the War in Ukraine For The Guardian Since it Started 326 Days Ago

 Then we speak with a reporter who has covered the war in Ukraine for The Guardian since it started 326 days ago and has been in Ukraine on and off visiting the front ever since. Joining us from the UK is Luke Harding, a journalist, writer, and award-winning foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He was the Guardian’s Moscow bureau chief before the Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the Cold War. His books include A Very Expensive Poison: The Assassination of Alexander Litvinenko and Putin’s War with the West, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man, Mafia State: How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New Russia, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, and the number one New York Times bestseller Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House. We discuss his latest book, Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival.