Author: The Free Press

James Carville, America’s best-known Democratic political consultant, has been on the scene for a very long time and has worked on just about a thousand campaigns—he’s almost 80. But his most prominent victory was Bill Clinton’s successful run for the presidency in 1992, which was documented in the incredible D. A. Pennebaker documentary War Room. Some people watch Notting Hill as a comfort movie. For me, it’s War Room.

So you can imagine my excitement when I met Carville at The Texas Tribune Festival and noticed that he was wearing the exact same iconic purple, gold, and green striped LSU polo that he wore in War Room. It was actually quite fitting, and symbolic: a whole lot has changed in American politics over the last 30 years. Carville’s style—blunt, charming, unconventional, and usually right—has not. 

The people closest to Carville have other ways of describing the political icon. His former business partner, Paul Begala, has said that “James lives in a border town between genius and madness. Now that he’s rich and famous, he’s eccentric. I knew him when he was just crazy.” His wife, Mary Matalin, who is a Republican Party consultant, has said: “He really is a nut.”

Our conversation—which was recorded in a room full of three hundred Rachel Maddow die-hards—covered a range of political commentary, criticism, and diagnosis: whether or not he thinks Biden is too old to run again, why he thinks Kamala Harris is treated unfairly by the press, the direction of the Democratic Party, why he thinks wokeness “is over,” and, of course, Trump and the future of America. 

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On Wednesday night, Fox Business and Rumble hosted the second Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in beautiful Simi Valley, California. Bari Weiss and The Free Press’s very own Peter Savodnik watched live in the spin room as the seven candidates—Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, and Doug Burgum— took the stage to spar over questions about union strikes, inflation, income inequality, the cost of childcare, the border, China, crime, policing, drugs, gun violence, education, Russia, Ukraine. . . really, nothing new.

But of course, the man they really wanted to spar with and the man leading the polls by a landslide still refuses to play ball. So, we sent TFP reporter Michael Moynihan to check in on the elusive Donald Trump, who spent his night on the other side of the country speaking to a crowded room, which he claimed would be full of striking auto workers. (Though, Moynihan had a hard time finding them.) Trump’s Detroit visit came just one day after President Biden went to the picket line in Wayne County to march with union members outside a General Motors plant—an unprecedented move by a sitting president.

On today’s episode, as the two likely 2024 candidates battled to portray themselves as the voice of blue-collar Americans, what were the seven GOP hopefuls hoping to achieve by squabbling at the Reagan Library instead of marching with striking auto workers? Who were the biggest winners and losers of this very strange tale of two cities? And with nearly 60 percent of GOP voters backing Trump, is anyone emerging as a viable Trump competitor, or is it time to face the fact that we’re tumbling toward a 2020 rematch between two very old men that no one really wants to see happen?

Music in this episode by blue dot sessions

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As we tumble toward 2024, anxiety among Democrats is beginning to simmer. It’s easy to understand why. Just look at what happened last week: Biden was giving a press conference in Vietnam about upgrading the country’s diplomatic ties when he started rambling: “The Indian looks at John Wayne and points to the Union soldier and says, ‘He’s a lying, dog-faced pony soldier!’ Well, there’s a lot of lying, dog-faced pony soldiers out there about global warming.” Then he said, on mic, that he was going to go to bed. A voice suddenly emerged and jazz music started to play. Biden tried to answer another question, but they cut off his mic.

According to a recent CNN poll, 56 percent of Democrats are seriously concerned for Biden’s current level of physical and mental competence. Sixty-two percent of Democrats said they are seriously concerned about Biden’s ability to serve a full second term. Another poll, by AP-NORC, found that 69 percent of Democrats surveyed think Biden is too old for a second term.

Among the people not yet convinced that Biden needs to be in a nursing home is Atlantic staff writer Frank Foer. Foer’s new book, The Last Politician, tells the behind-the-scenes story of Biden’s first two years in office. Foer says he started as a Biden skeptic. The incoming president was, in his estimation, a bloviator who dangerously fetishized bipartisanship. But he emerges some 400 pages later with a rather more charitable view of the president. Biden is “the father figure of the West,” someone deeply experienced in foreign policy and racking up policy victories at home. Biden, he writes, “is an instructive example of the tedious nobility of the political vocation. Unheroic but honorably human. He will be remembered as the old hack who could.”

But. . . why doesn’t that come through to the public? Will Americans buy that narrative of Joe Biden in 2024? What of Hunter Biden’s legal troubles? The impeachment inquiry? What should we make of the many Biden alternatives eagerly waiting in the wings, and what would it take for one of them to step forward? And is America’s gerontocratic elite a fundamental challenge for American democracy? Those questions, and more, on today's episode, guest hosted by Michael Moynihan.

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In 1973, Leonard Cohen announced he was done with music for good. The same year, in October, war broke out in Israel.

The Yom Kippur War would become the bloodiest in Israel’s young history—and Cohen was there to witness it. As the war broke out, he left his home on the Greek island of Hydra to fly into the warzone.

Leonard Cohen never said much about why he went to the front. What we know is that in the months that followed, he would write “Who By Fire.” Five decades later, on Spotify and in synagogue, you can still hear the echoes of this trip.

So what was it that happened in the desert in October of 1973 between this depressed musician and these too young soldiers going off to battle? How did it remake Leonard Cohen? How did it transform those who heard him play? And how did the war transform Israel itself?

Those are just some of the questions Matti Friedman explains in his beautiful book Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.

This episode aired last year on Honestly, and we’re thrilled to reshare it with you today, as we approach the 50 year anniversary of the war that remade a country—and one searching folk star. 

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This week, while our audio team is on summer break, we’re featuring an episode from one of our favorite podcasts: Conversations with Tyler, hosted by the wonderful Tyler Cowen. It’s a conversation with philosopher Amia Srinivasan about her book, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century. They debate questions such as: do we have a “right” to be desired? How are our sexual desires shaped by the society around us? Is consent sufficient for a sexual relationship? How should we address falling fertility rates? What did women learn about egalitarianism during the pandemic? Why, according to her, progress requires regress. And much, much more. . . 

The episode received a lot of attention and reactions, for reasons you’ll understand when you listen to it. Most importantly, it’s contentious yet respectful in a way that I think is increasingly rare in public life. As Tyler wrote at the time, on his blog Marginal Revolution, about the conversation: “You have to learn to learn from people who bother, annoy, or frustrate you. If you do, they will not in fact bother, annoy, or frustrate you.”

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, this conversation between Tyler and Amia was a big inspiration for our first-ever Free Press live debate, which is happening next week in L.A. The proposition: has the sexual revolution failed? If this conversation inspires you too, please consider buying a ticket to the event: Wednesday, September 13, at the Ace Theatre in downtown L.A.

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The team’s on vacation, so for this week’s Honestly, we’re sharing a favorite episode from a favorite podcast, one you may not have heard of: UnHerd with Freddie Sayers.

UnHerd’s mission is similar to ours: to push back against the herd mentality, and to provide a platform for otherwise unheard ideas, people, and places.

On this episode, host Freddie Sayers talks to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins about God, people’s distrust in science and vaccines, cancel culture, aliens, romantic poetry and more.

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On Wednesday night, Fox News and the streaming platform Rumble hosted the first Republican presidential debate with the eight GOP hopefuls who made the cut: North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, former governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former vice president Mike Pence, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. 

Missing from the stage was Donald Trump, who refused to attend the debate. Instead, he sat down Tucker Carlson—a move that allowed him to flip the bird to the RNC and allowed Tucker to do the same to Fox, who fired him a few months ago. Trump’s interview with Tucker aired exclusively on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and more than 74 million people tuned in.

Here at The Free Press, we love a good debate night, and we were up until the wee hours discussing it all. So today on Honestly, TFP reporter Olivia Reingold, TFP senior editor Peter Savodnik, and Newsweek’s opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon are here to discuss who emerged on top? Who fell by the wayside? And did the elephant not in the room still somehow manage to dominate?

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If you’ve been listening to this show for the past few months, maybe even since the 2022 midterms, you probably think I sound like something of a broken record when it comes to my advice for politicians today. Again and again, I’ve said the following: elections right now are Republicans’ to lose. Biden’s approval numbers are low—41.2 percent-—which is lower than every president at this stage of their term in the last 75 years, other than Jimmy Carter. 

It seems to me that all Republicans need to do is stand still and be normal, and they’d win. (Instead, the GOP often seems more focused on Bud Light and books about gay penguins with two moms.)

So when former Texas congressman Will Hurd announced he was running for president last month, I thought, at long last, a normal Republican candidate. And not just that—one with an impeccable pedigree and reputation. A Republican who has never bent the knee to Trump. A Republican who is sensible, sober, and highly respected for his bipartisanship. The kind of textbook candidate that will set your heart aflutter if you count yourself among the legions of the sane and moderate.

So. . . why is Hurd polling in last place? Has my advice over the last few months been misguided? Is the Republican Party just too far gone, too changed at this point for someone as normal as Will Hurd? On today’s episode, I ask him. 

Hurd spent nearly a decade as an undercover operative for the CIA in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, during the height of the war on terror. In 2010, he left the agency to start his political career and in 2014, he was elected to Congress, becoming the only black Republican on the House floor. For three consecutive terms, Hurd represented one of Texas’s most sprawling districts, a district that is two-thirds Latino and covers much of the border with Mexico, from San Antonio to El Paso. 

In a profile of Hurd in The Atlantic last year, appropriately titled “Revenge of the Normal Republicans,” the reporter Tim Alberta wrote this: Will Hurd knows that “a leader can’t emerge without a movement, and a movement manifests only with the inspiration of a leader. He also knows that some people view him as uniquely qualified to meet this moment: a young, robust, eloquent man of mixed race and complete devotion to country, someone whose life is a testament to nuance and empathy and reconciliation. What Hurd doesn’t know is whether America is ready to buy what he’s selling.” 

So which is it: Are Americans ready to buy what Hurd is selling? Or has that ship simply sailed?

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Colin Campbell says that the way our society treats grief—and people in grief—is cruel and backward, and it needs a radical reimagining. 

He, of all people, would know.

Four years ago, Colin, his wife Gail, and their two teenage kids were driving to Joshua Tree, when they were T-boned by a drunk and high driver going 90 miles an hour. Colin and Gail survived. Their two children, Ruby and Hart, did not.

How do you live after that nightmare? How do you support a friend, a colleague, a brother or sister, who literally does not know how to go on?

Colin’s new book, Finding the Words, attempts to answer those unimaginable questions. It tells the story not only of his own pain in the weeks and months following Ruby and Hart’s death, but also breaks down our society’s misconceptions about grief, which he calls the “grief orthodoxy,” and it provides practical advice for a different kind of approach to grief—one that is more truthful, real, and connected.

People say to the grieving “There are no words” because they’re scared to confront the hard conversation. As Colin writes, it “acts as a perfect conversation killer. This empty phrase immediately ends any chance of a dialogue about loss and mourning. It encapsulates all that is wrong with how our society handles grief.”

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Vivek Ramaswamy, at 37 years old, is the first ever millennial Republican presidential candidate. He graduated from Harvard, then Yale Law School, and worked as a partner at a hedge fund before starting a successful biotech company, where he made millions.

It’s an impressive background. But he lacks any political experience, so he’s not someone pundits think has a shot in the already crowded GOP primary field. And yet, somehow, his name is in the news almost every single day. His tweets are constantly going viral. And recent polling suggests that he’s hitting a nerve with the American people: it’s only August and Vivek is polling in third place, ahead of established politicians and a former vice president. 

On today’s show, Vivek explains he thinks he can win the nomination and the presidency—by beating Trump by going further than Trump, and by being a kind of Trump 2.0. He talks about why he thinks we’ve lost our soul as a nation, and why he thinks we need a “second American revolution.” And—from immigration to foreign policy to dismantling the Department of Education—what a President Ramaswamy, with all of his radical proposals, would do for the country. 

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