Q&A

Historian Eleanor Herman joins Brian Lamb to talk about her book, "Sex with Presidents," about sex scandals involving U.S. presidents going back to the early years of the Republic. Eleanor Herman is the author of many other books, including "Sex with the Queen" and "Sex with Kings." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Clinton administration aide Gary Ginsberg, author of "First Friends," talked about the personal confidants of U.S. presidents and the influence they wielded. He talks about banker and businessman Bebe Rebozo, who Richard Nixon knew for 44 years, and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan, one of Bill Clinton's closest advisers for much of his political career, among others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Washington Post syndicated finance columnist Michelle Singletary discusses how people should react financially during an economic downturn. She also talks about her love of budgets, her hatred of debt, and the future of the U.S. economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessica DuLong, the former chief engineer on NYC fireboat John J. Harvey, talks about the rescue of nearly 500,000 people, by boat, off the island of Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks. It was the largest maritime evacuation in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Ritchie, historian emeritus of the U.S. Senate, talks about the influence of Drew Pearson’s muckraking “Washington Merry-Go-Round” columns, which derailed many political careers in Washington and drew the ire of every president from FDR to Nixon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist and historian Craig Fehrman analyzes American presidents through the lens of the books they've written. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do people like to get intoxicated? Edward Slingerland, professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, tries to answer the question in his latest book, "Drunk," which looks at the evolutionary purpose of intoxication and the role that drinking has played throughout history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Were government-mandated lockdowns in the U.S. necessary to stop the pandemic? John Tamny, director of the Center for Economic Freedom at FreedomWorks, says they weren’t and argues they have done more harm than good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Harvard professor Annette Gordon-Reed talks about the history and legacy of Juneteenth - June 19th - the day in 1865 that enslaved African Americans in Texas were informed of their emancipation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Osnos, a longtime reporter, editor, and publisher and the author of An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, talked about his family’s escape from Poland in 1939, working for I.F. Stone, covering the Vietnam War and publishing books by former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Osnos was vice president and senior editor at Random House from 1984-1996 and publisher and CEO at PublicAffairs, which he founded, from 1997-2005. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During World War II, the U.S. Army created a "Ghost Army" that used inflatable rubber tanks, sound effects, fake radio transmissions, and performance art to fool the Germans into miscalculating the strength and location of American troops. Its mission remained classified until 1996. Filmmaker and author Rick Beyer ("BY"-er) talks about the 1,100 men who served with the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops – aka the Ghost Army – during the war. Mr. Beyer has directed a documentary and co-written a book about the unit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Attorney Greg Francis discusses his book “Just Harvest,” about a class-action discrimination lawsuit brought by black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1997, resulting in a billion dollar settlement two years later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Wall Street Journal reporter and Washington, DC, resident Neil King talks about his nearly 300-mile walking trip to New York City this past April to connect with American history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Theoretical physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein talks about subatomic particles, the mysteries of the universe, and the journey she took to become one of less than one hundred black American women to receive a PhD in physics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Investigative journalist Lawrence Roberts talks about the “Spring Offensive” of 1971, during which tens of thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters, including Vietnam War veterans, came to Washington, DC, in an effort to shut down the federal government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page, author of "Madam Speaker," talks about the life and political career of Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who became the first female Speaker of the House in 2007 and is currently serving her second term in the position. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Washington Post political columnist Karen Tumulty discusses her biography of former First Lady Nancy Reagan. She talks about the role Mrs. Reagan played as political adviser to Ronald Reagan and as a mother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julia Sweig, senior research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin, talks about the influence Lady Bird Johnson had on Lyndon Johnson’s decision-making, both before and during his presidency. www.oracle.com/goto/cspan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and Pedro Noguera, dean of the school of education at USC, debated education policy and talked about the importance of having civil discussions over political disputes, especially when principled differences of opinion are involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Elizabeth Becker tells the story of three women - Australian correspondent Kate Webb, French photographer Catherine Leroy, and American intellectual Frances FitzGerald - who reported on the Vietnam War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kansas City-based Susan Vollenweider and Beckett Graham, co-hosts of The History Chicks podcast, talk about the origins of the now 10-year-old podcast, its growing popularity over the years, and some of the women they've covered on their fortnightly look into U.S. history, including Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii and inventor Lydia Pinkham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George Weigel, a Catholic theologian, author and distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, talks about some of the people he profiles in Not Forgotten, his new book of elegies and reminiscences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jayme Lemke, senior fellow with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center’s F. A. Hayek Program, talks about the social and economic disruption caused by the COVID pandemic and the response by the U.S. government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erica Armstrong Dunbar, professor of history at Rutgers University, talks about her book, "She Came to Slay," about the life and exploits of Underground Railroad conductor and Union Army spy, Harriet Tubman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of Texas history professor Peniel Joseph talks about the activism and converging ideologies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the importance of their thinking on the fight for civil rights in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Rikha Sharma Rani discusses her profile of Vice President Kamala Harris’s late mother, Shyamala, who came to the United States from India in 1958, and Prof. Devesh Kapur talks about the larger story of Indian immigration to the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wall Street Journal reporter Aruna Viswanatha talks about the federal investigation into the January 6th attack on the Capitol and Northeastern University political science professor Max Abrahms discusses whether the government needs new authority to properly deal with domestic extremists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Investigative journalist Lawrence Roberts talks about the “Spring Offensive” of 1971, during which tens of thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters, including Vietnam War veterans, came to Washington, DC, in an effort to shut down the federal government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of California at Berkeley historian of medicine Elena Conis talks about the development of the polio vaccine in the 1950s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarada Peri, senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and John McConnell, senior speechwriter for President George W. Bush, join us to talk about presidential inaugural addresses, from JFK to the upcoming inaugural address of President-elect Joe Biden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Helen Andrews, senior editor at The American Conservative magazine, takes a critical look at the Baby Boomer Generation and argues that they have left subsequent generations, especially Millennials, worse off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Actor Nic Novicki, founder and director of the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, talks about the 2020 entries and the winning films in three categories: best awareness campaign, best editor, and best film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jake Wood talks about serving with the U.S. Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan and with Team Rubicon, the disaster response organization that he co-founded with a fellow Marine in 2010. Seventy percent of the over 100,000 U.S. volunteers that serve with Team Rubicon are military veterans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Q&A we talk with the youngest women in the freshmen class of 117th Congress, Republican Kat Cammack of Florida and Democrat Sara Jacobs of California. They discuss their backgrounds and what they hope to accomplish in office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historians Susan Schulten and Eric Rauchway talk about two of the most contentious presidential transitions in U.S. history - in 1861, between James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln, and in 1933, between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist and author Elaine Weiss discussed her book, "The Woman's Hour," about the lead-up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920, that granted women the right to vote. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmaker James Taing discusses his documentary “Ghost Mountain,” about the 1979 massacre of Cambodian survivors of Pol Pot’s Killing Fields by Thai soldiers along the Thailand-Cambodia border. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of Texas at Austin sociology professor Sarah Brayne talks about the use of big data and new surveillance technologies by law enforcement, and discusses where this kind of policing may be headed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Savage, Los Angeles Times, 20th Anniversary of Bush v. Gore SCOTUS Case Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Matthew Weil and CNET’s Laura Hautala talk about mail-in ballots, election security, and the evolution of voting machines since the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The University of Chicago’s Kathleen Belew and the Wall Street Journal’s Jillian Kay Melchior talk about the Proud Boys and Antifa, right and left-wing groups, respectively, that have used violent tactics to further their goals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Actor Nic Novicki, founder and director of the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, talks about the 2020 entries and the winning films in three categories: best awareness campaign, best editor, and best film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author and 2020 Kirkus Book Prize finalist Isabel Wilkerson argues that the United States has a hidden caste system that has played a role throughout its history and produced the racial divisions and injustices we see today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro talks about the history of U.S. Supreme Court nominations and the confirmation battles that sometimes accompany them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author and 2020 Kirkus Book Prize finalist Eric Jay Dolin talks about the destruction caused by hurricanes throughout U.S. history and the science and technology being applied to deal with them today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author and historian Harold Holzer examines the relationship, often hostile, between the media and U.S. presidents going back to George Washington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the UK-based medical journal The Lancet, talks about the COVID-19 outbreak and the response to it by governments around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pamela Constable recently completed a lengthy tour as the Washington Post's Afghanistan/Pakistan bureau chief. She talks about her work, the people she's met, the issues she's covered, and conditions today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author and historian Harold Holzer examines the relationship, often hostile, between the media and U.S. presidents going back to George Washington. During part one of our two-part interview with Mr. Holzer, he talks about presidents prior to FDR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Katherine Gehl, founder of the Institute for Political Innovation, argues that our current political system is leading to voter disenchantment and an unhealthy level of partisanship, and suggests ways to improve it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices