Donald Trump is going back to the White House and is already busy stocking his future Cabinet. Shane Harris sat down with two of The Washington Post’s best political reporters to talk about Trump’s victory, some of his initial choices for top national security positions--which are drawing extraordinary controversy--and what we might expect in Trump’s second term. 

Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey covered Trump’s first term in office as White House correspondents. They also covered his latest campaign and are reporting now on what is shaping up to be another chaotic presidential transition. 

Read some of their latest reporting here: 

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/06/how-donald-trump-won-presidential-election/ 
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/09/harris-biden-trump-election-defeat/ 
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/16/trump-transition-cabinet-controversy/

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As the US tries to come to grips with a resurgence of political violence in recent years, it's instructive to look at how the norm against political violence eroded during the late Roman Republic and contributed to ultimately autocratic rule.

Catherine Steel, Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow, specializes in the political history of the Roman Republic and its institutional structures and has written books and articles about the period. She joined David Priess to discuss her path from studying Cicero to researching and teaching the politics and history of ancient Rome, the core political features of the Republic, the concept of tribunal sacrosanctity, the challenges of dealing with primary sources on ancient Rome, how political violence flared in 133 BCE around Tiberius Gracchus, the political violence 12 years later around his brother Gaius Gracchus, the 20 years of off-and-on political violence around Marius and Sulla, the intent and effects of Sulla's constitution, the lead-up to Julius Caesar, Roman citizens' awareness of changes in the Republic, implications for today, and more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

• The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan
• Mortal Republic by Edward J. Watts
• The End of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC, by Catherine Steel
• "The Roman Senate and the Post-Sullan res publica," Historia (Journal of Ancient History) 63:3 (2014) by Catherine Steel
• Roman Republics by Harriet Flower
• The Art of Forgetting by Harriet Flower
• Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture by Harriet Flower

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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It’s Election Day, but we’re not talking about the campaign. Shane Harris welcomes Tim Naftali back to the show to talk about Americans’ fascination with the presidency. When did the “modern presidency” begin? When did voters and the press become fixated on presidents’ private lives? And what do we get wrong about the nation’s highest office? 

Naftali, a presidential historian, was last on Chatter in June 2022 to talk about Watergate, a subject on which he’s one of the country’s leading experts. Today’s conversation helps put the momentousness of this year’s election in some historic perspective. Have a listen while you’re standing in line to vote! 

People, plays, and policies discussed in this conversation include: 

Theodore Roosevelt, the first modern president 

https://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/life-in-brief 

Oh, Mary! by Cole Escola 

https://www.ohmaryplay.com/ 

The presidential “kill list” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/newly-declassified-document-sheds-light-on-how-president-approves-drone-strikes/2016/08/06/f424fe50-5be0-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html 

The Jimmy Carter “running” photo 

https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2025424_2025864_2025986,00.html 

Teddy White 

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/16/obituaries/theodore-white-chronicler-of-us-politics-is-dead-at-71.html 

Read more about Naftali and his work 

https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/timothy-naftali 

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Mark Pomar served as assistant director of the Russian Service at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, director of the USSR Division at the Voice of America, executive director of the Board for International Broadcasting. He joined David Priess to talk about the origins of US government-funded international broadcasting, differences between RFE/RL and VOA, tensions between strategists and purists over the radios' content, the impacts of detente and of Reagan's more hawkish approach, KGB infiltrations of RFE/RL, changes to the radios toward the end of the Cold War, the role of RL in August 1991's failed coup against Gorbachev, perceptions of the radios after the Cold War, Mark's book Cold War Radio and his current research into Radio Liberty, the relevance of this history for today, and more.

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Professor Sanford Levinson has written extensively about the fragility of the Constitution. A likely contested election, AI, and ongoing gridlock makes his long-stemming concerns all the more relevant. In this episode of Chatter, Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, sat down with Sandy, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law to explore how Sandy's thinking about the need for a wholesale revision of the Constitution has evolved, whether or not the Supreme Court is the most important decision maker in American society, the impact of constitutional amendments on the state level, and much more.

More about Sandy Levinson: https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/sanford-v-levinson/

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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The Earth's oceans differ from its land areas in many ways, including the historically powerful norm of "freedom of the seas." David Priess hosted David Bosco, Executive Associate Dean and Professor at Indiana University's Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, for a discussion about the origins and core principles of the freedom of the seas concept, Hugo Grotius, the practice of maritime commerce from ancient times until now, the three mile "cannon-shot" rule of territorial waters, privateering, piracy, the role of shipwrecks in spurring international cooperation on maritime safety, the norm of major canals being open to all, undersea cables, the unraveling of the freedom of the seas doctrine in the 20th century, the post-World War II era of expanding ocean claims, exclusive economic zones, optimism about the future of ocean governance, David Bosco's book The Poseidon Project, and more.

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Stoicism is having a moment.The ancient philosophy--which posits that you can’t control events, but you can control how you respond to them--has lately been embraced by self-help gurus and tech bros. But Nancy Sherman writes that the tenets of Stoicism have long found a receptive audience in “the military mind.” Whether they know it or not, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are guided by many of the principles espoused by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. 

Sherman, a professor at Georgetown University, is the author of several books, including Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind. She spoke with Shane Harris about why Stoic virtues resonate with those who serve in uniform and what the philosophy can teach everyone about how to live well amid uncertainty and struggle. 

Books and people discussed in this episode include: 

“Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind” by Nancy Sherman https://global.oup.com/academic/product/stoic-warriors-9780195315912?cc=us&lang=en&  

Cicero https://iep.utm.edu/cicero-roman-philosopher/ 

Marcus Aurelius https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/ 

Epictetus https://iep.utm.edu/epictetu/ 

Seneca’s “De Beneficiis” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3794/3794-h/3794-h.htm 

James Stockdale https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2097870/medal-of-honor-monday-navy-vice-adm-james-stockdale/ 

Thomas Gibbons-Neff https://www.nytimes.com/by/thomas-gibbons-neff 

Ian Fishback https://www.npr.org/2023/08/09/1192996954/ian-fishback-who-blew-the-whistle-on-torture-by-the-u-s-military-was-laid-to-res 

Hugh Thompson https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-wiener-my-lai-hugh-thompson-20180316-story.html 

Edward Villella https://sab.org/scenes/sab-trailblazer-edward-villella/ 

More about Nancy Sherman https://www.nancysherman.com/ 

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Isabelle Kerby-McGowan and Megan Nadolski of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Conspiracy theories about supposed Jewish control of global finance and politics have been circulating and influencing popular culture for centuries, with the spotlight often falling on the Rothschild family. Author Mike Rothschild (no relation), who has researched and written about the phenomenon in his book Jewish Space Lasers, joined David Priess to discuss the appeal of conspiracy theories overall, the genesis of the Rothschilds' wealth, legends about the family's involvement in the Battle of Waterloo and other major world events, how the expansion of Rothschild commercial interests in the 1800s spurred paranoia about the family's influence, Nazi-era movies about the Rothschilds, why the family failed to gain traction in the United States, the connections between anti-Semitism and grand conspiracy theories, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, Marjorie Taylor Greene's "Jewish space lasers" comments, and more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

The book The Storm Is Upon Us by Mike Rothschild

The book Jewish Space Lasers by Mike Rothschild

The movie Eyes Wide Shut

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Jay Venables of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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The explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in January 1986 riveted millions of Americans, who watched the horrific event live on television. What they didn’t know then was that the tragedy was largely preventable, a disastrous result of hubris and “magical thinking” as much as flawed engineering. 

Journalist Adam Higginbotham’s new book, “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space,” is a definitive account of what went wrong, and how NASA failed to learn from its own mistakes. Higginbotham’s story begins with an earlier fatal accident, a fire in the capsule of the Apollo 1 mission, which presaged Challenger’s fate. He then recounts the early days of the space shuttle program. Astonishingly, the very mechanical flaws that led to Challenger’s destruction were known, but the warnings of a few engineers were ignored by more senior officials, who by the time Challenger was set to launch the first teacher into space faced tremendous political and public pressure to make the mission happen, despite obvious risks. 

Higginbotham spoke with Shane Harris about his book, why he wanted to tell the Challenger story, and the future of human spaceflight. 

Books, events, and people discussed on this episode include: 

“Challenger”: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Challenger/Adam-Higginbotham/9781982176617 

“Midnight in Chernobyl”: 

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Midnight-in-Chernobyl/Adam-Higginbotham/9781508278511 

The Apollo 1 fire: 

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/apollo-1/ 

Roger Boisjoly, rocket engineer: 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/02/06/146490064/remembering-roger-boisjoly-he-tried-to-stop-shuttle-challenger-launch 

The crew of Challenger STS-51L: 

https://www.nasa.gov/challenger-sts-51l-accident/ 

The Columbia disaster: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/09/denial-of-shuttle-image-requests-questioned/80957e7c-92f1-48ae-8272-0dcfbcb57b9d/ 

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Jay Venables of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Science journalist Sarah Scoles has written extensively about astronomy and the UFO community, including in her 2021 book They Are Already Here. She joined David Priess to discuss how scientists look at ETs, pop cultural takes on first contact with extraterrestrials, the incredible influence of Carl Sagan's Contact, the Allan Hills meteorite, the evolution over time of beliefs about aliens contacting humans, how the Roswell myth emerged, the International UFO Congress, the Mutual UFO Network, UFO investigators, seeing lights around Area 51, SETI salvationalism, extraterrestrial-visitation belief as a religious movement, and more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

The book Contact by Carl Sagan

The movie Contact

The book Making Contact by Sarah Scoles

The book They Are Already Here by Sarah Scoles

The book Countdown by Sarah Scoles

The event "UAP: The Search for Clarity," at the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security, November 15, 2023

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Jay Venables of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Council on Foreign Relations fellow, Washington Post columnist, and author of military history books Max Boot has just completed a definitive biography of Ronald Reagan, eleven years after starting his research and writing for it. He joined David Priess to talk all about Reagan, including his appeal as a biography subject, his World War II experience, his speech preparation, his turn from New Deal Democrat to right-wing Republican, his path to electoral politics, his management style, his optimism, his pragmatism, his influence on pop culture in the 1980s, his role in ending the Cold War peacefully, his movies, and more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

The book Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot

The movie Kings Row

The movie Bedtime for Bonzo

The movie Knute Rockne All American

The book The Unwinding by George Packer

The book Desert Star by Michael Connelly

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Jay Venables and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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