Conversations With Jim Zirin

Political lawyer Bob Bauer, who prepared Biden for his debate with Trump, pleads for ethics in a political climate where incivility, lawfare, and outright misrepresentations have become the order of the day.

Biden cedes the contest against Trump to Vice President Kamala Harris who instantly captured the lead in the polls. Will it last? Veteran Washington journalist Matt Cooper gives Jim Zirin his take on the volcanic changes in the race.

Courts have found Donald Trump inspired an insurrection, sexually abused a woman in a department store dressing room, engaged in a scheme to defraud for which he was fined $500 million, and was guilty of 34 felony offenses involving a hush money payment to a porn star. Amazingly, he is the GOP nominee for president. Journalist Nina Burleigh, author of the newsletter “American Freakshow,” tells whether Trump's political absurdity can carry the day.

No stranger to New York, Dr. Kyung Wha Kang, the former foreign minister of Korea, has hit the ground running at the Asia Society. She tells Jim of her goals for the society, and candidly discusses US foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region.

Richard Lifton, the 11th president of Rockefeller University, the nation’s leading research institution located in New York City, tells Jim about the latest advances in scientific research and the never-ending search for a cure.

Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the risk consultancy, Eurasia Group, as well as the popular host of GZERO World which people can see on public television, in a thought-provoking interview analyzes for us the top 10 global risks this year. Heading the list is unsurprisingly the presidential election looming on the horizon, with the internal political challenges we facing us at home.

Barbara McQuade, former US Attorney for Michigan, is author of a new book, which has swept the nation, this week #3 on the New York Times best seller list. The book is entitled “Attack from Within—How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.” In the book, she shows how dictators spew disinformation online, and use it to seize power. We discuss how, if possible, we can overcome the danger of disinformation in the upcoming November election.

I sit with Louise Mirrer, the guiding spirit of the New-York Historical Society for the past two decades. Under her leadership, the museum has reinvigorated its commitment to greater public understanding of history and its relevance with blockbuster exhibitions about slavery and the Vietnam War.

Donna Shalala, for eight years Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, was later elected to Congress from Florida. An staunch advocate for reproductive rights and a fierce opponent of hate speech on campus, she has spent most of the past two decades, in higher education. Now, she ponders her future as interim president of the New School.

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Thomas Graham, a Russia expert and author of the terrific new book, "Getting Russia Right," was one of three former national security officials to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in secret back channel talks last April, possibly paving a way forward to end the war in Ukraine. He tells Jim why our post-Soviet effort to partner with Russia failed.