Chris Whipple, author, documentary filmmaker, and TV producer got inside the Oval Office in his latest book, The Fight of his Life. With unprecedented access, he sizes up the Biden presidency in mid-stream and comes to some surprising conclusions. Published earlier this year, the book acquires greater relevancy with the President’s challenges growing as he confronts the war in Ukraine, the classified documents investigation, and the debt ceiling crisis.

Author Bill Cohan has written a fascinating whodunit about the rise and fall of General Electric. Founded by Thomas Edison in 1892, GE rose to become a corporate behemoth featuring a $600 billion market cap, and a triple-A credit rating. Today, GE has all but disappeared, its market cap down to $87 billion. Bill performs the autopsy and tells me what happened.

Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera, has weathered a parade of challenges including stormy union negotiations, serious financial constraints, a two-year covid shutdown, the firing of his star soprano Anna Netrebko because of her support for Putin, and a devastating cyber-attack which crippled his box office for nine days. Notwithstanding, he tells Jim Zirin about his survival mode planning a revitalized season of old favorites and money-making new productions.

Leading foreign policy thinker Walter Russell Mead, author Of “The Arc of a Covenant--The United States, Israel, and The Fate of the Jewish People,” tells Jim that it is not just American Jewry in whom Israel has found strong support, but American Zionists of all stripes who understand that the entanglement between the Jewish people, the Jewish state and the United States dates back to the earliest moments of the American story.

Top-flight Washington lawyer David Dorsen represented hedge fund operator Michael Lauer for part of Lauer’s 14-year struggle to achieve justice from the SEC in a deeply flawed civil fraud action. At the end of the day, a jury cleared Lauer of all criminal charges, but when the dust settled, Lauer lost all of his money, and the alleged victims got nothing, while the lawyers and accountants reaped a lush harvest of fees.

Lawfully married in 2007 to Thea Spyer, her companion of 40 years, Edith Windsor found herself the beneficiary of Ms Spyer's estate but was denied the spousal deduction for federal estate taxes. She sued, claiming that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. Edie and her lawyer Robbie Kaplan tell Jim Zirin that historic discrimination against gays warrants a "heightened scrutiny" of laws denying them equal benefits.

Enjoy this rewind episode from 2012. 

Watch the video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h4oROpT3EQ

Visionary Harry Guggenheim was a man for all seasons: captain of industry, racehorse breeder, newspaper publisher, diplomat, a pioneer in commercial aviation and rocketry, a lifelong friend of Charles Lindbergh, and a museum builder. His biographer Dirk Smillie unravels the puzzle of this complicated man and tells Jim what the secret of Harry’s success was.

Journalist Dahlia Lithwick writes a best-selling book profiling eight women lawyers who fought for equal rights during the Trump era. Her account begins in 2016 and ends with the Dobbs abortion decision this year. She notes the loss of yardage, but is certain that the struggle for freedom will continue.