Dr. Eric Smoodin, film historian at the University of California- Davis and author of Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity and American Film Studies, 1930-1960, joins Bob and Ben for the history of the people, the industry, and law that made Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life into one of America’s quintessential Christmas films.

 

 

This is a rebroadcast of episode 292 which originally aired on December 11, 2023. This reair was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Journalist Michael Tackett joins Ben & Bob to discuss his new book The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America and Lost his Party (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Tackett, who wrote the biography with McConnell’s consent, was granted unprecedented access to McConnell’s vast personal archives, his staff, and even the Senator himself, who sat for about 50 hours of interviews. If you’ve ever wondered how Mitch McConnell rose to power, how he's stayed there despite challenges from both parties, or what makes the man tick, this conversation has the answers.

 

Michael Tackett covers national politics for The New York Times. His work has earned him multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Edgar A. Poe Award for National Reporting.

 

This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Mark McKinnon is former chief media advisor to George W. Bush & John McCain, cocreator of Showtime’s The Circus, and current writer at Vanity Fair. In this episode, he joins Ben & Bob to recap the 2024 election and what they think might come next.

 

Click here to read Mark’s “An Open Letter to My Daughter,” published November 6, 2024 in Vanity Fair.

 

This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

The Miss America pageant has always had its critics, but the stories of the organization and those who participated in it are far more dynamic than most people recognize. In this episode, Bob & Ben speak with Amy Argetsinger whose new book There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America explains Miss America’s origins, how the pageant both shaped and was shaped by American society, and why it might be okay that the pageant’s significance in American culture has faded.

 

Bonus: Bob calls Miss USA “the confederacy of beauty pageants.” Listen to find out why that makes sense!

 

Amy Argetsinger is an editor for The Washington Post’s acclaimed Style section, where she has overseen coverage of media, popular culture, politics and society. Her new book There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America was published by Atria//One Signal Publishers in September of 2021. You can follow Amy on twitter at @AmyArgetsinger.

 

This is a rebroadcast of episode 210, which originally aired in October 2021. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

James Armistead Lafayette lived a remarkable life. After being granted permission by his enslaver to enlist in the cause, James joined up with the Marquis de Lafayette and served as one of the most important spies in the Revolutionary war. After many years of petitioning for his freedom, James eventually gained his freedom and officially changed his last name to Lafayette after the Frenchman with which he served and who later petitioned Congress for James’ freedom.

 

In this episode, we learn more about the fascinating life of James Armistead Lafayette from Stephen Seals, the historical interpreter who has played James at Colonial Williamsburg for more than a decade.

 

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Did you know that Woodrow Wilson didn’t have a regular job until he was 28 years old? Or that he didn’t complete all the requirements for a PhD?

After retiring from politics in 2009, former Congressman and Securities & Exchange Commission Chair Christopher Cox decided to turn to history. The result is his new book, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn, which gives special attention to Wilson's views on race and women's rights, presenting the 28thPresident as “a man superbly unsuited to the moment when he ascended to the Presidency.” In this episode, Chris joins us to share the path that led him to Woodrow Wilson, the reasons he came to such an unfavorable opinion of him, and what his work adds to our understanding of a Presidency that has rapidly gone from reverence to rebuke.

 

Find out more about the book at thelightwithdrawn.com.

 

This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer

Most Americans are aware of Colombia’s role in the international drug trade, but we know less about the role that Americans played in the story as consumers, smuggling pioneers, and practitioners of a foreign policy that facilitated the rise of Colombian drug production.

 

In this episode, journalist and historian Lina Britto shares the fascinating story of how Colombia emerged as a major supplier of drugs to American consumers and how this relationship affected people in both countries. She also explains the origins of the “War on Drugs” in the US and tells the story of how Americans hippies in search of marijuana laid the groundwork for the distribution techniques later used by Pablo Escobar’s cocaine cartel.

 

Dr. Lina Britto is Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University where she specializes in Colombian history and the history of the international drug trade. She is the author of Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise (University of California Press, 2020)

 

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

US immigration policy has become one of the most contentious issues in American politics, but there is one point on which most of us agree: our immigration policy is broken. And while the sheer number of interests involved mean that an easy fix is unlikely, the best place to start is with a sound understanding of how we got the immigration system we have today. As a historian of immigration who currently serves as Director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, Yael Schacher has a particularly well informed perspective on this issue. In this episode, Yael walks us through the history of immigration policy in the US and shares what she sees as the major challenges that stand in the way of reforming our current immigration system. This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

It’s flu season, so this week on the show, we’re bringing you something seasonal: a history of epidemics in two parts. In part 1, we talk about the 1918 influenza outbreak with John Barry, author of the NY Times Best-seller Seller The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (Penguin, 2005). And in part 2 we dig into the history of infectious disease with epidemiologist Erin Welsh, co-host of This Podcast Will Kill You.

This episode is a supercut of #120 The History of Influenza w/ John Barry and #151 Live in Chicago w/ Pete Souza & Erin Welsh, both of which originally aired in 2019. This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

The Constitution empowers the electoral college to select the President, but the process for counting electors’ votes remains in the hands of Congress. In this episode, Constitutional Law Professor Edward Foley explains the origins of the electoral college, how and why the 12th Amendment changed the process for electing Presidents, and the concerns that led Congress to codify the procedure for counting electors’ votes in 1887. Edward also offers some specific ways that updating the Electoral Count Act of 1887 might help us avoid some of the potential problems that might arise in upcoming elections.

 

Edward Foley holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at The Ohio State University, where he also directs its election law program. He is a regular contributor to The Washington Post and the author of multiple books, including Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Presidential Elections and Majority Rule (Oxford University Press, 2020). You can follow him on twitter at @NedFoley.

 

This is a rebroadcast of RTN #224 which originally aired on February 21, 2022. This version has been updated and abridged by Ben Sawyer. The original episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.