Support for this episode comes from the University of Chicago people, argue about anything and everything, but when we argue about human rights, though there is a lot at stake, there's a new podcast out of you, Chicago about human rights, is called entitled. Co hosted by lawyers, Tom Ginsburg, Claudia Flores, they'll use their expertise, advising governments across the world on all sorts of human rights issues to explore. I rights matter and what's the matter with rights, the show launches later this summer subscribe wherever you get your podcast from CAFE, welcome to stay too I'm prepared. We don't talk any more risk for all in it together and when a crisis like this comes, it shows you the state of those systems. It shows you how the organism is doing and it turns out, and we

and have known this. We did know this that we were very unhealthy. That's George Packer he's a staff writer of the Atlantic and author of Malta, books. The subjects covered are many and varied. They include foreign policy, the history of american culture and contemporary politics, Last year he won the Higgins Prize awarded to quote an their or a journalist who, in the Spirit of the lake Christopher Higgins, demonstrates a commitment to free expression and pursuit of truth without regard to personal or professional consequence. End quote: hacker joins me this week. To talk about his most recent peace sensation. they titled, we are living in a failed state. Was what the corona virus pandemic has revealed about. The challenges America has long face politically, economically and culturally. We also disk. the president's attacks on civil servants community in time a crisis, and how to

Brave writer. That's coming up stay too. This question comes in a tweet from listener. Jeff more edge be m zero. A paper era just wondering has a sitting attorney general ever been disbarred while in office, and that that should happen. Would it have any? ACT on his ability to stay in office, hashtag aspirate. Well, it is in fact the key had no attorney general has ever disbarred, while in office as a practical matter I think that anybody who purports to be the chief federal law enforcement officer of the kind ring who loses his or her licence. That would happen is of some very, very serious departure of ethics or criminal conduct or other some such thing and would not be a viable attorney general. So whether or not there is a particular rule that requires the chief federal law enforcement you're in the country to have an active bar licence and not to have been disbarred.

even in the Topsy turvy world of doll, trumps america- I cannot imagine, then the attorney general could continue if he or she has been disbarred. Bar or someone else is entering their lot of significant positions outside the executive branch that have important folks who are not required the lawyers. I always thought it was interesting. While I served in the South Judiciary Committee, consideration of the appointment of judges, the confirmation of judges and all sorts of other oversight of the Department of Justice. and very highly technical legal matters. Then nothing required A senator on the Dishes committee to be a lawyer in fact had been chairman and ranking members who were not admitted to the boy never been lawyers like Charles gradually in Diane Feinstein. Now I, like your question: is this no turning back has been disbarred while in office, but there has an attorney general who is barred after serving an office, and that, of course, you may remember, was Richard Nixon's. First attorney General John jewel in eighteen. Seventy five Mitchell was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the Watergate scandal,

Mitchell have involved in approving money to go towards a break, poverty and see the Watergate hotel. He also ran a cover up Did all sorts of other things that earned him rightly his disappointment including lying about Zimbabwe before a grand jury that attention led to a pretty conviction. He also lie to the FBI about the case. And so six months after his nineteen seventy five conviction. John Mitchell This part in your estate. He was also suspended from practice by the Supreme Court and by Laura Courts in the District of Columbia. This question comes at an email from Might ve. I prayed for the last I ve been studying to take. The outset then a long and sometimes frustrating journey now, Like many others, I will be taking the US at the summer in the midst of a pandemic, while some of them sure has been ease and the test will be shorter and administered at home. It is still not racking, given the importance of the exam I wanted to ass for your own personal experience was preparing for the outset and how you became your doubts rising, I still have some PTSD from taking the Helsinki

I did in the early nineties. I took it at a time when it was from point system- is based on forty eight points, but an whatever its based on now and I took this staff. There came a ruling classes I took, but I took the class of the people too, can you paid a lot of money in a they give you sample tests and they give you testing strategies. So I did all traditional stuff and took a lot of practice exams in a lot of trepidation about the LSAT in one section in particular, which I guess we d call logic, games the nets officially called the analytical reasoning section of the outset that section freaked me out and even though I was not terrible added something about, something about the time pressure caused me to have, seem to be an oncoming heart attack when I got to that site. in practice. This- and I will come something else that I had not, I think publicly before I don't know, the rules are now for cancelling your score. If you take the test snowflake done well, so I did that the first summit at the outset, because of you, to be the case that you have whatever number of sections or on the test and as one

action that has doubled, you have two of one section. and being experimental, which is known to be more difficult. So they can test questions for future exams that they might offer and on the Elsa that I took the first time. When I was trying to get into law school, I came across a large game section and felt I didn't probably on it but thought we know this, probably experimental section. Guess how could I not horribly and I'm sure we'll be another logic game section which will be the real one dwell on that one well, no such low there was no other logic game section. So I realize I screwed up cancel degree. The test went back to the drawing board, took some more practice tests and sad for they all sat again and when all right I think the best advice is try to stimulate the conditions of the test. I think you're very, very lucky and I envy you that the tests will be shorter and you can take it at home in a comfortable environment, probably the same environment which have studied for it. Studies show, if you take a test or an examination in the environment in which he studied, for it the more likely to be relaxed or more likely dwell in more likely to recall

acts that other wiser not so easy to recall. I wish you luck. It's worth. It Cyprus or break statehood Well, it's finally have the world is opening again and were hearing the word normal being tossed around a lot more. But after the year we ve had truly feeling normal is going to take some time and a little bit of work

if you're one of the many people who might be feeling overwhelmed and anxious or if you find yourself having more bad days than you care to talk space might be for you now more than ever. It is important for us to be patient with ourselves and seek out the support we might need. After all, half of american struggle with mental health tax base is here to help talks base is secure, affordable and easy to use your mental health matters and whether you are apparent student or even part of a couple, that's looking for more support talks base has the right sort of professionals to meet your needs. Why wait leaks for unemployment when you can match with a licensed therapist today for the talks base app set goals with your therapist on your schedule, chat any time and conduct live video sessions from anywhere

all part of my talk, space is the number one online therapy platform to help you sort through any issue match with a licence therapists. When you gonna talk, spaced out come and get one hundred dollars off your first month with a promo code preach. That's why, dollars off when you use code preach a talk, space, dot com when simply save homesick he's founders, Chad and Eleanor Laurens Design, their first security system in their kitchen. They didn't for a very personal reason. Their friends had just gone through a home breakin. There were struggling to find the security system that was simple to set up and that could help them feel safe again. Making people feel safe is would simply safe has been doing ever since that moment. Fifteen years ago, a passion to protect people not only drives every engineering detail in their products, but it motivates every interaction with their customers. Simply safe has highly trained security experts ready whenever you

neither whether that's during a fire, a burglary, a medical emergency, or even when you're, just setting up the system to others, always someone there. Who has your back to keep you safe and to make sure you feel safe? As my listen, you can save twenty percent on your simply saved security system and get your first was free when you sign up for interactive monitoring service, just visit simply saved our com, slash priest to customize your system and start protecting your home and family today again that simply saved outcome, slash preach. My guess this week is George Packer, but journalist now and playwright. Packers Bess for his essays in a new Yorker and the Atlantic and is not books about. U S: foreign policy in history, many thirteen, he won the National Book Award for nonfiction for the unwinding your history of the New America he joined

last year to discuss its most recent. Look, our man Richard Holbrooke and the end of the american century, the biography of the lake diplomats, excited to have him back on the show to examine political power, relations, strains on institutions and his hopes for young writers. George Packer, thanks for coming back on the show, it's always good to be with you preach last time we spoke. It was a bit of that and others that happier time. A better time. It was a less disease filled time, and so how are you doing in the middle of this pandemic? I'm taking it day today there's a sort of sameness to every day, which is part of the strangeness of this. So I I've lost my sense of time passing in how long its ban. I think I've been locked down for two spite because forty five lives could be forty five years before they don't really know it could have been a wheat.

Getting more reading down than usual, less work done than usual, spending a hell of a lot of time with my kids, my wife and our dog? So Let me ask about that is so you're, not in the construction business. You don't have to any particular place to right. I said You can do interviews and do your reporting on the telephone. are you more or less productive as a writer, our deadlines harder easier to meet while you're locked up I mean I am one of those lucky workers who work at a desk and from a laptop, and I work at home in normal times. So in some ways this is not different, but the differences are having my family around and be the sense of volume of suspension, of not knowing and of being unable to do the normal things that break up the day and that break up the weak and give you a sense that now, you're working now you're, not working, so

although, in some ways it seems like an ideal situation for productivity, I found this actually been difficult to be productive because it isn't the rhythm I'm used to it. When you have the freedom to write about blossoms, things and you have a great format the Atlantic to be able to do that. You feel it for the foreseeable future that you feel some obligation to write about some aspects of the corona virus to some extent I mean it's what I'm thinking about all the time and usually I write about- I'm thinking about, but I mean hope will still be able to write about books and things and culture, and just things going on that are completely. disease written, but this has taken over my mind as it has most people's. I imagine, and it's made me see things in fact: about things in. Not a new way, but maybe a little bit with more clarity and more attentiveness, because there's time to pay attention,

So this is the window through which I'm seeing everything right now and I'm sure that's gonna continue for quiet. While I mean I don't know anybody for whom that's not true- and I don't know anyone in any country for That's not true whether you are in favour of certain policies are against whether your health care worker or not, whether you ve the disease in and have covered or you're worried about getting. It is an incessant focus for everyone, and I wonder how much that adds to the lack of health in the country well, it's interesting I was wondering- is there has ever been in a that man People around the world knew about because Sometimes you know, there's a world war going on in some people, don't know it in the past, but I think this must be the most globally. Uniting single event ever and yet it's very divisive as well, and it could have gone either way it Could it on either way because it were all vulnerable to it it for him,

so in some ways it should have a kind of basic human, a stick cohesiveness, tying us all together on the basis of our common humanity, which is something we always want or should want, and yet doesn't seem to be doing that because, where human and find ways to fight and to point fingers inter to hate each other, so it still could go either way, though I think it's it's far from deciding how this is going to affect at least this country. So let's get it that one of the reasons that I should have done on the show again is The various things you ve written recently, but but one in particular they got some attention, got some push back. I was very thought: provoking peace a with a very optimistic title, we are living a failed state. Let's talk about that little bit. I dont choose titles by the way that stop and my power, but but you

What are the phrase failed state idea in the peace I damn opened up, so so it's less unfair. The maybe some know only one time, only one time it may I felt like I kept repeating it, but it was so heavy. At the top of the screen? Is you down at all times, so that site title for. Second, when you say failed, state and I heard you say this in response to Questions- you don't mean in a literal sense. There are lots of things that are still working. We have a lot of death. And we have a low disaster and and and tragedy around us, but you don't mean a failed state, like some other countries in the world right now, I don't. We are not a textbook failed state. I've reported in textbooks, failed states I reported in Iraq during the first years of the war and after the overthrow of Saddam, Iraq was a failed state, Somalia, Cyril, John during the civil war Those cases state has stopped functioning six services are unavailable. Crime is rampant,

and people are really on their own and kind of retreat into local units, because the national government is no longer there was never there to help, and so they go back to their village or they go back to their tribe. That's not us we, the Czechs, are going out, stimulus checks are going out and dumb hospitals are doing heroic work hospital work Prs, subway workers are doing heroic work, so we're functioning. But what not functioning is our national government. I was particularly thing of those days? And I'm sure you remember this pre in the first few days of March, when Mary people suddenly began to realize that this was coming for us. We haven't, we we been taught by our leaders until then began to be clear,

and everyone had to make up their own minds on their own. Do I send my kid to school today? Do I take the subway today? Do I go into work today That was when I had this shiver of remembering what it was like to be in those other countries where you have no instructions coming from the authorities where the national what is missing or is giving you a lot of happy talk or misleading information and doesn't this is the crucial thing- doesn't even seem to care about the well being of its, since that reminded me of real, failed states. It's a is a figurative term for us. but it has a real meaning. I think there's some actually grow representation of the point is making. I decide this morning. There were grass, that show in state after state after state that online under which regular peep stop moving around remained in their homes forces when the the actual official stayed home order was issued an almost now most of us, I think in every state that I saw

there was a massive reduction in people going out and about before the government told them what to do before. The government said you just stay at home before there was a locked out of any sort at all, so in a very real sense, whether it never say, of New York and save Texas people had to it upon themselves, based on in nation rather it's done, a government order to stay at home and stay put so that's kind of interesting. obviously I say doesn't fail overnight, and I wonder to what extent that phrase is really a reference to the delta between America was and is today in the midst of his pandemic or what America is. versus what we aspire to be, Is that what you mean by that? You mean something different, in other words with America, in a perfect before

and something has slid for us. So that the failures are becoming more apparent in the midst of the corona vires, never perfect, of course, always far from perfect, but better able to govern ourselves, especially again at the national level. Better able to solve problems, to talk about problems to see the same problem as a common polity yeah, I think we we ve been declining. That's the subjective, couple of by reason, books? We, our institutions, have become weaker and less trusted the public and may be less effective. It actually supporting the lives of the look. I don't just mean government institutions, although those but also corporations, banks, media schools and

yeah there's been a weakening of are of about of our systems that we could tolerate as long as on, it was low. The markets were robust. We were at peace, there were no crises, tolerate but not be healthy. We were not help and I think that the fundamental ill as polarization both economic and political, the incredible divide between Americans based on on class and on partisanship, a race and region such that we don't. Talk any longer. Is it for all in it together and a crisis like this comes, it shows you, the state of those systems. It shows you how the organism is doing It turns out, and we We have known this. We did know this that we were very unhealthy so

When you find out that government experts were silenced, ignored that the federal government has done everything it could. It seems to be sure that we did not have the stockpiles we would need for a pandemic. Were the plan, that we would need or the ability to test and trace when you see what's happening with workers who are being forced to stay at work or go back to work too soon, even when their sick and to work conditions. That's going to get them sick because they have no protections these or work. Largely low income, largely in the service sector, who we all depend on, but we didn't think about them very much. At least a lot of us didn't because they were invisible, meet packers are invisible, Amazon Warehouse workers are invisible, Now we see them and we see how little protection they have and that's another source of, I think real systemic weakness, as well as a moral failing and all of that

and I could go on and on about. This is right in our face now, if we're willing to see it and not to forget it once things begin to slowly subside and return to some semblance of normality. You should begin your article, what kind of an hour to the virus itself. You say when the virus came here: it found country with serious, underline conditions and exploited them Wesley. So I'm gonna talk about some of those underline conditions and you may refer two things they came in the past, pass crises in this. You know fairly sure century economy two decades so far, and what was that? about those as compared to now, and so it s the first big crisis. that comes close to approximating at least on day one, how people who felt about the corona, so that is the whole country feeling like it's under attack was nine eleven, what did nine eleven expose about America and other any seeds from that time, that linger with us today and, of course, some of these bad conditions that you describe

Nine eleven hit us a long stretch of peace and prosperity. When we have begun to certain lull ourselves into a fantasy that we were at and of history and that it would always be this way and that the trouble of the world were knocking the our troubles. Was a kind of fools paradigm. so I guess, and when the terror attacks came, and I was in New York City that day mice longest memory is of mendous compassion, and solidarity among people right around me and threw out the country a member toward ground zero. The next year, the dead, maybe a week later, actually trying to get as close as I could. They coordinate off and running into some fire fighters from Indiana who had just gotten in their turn,

send driven eight hundred miles to help out in the recovery effort and dumb wasn't. That was almost like a normal thing: where's. Eventually, nine eleven became a source of much bitterness and division and dear rack war, the global war on terror, the Bush administration. All of that was the beginning of I think, a period, intensifying polarization that his that still with us But in the immediate aftermath there was unbelievable unity and in fact you make a reference to how the rest of the country thought of New York, which is different than how they might good New York now yeah. They. They thought that New York took the hit for the country that New York was the target because it's a big symbolic metropolis, the big american city, but it was really the country that was under attack. I thinks it

the New York Times banner headlines. The next day was America attacked America attacked and today New York City is, to some degree regarded as the vector of disease and the people who are getting. It are people who might not be the same as someone else, and I have almost brought it on themselves by the way their living Cosette living in these close quarters in these big high rise apartment buildings that they have all around the world. They bring it back with them, in other words, that New York is somehow to blame, rather than to your being a symbol of the country's hurt and the countries unity. So like it's a very sharp difference and at Times President Trump, what seems to be saying: hey, My voters aren't in New York, wider

media lose my presidency because of something happening there, right is remarkable thing, given that that's where he made fourchan that's where he was born. That's where he was raised. Europe was very good to him and his hairy banks. Abrek twenty reminds me what you were saying years ago long before these events were talking about, I travel expenses after long schools in them in the mid nineties, wherever I went people would ask me you where I was from SAM I'm from I'm from New York, and then they would ask me question a what Eric alike, I would say well, I live in Manhattan shore. There would, I described to. You is a good indication of what America Slack, but let me tell you what Manhattan is like there's always been some difference between certain metropolises and in the rest of the Gatt and the New York has always been an Inn national city rather than a truly american city. It's And it's always been presented by the rest of the country for being too big and

Loud and rich and domineering, the New York Yankees are deeply sit around the country and a yes, so there's there is that kind of division between the big city and the heartland? This that's been with us for very long but on nine eleven that division ended or was closed, because we're still to some agree, a healthy country that the memory of the cold WAR of World war. Two of those crises that forced Americans to join together because we were, we had a common adversary, the great depression All of that was still, I think, in our bloodstream online. And it's no longer in our bloodstream. Those memories are, are gone and its What we remember is twenty years of bitterness and polarization, but I guess Certain crises arise in theirs. Either at the beginning or not, and those can change and get worse or get better, but it causes me now

question you. What what kinds of crises bring us together and which drive us apart, I would not have predicted, matter. What the underlying conditions are that something like a pandemic would cause division, because it's not political enemy in any way- and I was so, for example, is maybe an unfair question to you if an asteroid were hurtling towards the earth, would Americans and citizens of the world, as you see in the movies, become you now, did or divided for all he's in the movies if there was an alien figure, something that was from without earth from outside of earth found up in conservative or liberal idea, oh geez or race or class it just it's a scam. Thing? That's a menace to everyone, who they are: These include react now and in what is what has caused this That seems to be a political to have become political, you mean, would we be hearing about the asteroid, hoax yeah? I guess I think I think, probably I think everything now breaks down along those lines every,

it doesn't matter wherein it doesn't matter what Nate, even if the nature of the thing is completely a political issue politicized because of the nature of political discourse, pandemics, do have a divisive side to them, because there are two groups of people, those with the disease and those without and those with seems like threats to those without and then that can break down along. All the usual lines of race, religion in red I mean I was reading. Barbara tuck means a distant mirror which has a chapter about the black death. You know which hit Europe in them MID fourteenth century in. then there was a lot of polarization. I mean Jews were being targeted. The the carriers and were being hounded and driven out of european countries. Because of the blue,

debt. So it's not as though we are uniquely bad and our response, but modern people with science and an ability understand where it comes and how to stop it. You would think we do better, but instead we are essentially have you, the blue areas, where it spent at its worst and the red areas where there is a sense that This is someone else's problem to some degree, to first people. And why should we lose our livelihoods? Because New York City is overwhelmed with corona virus cases, which of course is is unsound, terrific, because it there's no barriers to it- that it doesn't stop it state lines. It's gonna get everyone eventually, if we don't take the measures that we all now know we have taken, so it it's a test, it's a test of how rational we were able to be and how com, and also how much

solidarity were able to feel for our fellow Americans, and I dont think we ve done very well in his at a function of the preconditions you're talking about in the generalised polarization in the country, or is it a function of law, ship. In other words, if you had a different kind of leader with divisions have been able to be overcome. You think we're not! Yes, I think it's all about leadership. I mean I haven't, studied the nineteen eighteen flu, but it would be interesting to whether those who supported Wilson and those who are against Wilson divided entirely on their views of the flu and what the best reaction to it was whereas today it's interesting, though it's not entirely aligned with partisanship, because more republicans are observing and will end.

the need for the isolation the shot down, then trumped support would indicate so there's a part of his support that has turned out his incredibly destructive messages and is following the health guidelines, and I think that's because people want to stay alive people Fraid of dying, and it turns out that this may be the one thing that is powerful enough to deflect some of the relentless propaganda and the thinking that it produces. But blue. The ship is everything in this case, and if we had a leader who is speaking as Americans, and not blaming the governors of of the opposition party, I am not blaming the previous administration and not work. Entirely about his

her own immediate political interests, I think we would see a lot more unity among the american people, but were unfortunately were being led by the most device of president. Maybe ever leave talked about populism in I guess we would call him a populist, but he's not the first and he may not be the last in this country and certainly around the world. You referred to John Mccain's. Vice presidential pick. Sarah Palin, as Donald Trump's John, Just what you mean by that and what are the echoes of the camp? and even those unsuccessful in the current crisis. Sarah Palin with something new, at least in my lifetime. There has never been a major party candidate

was so utterly unqualified and hostile to qualifications, hostile to expertise in knowledge and professional training and whose up he'll was based on that hostility. I remember sitting in Diner in South Eastern Ohio, shortly after Mccain, picked her thoughts interviewing some of the patrons of that nor I sitting with a group of women who said she'd fit right in here with us. She could sit at the table and be one of us and for reason they loved her and I ask them. Why do you want someone just like to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. I dont want myself to be heart, PETE away from the presidency and they they identified with her too? of identity politics, which is partly what populism is it's the plain people should rule hasn't. It In the case? To some extent,

in a few years ago John Stewart or make a some joke He would say you know what is this question about, whether or not you wanna get a beer with a guy? It's like I was just like me. I can't I don't we present I'm an idiot exam. Erika people were fooled by the Macarena. Would we. we we do eyes at the standard. Well, we have its because we are a country found it or at least very quickly, the became a country by the plain people, or at least in their name- our very edge of democracy, is that anyone can be the press. you can be born and log cabin and become the president. The differences Lincoln Study Shakespeare. He studied the law, he studied history. He had a deep, acute sense of the country and of The evil of slavery

pale and had no such talents, and yet she seemed to qualify in the minds of a lot of people, and so back to me was a turn. We are willing to set a kind of bombing out of standards, in fact to even want it. Even though she lost Mccain lost everything she was more important in some ways than Obama. That year she more of an indicator of what was to come, then Obama, who is very much in the mould of the meritocratic comes from the best universities knows a lot and understands alot. is in some ways a bit distant from ordinary people. Sarah Palin came right out of that work class milieu and So in that way she was a harbinger. That's why I use the John the Baptist Phrase, a harbinger of who is to common eight years.

I am sure if you can get your further question about that. So arrive in the sea and there are some people who liked her, but she lost she lost badly is basically repudiated by Mccain and by the people around Mccain. She has not had a successful career sense in politics and widely is viewed not by everyone, but but fairly widely views? A laughing stock wizened? The lesson of that candidacy- hey We shouldn't go down that route and I try to emulate that kind of no nothing anti expertise, populism. How did become the winning huddle when it was, failure in two thousand eight ripe? And of course, let's not forget Trump, didn't when the popular vote and from himself may well within ten years. Be why Lee reviled, just like Sarah Palin, but something happened tween two thousand eight two thousand sixteen? Where alone nascent impulse to say Burnham.

all down screw. It became if not the dominant one, at least one every bit as strong as let's listen to the experts and let the profession politicians try to work it out, and one thing that happened was the second crisis of the twentieth century, which was the great recession. in the end, I think the way it shook out the elites did fine Congress and the White House bailed out the big banks there, stimulus. There was a team of easing Wall Street came back very quickly any kind. are they continued to grow people with education's and good jobs found that they hadn't really taken much of a hit and without the working class. Those who are dependent on social security or on their weak to pay check, never came back and that I think, fuelled the sense that there, the elites were so

How, in an unholy deal with each other at the expense of the mass of people and the government, big business and the big banks had rigged it against ordinary people, and even though that's an exaggeration and maybe a little bit of conspiracy thinking there was enough truth to it that eroded what was left of the trust in our institutions and our leaders, so that by twenty sixteen, the next coming of Sarah Palin Donald Trump was far more potent and head. far more support and saw that that's that's how I see the those crises leading to Trump as a symptom of of this of this decay. What about another underline condition that some have suggested you have downplayed a little bit show and I fell that your articles and must read and very important, and jarring, but does

and some others have that you seem understated what she calls the fundamental fish of racism in law a foundation for the predicament were in what he will you make of that. I think in that peace is a fair point because the peace was twenty. In other words, long and didn't really have a room to go into the name of all of these underlying conditions. I think elsewhere, I've written about it quite a bit but race and Class are in a complicated and toxic entanglement right now, People have been trying to decide forth for years whether Trump one because so many white races finally had their candidate or whether from and because so many white workers had reached a point where they were ready to say screw it. I think, though,

two things I mean. No one should ever underestimate the power of race in american history, one web in spending. This quarantine is watching eyes on the prize with my small children and there. just stand to see how recently and her the the hatred at bigotry of White America was on tv screens and now in some ways, its back with Trump. It's a bit of a reversion to George Wallace, but I think class and race

affect each other? There is a reason why trumps base is the white Working class, not the white professional class and its because the white Working Class has lots of resentments and feels has been displaced and left behind in a way that the white professional class does not, and so race is part of that. But it's a two part identity and those two parts feed each other so that its two simple to say, Tromp was alive, did because White America's racist. It's it's. I think it's more complicated than that people often ask me of prosecuting the mob is like the movies. Well,

There is violence, he cracks disguised over their head and pop. Just like a melon. There are heads, so wasn't just permission to take a map of permission to take out his own nephew. But after taking down over one hundred mobsters, I can tell you this is the real thing is much more interesting I'm only holding former mob prosecutor and host of the new pod cast up against a man up against the mob lifts bail on the world's most secretive criminal organization, La Cosa Nostra we'll talk to profit. Peters former mobsters, an undercover agents and Hollywood. All these stories are true. New episodes drop every Wednesday starting September. Eighth, listen and follow up

against the Bob on Apple podcast Spotify or your favorite podcast app up about this the issue that you talk about so in and before in the interview that this is a political threat, is the virus. Doesn't have any moral dimension to it really in and of itself, and it has been politicized and the group of people. I've always thought in the government who deal with those kinds of things. Are the scientists and the doctors in the medical professionals, whose work also is failure, political, it is. You have a vaccine readout the treatment or you don't you the studies and you look at the data and you decide policy based on rational data. What role being played here by the loss of trust in the civil service and the way in which people think about those unknown people who have served the country. for generations. I think it's playing a big role and you know We can connect it pre to restore that

sure wrap your attention, which is the Justice Department. Dropping the case against Michael Flint, wrote that happen Do I read one or two things about yeah? Maybe we should talk about bad. I mean I published a piece, a cover story in the Atlantic just before the pen. My kid call you we're gonna get to that too. I have destroyed government, while one way to destroy government is by very optimistic, optimistic headlines and titles, and by next when is gonna, be we can do better and we ve cronies, where their rights in the attic exactly one way Destroy government is by, turning the anonymous two million plus civil service workforce into a conspiracy against the president, claiming that it's trying to overthrow him that there is a deep date, that is in bed with the liberal media and the Democratic Party, and has in size and is lying in.

we undermining the president. Well, that's, rationale, I think for a time general bar to have decided that Russia Gate was a hoax and we to undo everything that was uncovered and brought to light by the FBI and the Justice Department, which is part of what this dropping the flint cases. So I think tromp has turned this. What used to be kind of invisible and non partisan, and rather bland and colourless entity. the civil service into, from his main targets, and once you do that your followers, if they're gonna continue following you are gonna lose. he's in it in all of it, including the CDC and then I and are gonna- think that anything. That is an unhappy fact during the Trump years

must be a civil service conspiracy in order to hurt the president- and that was what Fox NEWS was saying right at the start in February before they headed pivot becomes prompt pivoted and then they pivoted back when from pivoted back, but that's kind of in the fundamental view which The experts are not only wrong, but their malicious and even treasonous, because they're trying to turn this into a plot against trump mention it. Let me come to that article four second produces a very powerful, but also somewhat unsettling about the civil servants. And then I wonder to what extent it is Hey to blame them. You write about the adults these people here visit the adults in the room quote the adult. What indicated to see trumps special political talents, his instinct for Ray adversaries, weakness, his fanatics, motion to himself his neck imposing his will his ship, staying power, and then you say, but Don't greatest miscalculation was too

estimate themselves particularly in believing that other American saw them as selfish. public servants, their stature ride from a high minded commitment to the good of the nation. What's the level of naive day on the part of two million right. I mean this was in my mind by something I was told by one of those civil servants, James Baker. Who was the General Council at the FBI and a career government lawyer who said that a lot of people, including him, thought that they knew better than Trump and they went out last tramp in that trunk would not be able to. Yet the government, under his control, as a tool of his own personal interest, because you He didn't have worked and heated and an James Baker He was light years ahead of them. Tromp was the Trump had

a shrewdness about how to bend the civil service and even break it. because he was willing to do things that no other president has done. So there was a native tee and the other half of it pre is that for years and years Washington has been a swamp. Trump was not wrong about that, There has been a tremendous amount of self dealing in revolving door. Then legal corruption, that is not, I think on me. Of those two million civil servants who are, after all, just their jobs and slowly rising tide, levels and waiting for their retirement in their pension. Bear not shocking in and out of government in order to make a pile of money in private sector, but a few are and they have. I think that the

sort of the corruption, the the rottenness that we see in lobbying and in the river, the door has tainted the civil service, because most Americans don't make a distinction between, say, political, point, ease and career civil servants or between people who have been in government their whole careers versus people who ve kind of revolt. a few times in and out those a subtle distinctions, and so they ve sort have been tainted by the corruption Sadly, in with with all the lot lobbying money that has come to Washington, it occurs to me as your speaking that a lot of people conflate the ability of someone to come up with a diagnosis, reliable that same person to figure out what the curious ran. So You could have someone say correctly: oh, you know you're suffering from his fever and then They may say is now take these leeches home and put them on your body or Maybe you better analogy is no sucks

was Lysol in running fire. No, no, that's too much pride. No one would think that you know our metaphor has to be we within the realm of reason. They were going to get it, but it is enough. He was actually quite right. The first talk I gave out I was fired in a public forum, size that he's right about the swamp. He was right, people being left behind he's right about someone, system being rigged. The fact of the matter is, your country needs your leadership to, because you know what there is a swamp. A lot of this is rigged and lots of your fellow Americans have been forgotten been left behind, those are not alternative facts. That does not fake news, but I would respectfully submit you dont drain swamp with the slogan.

you dont drain it by replacing one set of partisans with another. You don't replace muck with muck to drain a swamp. You need an army core of engineers. Experts old and service and serious purpose. Not do nothing say anything neophyte opportunists, who a lot about how to bully and bluster, but not so much about truth, justice and fairness. The problem is, it is not logical. Follow then, just because you are wait, articulate or of what the problem is, that you have a thing this idea, what to do about it, being honest about what to do about it right because for him, a deep state creature is someone who is not

personally loyal and willing to lie and follow Trump blindly. That's a member of the deep state, not someone conspiring against U S, government and so trumps. Vision of the civil service is not a kind of good government reform, pure working, a half of the public. The his idea of a civil service is essential, like a company that he's bought. And? now owes him there livelihood and their loyalty rather than the constitution. So it's not the cure. In fact, it's worse than the illness. He discovered, I think, the metaphor used it, which I'm afraid is also a medical one in that that cover story was, you know the immune system of the government had been compromised and Trump came in and in the name of a cure laid it

waste with a devastating disease. This was, I wrote that before grown virus and maybe it's a bit of a cliche and I should bob, leaning so heavily on viral metaphors, but that's that's how from treated the problem by making it ten times worse and corrupting everyone around him, because for him it was what about good government, it was about loyalty to trump. We say something else in the other article how to destroy a government that is sobering. You say this quote a simple intuition had propelled from throughout his life. Human things- are weak They have their illusions, appetites vanities fears they can be cowed corrupted or crushed. I appreciate the obliteration how depressing an observation is that, because it seems to be true, while I was just looking at people. I was writing about people in the Justice Department, people in the FBI, people in the state- part men and realising that, for

those in the civil service there really were or the foreign service. You could either put up some resist. and find yourself a target of massive tack on social media and from the president's own twitter account really your life ruined your career, pretty much over driven from government as most of the top people and the FBI were driven from government by Trump or who could submit. You could keep your head down and just not make any trouble for em interfere a prosecutor somewhere in the country and a case that could conceivably be bad for the four trumpery his family comes your way. You you might, just decide that it's not worth it for the third option is to become a collaborator and to give him what he wants and to see your own interests is tied to his and I think, certain

government officials have gone certain ways and, and there the choices are terrible and I feel a lot of sympathy for the civil service because they you know they make some money, but they don't get rich. They worked very hard, They get very little public credit. We need them, as we ve learned the virus? We need them and with Trump their life is hell right now. come back to the civil servants in a minute. But first I want to ask you what? What do you think are the lessons that were learning where we have this time to contemplate the country and division during the pandemic eat. You end your article, the failed state article with the following sentence. After we ve come of hiding and taken off our masks. We should not for what it was like to be alone What do you mean by that? And what does the future hold with respect to what its revealed the underlying conditions and what we can do about them. That's a big question. I

The only ass big question: it is a good question, it's a good question and as something I'd like to write about in the future, because I'm tired of just having depressing titles like failed state, by being alone. What I meant was should see how much we need each other and how utterly. Dependent, our lives are on others. We think that somehow making choices for ourselves in going through our life essentially self reliant, and then some like this happens, and you find out, you know you can't eat, you can't read you can't the news you can't theirs How many basic things you can't live. You can't survive without a lot of other people being willing to take risks for you- and that's I mean it's obvious- should be obvious to basic lesson, common humanity, and there are a lot of.

Policy failures. Embedded in that that we need to look at heart and not forget what we're seeing right now and I would say, ass. They include public health and the inequality of our health system. They include the rights of workers and the calling conditions under which a lot of workers have to work gaping holes in our social insurance and our safety nets, the failures of infrastructure, failures of production, the fact that we can't make things anymore. Maybe we need to be able to make things again and thought the thing we ve been talking about just now: the the need for a functioning competent, respected civil service and government, All those things are just search so glaringly flawed right now, that's

it would be a real shame. You almost be like an unredeemed tragedy. If we don't do something about them, the only good I can see coming from this is that it's made. Those things two clear to ignore it, and then we may be understand the precious of them more than we have been we're not just these invisible workers who help feed us take care of us, but also the civil servants who make sure that we have good policy response. So you wrote this article a couple of months ago how to destroy a government, and he talked to a lot of department of Justice, career folks and and political appointees, ISIS what was the overall impression you got from them that the mood of long Time Department of Justice officials about where the countries going and in particular, where the, his department is going. It was shockingly bad pre. I mean I've I had some good news. You're, always aware of guy won't stop having me honestly, I

thought I had sort of reach the extent of in oh, I plumb the depths of how oh, how dangerous the corruption in the Trump Administration has become. When I talk to Career Justice Department, People I realize I didn't have a clue. There said things like we're just barely hanging on hoping that there will be an end and, if if this former years of this you'll see a massive exodus, people are not going to continue to serve Department, whose leadership. seems to be a war with them. And whose leadership attorney a bar in the political appointees around him, politicizing our in a way that is utterly contrary to the

action that we signed on foreign that is demoralising in maddening and yet there was a kind of demoralization. That really struck me and made me think we can't take for granted that good people are just gonna continue serving an administration that has made corruption. Mode of governance and with every Roger Stone case in every Michael Flynn case. I think the threads holding those good career, P, to their jobs, gets get thinner and thinner. So it's it's bad shrilly ban You talk about this to some extent it something that lots of people have been focused on the last three years, and that is the dilemma for the good faith public servant, whether in a political position or of repetition You stay when do you go? Can you make more of it by staying in Peru.

Being a worse substitute to replace you that can become never ending as you right become a reason. Never to quit Sometimes there is a reason: why did you make a people's? this sort of moral, ethical reasoning about staying versus going. Why I spoke to her one young justice Armand Lawyer, name, Erika Newland, who was very honest about this and discuss to me all the the ways in which she persuaded herself to stay in the office of legal counsel. Long after her, and were telling her look you it's clearly just become a rubber stamp for whatever the. house wants to do and what the White House wants to do is generally pretty terrible. He found reasons like the person after me will be more compliant. I've taken an oath to them, constitution, and so my job is to uphold the constitution, so I'm not here is the president's lawyers like a kid Can you in this job? Even if I disagree with the present at sea

et, Cetera and finally know she realised that she was kidding herself and that the the idea of Europe. Stability or of higher loyalties, None of that really could justify it, but she had become Ah against her. Will someone who is there to make the white houses lies? Look like truth, and its reasoning look more like and constitutional. Then it then it is and that's when she realised that she had to get out, there's something There was a an essay during the Vietnam years by our former White House official. It was in the Atlantic and it was about the effectiveness trap witches. wrap you get in when you keep telling yourself I'll. Just hang on little longer selective remain effective. eventually- you have no reason to leave at all and that's why I think so

people do leave very few people resign on principle. will resign cause a better job comes along Did they resign because they fundamentally disagree? It happens, but it's pretty rare and I partly as a cause of the human minds ability to Ashen lies why you're still needed it's very hard to face the fact that you're no longer needed that your presence is actually not any good. I mean related issue for me that I find more startling in an unbelievable is not the person so much, although I understand another person so much you things like stay, even though the things I believe in and the values that I hold dear are being undermined, because I can do that. The best job that I can by being in the position to sustain those values, will sustain those policies, even though I'm being overridden most of the time. I get that more shocking to me on a human level, are the number of people who continue to go to work, don't resign when they face brutal humiliation by the president that just she had to be fired after just being,

humiliated and tortured by the commander. In chief week after week after week that him, his is more stunning in someone else's something about me. I don't know I've. Now I figured I daily basis. I I think you're right that somehow power must be because we now we're really more talking about, I think about political appointees. Although some career people suffered regular humiliation, but mostly polluter the point is the people talk about one of the major became Andrew. My cave was a career person. Who was the number two at the FBI under call me and then became the acting director would call me was fired and who was the one who really pushed the the eye and the Justice Department to launch an investigation of Trump and of his. Possible obstruction of justice after the firing of call me and possible spiralling with Russia during the campaign in so he knew when he got

rod Rosen the acting attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor That would be the end of him. The trump would have to destroy him, but the way Trump tried to destroy him was particularly trump lights in that he would use Mccain's wife? He would use any vulnerability, any soft spot he could find. He would tweet about Mackay and tweet about Mc Caves, wife, and it was personal and public, and cruel and that's Trump and Mikhail knew all about was coming his way when he essentially did what was right for the country. And eventually he was forced out is stuck it out. I think a sense of commitment to his mission to being a g man, an FBI.

others having stick it out, and this is sessions more likely just because its they just can't bear the thought of being irrelevant out of the game the The real life is in the game and if you're, the attorney general you're at the very top of the game and you'll put up with a lot to stay there, and that's a strange thing too, because I cannot I cannot imagine, selling your soul and your oath doubt of that sense. That life is worth living if you're, not in the news, paper everyday reconnect. Look I measured fire. Pretty quick took me Alex we did behind you did. Why didn't have to debate? I think it is. It should be near very near the top of your see the fired by the resident trumped and my twitter by. Actually you think that a future president has, ability to sort of resuscitate the reputation of the civil service

and these people, who have been maligned as being part of the deep state or is it something too large a project for just a president? I think an ex president could have a real effect on that, and it has to go beyond the obvious two twin. about them them in their wives. Don't malign the people working for you is conspirators, don't force to violate their own to the constitution? Don't make it so they can't do their job. I think it would have to be more than that. I think they should be paid more. I think there should be fewer political appointed, I mean we have what three thousand political positions and our government compared to european democracies. That's just a wildly inflated number one. Should they headed the centres for disease control. Be a political appointee. Why should the under

four terrier, an assistant secretary of state or defence, be a political appointee and. I should ambassadors, be political appointees, of how much money they gave to a campaign and that something goes way before Trump that's been going on for thirty or forty years is a as a real problems I think the next president, if he or she wants to read I've. The civil service has to take some pretty. reaching measures, because it's in a very low state right now what has been a few minutes talking about writing and about how you conceive of practice of writing in and what writers are supposed to be about. So you want an award. Congratulations! Thank you! Twenty nine! in Christopher Higgins, Prize for winning the prize is quote commitment to free expression and inquiry arrange in debt. Intellect and a will is to pursue the truth without regard to personal or professional consequence. End quote,

I guess it away. It's an award given force would have grave in writing. I wonder if he considers to be a brave writer or not, I would want, make that claim. But if someone else wants to evaluate me, I have to I submit to it In the speech you gave excepting the award entitled, I presume that you did write this idle, the enemies of writing your tie. Did yes- and you said a lot of arresting things there, but in order to buy use its lingers from my elders, you say quote when we the book or click on an article. The first thing we want to know is which group the writer belongs to the end. Makes reading aloud simpler. What did you mean that and what was the point over. All of your speech I was looking at things that get in the way of doing what I think a writer has to do, which is tell the truth be willing to stand alone and against the crowd. If need be, be dedicated to the craft,

then too right as well as possible, regardless of speed and quantity which are now. You know it out of control levels with the internet and I strongly thing of all the things that I feel as a writer that are constantly pushing on me, and then I see and other writers, and one of them is this sense that you don't just right for yourselves, these days you are Seen is somehow representing a group or belonging to agree and if you don't belong to a group near diminished, like all who are you? Why should I listen to you if you dont have a either up political group or an ethnic group? or even a perch, some publication that defines you. We we want the shorthand of being able to just know. What's this guy's heard this good Douze orientation where they coming from and therefore what do I think of what they about to say. It makes life easier you

already make up your mind. Even before you ve read it. once you know, who's written it and what striped they are and to me, that's just totally honest article two with the way I see the writers. Ok which is not having your mind made up by fact may be having your mind, unmade up and challenged and being forced to think. harder and a new about something that you thought you'd already resolved in whom do you find fault Is it the writer or in the reader for having that approach? I think both they have a relationship, other the the writer wants readers and it may I'll, be that these days, the price of getting readers, and now we know exactly how many readers we have because are twitter followers are counted and are clicks on. Websites are counted so we'll have to qualify their readership

readers, exact price. I think witches I am not speaking of all, of course, and their their real exceptions, and I see positive trends happen. Even in the middle of this pandemic, I see positive things in journalism and in writing, and in readership, and subscription levels, lots of good things are coming of it, but there is it. Kind of baseline that we have established a lot of. It comes from social media, a lot of it comes from the financial structure. of Journalism collapsing in the digital age, so that now it's a popularity contest to some extent and away a quick way of coming, o, o unknown and successful. Writer is simply by finding a mom. There will back here, and then saying what they want to hear and not kissing them off. Since get them off. You can lose some of them but how do you balance that? Because, as you said, look you're not engaged in a nonprofit enterprise? You need real,

with uranium. Certainly for writing a book in she'd readers. If you're ready for magazine, you can be a guess. Subsidy, by and by other writers of the magazine, Harry this need to be read. Verse the need not to be beholden to your readers is really hard. I mean I have the great of having written for two publications, the new Yorker and the Atlantic that gave me jobs and those jobs. Essentially were to write what I thought and that's incredible blessing. It's a rare one, More and more rare those jobs are almost impossible to get now All I can say is real This would make it a lot easier. good writers to continue to make a living as good writers,

they would allow writers to say things if those readers don't wanna, hear and keep reading them and keep thinking about it, and so warning them by subscribing to websites to print publications, to media organisations to pay for it. The idea at the start of the internet, that content wanted to be free was one of the worst ideas of the last fifty years. It's really tat a lot of damage to journalism and the industry will be along. time recovering, having kind given in to the You know the blandishments of Google and Facebook than other platforms reader need to give writers the chance to say what they don't want to hear in order for those writers to be as good as they can be, and to continue to make a living

Here's other criticism you made about a certain kind of writing in the speech you gave. You talked about it course he taught at Yale. Instead, a couple things like that made me think you said quote: they all wanted to write from a position of moral certainty. You also wrote they were true. two subjects about which they are made up their minds and then finally, say the imperative to take a position can be stunting and I found it because I understand take on the one hand. On the other hand, I also understand that a writer, particularly beginning writer would to take the position that why shouldn't have a complete thought and a complete the standing of something before I decide to submit. My viewed other people. What is up the sort of vanity of addressing a subject about which I am completely uncertain. Is there value in that? Have you any square that yeah? I think there's value in acknowledging that most human questions are complicated. That is almost always more than one side story and almost always more

One good argument and that The longer you're able to tolerate. having more than one thought in your head and be. A little uncertain about where you land, the better writer you'll, be. There is a kind of writing and there's much good writing of this kind. That is expos ay and its angry, and that's calling attention to an injustice and doing it in the strongest terms possible This is a really important place for that kind of right, but. Sometimes I have the feeling we young people especially feel it. That's the only way to sound that's the only way to be a writer by being at a hundred percent all the time and anything that that deviates a bit. You have to kill it before you can even listen to it. And I loved my students: they were terrific,

and they were willing to listen to me when I said to them. You know you're using subjects that you seem already know exactly what you think about. Why don't you try to find a subject that is genuinely hard for you to make up your mind about or where you can actually imagine different points of view and then right, and see where you end up, and I bet you find that you learn a lot by doing that What was the result of that? They like it or did they subtle, looked at me as I was telling them just try screwing up your first job. have you ever bigger or you like, I was travelling them into something that to them was. Why would I do that? That sounds dangerous, but they also, I think, I knew what I was saying and partly we were reading writers. who were models of that and they loved those theirs and saw what strength you could get

from a piece of writing that was ambivalent or was morally complicate? The wording I was named for Christopher Agents, counted writer, somewhat contracts, depending on what point of view was I'll. Try said my students. If you can write you can talk, you can talk if you can write and they cheer up a vision. First, you mean look I can write? Yes, I say: will how many payment periods glass like to hear the other ones tool and they get depressed or wherever and you write about him quote ability you said about? Him quote the ability the brutal and print and decent in person quality. I very much admired in Christopher first. I guess my question is: why and then related to? That is why, as a good to be back in print is unnecessary. Actually, I really believe in being brutal and print, and I'm not, I don't think there

brutal, like I guess I was a bit brutal toward Jared Kirshner in my recent atlantic peace, but I think he deserved it I am then, would you be decent person with shared? I don't think I could be I think I don't have the capacious of Spirit, to pretend that it was just all politics and didn't really matter. My animists toward him is probably a bit too personal from a position of moral certainty, I am saying it the position of worry of over my own moral, certain detour Jared Kirshner. Yes, Higgins comes out of this british literary. Culture, where brutality was almost like the way you arrived. The way you announced you're rival as a writer, this kind of thumb yeah a kind of toughness in british letters. That actually is not.

Quite as bad here, but at the same time I don't know, maybe it's something like it's, not all that serious to begin with, and they don't we believe in it- or maybe it's like you- that they make a distinction between public and private, that we need to be human, because if everything is political, and if you can have any personal relations that are, start a shared political view. Then you ve lost something really precious. I think that's why I admired it because he seemed to feel that there were other things too, as political as he wasn't. He was political to his bones A shared love of a certain writer could overcome back in a minute, so could a shared love of certain drink. There were ways that you could stop fighting

and I m here, he was always that way with me, because we had some fights in print is always scary, because you know he's he swung to Caen, but but then I would see him couple later in it was as if it hadn't happen, we thousand we were gonna, have a nice three. Our conversation some of our favorite writers, George Backer, but the good work of the Atlantic. Thanks for making us think, then I also mention your book that we talked about last time our Richard Holbrooke and the end of the american century before to speak with you again and they stay safe. To breathe I really enjoyed. It is always The conversation continues for members Kathy insider community to hear this a tune, bonus material with George Packer and get exclusive weekly Cathy Insider Park. Ass, an other content had to Cathay dot com. slash insider

right now you can try a cafe insider membership free for two weeks at Cathay, DOT, com, slash insider so, as everyone is very painfully aware, has been alive, was lately lot of loss of life, people have lost relatives, people lost friends, people lost were colleagues there's also. in loss of life, not relate to cover nineteen and we have lost him treasures of american culture. There have been a number in last week's since last pack has dropped there too, that I wanted to mention who brought a particular kind of joy two millions and millions of Americans. First on Saturday, we lost the pioneering little Richard, the architect of rock and roll one in nineteen, thirty, two in Georgia, he was brought up singing gospel in the Pentecostal Church, and then he invented rock and Roll in fifty six alone, little Richard

wrote and released. The following time was rock standards: Tutti Fruity long tall, Sally rip it up and Lucille the Beatles opened for little Richard Jimi Hendrix started with Little Richard little. Richard helped make Elvis and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and P Townsend and Roger adultery, and I could go on and on and on You can see the influence in the testimonials that have been advanced about little Richard from people. You may recognize over the last number of days. None other Bob Dylan who, by the way, has suddenly been putting I'm Second, the middle of his pandemic said on. that little Richard was quote my shining star, Guiding light little Stephen of my Beloved EAST Street band whose nineteen eighty two wedding was officiated by little Richard with by the boss is the best man tweeted to quote rest in peace Little Richard. The man who invented it Elvis Popular Chuck, very, was the story. Teller Richard was the architect

marine, and I were so honoured being the first marriage he conducted. We were lucky to know him. forever in the underground garage, they'll, see in brief Springsteen, by the way, often cover little Richard we'll play Richard out with a snippet of my all time, favorite Bruce and the street ban, paying tribute during a parish, show to them who started at all with a little bit of Lucille. Also in the last week we lost a very different kind of legend Monday actor Ben Stiller tweeted. The sad news that his father by car comedian, Jerry Stiller had passed away at the age of ninety two then wrote quote here: great, dad and grandfather and the most delicate.

It husband to an for about sixty two years. He will be greatly missed, love you dad if you have a chance, and especially if you're not familiar with the crazy comedy of jurists and his wife and mirror take a look at the beautiful, a bit where he for Stiller in the New York Times, it tells of his committed partnership with love of his life and mirror both born in Brooklyn. They met in the nineteen fifties married quickly. and became a beloved husband, wife act on programmes I ve had Sullivan Show and for the time they were pretty pioneering in their way. Talking about religion, love marital strife, frankness that influence lots and lots of future comedians, including his own son, then Stiller the eventual also tells of what for new Yorkers of a certain age. Like me, still, there will always be most remembered for and that They have guessed, is playing Frank, Stanza, George, dance is angry dad on Seinfeld. He was in there their effectiveness and the Bro bra,

and he was in many ways. New York City, personified rational, rude loud blunt and yet somehow, credibly lovable a lot of great moments of Jerry Stiller This I felt show one cup from season seven episode. Twelve. Would we pulled out the archives? Call the caddy George Cassandra takes an unapproved vacation from his work in Europe. It front office and in a suit, Typical sign fell the and misunderstandings George. I'd rather than the Yankees owner, and convince that Georgia Stanza has perished Steinbrenner nice, to go personally to inform Georgia's parents Jerry Stiller, credible, as though Harris of Course stands is death so right after Steinbrenner delivers a news, Jerry still turns on the owner, ignoring his sons death and has this to say what your trade going too far. Last year,

If you don't know what you're doing two very different kinds of trailblazers whose art gave us joy and a little comfort. They meant a lot to me and millions of others one made us sing and dance. The other made a smile and laugh Little Richard Injurie Stiller rest in peace, Well, that's it for this episode of statehood, thanks to my guest George Packer If you like what we do great and review the show, an apple pie casts or wherever you listen, every Review, helps new listeners, find the show send me questions about news politics, injustice, tweet them to me prepare our with the hashtag asked pre. can call and leave me a message at six hundred and sixty nine, two hundred and forty seven, seven thousand three hundred and thirty eight

that six, six nine to four preach or you can send an email to stay tuned. A cafe that come say. And is presented by cafe. The executive producer is tomorrow, supper The senior audio producer is David. Ashore in a cafe, Ms Matthew Billy David curl Andor, overstating Calvin Lord, No as a and Jeff justifies our music he's by Andrew Dost, I'm free perreira statehood.