Best LBJ Foundation Podcasts (2025)

1
"Dewey Defeats Truman" A conversation about the election of 1948 with A.J. Baime 55:04

1y ago55:04

55:04

New York Times bestselling author A.J. Baime joined us to discuss the famous outcome of the election of 1948. Baime is the author of The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months that Changed the World (2017), The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War (2014), Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and …

1
Previewing the 2024 Presidential Election with Richard Hasen & Joshua Sellers 1:01:33

1+ y ago1:01:33

1:01:33

Last month, Mark Updegrove moderated a discussion at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, at Rice University, entitled "A presidential election with legal issues like no other." There, he interviewed two legal experts about the legal challenges faced by the GOP's leading presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, one of the many unpre…

1
A Conversation With Secretary Robert Gates 1:02:43

1+ y ago1:02:43

1:02:43

Robert Gates served in public life for over 50 years. He began his career as an entry-level CIA analyst and would rise the ranks to become director of the agency from 1991-93. In 2006, he was named Secretary of Defense by President George W. Bush as our nation waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He would retain the position for President Barack Obam…

1
A Conversation with Heather Cox Richardson 58:34

1+ y ago58:34

58:34

Heather Cox Richardson is professor of history at Boston College, and author of six major books about US history in the 19th Century. Among her best-known works are To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party, and How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America. In the past few years, R…

1
A Conversation with Jake Tapper 51:13

1+ y ago51:13

51:13

Jake Tapper is the chief Washington anchor for CNN, whose shows “The Lead with Jake Tapper” and “State of the Union” are fixtures of broadcast news. Tapper has been covering politics in Washington for over 25 years--from the Clinton Administration through the Biden Administration. He’s also a best-selling author of five books, three of which are wo…

1
"He becomes a genuine believer" A conversation about Abraham Lincoln with Josh Zeitz 48:08

1+ y ago48:08

48:08

President Lincoln is perhaps the most analyzed and studied of all America's 46 presidents, the subject of numerous outstanding biographies. Yet some aspects of his life remain difficult to fathom, not least his religious views. In his new book, Lincoln's God, Josh Zeitz teases out Lincoln's complicated religious outlook, and makes clear just how im…

1
"A key moment of our civil rights narrative that's never gotten its due" A conversation about Hubert Humphrey with Samuel Freedman 52:32

1+ y ago52:32

52:32

Samuel Freedman is a Professor at Columbia University and the award-winning author of ten books. In Into the Bright Sunshine he looks at the life of Hubert Humphrey, who would become Senator from Minnesota, Vice President to Lyndon Johnson, and the Democratic presidential nominee in 1968, who lost his bid for the presidency to Richard Nixon by less…

1
"A pathologically reasonable person in power" A Conversation about President Garfield with C.W. Goodyear 40:38

1+ y ago40:38

40:38

C.W. Goodyear is a writer and historian based in Washington, D.C. Earlier this year, he published his first book, President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier, which has earned effusive praise for meticulous research and eloquent writing about a president who has often flow under the radar. Goodyear shines a light on James Garfield’s presidency but …

1
Best of With the Bark Off 2023 (Part 1) 32:37

1+ y ago32:37

32:37

Late last year we did a “best of” year-end podcast that focused on top moments from With the Bark Off. It was no easy task to choose those moments given the sheer volume of great material we had to draw from, but it was fun and proved to be very popular among our listeners. We decided to make this a biannual thing to reflect on those moments that s…

1
"Like all great leaders, he's learning and changing" A Conversation about MLK Jr. With Jonathan Eig (Pt 2) 24:44

2y ago24:44

24:44

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a giant of American history, a figure celebrated in classrooms and public discourse for his towering contributions to the struggle for civil rights. And yet Jonathan Eig's biography, King: A Life, rooted in abundant newly available sources, is the first full-fledged study of King to be published in decades. Ei…

1
"King had the perfect voice and message for the moment" A Conversation with Jonathan Eig about MLK (Part 1) 36:49

2y ago36:49

36:49

Jonathan Eig is a highly accomplished journalist and author. His bestselling biography of the boxer Muhammad Ali, entitled Ali: A Life, won the PEN America Literary Award and was the basis for a PBS series about Ali's life and times. Eig is also author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. Eig joins us for an enlightening conversation …

1
"Bush never insisted on a careful assessment" A conversation with Melvyn Leffler about the Iraq War 55:26

2y ago55:26

55:26

Melvyn Leffler is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Virginia and one of the world’s leading scholars of U.S. foreign relations. His many award-winning books include For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, The Soviet Union, and the Cold War and A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold …

1
"Jackie wanted a larger life" A conversation about Jackie Bouvier Kennedy with Carl Sferrazza Anthony 51:14

2y ago51:14

51:14

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy remains one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century - an iconic First Lady who brought elegance, sophistication, and a cultivated cultural sensibility to the White House. But her formative early adult years provide a glimpse into a headstrong, confident young woman of great intelligence and ambition trying to …

1
"Nixon and Kissinger thought they would succeed" A Conversation about Peacemaking in Vietnam With Lien-Hang T. Nguyen 48:35

2y ago48:35

48:35

Dr. Lien-Hang Nguyen is the Dorothy Borg Associate Professor of History at Columbia University. Besides Hanoi’s War, Dr. Nguyen is co-editor of The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War. She’s now writing a definitive history of the Tet Offensive, the communist attacks in 1968 that changed the course of the war for the United States.…

1
"Consequences for the nation had to take a back seat" A Conversation with Rebecca Boggs Roberts About Edith Wilson 41:59

2y ago41:59

41:59

Rebecca Boggs Roberts is an award-winning educator and historian who has written extensively about women’s history and the women’s suffrage movement. Her books include The Suffragist Playbook: Your Guide to Changing the World and Suffragists in Washington, DC: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote. She recently published Untold Power: The Fasc…

1
"If you want to valorize Reagan, look at the convictions he held" A conversation with Will Inboden 52:43

2y ago52:43

52:43

Dr. William Inboden is a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Executive Director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. His new biography of Reagan, The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan in the White House and the World, was published in November 2022 and named as one of the top political books of th…

1
"He finds himself in a job he never wanted" A Conversation about Gerald Ford with Richard Norton Smith 40:50

2y ago40:50

40:50

Richard Norton Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated historian and the author of numerous books, including On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller, and Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation. Throughout his career, he has been the director of five presidential libraries, those of Abraham Lincoln, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenh…

1
"I find it hard to believe JFK would have walked out" A conversation with Marc Selverstone about JFK, LBJ and escalation in Vietnam 49:09

2y ago49:09

49:09

Marc J. Selverstone is Associate Professor in Presidential Studies at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at The University of Virginia and Chair of the Center’s renowned Presidential Recordings Program, which has made available thousands of hours of audio from presidents stretching from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. Selverstone is the awar…

1
A Conversation About Presidential Funerals and Mourning with Lindsay Chervinsky and Matthew Costello 49:03

2y ago49:03

49:03

Lindsay Chervinsky is a presidential historian and author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. Matthew Costello is the Vice President of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History and author of The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the Fir…

1
"Confederates were hoping against hope the North would be divided” A conversation about peacemaking after the Civil War with Elizabeth Varon 55:48

2y ago55:48

55:48

Elizabeth Varon is the Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia and Associate Director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History. Among her many books are Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War, Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, and Armies of Deliveranc…

1
"History has become extremely politicized" A conversation about American political myths with Julian Zelizer 42:46

2y ago42:46

42:46

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is also a contributor to CNN, and the author of numerous books including “The Fierce Urgency of Now,” and “Burning Down the House.” His new bestselling book, which he edited with Kevin Kruse, is entitled “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and …

1
"Wilson sees no course compatible with American honor to keep the US out of war" A Conversation with Charlie Laderman About Woodrow Wilson 53:25

2y ago53:25

53:25

Professor Laderman is a prolific historian of international affairs based in the War Studies Department at King’s College London. His books include Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order as well as Hitler’s American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany’s March to Global War. Lade…

1
"LBJ thought he could use Hoover as a political tool" A conversation with Bev Gage about J. Edgar Hoover 54:00

2+ y ago54:00

54:00

Beverly Gage is a professor of History at Yale University. She is also the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded and has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. In G-Man, Gage covers the full sweep of Hoover’s life, from his birth in 1895 to his death in 1972, offering a nuanced portrait of a complicated man who to…

1
"The Biden presidency is a political thriller" A Conversation with Chris Whipple 50:11

2+ y ago50:11

50:11

Chris Whipple is an author and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He appears frequently as a political analyst on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR, and his previous books include The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency and The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future.…

1
"He is a master divider who fit the times" A Conversation with Peter Baker & Susan Glasser About Donald Trump and Covering the White House 45:18

2+ y ago45:18

45:18

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, a political analyst for MSNBC, and the author of several books on the presidency, including Days of Fire and The Breach. Susan Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a CNN global affairs analyst. Their first assignment as a married couple was as Moscow bureau chief…

1
Best of "With the Bark Off" 2022 1:11:31

2+ y ago1:11:31

1:11:31

Hosts Mark Lawrence and Mark Updegrove look back on 10 of their favorite "With the Bark Off" moments from an incredible year. Featured guests: Amity Shlaes on Calvin Coolidge John Farrell on Richard Nixon Paul Gregory on Lee Harvey Oswald Nicole Hemmer on Ronald Reagan Jonathan Martin on Donald Trump Pete Souza on Barack Obama Gabriel Debenedetti o…

1
"Just running to stay ahead of the darkness" A Conversation About Ted Kennedy with John Farrell 55:19

2+ y ago55:19

55:19

John Farrell is a former White House correspondent and Washington editor for the Boston Globe and a former Washington Bureau Chief and columnist for the Denver Post. He is also a best-selling and award-winning author whose works include Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century; Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned; and Richard Nixon: The Life, a …

1
"He operates almost entirely from first principle" A Conversation About Grover Cleveland with Troy Senik 52:30

2+ y ago52:30

52:30

Grover Cleveland hardly ranks among the most celebrated or accomplished of American presidents. Like Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and other presidents of the late 19th century, Cleveland held office at a time when Congress dominated national political life and few Americans expected much of their chief executive. And yet closer inspection …

1
"When the country needed him, he rose to the occasion" A Conversation With Pete Souza About Barack Obama and Presidential Photography 49:16

2+ y ago49:16

49:16

Pete Souza is one of our nation’s leading photojournalists—and few have risen to greater prominence. He has worked as an official White House photographer for Ronald Reagan and the chief official White House photographer for Barack Obama. Among many other distinctions, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 along with colleagues at the Chicago Tribune, …

1
"I never doubted he did it and did it alone" A Conversation with Paul Gregory About Lee Harvey Oswald 39:32

2+ y ago39:32

39:32

Paul Gregory is an expert on Russia and is currently a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. A pioneer in the study of Soviet and Russian economics, his textbook on the Russian economy was used to teach more than two generations of students. But Gregory’s latest book is on a subject that he has been reluctant to address for n…

1
"Electability has become the new likeability" A Conversation with Ali Vitali About Women and the Presidency 52:45

2+ y ago52:45

52:45

Journalist Ali Vitali is a familiar face on America’s TV screens, having covered politics first for MSNBC and then for NBC News for nearly a decade. She reported on the 2016 race won by President Trump and then returned to the presidential campaign trail in 2020 to cover several Democratic candidates, including the record-setting four women who com…

1
"The presidency is a lagging indicator for shifts in US politics" A Conversation with Nicole Hemmer About the Modern Conservative Movement 45:52

2+ y ago45:52

45:52

Nicole Hemmer is a political historian and Founding Director of the Rogers Center for the Study of the Presidency at Vanderbilt University. She’s also Cofounder of Made by History, a section of the Washington Post that offers historical context and analysis, and writes regularly for the New York Times, CNN and Politico. Hemmer talked to us about th…

1
"They're the only two people in the world who can possibly understand each other" A Conversation About Biden and Obama with Gabriel Debenedetti 1:02:25

2+ y ago1:02:25

1:02:25

Journalist Gabriel Debenedetti is the national correspondent for New York magazine, where he writes about politics and national affairs. He’s also written for Politico, Reuters, the New York Times Book Review, the Economist, and the New Republic, among other publications. Just this month, he published his remarkable first book, The Long Alliance: T…

1
"Had he destroyed the tapes, I'm convinced he would have finished his second term" A Conversation About Watergate With Tim Naftali 55:31

2+ y ago55:31

55:31

Tim Naftali, who teaches history at New York University, is one of the nation’s most accomplished scholars of American foreign policy and the Cold War. His numerous books include studies of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet foreign policy, and U.S. counterterrorism policy. He’s held teaching positions over the years at Yale University, the Universit…

1
"Trump is aware how extraordinary his place is in history" A Conversation With Kate Andersen Brower 43:19

2+ y ago43:19

43:19

Kate Andersen Brower began her career as a journalist, working as a producer for CBS News and Fox News before moving on to cover the White House for Bloomberg during the first term of Barack Obama. She’s currently a contributor to CNN and has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. A bestselling author, she has explore…

1
"It was not guilt, but it was an awareness of the destruction he caused" A Conversation About Truman With Jeffrey Frank 50:35

3y ago50:35

50:35

When it comes to writing about American politics, few authors are as accomplished or as versatile as Jeffrey Frank. Jeffrey is an eminent journalist, having served as senior editor at The New Yorker and deputy editor of the New York Post's Outlook section. His work has also appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journa…

1
"Washington was very aware of his shortcomings" A Conversation About the Cabinet with Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky 45:24

3y ago45:24

45:24

When we think of how our presidents make decisions, we often imagine them sitting around conference tables with their cabinet secretaries, engaging in detailed deliberation and weighing competing points of view. But where did this practice come from? When did the cabinet originate, and why does it function as it does? Lindsay Chervinsky, a scholar …

1
A Conversation About First Lady Jill Biden With Julie Pace and Darlene Superville 46:20

3y ago46:20

46:20

Dr. Jill Biden has been called President Biden’s greatest political asset and, in the course of their 45-year marriage, has been her husband’s closest and most trusted advisor.By LBJ Foundation

1
"My father is a war criminal by the definition my father spoke of" A Conversation with Craig McNamara 44:32

3y ago44:32

44:32

Craig McNamara is the son of Robert S. McNamara, who served as U.S. Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson during the 1960s. From his childhood, Craig cherished his father. But he also struggled for years to understand the elder McNamara’s role in the decisions that led to the war in Vietnam – an experience that forever distanced…

1
A Conversation With AFI Founder George Stevens, Jr. on growing up in the Golden Age of Hollywood 48:32

3y ago48:32

48:32

On today's episode, we go slightly beyond the presidency as we talk to George Steven's Jr. about his new memoir, My Place in the Sun: Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington. The son of famed film director George Stevens, George Stevens Jr. grew up in the highest reaches of Hollywood, on the sets of classic films like Giant, Shane, The D…

1
“What’s hanging over Biden’s election and to his presidency to this day are these competing impulses...” A Conversation with Jonathan Martin on "This Will Not Pass" and the battle for America’s future ... 50:27

3y ago50:27

50:27

Since its publication in May, This Will Not Pass, written by Jonathan Martin and his New York Times colleague Alexander Burns, has received thunderous attention. Martin and Burns dive deep into the corridors of Washington power to provide insight into the end of the Trump administration, the big lie around the presidential election of 2020, the ins…

1
“He did what he thought was necessary to win.” A Conversation with Kai Bird on President Jimmy Carter 49:04

3y ago49:04

49:04

My guest today is Kai Bird, author of the new biography, The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter. This extraordinary book examines the 39th president with unprecedented depth as well as balance, highlighting President Carter's great achievements as well as the shortcomings that made him a one-term president. Kai Bird is the Executive…

1
A Conversation with Alexis Coe on You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington 50:14

3y ago50:14

50:14

Coe’s first book, Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, appeared in 2014. More recently, she published the book that we’ll be discussing today, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. Coe has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and TheNew Republic. She…

1
A Conversation with Historian Christopher Leahy on the President Without a Party: The Life of John Tyler 49:04

3y ago49:04

49:04

Our special guest today is Professor Christopher Leahy, a leading expert on the U.S. presidency and American politics in the 18th and 19th centuries. His book, President Without a Party: The Life of John Tyler, published by LSU Press in 2020, is the first full-scale biography of America’s 10th president published in more than 80 years. Dr. Leahy ha…

1
“Politics requires treating your opponents as adversaries, not enemies,” A Conversation with Fredrik Logevall on John F. Kennedy 47:05

3y ago47:05

47:05

Fredrik Logevall is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs and Professor of History at Harvard University. Dr. Logevall is the author or editor of ten books including Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History. Most recently, he's published JFK: Coming of Age…

1
“There is nothing that defines the role of First Lady,” A Conversation with Tina Tchen on how Mrs. Obama carved out her role as First Lady 49:45

3y ago49:45

49:45

Barack Obama made history in 2008, becoming the first African American to be elected to our nation’s highest office, as our 44th President. When he took office in January 2009, he brought a small coterie of close and loyal friends from his home state of Illinois to join him at the White House. Among them was Tina Tchen, who would become a White Hou…

1
“Coolidge prided himself in not letting laws get through.” A Conversation with Amity Shlaes on Calvin Coolidge 45:17

3y ago45:17

45:17

My guest today is Amity Shlaes, a well-known columnist for the Financial Times and Forbes magazine and a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. She's also one of America's premier economic historians. Shlaes has published six books to date, including Great Society: A New History and The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great D…

1
“You don't understand Jefferson, if you don't understand the way he exploited his enslaved people.” A Conversation With Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf 44:36

3y ago44:36

44:36

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. She's the author of six books, including The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Peter Onuf is the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the Universit…

1
“The tragedy is that Andrew Johnson replaces him,” A Conversation with John Avlon on Lincoln and the Fight for Peace. 48:47

3+ y ago48:47

48:47

There have been countless books written about Abraham Lincoln, but John Avlon’s new book, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace, takes a different tact. Chronicling the last days of Lincoln’s life after the most bloody war in our history, Avlon looks at the plans for peace that he calls Lincoln’s “unfinished symphony.” John Avlon is a senior political an…

1
“Watergate was the symptomatic scandal that caught him, but it was not an aberration.” A Conversation with John Farrell on Richard Nixon 44:49

3+ y ago44:49

44:49

John A. Farrell joins us for a conversation about America’s 37th president, Richard Nixon. John is author of Richard Nixon: The Life, which won the PEN America Award for biography and the New York Historical Society’s prize for American History. The book was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. John worked for many years as a journalist for majo…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

LBJ Foundation Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen