Recent Entries
History (36)
Sometimes the news moves so fast, you have to look closely to know if you’ve seen it before. And that’s what this show is about. Breaking History breaks down the news, by breaking down history. We cover everything from LBJ and the Roman Republic to Donald Trump and the chaos at Columbia. This twice a month show from The Free Press delivers the best historians, authors, and reporters by mining the archives of human experience to figure out the present. George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Tune in to Breaking History to resist the repetition.
From Breaking History at 2025-11-26 10:00:00
How Clinton, Trump, and Epstein Rewired America’s Moral Compass (CBS3793359173.mp3?updated=1764163091)
We revisit the scandal-soaked 1990s—Packwood, Thomas, Clinton—and explore how failing to enforce norms around abuse of power helped create the world in which the Epstein scandal could flourish. This episode traces the unraveling of political accountability from the Clinton impeachment to the Trump Access Hollywood moment, and finally the global Epstein reckoning. We show how feminists in the ’90s and evangelicals in the 2010s made parallel bargains—each excusing their champion’s abuses for political gain. The result is a culture that normalized impunity for the powerful, and primed America for a populist revolt against a ruling class that protects its own. ----- CREDITS Executive Producer: Poppy Damon Associate Producer: Adam Feldman Sound Designer and Composer: Tony Peer Original theme songs by Eli Lake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-11-12 09:00:00
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s Socrates (RUNMED8586526638.mp3?updated=1762892764)
We are coming up on the 50th anniversary of punk, the genre that smashed the old rock gods and stripped down the music to its essence. In this episode of Breaking History, we examine the examined life of the original punk: the loudmouth philosopher who defied the authorities, refused to conform, and paid the ultimate price for speaking the truth. Yes—it can only be Socrates. Grab your leather jacket and your hemlock, we’re going hardcore philosophical. ----- CREDITS Executive Producer: Poppy Damon Associate Producer: Adam Feldman Sound Designer and Composer: Tony Peer Original theme songs by Eli Lake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-10-29 09:00:00
Beautiful Losers: Mamdani & The End of Socialism’s Losing Streak (RUNMED5608585375.mp3?updated=1761712983)
For 124 years, the American socialist movement has been defined by defeat. From Eugene Debs’ doomed presidential runs to Michael Harrington’s quiet organizing, it’s been a story of almosts: almost mainstream, almost powerful, almost relevant. Until now. In this episode, we look at how Zohran Mamdani’s likely mayoral victory marks the first real crack in America’s century-long resistance to socialism—and why its impact will reach far beyond New York City. CREDITS Executive Producer: Poppy Damon Associate Producer: Adam Feldman Sound Designer and Composer: Tony Peer Original theme songs by Eli Lake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-10-21 09:00:00
Trailer | Spiral: Murder in Detroit (RUNMED7098346155.mp3)
On October 21, 2023, beloved Detroit community leader Samantha Woll was found brutally stabbed to death outside her home—two weeks to the day after the October 7 attacks on Israel. It looks like an open-and-shut case—a hate crime. But swiftly the police rule that out. Instead they eventually find themselves with two unrelated suspects. When they charge one with murder, the case takes a turn that raises questions about antisemitism, race, and justice in America. Hosted by The Free Press’s Frannie Block, this podcast features exclusive interviews and explores the remarkable, too-short life of Samantha, and the impact she had. And Spiral tells the bizarre twists and turns of one of Detroit’s most haunting recent crimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-10-15 09:00:00
London Falling: How the Birthplace of Free Speech Became a Censor’s Paradise (RUNMED2506824066.mp3?updated=1760504780)
Once, Britain was the cradle of free speech- the land of Milton, Orwell, and John Stuart Mill. But in 2025, police are arresting citizens for tweets, comedians are detained for jokes, and ordinary people are jailed for words deemed “hateful.” In this episode, we trace how the birthplace of liberty became a censor’s paradise - and what it reveals about a Western world that’s forgotten Mill’s warning: that without dissent, truth itself cannot survive. CREDITS Executive Producer: Poppy Damon Associate Producer: Adam Feldman Sound Designer and Composer: Tony Peer Original theme songs by Eli Lake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-10-01 09:00:00
James Comey: The Case That Could Break America (RUNMED9631840053.mp3?updated=1759325239)
James Comey isn’t a hero. But prosecuting him like this? It’s not justice—it’s political theater. In this episode, we tell the origin story of Comey, the now indicted former FBI chief, and unpack the tangled web of FBI overreach, President Donald Trump’s vendetta, and a system that no longer knows where accountability ends and revenge begins. This is more than a case: It’s a mirror held up to a nation on the brink. A special thanks to our sponsors: New episodes of The Isabel Brown Show can be viewed on DailyWire+ here: www.dailywire.com/show/the-isabel-brown-showFollow Isabel on X: www.x.com/theisabelbFollow Isabel on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theisabelbrown CREDITS Executive Producer: Poppy Damon Associate Producer: Adam Feldman Sound Designer: Tony Peer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-09-17 09:30:00
Defying the Assassin’s Veto: Grace in a Time of Violence (RUNMED9561787587.mp3?updated=1758086798)
In a week when political violence has returned to the national stage, we revisit a moment from the 1970s when Shirley Chisholm, the first black congresswoman, visited segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace after he was nearly assassinated. Her act of grace lit a spark that changed him. What can we learn from that moment today, after the murder of Charlie Kirk silenced a voice in mid-debate? This is a story about bullets, ballots, and the courage to choose humanity when others advocate violence. A special thanks to our sponsors: New episodes of The Isabel Brown Show can be viewed on DailyWire+ here: www.dailywire.com/show/the-isabel-brown-showFollow Isabel on X: www.x.com/theisabelbFollow Isabel on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theisabelbrown CREDITS Executive Producer: Poppy Damon Associate Producer: Adam Feldman Sound Designer: Volkan Kiziltug Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-09-03 10:00:00
How a Russian Spy Destroyed a Beautiful Mind (RUNMED2355279067.mp3?updated=1756868358)
This week Breaking History dives into a century-old mind game: Russia’s information war against America. More specifically, how it keeps driving us crazy. From Soviet spycraft to this summer’s Russiagate revelations, the story is often familiar: a kernel of truth is then buried in lies. We look back at the haunted mind of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s original paranoia prophet. He spent his life chasing Russian ghosts, and what he saw and what he feared still echo through Washington today. CREDITS Executive Producer: Poppy Damon Associate Producer: Adam Feldman Sound Designer: Volkan Kiziltug A special thanks to our sponsors: Listen to Boundless Insights wherever you get your podcasts for smart, honest conversations about the biggest stories shaping Jewish life, Israeli politics, and their global impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-08-20 09:00:00
The Birth of Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything (RUNMED9001231726.mp3?updated=1755663164)
How did air conditioning go from a niche invention for factories to a force that reshaped cities, industries, and even human behavior? In this episode of Breaking History, we dive deep into the surprising, often overlooked story of AC with author Salvatore Basile—author of Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything. Hear how Willis Carrier’s revolutionary breakthrough changed the world. ------ Producers: Poppy Damon & Adam Feldman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-08-06 09:30:00
Restless Nation | The Red-Green Alliance: The Making of Modern Iran (Part 2) (RUNMED1688067909.mp3?updated=1754468480)
In our last episode, we traced the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty and the forces building toward Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. This week, we turn to the man who brought that monarchy to an end: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. From exile in a quiet French chateau, Khomeini launched a revolution that shattered 2,500 years of Persian monarchy. But he didn’t do it alone. Liberals and leftists, both inside Iran and across the West, played a crucial role in legitimizing his cause, a dynamic that feels familiar today. This is the story of the first Red-Green Alliance, a tactical partnership between Islamists and the progressive left, and the cost of that alliance once power changed hands. -------- Producers Poppy Damon & Adam Feldman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-07-30 09:00:00
BONUS | Eli Lake & Josh Hammer on Russiagate: Do the New Documents Support Treason? (RUNMED6623946132.mp3?updated=1753918731)
Do the new Russiagate releases justify Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s accusation of “treasonous conspiracy”? In this bonus episode, Eli Lake and commentator Josh Hammer get into the nitty gritty of the newest document releases in one of the most polarizing political controversies of the 21st century: Russiagate. Listen to Boundless Insights wherever you get your podcasts for smart, honest conversations about the biggest stories shaping Jewish life, Israeli politics, and their global impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-07-16 13:02:00
Restless Nation | The Making of Modern Iran (Part 1) (RUNMED6093576064.mp3?updated=1753943433)
Breaking History dives into the paradox at the heart of modern Iran: How a nation born in revolt, from the tobacco protests of the 1890s to the 1979 Revolution, has time and again empowered autocrats in the name of democracy. This week we trace the cycles of reform and repression that still shape Iran today. Producer: Poppy Damon A special thanks to our sponsors: Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Listen to Boundless Insights wherever you get your podcasts for smart, honest conversations about the biggest stories shaping Jewish life, Israeli politics, and their global impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-07-03 09:00:00
America Has Always Been a Dangerous Idea (RUNMED7267204967.mp3?updated=1751943206)
As our nation turns 249 this week, we explore the radical and enduring power of the Declaration of Independence. More than just a break from the British Empire, the Declaration was a bold statement of universal human rights, an idea so dangerous it has sparked revolutions and inspired liberation movements around the world ever since, from Vietnam to Israel, from China to the Black Panther Party. We trace its intellectual origins, unpack its contradictions, and examine how a document written in 1776 continues to challenge America (and the world) today. Producers Poppy Damon, Bobby Moriarty and Charlie Bell. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-06-19 09:00:00
BONUS: David Albright and Eli Lake on Iran’s Nuclear Program (RUNMED7322322184.mp3?updated=1750436382)
Eli Lake and nuclear weapons expert David Albright discuss the Islamic Republic’s arsenal and whether or not Israel can destroy it on its own. This episode was originally a subscriber-only livestream. Livestreams are one of the many benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to The Free Press. (Thank you to everyone who joined us live!) Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-06-18 09:00:00
The Buckley Stops Here: Trump And The Death of Conservative Civility (RUNMED4345097744.mp3?updated=1750225441)
William F. Buckley, one of the founding fathers of the American right, would have turned 100 this year. He, more than any other figure, is responsible for creating the American conservative movement that fueled the Reagan revolution more than 40 years ago. But what happened to that revolution in the era of Donald Trump? CREDITSProducer Poppy DamonExecutive Producer Alex Miller Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-06-13 22:18:00
BONUS: Haviv Rettig Gur and Eli Lake on Israel's Strike (RUNMED6690982019.mp3?updated=1750196468)
This was recorded as a Free Press livestream. To be part of these conversations as they happen live, become a part of The Free Press. You can do that by going to TheFP.com and subscribing now. The world woke up today to a changed Middle East. Israel struck key nuclear and military facilities throughout Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed retaliation. And Donald Trump urged Iran to agree to a nuclear deal. As Iran begins its counterattack with a missile barrage, we’re left with many questions. What actually happened on the ground in Iran? Did Israel’s strikes secure its safety? Does this spell the end of the Iranian regime? And what role will the U.S. play in the unfolding war? Breaking History’s Eli Lake sat down with Haviv Rettig Gur, one of today’s most insightful Middle East analysts, to make sense of all of it and discuss what could come next. This is a bonus episode. Stay tuned for a full episode of Breaking History this Wednesday. Listen to Boundless Insights wherever you get your podcasts for smart, honest conversations about the biggest stories shaping Jewish life, Israeli politics, and their global impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-06-11 09:00:00
BONUS: Conversations with Coleman & Bari Weiss (RUNMED3936136672.mp3?updated=1753968167)
We’re sharing the latest episode of Conversations with Coleman, a podcast that joined The Free Press network this week. Coleman Hughes engages deep thinkers and curious minds in sharp, surprising, and unfiltered chats. In this relaunch episode he sits down with Free Press founder Bari Weiss and asks her about her critics, rising antisemitism, the woke right, and more. Hope you enjoy it & stay tuned for more Breaking History here. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-05-28 18:12:00
Partition’s Ghost: How Pakistan Became a Deep State (RUNMED5788700638.mp3?updated=1748452919)
Last month, two nuclear powers exchanged blows after terrorists mowed down 26 tourists in Kashmir, yet it didn’t turn into a hot war. We got lucky. But sadly, the next India-Pakistan war seems like only a matter of time. In this week’s Breaking History, Eli Lake explores the origin story of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan. How did Pakistan become a true ‘deep state nation’ post-partition? And why does it really really matter? ******* CREDITSProducer Poppy DamonExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-05-14 08:00:00
Vulgarians at the Gate: How Censors Lost the Culture War (RUNMED4043496557.mp3?updated=1747190414)
*Explicit Content Warning* Since Donald Trump won the presidential election, American institutions are shedding what remains of wokeness nearly everywhere. From Columbia University to Facebook, the old guardrails have crumbled. Something similar happened nearly 60 years ago. After police and prosecutors drove the revolutionary comic Lenny Bruce into bankruptcy and overdose, America began its slide into vulgarity. Despite the best efforts of the word police of that era, the old taboos about sex and profanity melted away. So just how did America's censors end up losing the culture war? CREDITSProducer Poppy DamonExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-04-30 06:00:00
How North Korea Got the Nuke (RUNMED6399682204.mp3?updated=1745976894)
As Iranian nuclear ambitions force their way back onto America’s agenda, it’s worth looking at the story of North Korea, the original ‘madman’ nation that bullied its way to the nuclear table. ******* CREDITSProducer Poppy DamonExecutive Producer Alex Miller ******* Buy tickets for SAPIR Debate“Is Donald Trump Good for the Jews?” at sapirjournal.org/sapirdebate. Listen to Unpacking Israeli History Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-04-16 05:00:00
The Opium War: The Original Trade War (RUNMED2786246513.mp3?updated=1745416520)
It’s been two weeks since President Donald Trump declared war on the global economic system his predecessors painstakingly built up since 1945. Then he partially reversed course, paused most of the tariffs, and focused on China. In this episode, we dive into the last time the world’s most populous country was in a trade war with the world’s richest country. What do the British Empire’s Opium Wars of the 1800s tell us about America’s pending economic divorce with China? Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Buy tickets for the first SAPIR Debate: “Is Donald Trump Good for the Jews?” at sapirjournal.org/sapirdebate. CREDITSProducer Poppy DamonExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-04-02 09:00:00
Orientalism: How One Book Fueled 50 Years of Campus Unrest (RUNMED8667975194.mp3?updated=1750141146)
Pro-Palestine protests have been a feature of Columbia's campus since October 7. Now, Donald Trump has issued an ultimatum to the university: get control of your campus or lose $400 million in Federal funding. But the target of the measures wasn't just security, but the Middle East Department too, which Columbia has agreed to place into five years of 'academic receivership'. This week we take a deeper look at the ideology behind the unrest. One protester’s placard stuck out, it read: “Why make me study Said if I’m not allowed to use it?”. The placard was referring to academic Edward Said and this question gets to the very heart of the Columbia protests and the anti-Israeli sentiment felt on many American campuses today. Edward Said was the author of a book called Orientalism that changed American universities forever. You can’t understand the Gaza protests without understanding Orientalism. But just how much is this radical 1970s academic text influencing contemporary thinking about the Middle East? If you liked this episode of Breaking History, Listen to Unpacking Israeli History. Listen to Boundless Insights wherever you get your podcasts for smart, honest conversations about the biggest stories shaping Jewish life, Israeli politics, and their global impact. CREDITSProducer Poppy DamonExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-03-19 08:00:00
Luigi Mangione & The History of Bourgeois Terrorism (RUNMED5988523576.mp3?updated=1744739347)
Luigi Mangione appears in court this week. He stands accused of murdering a healthcare CEO in cold blood. It’s not the first time a well heeled winner has been celebrated for his embrace of political violence. Today we look at the West German woman who paved the way. We dive into the phenomenon of breaking rad. Eli Lake tells the story of Ulrike Meinhof and the infamous Red Army Faction. ******* And a note from our sponsors: Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Listen to Unpacking Israeli History here: https://link.chtbl.com/VdmA8PCO For more info about ChairFlicks visit: https://welcome.chaiflicks.com/lake/ ******* CREDITSProducer Poppy DamonExecutive Producer Alex Miller Our interview with Bettina Rohl was translated into English and read by Anna-Carolin Augustin. Our voice actors were Constantine Gregory and Priscilla Hagen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-03-05 07:00:00
How A Strange Group of Heroes Defeated Russia (RUNMED3624069145.mp3?updated=1753922881)
Ronald Reagan’s speech in front of the Berlin Wall in 1987 is legendary for its six simple words: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” And two years later the wall fell. In another two years, the Soviet Union came crashing down. Many factors led to these moments. Among them: the failures of communism, the bravery of dissidents, and America’s role in challenging the “evil empire,” at least that’s what Reagan called it. The dissidents—many languishing in gulags—heard America. They heard President Reagan. And many lived long enough to see their tyrants topple. One of them even went on to lead Czechoslovakia, the country that jailed him. His name was Václav Havel. In today’s Breaking History, Eli Lake argues that Havel’s experience as a playwright and dissident helps explain how plain truths defeat communist lies. Eli also compares Reagan's Cold War politics with Trump’s approach to Vladimir Putin. This comparison is more pertinent than ever after the showdown in the oval office on Friday. Before any talks, Trump and his team made it clear that Ukraine would not get back the territory stolen by Putin. Trump excluded Ukraine from the negotiations, and accused Volodymyr Zelensky of being a dictator—a comment he now denies. Then, on Friday, Zelensky showed up to the White House to sign the critical minerals deal. The deal would give the U.S. access to half of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in perpetuity. In exchange, Zelensky wanted security guarantees. Trump said no. The Romans would recognize this as tribute. The Mafia would call it protection money. Eli unpacks all of this and so much more. Thanks to our sponsors: https://welcome.chaiflicks.com/lake/ Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-02-19 10:00:00
Why We Can't Escape JFK Conspiracy Theories (RUNMED7649309314.mp3?updated=1739926960)
Every now and again, a work of art is so profound that it breaches the boundary between fact and fiction and affects current events. And if you had to rank the most politically resonant artworks American pop culture has produced in the last 50 years, the 1991 film JFK would top the list. More than any document, this film codified the murder of JFK as a conspiracy in the minds of the American people. Directed by the most celebrated filmmaker in America at the time, Oliver Stone, JFK featured Kevin Costner as a character who said that President Kennedy was killed as part of a government conspiracy. The film was so influential that Congress passed a law in 1992 that ordered government agencies to find and, ultimately, release hundreds of thousands of secret CIA files relating to the assassination. Now President Trump has ordered the declassification of all remaining records. Many Americans never thought Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone—or they questioned if he was involved at all. But by the end of the Cold War, the JFK truthers were considered fringe and paranoid. Oliver Stonge changed that. In today’s Breaking History, Eli Lake argues that JFK made conspiracy theories go mainstream. Tinfoil hats were no longer just for oddballs. They were for everyone. And the U.S. government has played a big role in that. After all, whether or not Oswald acted alone, the full array of facts still remain to be shared. Thanks to our sponsors: https://welcome.chaiflicks.com/lake/ Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-02-05 10:00:00
Paradise Burning (RUNMED2427115959.mp3?updated=1742271672)
Last month, L.A. burned. It was one of the most predictable disasters on record. A century of development on land whose ecosystems were forged in wildfire; years of increasingly regular blazes; months of low rainfall. The National Weather Service even issued an explicit warning: This was coming. Unfortunately, when Chekhov’s fire arrived, everything that could go wrong, did. A key reservoir was being repaired when the blazes began. The hydrants didn’t have enough pressure. The state hadn’t cleared the dry vegetation near the hills of the Palisades and Malibu that is kindling for the seasonal wildfires. L.A. mayor Karen Bass didn’t have much to say to the citizens. You can’t blame local officials for the weather, but it seemed to most observers that Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom had created their own perfect storm of Californian incompetence. Something has gone wrong. The fires are indicative of something rotten in the Golden State. But it wasn’t always this way. California was once a place where industry and imagination locked arms and showed us how great the human experiment could be. It secured democracy by manufacturing the weapons that won World War II. It built the dream factory of Hollywood; it gave us Silicon Valley and personal computing. It gave us Dr. Dre and Dr. Strangelove. Without California there are no hippies, no tech bros, no gangsters in our rap music, no hardcore in our punk, no Boys on our Beach, and no movie stars. In other words: When we surrender California, we surrender the dreams that built the American century. To understand how and why California surrendered, we have to travel back to the 1970s—a decade of despair and decadence, not just for L.A., but especially for San Francisco, as it became the petri dish for the values that now define the state’s politics and governance. It is a story of sex, drugs, scandal, and terror, and to understand how Democrats began to accommodate a radical left that has burrowed deeply into the state’s bureaucracy, courts, and political machines, the revolution of the San Fran ’70s explains a lot. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-22 10:00:00
Trump’s Populism Isn’t a Sideshow. It’s as American as Apple Pie. (RUNMED7607150031.mp3?updated=1737574277)
Donald Trump, just sworn in as the 47th president, was reelected to be a wrecking ball, a middle finger, the people’s punch to the Beltway’s mouth. And while this populist moment feels “unprecedented,” it’s not. The rebuke of the ruling class is encoded in our nation’s DNA. We have seen populist leaders like Donald Trump before. He stands on the shoulders of Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, Alabama governor George Wallace, and Louisiana legend Huey Long. There have been populist senators, governors, newspaper editors, and radio broadcasters. But only rarely has a populist climbed as high as President Trump. In fact, it has happened only once before. The last populist to win the presidency was born before the American Revolution. He rose from nothing to become a great general. His adoring troops called him Old Hickory, and his enemies derided him as a bigamist and a tyrant in waiting. His name was Andrew Jackson, and he’s the guy who’s still on the 20 dollar bill. On today’s debut episode of Breaking History, Eli Lake explains how Andrew Jackson’s presidency is the best guide to what Trump’s second term could look like. Credits: Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil and the Presidency; PBS Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 20:19:00
Introducing: Breaking History (RUNMED4861315480.mp3?updated=1742271645)
Sometimes the news moves so fast, you have to look closely to know if you’ve seen it before. And that’s what this show is about. Breaking History breaks down the news, by breaking down history. We cover everything from LBJ and the Roman Republic to Donald Trump and the chaos at Columbia. This twice a month show from The Free Press delivers the best historians, authors, and reporters by mining the archives of human experience to figure out the present. George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Tune in to Breaking History to resist the repetition. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 20:13:00
Why Jews Wrote Your Favorite Christmas Songs (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED7468198282.mp3?updated=1742271630)
*This episode originally ran on December 23, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* Did you know that the Americans who wrote nearly all of the Christmas classics were . . . Jewish? Many of these songwriters were the children of parents who had fled Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe during the great wave of immigration between 1880 and 1920. Sammy Cahn, the son of Galician Jewish immigrants, wrote the words to “Let it Snow!” and was known as Frank Sinatra’s personal lyricist. There is also Mel Torme, the singer-songwriter responsible for composing the timeless “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” His father fled Belarus for America in the early 20th century. Frank Loesser, a titan of Broadway and Hollywood musicals, wrote the slightly naughty “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” He was born into a middle-class Jewish family, his father having left Germany in the 1890s to avoid serving in the Kaiser’s military. Johnny Marks, the man who gave us “Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”—yes, he was also one of the chosens. Then there’s the greatest American composer of them all, Irving Berlin. His “White Christmas” is one of the biggest-selling singles in the history of American music. Berlin’s earliest memory was of watching his family’s home burn to the ground in a pogrom as his family fled Siberia for Belarus before emigrating to NYC in 1893. Eli Lake explores why and how it was that American Jews helped create the sound of American Christmas. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 20:05:00
Resistance or Opposition: Which Route Should the Democrats Take? (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED9098041966.mp3?updated=1742271616)
*This episode originally ran on November 12, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* Even your most optimistic Mar-a-Lago member didn’t see Donald Trump winning the popular vote and taking all seven swing states. He even came within five points of taking the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey! So, what on earth does the Democratic Party do next? They can stay the course and resist. It’s what they did the last time Trump won. In the aftermath of Trump’s 2016 victory, America was stunned. Every time he opened his mouth, Trump exploded political norms, and the Democratic Party responded in kind. Being a mere opposition party—at least at that moment for the Democrats—was not strong enough for this situation they believed. Instead they needed to become a resistance. And while Democrats won in 2020, the resistance ultimately did not work. Democrats spent a decade telling Americans that Trump was an existential threat, yet Americans didn’t care. The Democrats’ goal was to scrub Trump from future history. Instead, he now controls it. Democrats need to look inward if they want to have a shot at winning in 2028. They need to act like an opposition, not a resistance. Eli tells the story of how a few centrist renegades saved the Democrats from oblivion 40 years ago. In 1984, after Ronald Reagan’s 525–13 Electoral College landslide over Walter Mondale, the Democrats were not just in disarray—they were on life support. And yet, eight years later, they found their savior: a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. And they remade their party. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 20:01:00
Trump and the Art of the Bullshitter (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED1800015309.mp3?updated=1742271602)
*This episode originally ran on November 2, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* Bullshit is an American tradition. Think the theatrics of P.T. Barnum, miracle products sold ad nauseam on television in the 1980s and, of course, politicians. Who can forget President Bill Clinton saying “It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is” during his grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal? And then there’s Donald Trump. He presents as a man with no fact-checking filter, someone happily buying his own convenient bullshit. That’s not quite the same thing as lying. That isn’t to say Trump doesn’t lie. He’s a politician, after all. But he exists outside the binary of truth and lies. It’s the netherworld of flimflam, hyperbole, sales pitches, and ad copy delivered with all the quiet dignity of a wet T-shirt contest. Donald Trump is a very modern artist, weaving a barrage of anecdotes, fake and real statistics, gossip, and memes into a nebulous and suggestive species of patter. Democrats have tried to paint Trump as an American Hitler, a Russian agent, a man consumed with evil and hatred. But what they fail to understand is that Trump’s casual relationship to the truth is an echo of past politicians. He is hardly the first bullshitter to ascend to the White House; he’s just the best ever to do it. He paints a picture of a reality he would like us to see, not as it really is. In this respect, Trump is the crack cocaine variant of many of his predecessors. Ronald Reagan was a folksy, sentimental bullshitter, a president as a Hallmark greeting card. Bill Clinton was a slick bullshitter, perfect for spinning stories at the dawn of the cable news era. Eli Lake explores the soft spot that Americans have for bullshitters like Trump, and their disdain for liars like Richard Nixon. He argues that if you want to understand why Trump may be on the verge of winning the White House again, you have to reckon with our country’s relationship to the pungent brown stuff. It pervades everything from our economy to our culture. Bullshit is dangerous when it comes to science. But in politics, bullshit is sadly essential. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. CREDITSProducer Greg CollardExecutive Producer Alex Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 19:58:00
The Hundred Year Holy War (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED4831576024.mp3?updated=1742271589)
*This episode originally ran on October 12, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* We all know the horrid tale of what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. Waves of gunmen attacked families in their homes and young people attending a music festival. The marauders filmed their murders on GoPro cameras. They burned families alive in their safe rooms; raped, and mutilated their victims; and took hostages back to Gaza on golf carts. Why did they do it? For many critics of Israel, the horrific violence of October 7 was the predictable response to the “occupation”—never mind that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. To them, October 7 was a jailbreak from what progressives often call “an open-air prison.” But for the belligerents, in their own words, this war is for the defense of a mosque on top of a mountain. They called their massacre “Al-Aqsa Flood,” named for one of the two mosques that sit atop what is known to the Jews as the Temple Mount. This is where King Solomon’s temple once stood, and at its base is the Western Wall, where Jews have prayed since its construction in the second century BCE. It’s also known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, a noble sanctuary. It’s where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven in a dream. An October 10 Hamas communiqué justified their attack as resistance to thwart “schemes and dreams of Judaizing Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.” This reveals something very important about the Israel-Palestine conflict: That it is not a territorial dispute. It’s a holy war, with roots in an ancient city with significance far beyond its 2.5 miles of limestone walls. The world knows it as Jerusalem. The Palestinians call it Al-Quds. Hamas claims there is a plot by Israel to destroy Al-Aqsa—the mosque atop the Temple Mount that sits in the center of Jerusalem—and build a third Jewish temple where it now stands. It’s a lie. A lie that goes back a century. The man who first began to spread the libel was from one of Jerusalem’s great families that traced its lineage back to the prophet Muhammad himself. He was a seminary-school dropout, a fanatic antisemite, and a Nazi collaborator. His name was Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Eli Lake tells the story of al-Husseini, the origins of the 100-year holy war, and why it persists to this day. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 19:54:00
How Republics Unravel: From Rome to…America? (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED2197897471.mp3?updated=1742271566)
*This episode originally ran on September 26, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* In September 2024, a man armed with an assault rifle was apprehended on a southern Florida golf course. He was planning to murder Donald Trump on the links. It was the second near miss in two months. It seems likely that the shooter, Ryan Routh, was acting alone. But he is not alone in the hatred he has for Trump. He shares that with millions of Americans. In many people’s eyes, the 45th president of the United States is an existential threat to our republic. And ever since Trump won the Republican nomination for president in 2016, his opponents have treated him as such. They were shocked because Trump broke many of the rules of modern politics. From the minor to the unprecedentedly major. This dynamic between Trump and his haters has changed the chemistry of American politics. In 2016, Trump shocked the country when he led rallies where his adoring fans chanted, “Lock her up.” Eight years later, crowds chant “Lock him up” at Kamala Harris’s rallies. In this respect, Routh is part of a larger problem that is tearing our country apart. When the other side vying for power is considered so beyond the pale, the norms of political decorum and fairness are worth breaking to stop an opponent that threatens our very system. You hear it from both parties. Trump is an “extinction-level event.” If Kamala wins, our country will become “Venezuela on steroids.” One escalation begets the next, as Eli Lake explains, until the old customs and rules of our politics have changed forever. We take it for granted today that we settle our elections with voting and not shooting. But republics don’t last forever. And when they fall, violence almost always follows. What leads a republic to choose the gun over the ballot? Because it doesn’t happen all at once, at least if history is any guide. In ancient Rome, the rule-breaking of one man—and the response of his enemies—created a crisis from which the Roman republic never really recovered. His name was Tiberius Gracchus. And while they were different in many ways, he was the Donald Trump of his day. Tiberius, like Trump, was an elite who turned on the elites, a class traitor who channeled the resentments and anger of the common man against a system rigged against him. Both men disregarded the unwritten political rules of their era. And, in turn, those norm violations prompted their enemies to disregard the rules themselves. In Rome, this cycle led to bloodshed and eventually the death of the republic itself. In America, we remain a republic, for now, but the cycle of escalations between Trump and his opponents strains our foundations like no political crisis since the civil war. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 19:53:00
When Students Become Terrorists (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED1818286736.mp3?updated=1742271527)
*This episode originally ran on September 7, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* After Oct. 7, 2023—when Hamas attacked Israel— students at colleges across America etched themselves into infamy with the most dramatic campus protests in a generation. In preparation for the 2024 fall semester, some major universities—from NYU to UCLA—have implemented new rules and decided to enforce old ones to protect Jewish students from activists who had declared sections of campus no-go zones for Zionists. Universities that turn a blind eye to the Tentifada phenomenon now risk violating federal statute. Nonetheless, the chaos appears to be returning. At Temple University, protesters marched in solidarity with Palestinian “resistance against their colonizers.” Last week, a man attacked a group of Jewish students with a glass bottle on the University of Pittsburgh campus outside the school’s “Cathedral of Learning.” Meanwhile at the University of Michigan, four agitators were arrested during a “die-in.” So clearly the danger is not yet over entirely for campuses, even though some of the steam may be leaving the movement. The Democratic National Convention, for example, was supposed to be the exclamation mark of rage, but the protests barely registered as a tussle. But history teaches us that it takes only a few student true believers to make quite a mess once they decide that boycotts and sit-ins aren’t making a difference. Eli Lake looks at America’s history with Ivy League domestic terrorists. More than 50 years ago, campus unrest also spilled into the streets and moved off the grid as a small and lethal group of radicals called the Weather Underground took the plunge from protest to resistance. But the Weather Underground railed against the establishment. Today’s campus protesters are supported by it. Call them. . . the Weather Overground. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 19:53:00
Kamala Harris and the Election of Laughter and Forgetting (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED7763693107.mp3?updated=1742271512)
*This episode originally ran on August 6, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to be cruising after she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. But in her anointment to the top of the ticket, there was a strange and silent rewriting of history by the press and party loyalists with the support of a lot of tech companies, who together were changing our collective understanding of the present and of the very recent past. Eli Lake argues this has happened before. Not in America. . . but in the Soviet Union, and also in the works of brilliant writers like Milan Kundera and George Orwell. While that might sound like hyperbole, listen and decide for yourself. Because whether you agree or disagree with Eli’s conclusions, you will learn so much from listening to this episode. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From Breaking History at 2025-01-14 19:32:00
When a President Drops Out: What Biden Can Learn from 1968 (From the Honestly Archives) (RUNMED1126635971.mp3?updated=1742271539)
*This episode originally ran on July 4, 2024 on Honestly with Bari Weiss* On our nation’s 248th birthday, Joe Biden faced the wrath of a thousand pundits. The whole world watched the elected leader of the world’s oldest republic befogged, slack-jawed, and mentally vacant in a debate he had to win. A poll from CBS showed that after Biden’s infamous debate performance last week, 72 percent of registered voters believed the man lacked the cognitive ability to be president. Even his closest friends and sycophants were pleading for the old man to hang it up. The New York Times editorial board. Former advisers to Barack Obama. Columnist and Biden’s personal friend, Tom Friedman, said he wept in a hotel room in Portugal while watching the debate. They had seen enough. And yet, Biden’s White House is still shrugging it off. It was just a debate, they told us. Don’t let 90 minutes define years of accomplishments. But it was not just a debate. It was indelible and undeniable proof that the leader of the free world lacked the stamina and acuity to do the job for four more months, let alone four more years. Then-president Lyndon Baines Johnson found himself in a similar position in 1968. Johnson was losing the country, and in the middle of the primary he decided to bow out. Eli Lake tells the story of what happened in 1968 when President Johnson decided he was not fit for reapplying for his job. He listened to his critics and backed away from the White House, allowing the Democrats an opportunity to stage an open convention to choose their next candidate for the presidency. But why did the party want him gone so badly? And how did this seismic decision work out? It’s a tale of murder, war, and riots that culminated in the most explosive convention in the history of America. Go to groundnews.com/BreakingHistory to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices