Podcast / The Time of Monsters / Sep 14, 2025

The Failures of the Foreign Policy Elite

On The Time of Monsters: Matt Duss on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

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The Failures of the Foreign Policy Elite | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Matt Duss, vice-president of the Center for International Policy, wrote an excellent review for The Nation of Bob Woodward’s book War, which is a celebration of Joe Biden as a foreign policy sage. Duss is rightly skeptical of the book. We discuss Biden’s actual record on Ukraine and especially Gaza. Matt’s essay on this topic for Foreign Policy is also worth reading.

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Joe Biden speaks at a Department of Defense Commander in Chief Farewell Ceremony in Arlington, Virginia, on January 16, 2025.

(Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images)

Matt Duss, vice-president of the Center for International Policy, wrote an excellent review for The Nation of Bob Woodward’s book War, which is a celebration of Joe Biden as a foreign policy sage. Duss is rightly skeptical of the book. We discuss Biden’s actual record on Ukraine and especially Gaza. Matt’s essay on this topic for Foreign Policy is also worth reading. 

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The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Fighting Monopoly Power w/ Zephyr Teachout / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Donald Trump is practicing crony capitalism on an unprecedented scale, with the government greenlighting major mergers that benefit the president’s friends (most notably the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger). I spoke to Zephyr Teachout, who teaches constitutional law at Fordham, about this worrying development. We take up the long history of anti-monopoly politics going back to the American revolution and the trust battles of the late 19th century as well as the possibility state governments can fight the new wave of consolidation. Zephyr has often written on his subject for The Nation, notably in two recent articles

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Jeet Heer

Jeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.

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