Podcast / The Time of Monsters / Sep 21, 2025

What Bari Weiss Is Really Up To

On The Time of Monsters: David Klion on Trump’s ideological enforcer.

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.

What Bari Weiss Is Really Up To | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, has often been profiled in the media, but usually in a superficial way that focuses on her personality and disputes with fellow journalists. She is currently on the cusp of great power, reportedly working on a deal to sell The Free Press and take a senior position at CBS.

David Klion, Nation columnist and frequent guest on the podcast, has written an exceptionally trenchant analysis for The Guardian of Weiss’s politics and the way they align with the Trump administration’s war on critical voices. I was pleased to talk to David about Weiss’s career and how she has used her influence as an ideological enforcer, one that has the support of many wealthy patrons and powerful political allies.

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Bari Weiss hosts Ted Cruz at a live event on January 18, 2025, in Washington, DC.

(Leigh Vogel via Getty Images for Uber, X and The Free Press)

Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, has often been profiled in the media, but usually in a superficial way that focuses on her personality and disputes with fellow journalists. She is currently on the cusp of great power, reportedly working on a deal to sell The Free Press and take a senior position at CBS. David Klion, Nation columnist and frequent guest on the podcast, has written and exceptionally trenchant analysis for The Guardian of Weiss’s politics and they way they align with the Trump administration’s war on critical voices. Klion writes:

Just as with CBS a year ago, Weiss and the Free Press were there to help reactionaries at elite institutions advance their internal turf wars—and unlike a year ago, those reactionaries can now count on the full weight of Trump’s authoritarian administration to back them up….

The pattern is clear: if you work at a liberal institution and you want the Trump-controlled federal government to step in and discipline it, Bari Weiss is there to help.

I was pleased to talk to David about Weiss’s career and how she has used her influence as an ideological enforcer, one that has the support of many wealthy patrons and powerful political allies.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

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.

The Age of Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein w/ Doug Henwood | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

The famed economist Larry Summers, not for the first time, finds himself the center of a

scandal. He’s had to take a leave from Harvard, where he teaches, because of embarrassing

emails he had with his late friend Jeffrey Epstein.

I talked to economic journalist and Nation contributor Doug Henwood, a long-time Summers

watcher, about the career of this controversial and influential figure. Summers has been one of

the most influential policy makers of his era, serving as Treasury Secretary and President of

Harvard. He has also embodied the major intellectual and political limitations of the ruling class.

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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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