On this episode of Start Making Sense, historian Beverly Gage compares Trump’s attacks on universities with those of the McCarthy Era, and Jeff Kisseloff argues that Whittaker Chambers lied about a Soviet spy ring in the 1940s.
Alger Hiss, accused of spying, talks with reporters.(Bob Costello / NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
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Donald Trump is "the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s"—that’s what Princeton’s president Christopher Eisgruber said. Others say that what Trump is doing is worse. Beverly Gage comments – she wrote “G-Man,” the award-winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover.
Also on this episode: In 1948, Alger Hiss, a prominent New Deal Democrat, was convicted of perjury for testifying that he had not been a Soviet spy. The conventional wisdom is that he was probably guilty. Now, Jeff Kisseloff says it’s not hard to show that Hiss was innocent; the hard part is figuring out who framed him. Jeff’s new book is “Rewriting Hisstory: A Fifty-Year Journey to Uncover the Truth About Alger Hiss.”
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Donald Trump is “the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s”—that’s what Princeton’s president Christopher Eisgruber said. Others say that what Trump is doing is worse. Beverly Gage comments—she wrote G-Man, the award-winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover.
Also on this episode: In 1948, Alger Hiss, a prominent New Deal Democrat, was convicted of perjury for testifying that he had not been a Soviet spy. The conventional wisdom is that he was probably guilty. Now, Jeff Kisseloff says it’s not hard to show that Hiss was innocent; the hard part is figuring out who framed him. Jeff’s new book is Rewriting Hisstory: A Fifty-Year Journey to Uncover the Truth About Alger Hiss.
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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 primary force behind the settlement that will allow Trump’s allies at Paramount to take over Warners-Discovery and CNN was Gavin Newsom, who pressured California Attorney General Rob Bonta to end the anti-trust fight defending media independence. Norm Eisen explains – he’s co-founder and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action, and, the New York Times reported, “the leader of a coalition of entertainment and news industry professionals who opposed the deal.”
Also: After Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House newsroom, the TV networks united in refusing coverage of his events – including Fox News. John Nichols has our analysis.
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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.