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The Failures of the Foreign Policy Elite

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

Jeet Heer

September 14, 2025

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)

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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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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. 

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

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 HeerTwitterJeet 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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