On this episode of The Time of Monsters: Doug Henwood on the famed economist as an embodiment of neoliberalism.
Larry Summers, president emeritus and professor at Harvard University, during an interview in New York on September 17, 2025. (Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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 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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The famed economist Larry Summers, not for the first time, finds himself at the center of a scandal. He’s had to take a leave from Harvard, where he teaches, because of embarrassing e-mails he exchanged 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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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.
As millions of Americans protest Donald Trump under the slogan of “No Kings,” it is
worth asking how the nation ended up with such an authoritarian president. David Sirota
and the team at The Lever have provided a great answer to this question in their new
podcast seriesMaster Plan: The Kingmakers, which looks at the revival of the Imperial
Presidency after the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s. I talked to David about the
history uncovered in this podcast and why Trump is merely a symptom of a much
deeper problem.
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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 Guardian, The New Republic, and The Boston Globe.