History As It Happens

This episode was first published in March 2025. New episodes will resume in early January 2026. Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. Original show notes: In late June 1973, former White House counsel John Dean delivered startling testimony before the congressional committee investigating Watergate: Richard Nixon had an enemies list. The point, as Dean had written in a 1971 memo, was to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." The exposure of Nixon's dirty tricks led to his downfall. In 2024, Donald Trump openly campaigned to exact revenge on his enemies. Rather than alienating Republican voters, Trump's call for retribution rallied them. In this episode, historian Ken Hughes compares and contrasts the differences between then and now. Recommended reading: Nixon's official acts against his enemies list led to a bipartisan impeachment effort by Ken Hughes for The Conversation Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate by Ken Hughes (book)

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500+ episodes. This is the final new episode of 2025. New episodes will resume on Tuesday, January 6. Historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel look back on a remarkable, distressing year in the U.S. and across the globe, from the Trump administration's lawless conduct to the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Jeremi Suri teaches history at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He co-hosts 'This is Democracy' podcast and co-writes 'Democracy of Hope' newsletter. Jeffrey Engel is the founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. 'Red Dawn' was in many ways the perfect movie for its time. Released in 1984, it was an action flick with an exciting young cast that entertained moviegoers during a very cold period in the Cold War. The film was patriotic propaganda, depicting innocent American teenagers as fearless freedom fighters resisting the foreign occupation of their hometown. 'Red Dawn' was also a form of "imperial projection," mirroring the anti-Communist anxieties shaping the Reagan administration's rollback policy. In this episode, historian Alex Aviña, an expert on Latin America, reveals the crazy politics of a classic '80s action movie. Wolverines! 'Red Dawn' soundtrack was composed by Basil Poledouris.

Subscribe now to listen to the entire episode.   It's a common argument in the Age of Trump: Neoliberal economic policies that hollowed out the middle class while enriching the Wall Street class caused the populist backlash. Low taxes, deregulation, austerity budgets, free trade, the unfettered flow of capital into and out of emerging markets, and the privatization of public assets – all fall under the rubric of neoliberal globalization. But is the term too loaded to help us understand what's going on? In this episode, historians Phil Magness and Daniel Bessner attempt to define neoliberalism over time and place.   Daniel Bessner is an associate Professor in American Foreign Policy at the University of Washington. He is the co-host of American Prestige podcast.   Historian Phil Magness is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and the David J. Theroux Chair in Political Economy.

Subscribe now to skip ads, get bonus content, and enjoy 24/7 access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. He's been called the world's most important prisoner, or the Palestinian "Nelson Mandela." Convicted on terrorism-related charges in 2004 during the Second Intifada, Marwan Barghouti is serving a life sentence in Israeli prison. However, his name continues to surface in negotiations over prisoner exchanges, and President Donald Trump has also mentioned that Barghouti's case was brought to his attention. This is because Barghouti is by far the most popular Palestinian political figure today, at a time when his people are desperate for unifying leadership. In this episode, the scholar Khaled Elgindy of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft discusses Barghouti's life story, which traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.