Presidential

Presidential

The Washington Post's Presidential podcast explores how each former American president reached office, made decisions, handled crises and redefined the role of commander-in-chief. It was released leading up to up to Election Day 2016, starting with George Washington in week one and ending on week 44 with the president-elect. New special episodes in the countdown to the 2020 presidential election highlight other stories from U.S. presidential history that can help illuminate our current moment. Hosted by Lillian Cunningham, the series features Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers like David McCullough and Washington Post journalists like Bob Woodward. [When you're done, listen to Lillian's other historical podcasts: Constitutional and Moonrise]

Episodes

November 22, 2023 51 mins

Every 19th of October, Grenadians mark a somber anniversary: the 1983 execution of the country’s former prime minister and revolutionary leader, Maurice Bishop, and others who died alongside him. The people of this Caribbean nation still have no closure 40 years later. The remains of Bishop and his supporters were never returned to their family members and are missing to this day. <...

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Grenada’s Black revolutionary leader, Maurice Bishop, was executed in a coup in 1983, along with seven others. The whereabouts of their remains are unknown. Now, The Washington Post’s Martine Powers uncovers new answers about how the U.S. fits into this 40-year-old Caribbean mystery.


“The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop” is an investigative podcast that delves into the revolutionary history of Grenada, why the missing remains stil...

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To hear the rest of the series, follow “Field Trip” wherever you listen. 


California’s Sierra Nevada is home to a very special kind of tree, found nowhere else on Earth: the giant sequoia. For thousands of years, these towering trees withstood the trials of the world around them, including wildfire. Low-intensity fires frequently swept through groves of sequoias, leaving their cinnamon-red bark scarred but strengthened, and...

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June 14, 2023 3 mins

Journey through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks. The Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham ventures off the marked trail to better understand the most urgent stories playing out in five iconic landscapes today.


“Field Trip” is a new podcast series that will transport you to five national parks: Yosemite, Everglades, Glacier, White Sands and Gates of the Arctic. Follow the show wherever you listen.

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June 6, 2023 56 secs
Exclusively for listeners of “Presidential,” Lillian Cunningham shares news about her new podcast. You don’t want to miss this.
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Students, teachers and historians reflect on what has changed — and should change — about the way we teach presidential history today. This special episode features presidential experts Barbara Perry and Julian Zelizer, “How the Word Is Passed” author Clint Smith, and the AP government and politics class of teacher Michael Martirone.
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Four years later, the “Presidential” podcast adds a new biography to its cadre of American presidents. This special episode explores Joe Biden's decades-long, hard-fought personal and political path to the White House, with the New Yorker’s Evan Osnos.
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Books published in the Trump era reveal the battles over, and changes in, the American presidency today. In this special episode of “Presidential,” Post nonfiction book critic Carlos Lozada shares what he’s learned from reading more than 150 of them.
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The 1918 influenza pandemic killed more than 675,000 Americans, but President Woodrow Wilson never made a single public statement about it. Why? Here’s what happens when efforts to promote patriotism and suppress free speech collide with a deadly virus.
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August 7, 2020 39 mins
Geraldine Ferraro broke a major barrier in American politics in 1984, when she became the first woman nominated for the vice presidency by a major party. It was a historic decision by Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Walter Mondale. And it did more than pave the way to the White House for more diverse candidates — it also fundamentally changed the way all future presidential campa...
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The famous black contralto singer Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after being denied the ability to perform down the street at Constitution Hall. And when she did, she transformed the monument into something more than a stone temple to Abraham Lincoln. She ushered in its new life as an active place for generations of Americans to continue the work to“bind up the nation’s wounds.”

...
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Four years after making Presidential, host Lillian Cunningham led a panel examining what's really unprecedented--or not--about Donald Trump's presidency. Historians Alexis Coe, Drew Gilpin Faust and Julian Zelizer joined for this live event in Boston.
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November 9, 2016 56 mins
In this final episode of the podcast, Library of Congress historians Michelle Krowl and Julie Miller return--along with Washington Post journalist Dan Balz--to reflect on the changing nature of the American presidency.
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October 30, 2016 56 mins
Political strategist David Axelrod and biographer David Maraniss discuss Barack Obama's search for identity -- and how that quest has paralleled America's own complex reckoning with race.
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October 23, 2016 46 mins
Peter Baker, author of "Days of Fire" and a journalist with the New York Times, joins historian Mark Updegrove to examine how George W. Bush's presidency marked the beginning of a new era in American history.
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October 16, 2016 48 mins
David Maraniss, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Bill Clinton, explores how Clinton's core character traits had both a bright and a dark side. And Post reporter Jim Tankersley examines a similar duality in his policy legacy.
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October 9, 2016 51 mins
Historians Jon Meacham and Jeffrey Engel discuss President Bush's unique form of presidential leadership--a vintage combination of public service, conservatism and emotional restraint--and examine why his legacy has grown more positive over time.
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October 2, 2016 43 mins
Lou Cannon, biographer and senior White House correspondent for The Washington Post during President Reagan's administration, helps us separate the fact from fiction about who Ronald Reagan really was.
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September 25, 2016 57 mins
Longtime Carter political adviser Pat Caddell, theologian and biographer Randall Balmer, and Washington Post reporter Robert Costa examine how Jimmy Carter's faith has shaped his leadership in and out of the White House.
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September 18, 2016 55 mins
The president's son Steven Ford joins White House photographer David Hume Kennerly and Berkeley professor Daniel Sargent to talk about how Gerald Ford's experience working across the aisle in Congress affected his leadership style as president.
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