Early career: Asia, UNDP, and writing

Claire is an American novelist, essayist, and journalist living in Paris. She’s the editor-in-chief of The Cosmopolitan Globalist — subscribe! — and the author of many books, including There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters, and the novel Loose Lips.

An auto-transcript is available above (just click “Transcript” while logged into Substack). For two clips of our convo — on the US returning to the Monroe Doctrine via Venezuela, and if Rubio is gunning for Cuba next — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: Claire’s grandpa fleeing Nazi Germany and joining the French Foreign Legion; the new movie Nuremberg; her mom a world-class cellist; Claire raised in California; seeing me debate at Oxford; my 1988 hatchet job on Ben Sherwood; our mutual love of Thatcher and how she wielded femininity; getting the Iraq War wrong; Trump increasingly looking senile; Stephen Miller’s fascism; Michael Anton and the new National Security Strategy; debating the war in Ukraine; Russia’s threats to Europe; NATO and defense spending; the growing isolationism of Americans; conspiracy theories; AI slop; Trump’s threats over Greenland; resource extraction; the Taiwan question; nuclear proliferation and A House of Dynamite; the irrelevant Congress; the poison of the identitarian left; Tom Holland’s Dominion; Keir Starmer less popular than Prince Andrew; migrants in France; the last gasps of Macron; AfD and Reform; the tariff war; and the new McCarthyism.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Charlie Sykes on the GOP ditching conservatism, Jason Willick on trade, Vivek Ramaswamy on the right’s future, and Michael Pollan on consciousness. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.