Reflections on Media and Political Anxiety

The inimitable Tina Brown revived Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, before turning to the web and The Daily Beast (where I worked for her). She’s written three books, the latest of which we covered on the Dishcast a few years ago, The Palace Papers. This week she launched a substack, Fresh Hell: Tina Brown’s Diaries — “observations, rants, news obsessions, and human exchanges.” And yes, this chat really is unplugged. We had a lot of fun.

For two clips of our convo — on the personal cruelty of Donald Trump, and why politicians in the UK are tougher than American ones — head to our YouTube page. Other topics: Tina sitting behind Trump during Obama’s WHCD; the impact another Trump term will have on our sanity; the sad decline of Tucker Carlson; Jon Stewart on Crossfire; Vance and resentment over liberal condescension; being a right-of-center person in academia and the MSM; my defenestration at New York Mag; Alexandra Pelosi’s The Insurrectionist Next Door; Obama telling black men how to vote; the most multi-racial GOP coalition since Nixon; Trump’s tariffs and inflation; his interview with Micklethwait; candidates moving to podcasts; Biden’s decline; his failure to tackle immigration; the lack of an open primary; Bill Clinton on a killer migrant; Springfield; Alvin Bragg; the passion of the Trump cult; the new film The Apprentice; Roy Cohn’s crush on Trump; the stark racism of Fred Trump; Musk at the Butler rally; the exhilaration of fascism; lying as a form of obedience; PM’s Question Time; Corbyn getting mocked in Parliament; Brexit; Boris and Partygate; Keir’s early floundering as PM; Ukraine; Applebaum’s new book; the new Woodward book; Tina’s late husband Harry Evans and their storied marriage; their son Georgie and the difficulty of dating on the spectrum; Walz’s son; Tim Shriver “the only Kennedy worth anything”; the challenges of being a working mother; the importance of living near grandparents; and the intimacy of blogging and Substack.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day, the return of the great John Gray, Damon Linker on the election results, Anderson Cooper on grief, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.