Dave Davies
Appearances
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. If you enjoyed the HBO series Succession about the children of an aging media mogul competing to inherit his business empire, you'll want to read the new article in The Atlantic by my guest, McKay Coppins.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
James Murdoch, you write, was the executive who became the public face of the scandal, even though he says he was really not deeply involved in running those papers. When this broke out, what posture did Rupert Murdoch take towards his son in this crisis?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
It's on The Atlantic's website, and it's also the magazine's April issue cover story. Well, McKay Coppins, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thanks for having me. Early in the piece, you describe a day in the case when James Murdoch is being deposed. He's in a Manhattan law office under oath, and one of his dad's lawyers is asking questions. Do you want to just set the scene? Tell us what happened.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
We need to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with McKay Coppins. He's a staff writer for The Atlantic. His new article is Growing Up Murdoch, James Murdoch on Mind Game, Sibling Rivalry, and the War for the Family Media Empire. He'll be back to talk more after a short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air. So I want to move us into the Trump era here.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Lachlan Murdoch, the elder son, had left the company. He had been in Australia for many years. And then in 2015, he moves back, gets an office in Los Angeles. He's with the company. James, the younger brother, has an office in New York, putting them in kind of an awkward position, both being prominent executives in the company.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
And then in 2015, Donald Trump appears on the scene as a presidential candidate. One question I've always had is how much Rupert Murdoch is motivated by an ideological agenda as opposed to accumulating in wealth and power. And you write that in 2016, Rupert Murdoch was openly scornful of Trump's candidacy at first saying his election would be the end of the Republican Party.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
But once he had momentum, you write the Fox News primetime lineup turned into a four-hour Trump commercial. How did James regard this, his turn in Fox News?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
And Lachlan was still in the company. Do we know what his attitude was towards the Fox News embrace of Trump and what his relationship was like with James during this time?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
So James gradually became a bit more public about his views. I mean particularly he put out a statement about Trump's remarks on the march in Charlottesville saying – Trump saying that there were very fine people in the Tiki Torch march there. And then there was another occasion when there were terrible forest fires in Australia.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
And some media, I think the Daily Beast, asked for comment about, well, what about the fact that the Murdoch papers in Australia ignore climate change as an element of all this? What happened?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
It's about the real-life drama involving the children of 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch and their battle over who will someday lead his business properties, most prominently Fox News. And even if you didn't see Succession, the story is still fascinating, both because of the intense family dynamics and the stakes in this conflict.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
We are speaking with McKay Coppins. He's a staff writer for The Atlantic. His new article online is Growing Up Murdoch, James Murdoch on Mind Games, Sibling Rivalry, and the War for the Family Media Empire. We'll continue our conversation after this short break. This is Fresh Air. So let's get to the court battle that's at the heart of this story.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
There was a plan in place for many, many years, a trust which said that when Rupert Murdoch passed away, that the voting rights in the company would be split among four siblings, Lachlan and James, the two boys, Liz, their sister, and then Prue, who was their sister from a previous marriage.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
And to a lot of observers, that meant that it might be James who had the upper hand over Lachlan because it was assumed that the two sisters might work with him in terms of the future direction of the company. This was problematic for Rupert Murdoch, right? So he hatches a plan. What does he do?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Right. Now, we should note that it was an irrevocable trust, right? I mean it was not supposed to be meddled with and it spread the wealth in one way. But this involved the voting rights for control of the direction of the company would be four equal ways. And the only way in this irrevocable trust it could be amended would be if you could show – tell me if I have this right –
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
that the proposed change was in the interest of all of the beneficiaries. In other words, they had to show that putting Lachlan in charge was better for everybody, right?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
What kind of communications were there among the parties? I mean did Rupert – I mean did he arrange a meeting with the four siblings? Did he approach them individually? I mean what do we know about how he presented it and how they reacted?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
In the depositions, which were really brutal as you know, there was one section that you talked about where Rupert Murdoch's lawyer was suggesting to James in his deposition that Fox's value actually derives from – well, let's just say something other than journalistic standards. Tell us about this.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
We're going to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with McKay Coppins. He is a staff writer for The Atlantic. His new article now online is Growing Up Murdoch, James Murdoch on Mind Game, Sibling Rivalry, and the War for the Family Media Empire. He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
This trial began in September 2024 in this county courthouse. James took the stand. What did he say the experience was like for him emotionally?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
So after all this testimony, it didn't go particularly well for Rupert. It went much better for James and his siblings' side of it. And this all came down to a single man, Edmund Gorman, who's the Washoe County Probate Commissioner. This multibillion-dollar company and all this comes down to one man, one county official, and he issues a clear ruling, right?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Rupert and Lachlan have appealed. Is it likely to stand, do you think? What's the course from here?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
You note that James and his wife Catherine have spent millions on political contributions, mostly to Democrats I think and to pro-democracy causes and other philanthropic work, particularly climate change. Is it fair to assume that if this verdict holds that when Rupert Murdoch dies, Fox News is not going to be the same product?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
I'm not sure any of us would be still speaking to our siblings if we had gone through a legal process in which everything that any of us had said about each other in person or in texts or messages or conversations behind our back, if all that came flooding back, boy, it would be awful.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
You know, I mentioned the HBO series Succession in the introduction. You know, I thought it was great television, but I wouldn't have guessed that the people who actually lived lives like this would be interested in it because, I mean, come on, it's television. But actually, you discovered that members of the family were into it, right?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
McKay Coppins, thank you so much. This is interesting. Thank you. McKay Coppins is a staff writer for The Atlantic. His new article is Growing Up Murdoch, James Murdoch on Mind Games, Sibling Rivalry, and the War for the Family Media Empire. On tomorrow's show, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has eliminated the jobs of thousands of government employees and
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
and left many more uncertain about their positions. We'll talk with Harvard professor of public policy Elizabeth Linos about what that means for federal workers and the rest of us who depend on government services. I hope you can join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Diana Martinez.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our senior producer today is Teresa Madden. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Faya Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
All right. Well, let's talk about this story. I mean, the Murdoch story. I mean, Rupert Murdoch actually inherited a newspaper from his dad who had an interesting background in journalism. And then he went off on this swashbuckling campaign to acquire one paper and then use the leverage on that to get another and another. And at the time, he was 40.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
He was the most powerful media owner in Australia. He moves to the United Kingdom and buys tabloids and eventually a broadsheet there, eventually ends up in the States where he gets the Wall Street Journal and starts Fox News, which was a big success. I wouldn't normally assume that someone who owns media businesses would necessarily want his kids to get involved in the family business.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
The outcome could mean big changes for Fox News, which Coppins describes as the most powerful conservative media force in the world. Late last year, the parties in this family dispute squared off in an epic court battle over the succession plan for the Murdoch empire.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
They have resources. They could get educations, do whatever they want. Did Rupert Murdoch consciously try to bring his children, get them interested in the media?
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Now, he had two sons, Lachlan and James, born 15 months apart. Lachlan was a little older. James was a little younger. And the other major character in this is their sister, Liz. Those three were the children of Murdoch's second wife, Anna. There was a fourth, Prudence, known as Prue, and she was the daughter of his previous marriage.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
But those three, James, Lachlan, and Liz, were the main characters for most of this drama. James and Lachlan would both eventually play prominent roles in the businesses and would be rivals for succession over the years at various times. But James didn't start out that way, did he? I mean he went a whole different direction out of college and thereafter.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Rupert Murdoch wanted to amend the family trust to ensure his eldest son Lachlan would take the helm, shutting out his younger son James, who was troubled by Fox News' hard right bent.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
So we were talking about the Murdoch family. James, the younger of the two sons, wasn't in the business at first, but he eventually did get in. This is interesting. One of the things that I found puzzling watching the succession, the HBO drama, was seeing each of these children assuming that they're ready to take over this big company or even a division of a big company.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
I mean, to me, they just looked like regular people, but they had no problem thinking they could manage hundreds of people and budgets of Hundreds of millions of dollars. And then in your story, I see that James Murdoch at age 27 gets sent to run an Asian satellite TV company that his father owned called Star, which was losing money. And he does it and succeeds. Yeah.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Coppins writes that the trial testimony and depositions and discovery in the case were often intensely personal, bringing up years of painful secrets, scheming and manipulation, lies, media leaks, and devious betrayals. For his story, Coppins had extensive interviews with James Murdoch and his wife Catherine. Their side prevailed in the trial verdict, which is under appeal.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Now, Lachlan, the other son, the eldest son, who had been in the company longer and had seemed to be the heir apparent to the family business, eventually got fed up after some disputes internally and in 2005 resigned and moved his family back to Australia, right? Out of the succession picture? Yeah.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Right. He ended up moving to the UK and becoming quite the powerful and influential person, having dinner with the prime minister. Some said that he sort of was striking a figure kind of like his father. Is that fair? Yeah.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
McKay Coppins is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author of two books, The Wilderness, about the battle over the future of the Republican Party, and Romney, A Reckoning, a biography of Mitt Romney. The online version of his new article is Growing Up Murdoch, James Murdoch on mind games, sibling rivalry, and the war for the family media empire.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
Right. I mean you're right that in Sky, it's a British satellite TV company that he actually brings in people who have standards of conduct and business negotiation which weren't the typical Rupert Murdoch way of doing things.
Fresh Air
The Murdoch Family's Real-Life 'Succession' Rivalry
In 2011, the Murdoch family business was hit by an epic scandal, revelations by The Guardian and other media that reporters at the Murdoch-owned paper The News of the World had used private investigators to hack the cell phones of subject of their stories, including the mother of a murdered child and families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and others.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Right. I mean we should just note in passing that President Zelensky of the Ukraine has categorically rejected the idea of ceding any territory to Russia. I realize that an armistice isn't exactly the same thing as that. But that wouldn't be easy to sell. But there's also the fact – and in your book, you note that Trump essentially kind of agreed with –
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Putin that Ukraine isn't even a real country. He's been very warm towards Putin. He's expressed sympathy with the idea that it was provocative to even talk about putting Ukraine in NATO. So I guess another question is, is Trump going to do all he can to shut off all U.S. military assistance to Ukraine and try and get allies to do the same?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
You know, there's also the broader question of Donald Trump and his attitude and relations with Russia and Putin. You know, he's always said very warm things about him. Seems to think he can do a lot because of their personal relationship.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
This was last week. And this is a moment where you're asking him about some of this, you know, ambitions that he has articulated for taking Greenland and Canada and the Panama Canal. Let's listen.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
What's not to like, huh? We are speaking with David Sanger. He is the White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. His latest book published last April is New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West. A paperback edition will be coming out later this spring.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
We'll talk more after a break about the challenges facing the Trump administration. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
You noted recently that when President Biden agreed to let Ukraine send long-range missiles deep into Russia, Russia formally announced a change to its policy on the use of nuclear weapons. This is interesting. What was the change?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
I mean, the other thing, I guess, is the buildup of weapons. And the START treaty, which limits nuclear weapons, expires, I think, early next year, right?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
And of course, it's more complicated because in the old Cold War, it was the United States and the Soviet Union. I mean, the stakes were terrifying, but there was a stability to it. Now, you got the United States facing Russia and China that are increasingly cooperative with each other and with North Korea and with Russia. Iran. And the stakes and the methods of contention are different.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
I mean, cyber attacks are a part of this. Access to technology and precious metals are part of this. It's a lot more complicated, isn't it?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
You know, the fact that these challenges are so much more complicated comes at a time that we have a president who famously doesn't have a lot of patience for listening to detailed briefings or reading detailed policy papers. And, you know, who has said his unpredictability is an asset. The fact that I think he once said Xi Jinping knows he's effing crazy. Referring to himself.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Yeah. Yeah. Referring to himself. Is Trump suited for the challenges here?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. The inauguration of Donald Trump to the presidency is just days away, which means, among other things, that U.S. foreign policy is about to see an adjustment. In addition to some major known challenges – the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Iran's nuclear program, and relations with China – Trump has thrown some new initiatives into the mix.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
We are speaking with David Sanger. He is a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. His book published last April is New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West. A new paperback edition will be out this spring. We'll continue our conversation after this break. This is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Let's focus on Iran a bit. You know, there's some big decisions coming here. Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal that the Obama administration had negotiated with Iran, saying it was a terrible deal. Let me just ask you, first of all, was it a bad deal in the eyes of independent analysts?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
And that is Donald Trump speaking to our guest David Sanger last week at Mar-a-Lago. Before we get into the substance of all of this, one quick fact check. Is China operating the Panama Canal?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Trump has talked about maximum pressure, right? Sanctions, cutting off oil, that kind of thing. This has happened before. Is it effective?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
And the fact that Iran has these alliances with Russia, right, and China, does that make it trickier?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
We are speaking with David Sanger. He's a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. His book published last April is New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West. A paperback edition will be coming out later this spring. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Well, let's talk a little bit about the Middle East and specifically Israel. You know, it's interesting that I think you wrote that at Donald Trump's news conference in Mar-a-Lago last week. Four times he repeated what he has said, that if the hostages taken by Hamas are not out by Inauguration Day, quote, all hell will break out in the Middle East, unquote. Do we know what that means?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Do you have a sense of how he's going to approach this?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
I have to ask you, you know, with all of the known serious foreign policy challenges that Trump has to tackle, why do you think he chose to bring up these American expansionist ambitions now? I can't believe it was an accident.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
You know, there's still these huge questions that remain, even if there's a truce and return of some hostages, like who's going to govern Gaza in the future and what sort of autonomy will Israeli forces give it? And what about the broader question of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
I mean, you know, Trump has gotten some credit for the Abraham Accords, which established relations between Israel and some Arab states. Do you have any sense that there's any commitment to or prospect of broader progress on these issues?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
You know, David Sanger, before I let you go, I want to just ask you a bit about the reporting process here. I mean, you've covered five presidents and one of them was Trump in his first term. You've written that one of the characteristics of Trump's presidency is conspiracy theories and made up facts.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
How do you deal with facts that are made up, particularly if you have a press office that, you know, isn't going to run to try and clarify or, you know, walk them back at all?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Well, David Sanger, thank you again for speaking with us. Thank you. David Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. His latest book, New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West, comes out in paperback this spring. We recorded our interview yesterday.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
On tomorrow's show, Pico Ayer talks about his memoir that's sadly a little too relevant. It's called A Flame, Learning from Silence. It's about his many retreats to a Benedictine monastery in California's Big Sur and the wildfires that have threatened the monastery and burned down his mother's home while he was there. He nearly died in a fire. I hope you can join us.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
He's revived his interest in somehow buying or annexing Greenland and said he wants to take control of the Panama Canal, refusing to rule out military action to achieve both objectives. And for good measure, he said Canada would make a nice 51st state and said he might use economic force to make that happen.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
You know, it's a self-governing territory of Denmark. Does anyone think the U.S. could legally use force to take Greenland? I mean, what's been the reaction in Congress and foreign capitals to this kind of talk?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Yeah, well, I mean the whole kind of notion of the world order led by the United States, an important element of it was that international boundaries are not open to negotiation or change by force. This is a pretty dramatic turn, isn't it?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Our guest, New York Times White House and national security correspondent David Sanger, has written that Trump's recent comments are a reminder that something else is coming back to Washington, a chaotic stream of consciousness presidency.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Right. And other places in the South China Sea, I guess. Canada is certainly a different animal in a way. I mean, what has been the reaction to him suggesting that Canada should join with the United States?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
I mean, you'd have to think if you were serious about any of these initiatives, you wouldn't start with public declarations. You would have a plan. You would meet privately with all of the relevant players, wouldn't you?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Sanger has spent four decades at the Times covering five presidents from Clinton to Biden and sharing in three Pulitzer Prizes, most recently for coverage of Russia's role in the 2016 election. Last April, Sanger published his fourth book, one which offers a framework for understanding the challenges the United States faces in an increasingly dangerous and volatile world.
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
Let's talk about Ukraine and Russia. Trump has expressed admiration for Putin. That's well known. And he has said that this war is horrific, would never have happened on his watch, and that he will quickly resolve it without ever saying how. Now he's going to have to actually do something. What are you hearing from sources about what that might be?
Fresh Air
Can The U.S. Aquire Greenland? & Other Q's About Trump Foreign Policy
It's called New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West. We've invited him back on the show to share some insights on what we might expect from a Trump foreign policy. Well, David Sanger, welcome back to Fresh Air. Dave, great to be back here with you. Let's start by listening to a bit of the news conference that Trump had in Mar-a-Lago.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
All right. Warmly received by the Bitcoin crowd. One of the things he has said is that we ought to have a national crypto – I don't know if it's Bitcoin or crypto generally but a stockpile. I mean there's a strategic reserve of petroleum, right? And we have gold in Fort Knox. How do we explain the idea of a crypto coin national stockpile? What would be the purpose? Yeah.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Right. And just to clarify, you mentioned that the supply of Bitcoin is limited. That's different from other meme coins where people can just make up as many as they want. Bitcoin, when it was established, there was a limited quantity that can be made. So there is a real supply and demand there, I guess.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
All right. All right. So limited item isn't necessarily valuable. All right. We're going to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Zeke Fox. He's an investigative reporter for Bloomberg. His book is Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. We'll talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies. This is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
And people trade for it, right? They speculate in it hoping that its value will rise or fall, right? Right.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Donald Trump has gotten support from some of the giants in the tech world, you know, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and I think Peter Thiel probably too. Are those folks also crypto advocates? What is their relationship with the crypto world?
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Let's talk about some of the appointments that Trump has made, which, again, are good news for crypto supporters. He wants a change at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gary Gensler, the previous chair, was very unpopular in the crypto world. Why?
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Now, just so I understand the principle in these lawsuits, the idea is that if investors buy money in the stock market, there are rules that say that in order to get your security in the stock market, you have to provide certain information, orderly reports and earnings reports and assets and liabilities. And so that there's, in theory, some basis that an investor has to evaluate the value of it.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
In the case of cryptocurrency exchanges … What? Any of that required?
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Right. Now, these cases that the Securities and Exchange Commission filed, are they still pending in courts?
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
We are speaking with Zeke Fox. He's an investigative reporter for Bloomberg. His book is Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. We'll talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies. This is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
So, Zeke Fox, let's talk about Howard Lutnick, who has been designated as the Commerce Secretary by Donald Trump. He's been nominated. He faces confirmation. He is the chief executive officer and a principal owner of a New York investment bank, Cantor Fitzgerald, which some may remember was famous for having lost more than 600 employees in the 9-11 attacks, including Howard Lutnick's brother.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
There has been concern about Letnick and his bank's ties to a cryptocurrency operator called Tether. You want to explain what Tether is and what it does?
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
You mean there were 50 billion Tether coins in circulation, for which they presumably had 50 billion in U.S. dollars somewhere?
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Right, and his is a particular subspecies called a meme coin. You want to explain what that is?
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. Besides the executive orders, pardons, and other moves, Trump and his family have started selling a brand new cryptocurrency coin featuring an image of Trump drawn from the assassination attempt he experienced during the presidential campaign.
Fresh Air
Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Yeah. So it's not like Lutnik himself is personally making deals with human traffickers or drug dealers. He accepts assets from this company Tether that uses its stable coin for transactions with all kinds of people, including people who in some cases are criminals. Is that the case?
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
You know, in your book, you describe discovering a center of ripoff artists, scammers based in Cambodia, like a whole kind of little mini city of apartment blocks of people in these rooms, calling people, luring them into handing over their money. And Tether is involved in all this. Tell us what you found.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
I have to ask you, since people read stories about crypto going through the roof and Bitcoin being worth $100,000, have you invested in any crypto? And what do you say – I'm sure friends must ask you since they know you're reporting on this. Hey, should I get into this?
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
All right. Well, we'll leave it there. Zeke Fox, thanks so much for speaking with us. Thanks, Dave. Zeke Fox is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg. His book is Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. We recorded our conversation earlier this week. Coming up, we remember cartoonist and writer Jules Feiffer, who died last week. This is Fresh Air.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, playwright, and screenwriter, died Friday at his home in Richfield Springs, New York. He was 95. Feiffer's syndicated strip, titled Feiffer, used simple line drawings to portray characters in scenes that satirized contemporary life. The strip began in the Village Voice and ran for more than four decades.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Pfeiffer's creative impulses found expression in many media. He illustrated the classic children's book The Phantom Tollbooth. He wrote screenplays for the films Little Murders and Carnal Knowledge, among others. He wrote novels and Broadway plays, and his cartoons appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Playboy magazine.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Terry spoke to Jules Feiffer in 1982 when a collection of his cartoons titled America from Eisenhower to Reagan was published. He told her that finding anyone who knew what to do with his cartoons and his particular brand of humor took a while.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Right. So you get people who, for a lark or whatever, just decide to do it for the fun of having this digital image. And if they drive the price up, the folks who own a lot can make them a lot of money and people have made fortunes, right?
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
It's a venture that by some accounts could make the president billions of dollars, though we'll discuss what that actually means. The new coin, which has drawn criticism from government ethics lawyers, is just one of several moves Trump has made to embrace cryptocurrency. He plans to replace the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who sued many crypto companies.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
And what are government ethics watchdogs saying about this?
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Now, this actually isn't Trump's first crypto coin, right? I mean, in July, I think, he launched an enterprise called World Liberty Financial, which issues digital tokens. You want to explain what this is?
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Trump's nominee to head the commission is Paul Atkins, a pro-crypto executive. And Trump's nominee for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, heads an investment bank that's deeply involved with the cryptocurrency that's been used by arms dealers, scam artists, and drug traffickers, among others. If you find the whole subject of cryptocurrency confusing, fear not.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
I have to mention one other colorful aspect of the World Liberty Financial Enterprise. And that is that one of the co-founders, I guess, was a guy named Chase Hero. Who is he?
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Wow. You know, we have a little audio clip of this guy, Chase Hero. And he's driving a car, which I think he says is a Rolls Royce in the audio, right? And kind of explaining kind of, I guess, what you might call the amorality of the crypto industry. Let's listen to this.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Our guest today, Bloomberg investigative reporter Zeke Fox, has written a fascinating and accessible book about crypto and he's reported on Trump's newfound enthusiasm for the industry. We'll talk about Trump's crypto moves as well as the nature of cryptocurrency, its role in the economy, and what the future holds for digital currency.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Trump was not always a fan of cryptocurrency. Here's something he said. I believe this was on Fox Business in 2021.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Okay, throwing cold water on crypto, about four years ago, a little less, I guess, what accounts for his conversion, do you think?
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Again, not a real card. It's a digital card, right? What do they call it? A non-fungible token? Yeah.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Wow. You know, I think we have a clip of some of that speech. It's probably worth spending that. Let's listen. This is Donald Trump at the Bitcoin Magazine convention in July.
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Trump's Foray Into Cryptocurrency
Zeke Fox's book is Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. We recorded our conversation earlier this week. Zeke Fox, welcome to Fresh Air. Thanks, Dave. So let's start with a simple understanding of what cryptocurrency is, right? It's a coin or a currency that really only exists as a digital entry in some computers of whoever creates or issues the coin.
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Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Dave Davies. Terry has our first interview. I'll let her introduce it.
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Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Tilda Swinton is starring in the new Pedro Almodovar film, The Room Next Door, now showing in select theaters. She spoke with Terry Gross. In 1997, Marianne Jean-Baptiste became the first black British actress to receive an Oscar nomination for Mike Lee's drama Secrets and Lies.
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Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Now, nearly 30 years later, she and Lee have reunited on the comedic drama Hard Truths, in which she plays a profoundly unhappy woman living in North London. The performance has earned Jean-Baptiste best actress prizes from several critics groups. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.
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Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed hard truths. Coming up, we hear from Adrian Brody. His new film, The Brutalist, just won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
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Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Dave Davies. Today, Tilda Swinton. She stars in the new Pedro Almodovar film as a woman who has suffered from cancer and therapies haven't worked and now intends to end her life within a month. She asks a friend, played by Julianne Moore, to stay with her during that time.
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Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Adrian Brody spoke with Tanya Mosley. He's currently starring in the film The Brutalist. It's now playing in select theaters, including IMAX, and opens nationwide on January 17th. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
And we hear from Oscar and now Golden Globe Award winning actor Adrian Brody. He stars in the film The Brutalist, which just won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama. Brody plays a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who seeks a fresh start in post-war America. Brody drew from his mother and grandfather's experience as Hungarian immigrants for the role.
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Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Also, film critic Justin Chang reviews the new Mike Lee film Hard Truths. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
We're listening to Terry's interview with Tilda Swinton. She stars in the new Pedro Almodovar film, The Room Next Door. It's now showing in select theaters. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Right. And this is fascinating because Pope Paul VI, he issues this encyclical called Of Human Life, which fully rejects the findings of this commission about liberalizing rules on birth control and rejects it completely. What was the reaction in the church among Catholics? How was it received?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Right. Polling showed that Catholics everywhere disapproved of this, and clergy in the Netherlands basically revolted, right?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
You know, this backsliding and essentially rejection of the reforms of Vatican II lasted over the next four popes that followed John XXIII, all who were different from each other in one way or another. But they pretty much used their power to impede or roll back these reforms.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
I wonder, have you reflected on what motivated so many of these popes to resist change and embrace practices out of step with the lives so many Catholics were leading?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
We need to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Philip Sheenan. He is a veteran investigative reporter. His new book is Jesus Wept, Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church. He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies. This is Fresh Air.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
I wanted to return to a moment with Pope Paul VI, who was the one after John XXIII. In the 60s and 70s, he was the pope, and he had affirmed the church's ban on birth control despite the recommendation of a commission that had been established, which favored relaxing the rules.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
And this happened in the late 60s when there were a lot of sweeping cultural changes including the sexual revolution, which certainly troubled church conservatives. And in 1975, Pope Paul was so angry about the criticism he received about the birth control issue and the rejection of his views.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
He is known for not having spoken out against Nazi crimes despite substantial evidence that he was aware of them. But there's even more. You tell a story in the book which was new to me of this Pope Pius before he was pope, when he was an archbishop in Munich, meeting personally with a then rising Adolf Hitler. What happened here?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
that he directed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that's a unit within the Vatican, to release a long declaration on sexual morality, which had hardened condemnations of extramarital sex, masturbation even, homosexuality. That really prompted some revelations in the press about Paul's personal life. What happened?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
And you note that this raised the question among some whether the church's failure to address sexual abuse among the clergy was influenced at least in part by the fact that high-ranking church officials themselves had their own closely guarded sexual secrets. Yes.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
You note that there have been some studies by former clergy on this issue who have some professional training in mental health. I mean there was a Father Kennedy who was a Loyola psychologist and then later a former priest and monk, Richard Seip, who became a psychotherapist and treated clergymen. Both of them kind of mused upon what the celibacy vow that is imposed on clergy was.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
the psychological effect that it had that might have played a role in this abuse scandal? What did they conclude?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Pacelli being the name of the cardinal before he became pope, yeah.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
You know, the scandal of sexual abuse in the church has been widely reported. And I think it's fair to say from a reading of your book that none of the popes that you write about confronted this terrible problem honestly and forcefully, all of them in varying degrees protected predators. In your research, did you come across any documents on this that really surprised you?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. We in the media regularly cover the decisions of powerful leaders in government and business and how they affect our lives. My guest today, veteran investigative reporter Philip Sheenan, has spent much of the last 10 years examining the impact of seven powerful men who've exercised a different kind of authority.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
I want to take one more break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Philip Sheenan, a veteran investigative reporter. His new book is Jesus Wept, Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church. We'll continue our conversation after this break. This is Fresh Air.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Well, I want to talk about Pope Francis, the current pope who, as you and I record this, is suffering from pneumonia. I hope he does well and recovers. He was elected in 2013, and he took the name of Francis of Assisi, the 13th century cleric who wore rags and focused on the needs of the poor. It's interesting that when he took office—
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
The initial impression kind of reminds you of John XXIII, the guy who initiated the Second Vatican Council in that Francis sort of rejected some of the finer trappings of the office. Tell us about that.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
So, you know, what about some of the rules that had been in place for so long that had been controversial, like the refusal to provide communion to Catholics who had been divorced, giving, you know, sacraments to gay couples, that kind of thing? What's actually changed?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
And what about the attitude towards birth control and abortion? Any change there?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
This housekeeper, Sister Pascalina Leonard, it turns out was a very close advisor of Pius and wrote these interesting diaries. And it said that she actually advised him to speak out against the Nazis during World War II when all this was happening, right?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
One of the ways that a pope has impact apart from what he says about doctrine and practice is who he appoints. I mean there's a lot of authority. They appoint cardinals. And I'm wondering – it seems you think that there might be some liberalizing impact of his appointments within the Vatican, right?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Does Francis have a better record in terms of dealing with the sexual abuse crisis within the church than his predecessors?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
You know, the Pope and the Vatican have been portrayed in various films and movies over the years. Recently, we had the movie Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes. How do you find the portrayals of Popes and the Vatican in PVN movies that we've seen?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
You know, in the movie Conclave, there were these details about how the cardinals are truly kept isolated and unable to communicate. You know, windows are covered. Cell phones are not available. Is that true?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
And are there caucuses among like-minded cardinals on the side?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
You know, in this book, you point out a lot of hypocrisy and corruption in the church. And some may regard the book or maybe this interview as anti-Catholic. After all of these years of research, how do you regard the value or harm of this institution?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
And yet it endures. I mean, more than a billion people are still there, right? Presumably getting some comfort and value from it.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Well, Philip Sheenan, thank you so much for speaking with us.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Philip Sheenan is a veteran investigative reporter who spent 20 years with the New York Times. His new book is Jesus Wept, Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church. Coming up, John Powers reviews a new autobiographical novel by Brigitte Giroux, which looks back at the accident that killed her husband. This is Fresh Air.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
In the new autobiographical novel Live Fast, Brigitte Giraud looks back at the accident that killed her husband. She speculates on the many ways that tragedy could have turned out differently. The book won the French equivalent of the Booker Prize. Our critic-at-large John Power says that he read it in a sitting, and it left him thinking about how we all want to rewrite the past.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
John Powers reviewed the novel Live Fast by Brigitte Giroux. On tomorrow's show, we get a revealing look at the children of an aging billionaire as they maneuver for control of their father's media empire when he passes away. It's not HBO's Succession, but the real-life family drama surrounding Rupert Murdoch and Fox News. We'll speak with The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
I hope you can join us. The Atlantic Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Joel Wolfram.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Before we leave Pope Pius, I want to mention the will. When he died, there was a very short will which was discovered and, well, it was kind of surprising. What did it say?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
So in 1958, after Pope Pius dies, the cardinals in the Vatican gather to select the new pope. We're all familiar with this ritual. They settle on an Italian bishop, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who takes the name Pope John XXIII. He's short, quite overweight, not the most imposing figure visually.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
They're the last seven popes of the Catholic Church, whose intense power struggles and doctrinal debates affect more than a billion Catholics in countless ways. Whether they can use birth control or get an abortion or divorce and remain in good standing in the faith,
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
But you say, without saying so directly, he made it clear quickly that things were going to be different from the grim sobriety of the previous pope. What did he do?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
All right. Let's talk about some of the issues of potential reform that came up at the Vatican II Council, some issues that the church was confronting. One of them was the longstanding practice of requiring priests to remain unmarried and celibate. Now, there's a fascinating history here, right? This was not always the case, right?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Whether priests must forever remain unmarried and celibate, a rule with little biblical authority that fuels a drastic shortage of priests and leaves millions unable to regularly attend Mass or receive sacraments. Whether same-sex couples can be accepted in the church. And whether sexual predators will be stopped and held accountable.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
So there's this requirement that priests can't marry and can't have sex. This has created a problem for the church, hasn't it? A real shortage of priests.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
There was another issue involving sexuality and that is birth control. I mean it was against Catholic doctrine. There was thought that perhaps it's time to change that. You write about a Belgian bishop, Leo Joseph Sunans, who talked about his experiences hearing the confessions of women and what this restriction meant for them in their lives.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
There was one really significant change, which was it was decreed that they didn't have to – priests did not have to conduct mass solely in Latin, which meant that people around the world could understand more of what was being said. That was really the one enduring change, wasn't it?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
Sheenan's book is the story of a bold attempt to reform the church in the early 1960s and decades of backsliding that followed under pontiffs more comfortable with conservative traditions and power concentrated in the Vatican. Philip Sheenan spent more than 20 years at the New York Times covering the Pentagon, the Justice Department, the State Department, and Congress.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
And I guess another thing that Pope John XXIII did make some progress on is changing church doctrine on how the Catholic Church regarded other faiths, particularly Protestant faiths, but also particularly the Jewish faith. It was pretty harsh before that, right?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
So Philip Sheenan, we talked about how Pope John XXIII with the Second Vatican Council initiated a lot of reforms in the Catholic Church. Some were enacted. The four popes who followed by and large didn't advance those efforts and in many cases kind of reversed them.
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
The pope who immediately followed John XXIII was Pope Paul VI, the guy who was kind of reluctant to take it on and seemed to have come under the influence of some of the more conservatives in Catholicism. Vatican. One of the things that John XXIII had done was he had developed a commission to investigate the subject of birth control. This was a pretty serious effort, wasn't it?
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The Battle For The Soul Of The Catholic Church
His two previous books focused on the 9-11 investigation and unanswered questions about the Kennedy assassination. His new book is Jesus Wept, Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church. Philip Sheenan, welcome back to Fresh Air.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
You know, I thought we would listen to a piece of tape from an NPR report. This is from 2012, a reporter named Greg Allen. And it's based on his conversation with a guy who survived Dozier named Jerry Cooper and what happened when he had committed some offense and was taken to the White House for some discipline. Let's listen.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
And that's from a report from NPR reporter Greg Allen about abuses at the Dozer School. The story has inspired the novel by our guest Colson Whitehead. It's called The Nickel Boys. That really is the way it happened, isn't it?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Right. And what would it do to a student's back to get 100 of those kinds of lashes delivered with that kind of force?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
We're listening to my interview with Colson Whitehead. His novel The Nickel Boys has been adapted into a film of the same name, now in theaters. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Coulson Whitehead, welcome back to Fresh Air. It's good to have you, and the book is remarkable. I thought we would begin with a reading. I mean, your book is about some students at this thing that's called the Trevor Nickel Academy.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
So a lot of kids were beaten and there are a lot of stories about this. Do we believe that kids were murdered?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Right, or get the flu. We should note that no one has been criminally accused of killing anybody there. Of course, a lot of this happened decades ago, and so the evidence isn't easy to acquire, and some of the perpetrators are now deceased. The kids did work and produce stuff. Was the school a source of profit for some local people?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Thus, The Nickel Boys is the book, but it's based on the story of the Dozier School in the Panhandle of Florida, which is now closed and where many abuses were discovered. This is a reading about a group of ex-students, right? Just set it up for us.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
There are quotes from Martin Luther King in the story because they come from this record that Elmwood loved to play. And one of them you quote a couple of times and it's striking. It's in which King describes the nonviolent resistance and the importance of loving your oppressors. And kind of an abridged version of the quote is he says, throw us in jail and we will love you.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory. Tell me why that quote was something you wanted to use in the story.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
In the last part of the book, we meet some of the characters later in life. And I don't want to say more than that about it because it would spoil it for readers and they deserve to experience this. But I have to say the narrative structure here of how the course of their lives is revealed I think is pretty brilliant.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
And I wonder if you can, without giving away the story, just talk a little bit about how you – decide to reveal the outcomes?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
You know, the book is a lot about the struggle between optimism about social change and kind of a pragmatic acceptance of the world as it is. And we're in some pretty turbulent times in this country these days. How optimistic are you for positive change?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. In 2019, Colson Whitehead landed on the cover of Time magazine next to a caption that called him America's storyteller. He's earned that honor over the course of nine novels that have ranged from wry speculative fiction to zombie apocalypse to sobering historical fiction, all of them in various ways considering the topic of race in America.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
So the older one especially is in a position to be aware of a lot of things.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
While you were writing this book, I'm wondering what was happening in the country on race relations. I mean a lot has happened in the last few years. I'm wondering what events might have informed your thinking as you were writing this.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
This is your ninth book and your last one, The Underground Railroad, won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize selected by Oprah Winfrey, which I'm sure boosted sales a lot and gave it a much bigger profile. As you finished and published this book, did it feel like a completely different experience because of where your career is?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Is it true you had to sign 15,000 copies of this one?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
All right. Well, congratulations on the book. Colson Whitehead, it's been great to have you back. Thanks so much.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Novelist Colson Whitehead. His novel The Nickel Boys has been adapted into a film now in theaters. Whitehead won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his previous novel, The Underground Railroad, which was adapted into a miniseries of the same name by Barry Jenkins.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
After we take a short break, guest jazz critic Martin Johnson will review a new recording featuring two of the giants of jazz, McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson, in concert in 1966. This is Fresh Air.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Mention of the label Blue Note Records will evoke a sound familiar to most jazz fans. Pristine, warm, as if the greatest musicians of the 60s were playing in your living room. Yet very few live recordings exist of the stars from the label's golden era. But that's been changing. A new recording features two giants of jazz, McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson in concert from 1966.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Guest jazz critic Martin Johnson says you can hear jazz changing in several ways.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
And that is Colson Whitehead reading from his new book, The Nickel Boys. This school really changed people's lives, didn't it?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Martin Johnson writes about jazz for The Wall Street Journal. He reviewed McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson, Force of Nature, live at Slugs. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews Mike Lee's new film, Hard Truths. This is Fresh Air. In 1997, Marianne Jean-Baptiste became the first black British actress to receive an Oscar nomination for Mike Lee's drama Secrets and Lies.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Now, nearly 30 years later, she and Lee have reunited on the comedic drama Hard Truths, in which she plays a profoundly unhappy woman living in North London. The performance has earned Jean-Baptiste best actress prizes from several critics groups. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Your last book, The Underground Railroad, which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, was a look at slavery. What made you want to write about Dozier, about this school?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Mike Lee's new film Hard Truths. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. On Monday's show, President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term in the White House on Martin Luther King Day.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
We'll speak with scholars Tressie McMillan Cottom and Eddie Glaude to talk about what lies ahead and the legacy of Dr. King. I hope you can join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Thea Chaloner. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Al Banks.
Fresh Air
The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
And how did you research the subject? Did you go down and visit Dozier?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
But you didn't feel the need to go there?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
His 2016 novel The Underground Railroad was adapted into an Amazon TV series directed by Barry Jenkins, who directed Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. Whitehead's 2019 novel The Nickel Boys has been adapted into a film of the same name, now in theaters.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
So how did you get the texture of the place to write about it?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
How did kids get into a school like that? What sort of offenses or circumstances would cause them to be sent to this school?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Right. In a lot of cases, kids who just ran away, right, because they came from places where they were abused or unwanted.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
So the teenager – well, the young man who is at the heart of our story, Elwood, isn't a kid who has come from an abusive home. Do you want to just talk about this character and why he's the kind of kid you wanted to take us into this school?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
And we should just note this. He's in Tallahassee, Florida, in the Jim Crow South in this late 50s, early 60s, right?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
It's based on the true story of the now-closed Dozier School for Boys in Florida, where former students have reported being brutally beaten or sexually abused. The central character of Whitehead's book is Elwood, a hardworking, college-bound African-American high school student who believes in the promise of the civil rights movement. Here's a clip from the film directed by Rommel Ross.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
So what happened when you were pulled over in handcuffs? What happened?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Right, right. Or you could be misidentified by somebody.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Elwood is in high school in the early 60s when the civil rights movement is really rolling and he has a teacher, Mr. Hill, who's interested in this and kind of committed to the battle for civil rights. There was a very compelling moment when you described the first day of school when the kids in this segregated school get their textbooks. Do you want to share that with us?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
So Elwood, he is committed to the principles of the civil rights movement and looks forward to participating. What's his attitude towards – You know, the life ahead of him where he's got to deal with segregation and deal with a white power structure and limited opportunities. How does he conduct himself?
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
Elwood, played by Ethan Harisi, is speaking to Turner, a fellow schoolmate played by Brandon Wilson. Elwood has just been beaten by the school staff after he intervened to help a student being attacked by a bully. If everybody looks the other way, then everybody's in on it.
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The True Story Of Abuse And Injustice Behind 'Nickel Boys'
So Elmwood, this optimistic young man, ends up in this reform school because he hitches a ride with a guy who happens to have stolen a car. He gets convicted of car theft and he's in this place. How do his values mesh with the experience that confronts him?