Even for an election year, the last few months have seen a head-spinning amount of political news in the United States.

So, on this episode, Dan Richards spoke with someone uniquely suited to help make sense of the race as it enters the homestretch. Isaac Dovere is a senior reporter for CNN based in Washington covering Democratic politics. He’s also a senior fellow at the Watson Institute and teaches a class on political journalism. Prior to working at CNN, he was a staff writer at The Atlantic, and before that, he served as Politico’s chief Washington correspondent.

Beyond being one of America’s most insightful political reporters, he’s also a deep thinker when it comes to how political news works in America—how it’s made, how it’s consumed, and it in turn shapes our politics.

Dan and Isaac discuss how this election has been covered in the press, how political journalism has changed since Trump first ran for president, and why everyone would benefit from being a little more critical of the news they consume (and maybe, sometimes, taking a break from the news altogether).

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Many Americans see a potential Trump victory in this year’s election as a threat to American democracy. Whether you share that concern or not, the rise of Donald Trump and the prospect of a second Trump term have brought up new and unsettling questions about presidential power and the fragility of our democratic institutions.

But as Corey Brettschneider explains in his new book “The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It,” these concerns are hardly unprecedented in our history. And the ways our country has navigated authoritarian presidents before has a lot to teach us about many of the legal and political issues defining our current moment.

In the book, Brettschneider looks at examples from the 18th century through the 20th century of presidents who challenged key features of American democracy and how the country recovered from these moments of crisis.

On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Brettschneider about what these lessons history can teach us, why our Constitution is so vulnerable to authoritarian Presidents, and why, despite these threats, we’ve been able to defend against them — so far.

Learn more about and purchase "The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It"

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In March 2020, the Vatican’s Apostolic Archives of Pope Pius XII — also known as the Vatican’s “secret archives” — were opened to scholars from around the world. Historian and Watson Professor David Kertzer was one of those scholars.

What he found there is helping to reframe the role that the Catholic Church — and its then-leader, Pope Pius XII — played in World War II.

Pius XII’s legacy is heavily debated. Some want him to be made a saint. Others call him ‘“Hitler’s Pope,” blaming him for aiding the Nazi regime and, ultimately, facilitating the Holocaust.

What David Kertzer found is a much more complicated story.

On this episode of “Trending Globally,” originally broadcast in the summer of 2022, the story of “a pope at war” and what it can teach us about the need for moral leadership in times of crisis.

Learn more about and purchase David Kertzer’s 2022 book “The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini and Hitler"

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Transcript coming soon to our website