Jeremi Suri

speaker

329 appearances 3 recordings 2 series first heard Jan 2023 last heard 7 Sep

Jeremi Suri’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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American History Hit · America's Worst President · 7 Sep 2026 podcast

And so that meant that presidents were not having the daily interactions they're having with members of Congress today through their staffs, by phone, by text.

It was a much more distant relationship and it was much more focused on big issues rather than day to day affairs.

That's exactly right.

And that's one of the reasons we've seen the growth of executive agencies, because there are administrative tasks that exist in the U.S.

government now that a legislature cannot handle, that an executive needs to handle.

For example, overseeing the Federal Trade Commission, which keeps our food safe and manages interstate commerce.

Those are important things.

Vaccine mandates, all the debates about that.

Someone has to oversee that.

And that's become an executive set of agencies in the U.S.

There are equivalents in parliamentary systems as well.

Well, I think there are two common faults that presidents have.

One is that they become committed to a set of policies and perspectives that are out of touch with the American public.

Successful presidents, Don, like successful leaders of any kind, have to adjust in office.

You get elected for one thing, but that doesn't mean that's how people want you to govern.

And that adjustment, some presidents are able to undertake it, others are not.

And then second, there's the more prosaic problem of as government grows bigger, you're surrounded by yes-men and you're surrounded by more and more people who are trying to do things to benefit themselves and not the country.

Managing that, managing that really difficult bureaucracy, which begins in the 19th century, right?

That's a real task.

It's a difficult task for many presidents.

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