The New Yorker Radio Hour

“Pod Save America” ’s Jon Lovett on Trump: “The Threat of Jail Time Sharpens the Mind”

The co-host of the popular podcast explains how the withering of the media and the threat of political violence are warping the Presidential campaign. Plus, the writer Brontez Purnell.
Portrait of Jon Lovett speaking into a microphone with VOTE in the background.
Illustration by Golden Cosmos

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Jon Lovett and his co-hosts have gathered millions of politically engaged listeners—“nerds,” Lovett calls them—to “Pod Save America,” “Lovett or Leave It,” and other podcasts. But Lovett is more worried about voters who no longer get a steady stream of reliable political coverage at all, as local news outlets wither and platforms like Facebook downplay the sharing of news. “The vast majority of people do not know about Joe Biden’s accomplishments,” he says. “When they say to a pollster that this is not someone they view as being up to the job, they’re not . . . understanding how he performed in the job so far.” Lovett shares the widespread concerns about Biden’s apparent aging, but notes that his performance remains effective, whereas, “in Trump, the reverse: he is more energetic—I think the threat of federal jail time sharpens the mind!—but by all accounts is emotionally, psychologically, and mentally not up to the job.” Plus, the writer Brontez Purnell talks about his journey from go-go boy to author, and his provocative new memoir, “Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt.” “Memoir is fiction,” he tells Radio Hour’s Jeffrey Masters. “I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Pod Save America” ’s Jon Lovett on Trump: “The Threat of Jail Time Sharpens the Mind”

The co-host of the popular show explains how the withering of the media and the threat of political violence are warping the Presidential campaign, and what Biden’s team needs to do.

For Brontez Purnell, “Memoir Is Fiction—I Don’t Care What Anyone Says”

The author of “Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt” and other books talks with Jeffrey Masters about his journey from go-go boy to Renaissance man.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.