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A Complicated Man: William F. Buckley, Jr. (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)
This episode is one that Matt and Sam have been anticipating for years: after two-and-a-half decades of research and writing, Sam Tanehaus's authoritative biography of William F. Buckley, Jr.—youthful booster of America First, enfant terrible at Yale, CIA agent, founder of National Review, best-selling author, brilliant television host, and more—has blessedly arrived. Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America stretches to just under 900 pages of text, before you get to the endnotes and index, an appropriately epic biography of an overstuffed, consequential life, containing far more than could be covered in a single episode. This conversation focuses on the challenges of writing a biography of a man whose archives rivaled those found in presidential libraries; Tanenhaus's discovery of a newspaper the Buckley's owned in South Carolina that essentially was a mouthpiece for the White Citizens' Council, and the Southern roots of Buckley's "northern segregationist" politics; the influence of his oilman father, who fled the revolution in Mexico and instilled anti-communist politics, as well as the Catholic faith, in his children; Buckley's role in forging the post-war conservative movement, through National Review and his frenetic endeavors as a columnist and speaker; the controversies, disappointments, failures, and triumphs of his decades-long career; and more. Sources:Sam Tanenhaus, Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America (2025)— Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (1997)John Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1988)Sam Adler-Bell, "A Practical Fanatic," The Idea Letters, June 26, 2025Alexander Chee, "Mr. and Mrs. B.," Longreads, June 18, 2025Christopher Owen, Heaven Can Indeed Fall: The Life of Willmoore Kendall, (2022)Listen again to these Know Your Enemy episodes for background on:Brent Bozell: "Keeping up with the Bozells," Feb 26, 2021Willmoore Kendall: "The Long Farewell to Majority Rule? (w/ Joshua Tait)," May 17, 2021Frank Meyer: "Frank Meyer, the Father of Fusionism," Nov 10, 2021Joan Didion: "Joan Didion, Conservative (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)," Jan 13, 2022William F. Buckley, Jr.: "Buckley for Mayor (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)," Aug 23, 2021— "The Conservative and the Convict (w/ Sarah Weinman)," May 9, 2022— "Consider the Cranks (w/ David Austin Walsh)," May 21, 2024...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
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MAGA's War Over the War with Iran (w/ Curt Mills) [Teaser]
Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Donald Trump's rise in U.S. politics over the past decade has been inextricable from his "America First" foreign policy and withering criticisms of the Iraq War, nation building, and both the neoconservatism that led the Republican Party to disaster during George W. Bush's presidency and the Washington establishment that still thought America could police the world. Trump's message of a restrained foreign policy and pledge to avoid getting dragged into forever wars especially seemed to resonate as he ran to take back the presidency in 2024—there was no end in sight to the war between Ukraine and Russia, and Israel was committing genocide in Gaza as Bibi Netanyahu walked all over an exhausted, only occasionally lucid Biden.But less than half a year into President Trump's second term and the failure negotiations with Iran, Israel bombed that country's nuclear facilities and assassinated their negotiators and nuclear scientists—and just over a week later, so did Trump when he ordered the dropping of massive "bunker buster" bombs to try to destroy the nuclear facilities Israel could not.In this episode, we once again talk to executive editor of The American Conservative, Curt Mills, a leading voice of the restraint and realism wing on the right, to try to understand the war within MAGA set off by the "Twelve Day War" with Iran. Why did Trump bomb Iran? Who was he listening to, or not, as he made that decision? How did the various factions within the MAGA movement respond, and what is the state of play currently in Trump World? What was Israel's role in all this? And how much longer will Trump tolerate Netanyahu's constant efforts to get the American military to fight in Israel's wars? We take up these questions, and more.Sources:Ian Ward, "The MAGA Split Over Israel," Politico, June 13, 2025Joe Gould, et al, "MAGA Largely Falls in Line on Trump’s Iran Strikes," Politico, June 21, 2025Katy Balls, "Trump is Taking Fire Over 'Forever Wars,' but MAGA’s Real Battle Awaits," The Times of London, June 22, 2025Jude Russo, "What Next?" The American Conservative, June 24, 2025Sohrab Ahmari, "Did Iran win the 12-day war?" Unherd, June 25, 2025
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Immigration Showdown in LA (w/ E. Tammy Kim) [TEASER]
Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.Journalist Tammy Kim joins the pod to talk about the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles — and the raids that precipitated them.Further Reading:E Tammy Kim, "Immigration Protests Threaten to Boil Over in Los Angeles," The New Yorker, June 9, 2025.— "Inside the Activist Groups Resisting ICE," The New Yorker, Jun 13, 2025.
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Reagan, the Movie (w/ Jesse Brenneman) [UNLOCKED]
As the world falls apart — and we prep for our Buckley mega-episode with Sam Tanenhaus — we're unlocking this fun episode from late last year. Subscribe at Patreon.com/knowyourenemy to never miss an episode like this one. And please listen to Jesse's insane, hilarious, freakishly prescient (and fake) podcast Tech Talk. A palette cleanser for subscribers: we watched Reagan (2024), with our intrepid producer, Jesse Brenneman. Even better, the movie is based on the 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, by Paul Kengor — who just happens to have been Matt's close mentor as an undergraduate student. Reagan clocks in at over two hours and twenty minutes, and it's a wild, even fantastical ride that offers a revealing glimpse into the conservative psyche and a faithful rendition of the most hagiographic version of the Reagan mythology, especially his personal responsibility for ending the Cold War and finally putting the Soviet Union on the ash heap of history.Sources:Reagan (2024)Paul Kengor, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism(2006)— God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life(2004)— A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century(2017)Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999)
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Joe Biden's Betrayal [TEASER]
Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.If you pay any attention at all to political news, it's been hard to avoid Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's recent bombshell of a book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, which offers behind-the-scenes reporting from the White House, halls of Congress, the campaign trail, and beyond about Joe Biden's health, mental and physical, and the efforts to conceal just how bad it had gotten from his Cabinet, Congress, and, most damningly, the American people. Much of the coverage of the book has focused on a handful of sensational examples—Biden supposedly not recognizing George Clooney at a fundraiser, or forgetting the names of staffers who'd worked for him for decades—but that's unfortunate. What's most shocking is the book's cumulative force, the sheer number of details that make it undoubtedly clear Biden was not fit to run again in 2024, or, for that matter, be President. As you won't be surprised to learn, Matt eagerly read Original Sin, and he and Sam discuss what the take-aways from the book should really be, what it says about the state of the Democratic Party, what it reveals about the media, and more.Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (2025)Matthew Sitman, "The 'Weekend at Bernie's' Primary," Commonweal, Mar 3, 2020Sam Adler-Bell, "The Tragic Legacy of the Mourner-in-Chief," New York Magazine, Jan 14, 2025Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s & 70s (2009)— My Lives: A Memoir (2005)— A Boy's Own Story (1982)— The Beautiful Room is Empty (1988)— The Farewell Symphony (1997)— Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978)
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