YouSaid · the spoken record

Saagar Enjeti

lines on the record: 194
first: 2021-03-14
most recent: 2021-03-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It's never been more up to the FEC, yeah, and all of that. If you go back and read not even 50 years ago, we're talking about Lyndon B. Johnson handing people like literally as a, he came up in his youth paying people for votes, like the boss of the person who had all the Mexican votes, like the person who had, and he was giving out briefcases. This is like within people's lifetimes who are alive in America. So that's doesn't happen anymore. But I don't like to blame everything on money, although I do think money is obviously a huge part of the problem. I actually look at it in terms of distribution, which is that how is money distributed within our society? Because I firmly believe that politics, this is going to get complicated. But I think politics is mostly downstream from culture. And culture, obviously, I'm using economics because there's obviously a huge interplay there. But like,”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I was just having this conversation. Marshall and I, Marshall Kostlav, my co host on the realignment. And it's funny because if you do enough research, we actually live in the least corrupt age in American campaign finance. As in it's never been more transparent.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sit back and say Correct. Yeah. I mean, look, I know it's funny. I'm giving you simultaneously the nationalist case against Trump and the progressive case against Obama. The progressive people were like, why the fuck are you hiring all these Clinton people in order to run the government and just recreate? Like, why are you hiring Larry Summers, who is one of the people who worked at all these banks and didn't believe the bailouts were going to be big enough, and then to come in in the worst economic crisis in modern American history? That was 2008, and Summers actively lobbied against larger bailouts, which had huge implications for working class people and pretty much hollowed out America since. Okay, from Trump, same thing. You're like, I'm going to drain the swamp. And by doing that, I'm going to hire Goldman Sachs's Gary Cohn and Steve Minuchin and all these other absolute Bush clowns in order to run my White House. Well, yeah, no shit. The only thing that you accomplished in your”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same thing on the right. And he's like, that ultimately is really all you can do. I quibble and disagree with that in terms of how he could have changed things in 2008, but there's a lot of truth to that statement.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you want it done, it has to be done. I mean, Part of the reason that outsiders who don't have a lot of experience in Washington almost always fail is they don't know who to pick or they pick people who say one thing to their face and then when it comes time to carry out the president's policy in terms of the government they just don't do it and the president's too think about this I think some Ram Emmanuel said this he was like by the time it gets to the president's desk nobody else can solve it it's not easy it's not like a yes or a no question it's every single thing that hits the president's desk is incredibly hard to do and Obama actually even said and this was a very revealing quote about how he thinks about the presidency which is he's like look the presidency is like one of those super tankers you know he's like i can come in and i can make it two degrees left and two degrees right in a hundred years two degrees left that's a whole different trajectory yeah”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's the problem, which is that we have a culture of within many of these agencies and more. I think the best example for this would be during the Ukraine gate with Trump and all that, with the impeachment. I'm not talking about the politics here, but the most revealing thing that happened was when the whistleblower guy, Alexander Vinman, was like, here you have the president departing from the policy of the United States. And I was like, well, let me educate you, Lieutenant Colonel. The president of the United States makes American foreign policy. But it was a very revealing comment because... He and all the people within national security bureaucracy do think that. They're like, this is the policy of the United States. We have to do this. That's where things get screwy.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“AKA Deep State. Well, but see, it's not this is the thing, too. I want to make it clear because I think people think conspiratorially that they're all coming together to intentionally do something. No, no, no, no. They are doing what they know, believe they are right, and don't have real democratic checks within that. And so now they have entire generations of cultures within each of these bureaucracies where they say, this is the way that we do things around here.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They all failed in order to radically disrupt that. And that just shows you how Titanic the task is. And I'm using my language precisely because I don't want to be like deep state, but like, obviously there's deep state.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Months in order to figure this thing out. And by that time, now you're midterms. So now what? Now you got to run for reelection. So more what I mean by that is. If you don't have a hyperintentional view about how to change foreign policy, if you don't have a hyperintentional view about how the Department of Commerce should do its job, they are just going to go on autopilot. So this is part of the problem. When you ask me about the presidency, it's not the presidency itself, like the president himself, which has become too powerful. It's that we have less democratic checks on the people and the systems that are on autopilot. And I would say that basically since 2008, we have voted every single time to disrupt that system except in the case of 2020 with Joe Biden, and there are a lot of different reasons around why that happened. And in every single one of those cases, Obama and Trump.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There definitely is. And part of the problem, and one of the things I try to make come across to people is if you're the president, unless you have a hyper intentional view of how something must be different in government, your view doesn't matter. So for example, like if you were, let's take Trump even, and even in with a pretty intentional view, he was like, I'm going to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, right? And he came in and he gets these generals in. He's like, I want to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh, and I want to withdraw these troops from Syria. And they're like, okay, we'll give you like six months. He's like, okay, and this is the thing about Trump. He doesn't realize that it's bullshit. So they're like, he's like, six months seems fun. Right. So then six months comes. And he's like, he's like, so, and then he'll announce it. He'll be like, and we're getting out of Syria. It's great. And then the generals freak out. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't have a plan for that. He's like, but you guys told me six months. He's like, I don't know. Now we need another six months.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Since like pre Civil War, right? Like pre Civil War, you had like Henry Clay and then Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, who even in their own way, they represented like larger constituencies and they crafted these compromises up until the outbreak of the Civil War, etc. But post since then, you don't think about like the Titans within the Senate. Most of that is because a lot of the stuff that they had power over has transferred over to the executive. So I'm most interested in really in like power, like where it lies. It's actually pretty throughout American history, much more used to lie with Congress. Now it's obviously just so imbued within the executive that understanding executive power is, I think, the thing I'm probably most interested in here.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In your view, the presidency, well, the presidency is my favorite to study, obviously, because it is the one where there's most subjective variable change in terms of the personality involved because of so much power imbued within the executive. The Senate is actually pretty much the same. One of the things I love about reading about the Senate and histories of the Senate is you're like, oh yeah, there were always like assholes in the Senate who were doing their thing and filibustering constantly based upon this or that. And then the personalities involved with the Senate haven't mattered as much.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the people who That's basically it. Oh, and they decide whether those laws are in, they fall within the restrictions and the want of the founders as expressed by the Constitution of the United States, which is a set of principles that we came together in 1787. I want to make sure I get this right. 1787 and decided that we were going to live the rest of our lives barring a revolution and more. And we've made it 200 and something years in order under that system.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Should we destroy you? I would say we come together and we pick the people who make our laws. Then we pick the guy who executes those laws. And they together pick the people who determine whether they or the president is breaking the law at the most basic level. That's how I would describe it.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then the incentives within that system about what the outcomes that they're producing if you actually want to think about how can I change this from the outside? That's also why it's very difficult to change because the system is designed in order to produce actually pretty specific outcomes that can only be changed in extraordinary times.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you think about also same with the media relationship, right? Like there's this media really, they may have come and gone. Like the people who were in the media and who were cozy with the administration officials, I mean, they just recreated themselves. It's like an ecosystem which doesn't change. And that's why I'm like, oh, it's not that was a specific time. That's just DC. is DC because of the way the system is architected. It's pretty much been that way since like 1908 whenever like, you know, Teddy Roosevelt was dining with these journalists and he would yell at them and then he would go over to the society house and like in many ways that's now instead of going to Henry Adams' house like the people are congregating in Calorama, which is the richest neighborhood here at somebody else's house. Like it's the same thing. So you have to think about the system.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, these are Washington in the story of the post New Deal era and forward. Not much has changed. Like, the Senate is still the Senate. So many of the same problems with the Senate are still there. In some cases, no, not anymore. But for a while, some of the people who were there with Johnson are actually still one of them is the President of the United States, just a joke.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the downside risk of what you're creating because that is what leads and creates the behavior within that system. I was just talking to my girlfriend about this yesterday. It's kind of funny. I'm obsessed with these books by Robert Carroll, the biographies of Lyndon Johnson. He's written like 5,000 pages so far, and it's still not done. Okay, so like these are like books I base my life on.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And more. I basically think that 1400, the wars between the wars between France, England, the balance of power eventually World War I, and then serfdom within Russia, the Russian Revolution that birthed Stalin, same thing, the Kaiser and Imperial Germany and this like incredibly crazy system of balance of power in World War I. And then same thing within China in terms of the warring states and then the disintegration, the European, you know, how this is how they think of it, which is like the center of humiliation and they had to have something like this. I think of it. I try to think of it within the context of that. I don't want to think of an inevitabilist, but I think of it as I like to think about systems, especially here in DC. That's why I got into politics, which is that you have to understand systems of power and the incentives within systems and the distinct.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Third Reich in power. Let me plug it by Richard Evans, I think is what it was because that actually will tell you, like, what was it like to live under the Nazi regime without the war? Yeah. Yeah, it's a hard question in terms of the lessons that we can learn because there's a lot and it's actually been over, it's been over indexed almost. Everything comes back to Hitler in a conversation. So I kind of think of it within Mao, Stalin, and Hitler as I don't want to say payments for, but like. The end point payment for the sins and the problems of the monarchical system that evolve within Europe. Basically like 1400.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what I got from Rogan? He's the only president who didn't age while in office. It's true, right? Like, because, and this is what I mean, because he lives in the moment. Like the job actually. Aged Obama. I mean, Bush, same thing. Even Clinton, Clinton was like fat. He looked miserable by 2000 HW. I mean, Reagan famous. Actually, yeah, pretty much everybody I think about Including John F. Kennedy, who got much sicker while in office. The job weighs on you and makes you physically ill. Trump was, he's the only person who just didn't happen to it.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not at all. I think he's been the same person Since 1976, I really do. Basically 1976. I studied Trump a lot, and I think he's basically been the core of who he is and elements of that. Ever since he built that, you know, the ice rink in Central Park and got that media attention Was”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't. I look, I was a White House correspondent. I observe this man very closely. I interviewed him. I think if that mic is hot, he knows what he's doing. He's done this too long, Lex. He just knows.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Who came before him was assassinated, he easily could have coasted, but he literally willed the country into something more. And that is, that's always why I focused a lot on him too, because I'm like, that, in many ways, I wouldn't say it's easy to be great during crisis. I mean, like, look at Trump, right? But it can bring out the best within you. But it's a whole other level to bring out the best within yourself just for the sake of doing it. That's, I think, really interesting”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Inc The only president who willed himself to greatness that's like the amazing thing about him, he wasn't tested by a crisis, right? Like he wasn't, he didn't have the Civil War. He didn't have World War II. He didn't have to found the country, literally, or didn't have to stave off that. Or he didn't buy Louisiana purchase. He literally came into a pretty static country and he could have just governed, you know, with, I mean, he was the person.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And all that. But if you look at Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt in particular, this was, I mean, a voracious reader, not of just American history, all history. He wrote.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's really hard question. In terms of the modern era, I mean, Obama was a student of history. Like, he used to have presidential Biographers and people over, and I mean, famously, like Robert A. Carroll, one of my favorite presidential biographers, he was invited to, you know, have dinner with Obama. And Obama would like pepper some of his, it was interesting because he'd try and justify some of the things he didn't do by being like, well, if you look at what they had to do and what I have to deal with, mine's much harder. So in that way, I was a little pissed off because I'd be like, no, that actually, like you're comparing apple storeies.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Combination of all three. I do think he believes it. And for the reason why is I don't think he knows that much about US history. I really mean that. And that's what I meant whenever I was in there and I realized he was just living in the moment. I don't think he knew all that much about why. I mean, this is why I was elected in many ways, right? So I'm not saying this is a Norbit, like I'm not making a judgment on this. I'm just saying I do think in his mind he does think he was one of the best presidents in American history, largely because, and I encountered this with a lot of people work for him, which is that they didn't really know all that much kind of about what came before and all that. And it's not necessarily to hold it against them because for in many ways that's what they were elected to do or elected to be in many ways.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So funny But it's like you said he's very charismatic and friendly. I mean, you wouldn't know, I mean, look, this is what I mean in terms of the dynamism of these people that gets lost. And I think even he knows that. I don't think he would want that side of him. That you see in those off-the-record moments and more in order to come out because he's very keen about how Like, you know, even his presidential portrait, everybody usually smiles and he refused to smile. He was like, I want to look like Winston Churchill. You know, like even he knew that.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's just like, you guys want to die? Go, right? And you're sitting there, and you're like, the way he's able to like, like the last time I interviewed him, he wanted to do it outside because he like he's studied himself from all angles and he knows exactly how he looks on a camera and with the witch lighting. And so we were supposed to interview him on camera in the Oval Office, which is actually rare. Like, you don't usually get that. And they ended up moving it outside at the last minute. And he came out, and he's like, I picked this spot for you. He's like, great lighting. I was like, you are your own lighting director?”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that's part of it because I notice that with Trump, you know, he's like, it's almost like a tour guide. It was very like it's very crazy, right? Because you're like, you're in the oval. I mean, it's his office. And he's like, he's like, do you guys want anything? He's like, you want a diet Coke? Because he drinks all this diet coke. You know what I mean?”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And one of the journalists was like, Mr. President, thank you for doing this press conference. And he looks at him and he goes, It's called Earn Media. It's worth billions. He just had so much disdain for him because he's like, I'm not doing this for you. He's like, I'm doing this for me.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tell you well, here's the thing though because that's another part of it because that two hours, I would say like half that was not on the record. So, like, whenever he's off the record, he changes completely, right? I don't want to go into too much of it or whatever, but like. He mean he is so mindful of when that camera is on and when the mic is hot in terms of the language that he uses, what he's willing to admit, what he's willing to talk about, how he's willing to even appear in front of his staff. I think the most revealing thing Trump ever did was there was this press conference like right after he lost after the midterm elections in 2018.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he's like veterans choice. And I remember looking at him and being like, it's not going to be veterans. I'm like, I'm looking at you, Donald Trump, the harbinger of something new. We still don't know what the hell it is. And so I realized with these guys and their charisma and more is that they don't think about themselves the way that we think about them. And that was actually important to understand because a lot of people like Trump is playing all this chess. I'm like, I assure you he's not. Like he's truly living. One time I was interviewing him and he had like a certificate that he had to sign or something on his desk. He's like, it was like child almost. He got distracted by the, he's like, oh, what's this? It's like picking up and I was like, wow, like this. Is the guy like this? This is what he is.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“None of it, right? So, like, even the desk, I put my phone on the desk to record, and I'm like, this is the resolute desk. Like, I just shouldn't put my phone on this thing. And I'm like, HMS Resolute, you know, all that, you know, national, even for him, he doesn't think about any of it. It was like. Amazing to me. Like he had this portrait of Andrew Jackson right next to the, I think from on the fireplace, like right here on the right. And the most revealing question was when I was like, Mr. President, what are people going to remember you for in a hundred years? And he was like, he was like, I don't know, like veterans choice. He like has a list in front of him of like his accomplishments, which is station. Yeah, well, I mean, that's what I wanted to know”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I wasn't scared. I was just look, it's the Oval Office, right? I mean, I'm this nerd. He was like this kid. I will admit this here. Like I printed out on my dad's label maker when I was like seven and I wrote like the Oval Office on my bedroom. So I was like, you know, a huge nerd. Like obviously egomaniacal. Even from seven. But so like for this, I mean, it was huge, right? I'm like this 25-year-old kid. And like I walk in there And I see the couch, right? And I'm like, oh man, like, that's Kissinger. Like, you know, I'm like, that's where Kissinger and Nixon got on their knees. And you see over by the door and you're like, are the scuff marks still there from when Eisenhower used to play golf? You know, this is all running through my mind. With Trump, none of”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or whatever, it's like, it really was fascinating for me to look at. And what was also crazy with Trump is I realized how much he was living in the moment. So like when I went to the Oval, you know, I've read all these biographies and like I walk in, I'm like, holy shit. You're like, I'm in the oval office.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Excuse me. You know, like he knows. And then whenever you're talking, it's not that he's annoyed about getting interrupted. If he realizes he's been mirandering and then you interrupt him, all good. But if he's striving home a point which he has to make sure appears in your transcript.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I can tell you from my personal experience, one of the best educated lessons I got was when I got to meet Trump. So I interviewed Trump four different times as a journalist, spent like two and a half hours with him in the Oval Office, not alone, but like me and one person and like the press secretary. And that was it. So I actually got to observe him. And as a guy who reads these types of books, right? And, you know, you think of Trump, obviously most people, what they see on television, you know, in articles and more, but being able to observe it like one-on-one, I was closer to him than, you know, than I am right now from you. That was one of the most educational experiences I got because it's like you just said, the look, the leaning forward, the way he talks, the way he is a master at taking the question and answering exactly which party he wants. And then if you try and follow up, he's like,”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I heard you ask this once and I've thought about it a lot, which is like who could have stopped Hitler in Germany, right? It's always like the ever-present question. Of course, like the whole baby Hitler thing. Really, the answer is Hindenburg. Like Hindenburg was the person who could have stopped and had the immense standing within the German public, the only real war hero definitely was personally skeptical of fascism, a Nazism. And didn't like him, and he knew he was full of shit. He was like, Yeah, I think this guy is dangerous. I think this guy could do a lot of damage to the republic, but he acceded basically to Hitler at the time. And I think that he was the main people who could have done something about it.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think you worked at it. But also, there is an innate quality. I'm forgetting his name, his lifelong Rudolf, the one who flew to Berlin in 1940. Anyway, so he helped Hitler write Mein Kant. And he was like slavishly devoted to him in prison. This is 1925 or something like that. And so you read that and you're like, well, how does he get this like crank wacko to basically believe he's like the second coming? Help him write this book. I mean, he literally, they live together in the prison cell and they would wake up every day. And as he was composing Mein Kampf and because of the beer hall puts and all that had this like absolute ability to gather people around him, I think his greatest skill was as he was just a very good politician. Truly. I mean, if you look at his ability in order to read coalitional politics and then convince exactly the right people in order to follow him”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Becomes like second fiddle to Hitler. I think it's an amazing bio. And yeah, like Ian Kershaw, along with Richard Evans, two of my favorite authors on the Third Reich, no question.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's English, which is actually hard, right? Like, in order to write that story, who can do both the primary source material and then translate it for people like us? But he tells the dynamic story of Hitler so well in this second volume, just like the level of detail. You've talked about this, Lex, like, what was it like inside that room, inside with Chamberlain? Like, what was it like in terms of who was this like magnetic madman who did convince the smartest people in the world at the time? And, you know, up until like 1940, the Soviet gamble, like was it took tremendous risks, but like highly calculated thinking, no, no, no, I'm not going to pay for this one. I'm not going to pay for this one. And it put himself, he had a remarkable ability not just to put himself in the minds of the German people, but in terms of his adversaries, like with when he was across from Mussolini. Calculia, he's like, how exactly did Mussolini, the guy who created fascism?”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. So this is Ian Kershaw. He wrote the famous two volume on Hitler. I'm a big book nerd and I spend a lot of time reading biographies in particular. So this one, if you need a one volume, rise and fall the third Reich, right? I think you talked about that, William Shire, because that's like Hitler's rise, Nazi Germany, the war, etc. But I like bios because it's a good biography is story of the times, right? And so this one, the first volume, it does exactly that, which is that it doesn't just tell the story of Hitler. It's the context of poor, you know, this kid in Austria, and he's got all these dreams, but then actually pretty courageous in terms of World War I, right, gets pinned a metal on by the Kaiser. And then what it's like to lose World War I and actually like lose this stain and then the rise within everybody knows that story, the Beer Hall puts and all that. This one I like, and the reason I like Kershaw is obviously number one.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source