BONUS | The presidents who’ve tried to win back the White House
This is the second of two special “ Presidential ” podcast episodes released in advance of the presidential election on Nov. 5. The episodes...
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Presidential
Leading up to Election Day 2016, The Washington Post's Presidential podcast explores how each former American president reached office, made decisions, handled crises and redefined the role...
Episodes
20 of 60 episodes
BONUS | Women, politics and the presidency
“Presidential” host Lillian Cunningham talks with Sharon McMahon , the creator behind Instagram’s @SharonSaysSo , about women’s ongoing figh...
Introducing, "The Sports Moment"
Ava Wallace, sports reporter at The Washington Post, is in France to report on the Summer Games — and eat a lot of croissants. Join her thro...
The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop: ‘Somebody knows’
Every 19th of October, Grenadians mark a somber anniversary: the 1983 execution of the country’s former prime minister and revolutionary lea...
Introducing “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop”
Grenada’s Black revolutionary leader, Maurice Bishop, was executed in a coup in 1983, along with seven others. The whereabouts of their rema...
Listen to the first episode of “Field Trip”: Yosemite National Park
To hear the rest of the series, follow “Field Trip” wherever you listen. California’s Sierra Nevada is home to a very special kind of tree,...
Introducing “Field Trip”
Journey through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks. The Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham ventures off the m...
A sneak peek from Lillian
Exclusively for listeners of “Presidential,” Lillian Cunningham shares news about her new podcast. You don’t want to miss this.
BONUS | Happy Presidents’ Day! Or … not?
Students, teachers and historians reflect on what has changed — and should change — about the way we teach presidential history today. This...
Joe Biden: Triumph, tragedy and the fate of the center
Four years later, the “Presidential” podcast adds a new biography to its cadre of American presidents. This special episode explores Joe Bid...
BONUS | What books about Trump say about America
Books published in the Trump era reveal the battles over, and changes in, the American presidency today. In this special episode of “Preside...
BONUS | Pandemic, propaganda and the presidency
The 1918 influenza pandemic killed more than 675,000 Americans, but President Woodrow Wilson never made a single public statement about it....
BONUS | When a VP pick changes history
Geraldine Ferraro broke a major barrier in American politics in 1984, when she became the first woman nominated for the vice presidency by a...
BONUS | Binding up the nation's wounds
The famous black contralto singer Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after being denied the ability to perform down...
LIVE EVENT | 'Unprecedented Presidents' live from WBUR CitySpace
Four years after making Presidential, host Lillian Cunningham led a panel examining what's really unprecedented--or not--about Donald Trump'...
Donald Trump: Division and union
In this final episode of the podcast, Library of Congress historians Michelle Krowl and Julie Miller return--along with Washington Post jour...
Barack Obama: The pursuit of identity
Political strategist David Axelrod and biographer David Maraniss discuss Barack Obama's search for identity -- and how that quest has parall...
George W. Bush: Changing course
Peter Baker, author of "Days of Fire" and a journalist with the New York Times, joins historian Mark Updegrove to examine how George W. Bush...
Bill Clinton: The good and the bad
David Maraniss, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Bill Clinton, explores how Clinton's core character traits had both a bright...
George H. W. Bush: Restraint
Historians Jon Meacham and Jeffrey Engel discuss President Bush's unique form of presidential leadership--a vintage combination of public se...