Cowardice

Yeah.

And, and these, these Republicans are, again, you know, Weisberg's got a great book out called Profiles in Cowardice.

Yeah.

These Republicans are such cowards.

Branch Torn Knight says,

Cowardice, furtiveness makes you unworthy.

And I think he reaches out and grabs at your ankle.

None of you can see it while you're all trying to catch your breath after having clashed with the Branch-Torn Knight.

That is the courage at the, left in the Republican Party right now.

Well, there is, there is a new book, and I, and I would hope we can get our, his, the author on our podcast in a few weeks, called, uh, Profiles in C- in Cowardice by Jake Weisberg, which is b-

Yeah

... which is about the various, uh, sectors of society, the leaders of those sectors who caved to Trump, um, when he came into office last year with a head of steam.

I'm here with my co-host, Sean Lenz.

Uh, we have been discussing for two previous episodes, um, uh, the question of collaboration in the Trump era, uh, with Jacob Weisberg and his breakthrough book, Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era.

And case study by case study, institution by ins- institution, Jake, uh, really illuminates what has happened to, um, to the, to these institutions, to leading individuals, and to our democracy.

Um, in our first episode, we discussed what happened with the judiciary, with John Roberts, and wi- with, in politics with Mitch McConnell.

In our second episode with Jake, we discussed business and the press with, uh, discussing Jeff Bezos.

And now we wanna discuss, uh, what's, what happened with big law and also the universities, which, um, Jake covers in Profiles in Cowardice.

Um, welcome back to the Court of History, Jake.

Thank you.

I've got a great guest joining me today.

It's the author of Profiles in Cowardice, Jacob Weisberg.

I think you're going to love our conversation.

It is the 1st of October.

And normally during this part of the show, I've got the best clips from yesterday.

Don't have a clip show for you today because of technical and timing issues.

But I am going to jump right into my conversation with Jacob Weisberg, whose new book is Profiles in Cowardice.

It's really good.

He protested against the injustice of the captain's charge, he fought against the folly of the captain's orders.

But the shame of it all persisted, the light of the lantern was an eye of flaming contempt on him, and Meaghan's great voice rang out his infamy with a COWARD! COWARD! that was a bell booming in his ears.

He struggled with the cases of cartridges, muttering to himself, sick and dizzy.

and every minute that he worked was a minute wasted.

When I was growing up in the last century, one of my favorite books was John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

Well, now journalist Jacob Weisberg has written a book for our century called Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, case studies of eight key figures whose cowardice is emblematic of our time.

Here's the way The New York Times review of his book begins.

"Say what you like about President Trump, he has ushered in a golden age of cravenness.

I'm offering you my resignation.

If you want someone who's gonna give in to this, this blackmail, find someone else to do it," I think they would've rallied around him, and I think the rest of the legal profession would've ultimately rallied around Paul Weiss, and I think the scenario could have played out very differently than it did.

This is what makes this, you know, his appearance in this book, Profiles in Cowardice, so interesting because first of all, he had the resources, he had the wealth, um, he had the incentives to be able to fight back.

Yes, Donald Trump could have hurt him, but, um, you know, he wasn't going to be losing his head, he wasn't gonna be losing his livelihood, and so he made the choice to capitulate, and now this is how he's going to be remembered.

But before we introduce him, I want to talk about a few things with you.

The book is called Profiles in Cowardice, and I'm going to hold it up.

And there's a reason I'm holding it up.

Look what

And what's going to go on is, just as people are studying Vichy France and Nazi Germany, and we're going to even discuss this later with another guest...

Timothy Ryback, is why people act the way they do.

And Jake's book, Profiles in Cowardice, is more than the first draft of history.

It's not simply a newspaper story.