Carlos Lozada is a columnist for The New York Times, and before that, the longtime nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post.
In 2019, Lozada won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism for a series of pieces that judges described as “trenchant and searching reviews and essays that joined warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience.”
Well, he's now collected nearly a decade of such reviews in what he calls “The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians,” which was released this week.
“If the art of politics can be to subtract meaning from language to produce more and more words that say less and less,” he writes, “then it is my purpose as a journalist to try to find that meaning and put it back.”
He reads a lot of books by politicians. As he likes to say, he reads all those books so that you don't have to.
But he's found a way to use those books to say something interesting about those same politicians.
So what does Carlos's close reading of the likes of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and many others reveal about our politics in 2024?
It turns out quite a lot. On this week’s episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza sits down with Carlos in POLITICO's offices to find out more.
Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Carlos Lozada is an opinion columnist and co-host of the weekly “Matter of Opinion” podcast for The New York Times.
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio.
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.
How Hunter Biden, Jack Smith, and Trump’s legal troubles are setting the stage for 2024
Why James Lankford expects a border breakthrough
Steve Scalise reveals what’s really happened since McCarthy’s fall
Why the era of the ‘Emerging Democratic Majority’ is collapsing
Why US politics has become must-see TV abroad
Why Democrats keep stubbing their toes on the working class vote
The GOP’s new strategy to win on abortion
How GOP moderates have Jim Jordan pinned
Biden deputy national security adviser lifts the fog of war in Israel
How to fight a president, please a billionaire, and save a newspaper
How the UAW strike swallowed Biden, Trump, and the 2024 campaign
Katherine Clark names the Democrats’ price to save Kevin McCarthy
Who’s really in charge? McCarthy, moderates, or the Freedom Caucus?
Revelations about Biden’s White House from the first inside account
Behind the scenes at the GOP debate with Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier
How Doug Burgum plans to disrupt the GOP debate & scale his campaign
How to beat Trump in Iowa – and survive the state fair
What American leaders don't get about the new Europe
What Republicans, Democrats, and the Pentagon don’t want to hear about the NDAA
Behind the scenes at DHS with Alejandro Mayorkas
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Tiny Desk Concerts - Video
The Axe Files with David Axelrod
Left, Right & Center
The Jason Stapleton Program
Podcast for America