Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., arrives to watch a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy live-streamed into the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, Wednesday, March 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
Lawyer and historian Ira Shapiro, author of three widely-acclaimed books on the history of the U.S. Senate, speaks with co-hosts Garrett Epps and Anne Kim about the Senate’s long decline over the last 30 years, the role of former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the destruction of the institution, and the need for the Senate to step forward to defend US democracy.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Ira Shapiro’s Career and Works
03:31 The Decline of the Senate and Mitch McConnell’s Impact
06:30 McConnell’s Decisions and Their Consequences
Anne Kim is a Senior Editor at Washington Monthly and the author of Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich Off America’s Poor (New Press, 2024).
Anne is also a Senior Fellow at FutureEd and the author of Abandoned: America’s Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection, winner of the 2020 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice. She writes about education, economics, domestic and social policy, and who has access to opportunity in America.
Anne has served as legislative director and deputy chief of staff to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). She's also worked in senior roles at multiple D.C. think tanks, including the Progressive Policy Institute and Third Way, where she was director of the Economic Program and founding director of the Social Policy and Politics Program.
Anne has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a law degree from Duke University.
