Dr. Bandy Lee saw it coming – the violence foretold in Donald Trump’s election. While millions of Americans were still trying to figure out if Trump was just a crude playboy and fast-talking con man she felt a duty to warn the country about dangerous possibilities stemming from a man who lacked the mental fitness to be president. For almost 20 years she had been trying to understand violence. It was her calling. After earning medical and divinity degrees while studying at Yale and Harvard, and a stint at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined Yale’s faculty to teach in both the school of medicine and the law school. In her clinical practice, she treated inmates in maximum security prisons. And in time she began applying psychiatric concepts to public health and safety. When Trump emerged as a political candidate, everything she had learned from her career in mental health seemed to converge. She began corresponding with kindred spirits and colleagues about how best to make their voices heard. She would become the catalyst of their collaboration, and the editor of the book they produced, titled THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP. It appeared just months after Trump’s inauguration and became an instant bestseller, dubbed by The Washington Post as “the most courageous book of the year.” But not without a price. Bandy Lee and colleagues had broken ranks to speak the truth, had stirred the hornet’s nest, and the hornets came after them in swarms. Now, Bandy Lee has published another book – PROFILE OF A NATION: TRUMP’S MIND, AMERICA’S SOUL.
Bill Moyers recorded this interview with Dr. Lee on January 14, 2021. It has been edited for clarity.
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Dr. Bandy Lee saw it coming – the violence foretold in Donald Trump’s election. While millions of Americans were still trying to figure out if Trump was just a crude playboy and fast-talking con man she felt a duty to warn the country about dangerous possibilities stemming from a man who lacked the mental fitness to be president. For almost 20 years she had been trying to understand violence. It was her calling. After earning medical and divinity degrees while studying at Yale and Harvard, and a stint at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined Yale’s faculty to teach in both the school of medicine and the law school. In her clinical practice, she treated inmates in maximum security prisons. And in time she began applying psychiatric concepts to public health and safety. When Trump emerged as a political candidate, everything she had learned from her career in mental health seemed to converge. She began corresponding with kindred spirits and colleagues about how best to make their voices heard. She would become the catalyst of their collaboration, and the editor of the book they produced, titled THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP. It appeared just months after Trump’s inauguration and became an instant bestseller, dubbed by The Washington Post as “the most courageous book of the year.” But not without a price. Bandy Lee and colleagues had broken ranks to speak the truth, had stirred the hornet’s nest, and the hornets came after them in swarms. Now, Bandy Lee has published another book – PROFILE OF A NATION: TRUMP’S MIND, AMERICA’S SOUL.
Bill Moyers recorded this interview with Dr. Lee on January 14, 2021. It has been edited for clarity.
Dr. Bandy Lee saw it coming – the violence foretold in Donald Trump’s election. While millions of Americans were still trying to figure out if Trump was just a crude playboy and fast-talking con man she felt a duty to warn the country about dangerous possibilities stemming from a man who lacked the mental fitness to be president. For almost 20 years she had been trying to understand violence. It was her calling. After earning medical and divinity degrees while studying at Yale and Harvard, and a stint at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined Yale’s faculty to teach in both the school of medicine and the law school. In her clinical practice, she treated inmates in maximum security prisons. And in time she began applying psychiatric concepts to public health and safety. When Trump emerged as a political candidate, everything she had learned from her career in mental health seemed to converge. She began corresponding with kindred spirits and colleagues about how best to make their voices heard. She would become the catalyst of their collaboration, and the editor of the book they produced, titled THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP. It appeared just months after Trump’s inauguration and became an instant bestseller, dubbed by The Washington Post as “the most courageous book of the year.” But not without a price. Bandy Lee and colleagues had broken ranks to speak the truth, had stirred the hornet’s nest, and the hornets came after them in swarms. Now, Bandy Lee has published another book – PROFILE OF A NATION: TRUMP’S MIND, AMERICA’S SOUL.
Bill Moyers recorded this interview with Dr. Lee on January 14, 2021. It has been edited for clarity.
Bill Moyers talks with Dr. Bandy Lee, editor of THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP. Four years ago, Dr. Lee felt a duty to warn the country about dangerous possibilities stemming from a man who lacked the mental fitness to be president, breaking the “Goldwater Rule.” Dr. Lee had no background or interest in politics. For almost 20 years, she had been trying to understand and prevent violence. It was her calling. After earning medical and divinity degrees while studying at Yale and Harvard, and a stint as chief resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined Yale’s faculty to teach in both the school of medicine and the law school. In her clinical practice, she treated inmates in maximum security prisons, and in time she began applying psychiatric concepts to public health and safety.
Bill Moyers and Heather Cox Richardson examine how a day meant for celebrating democracy turned into a riot that sought to overturn a free and fair election. Across the country and around the world people watched, horrified, dumbfounded and disbelieving, as insurrection incited by the President of the United States and his Republican enablers struck at the very centerpiece of American governance.
Bill Moyers talks with journalist and writer Ellis Cose whose most recent book is THE SHORT LIFE & CURIOUS DEATH OF FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA. Steeped in some of the critical debates of our times, Cose has grown increasingly concerned about democracy’s fate under the combined weight of technology, political corruption, and inequality.
Bill Moyers talks with noted lawyer Steven Harper and distinguished historian Heather Cox Richardson about threats to democracy. “When you have a society that loses respect for the rule of law, you lose civilization. There is an enormous price that gets paid.” — Steven Harper
Heather McGhee is descended from slaves in the American South. Her great- grandparents and grandparents came north to work in the steel mills. She grew up on the south side of Chicago, taught in Spain and studied writing in Hollywood, then decided to change the world, or at least try. Her new book is THE SUM OF US.
President Trump still will not admit he lost. Trump has flooded the courts with lawsuits. Here to assess what’s going on are two of the country’s most experienced lawyers in election litigation. Daryl Bristow worked for George W. Bush’s legal team on two Florida lawsuits regarding balloting for the 2000 presidential election. David Berg has recently taken Trump and others to court over their efforts to use the Postal Service to discredit and dismiss mail-in ballots.
This week, Bill Moyers talks with John Bonifaz and Ben Clements of Free Speech for People about the voting rights cases they've filed this election season and how we can work to protect our democracy after Election Day.
Bill Moyers talks with author Anne Nelson about the little-known Council for National Policy. Behind the scenes, the CNP wields immense power and will hang on to it by any means. Their current target: our judges.
We know more now than we knew then, including how the directives of Louis DeJoy have harmed the ability of the Postal Service, including with what they call the on-time departure, meaning on-time departure without your mail. And Louis DeJoy said he didn't forbid overtime, that he just restricted it. Okay. Well, that restriction had a huge impact on the on-time delivery of the mail. And so, the court rulings certainly worked to mitigate that.
On this week's MOYERS ON DEMOCRACY, Bill Moyers speaks to Lisa Graves about what's at stake in rushing Amy Coney Barrett's nomination through the Senate. Barrett is a young judge who has been nominated with the understanding that Republicans are looking for her to cast a vote for Trump from the bench.
Bill Moyers talks with Sarah Chayes about her new book ON CORRUPTION IN AMERICA: AND WHAT IS AT STAKE. "What I did was go to a variety of different countries and found that corrupt government was driving just about every world crisis you could name, including the environmental crisis, including mass migration, including a lot of civil strife. So, I felt as though focusing on anything else is almost derivative."
Want to know why presidents lie – and which one is the worst? Bill Moyers talks with Eric Alterman about his new book LYING IN STATE. That’s L-Y-I-N-G. Alterman's deep historical research and engaging prose offer insight into our troubled present and our presidential past.
One of America’s leading trial lawyers has taken Donald Trump to court, to stop what he describes as a conspiracy by the president, the postmaster general, and the Postal Service itself to rig the coming election.
What's behind the Trump administration's drive to kill off the post service? Expert Lisa Graves says the move began in earnest in the early 1970s. That's when billionaire Charles Koch began to turn his money and effort toward privatization of the USPS — he is using the Koch empire to push his political agenda to this day, when the postal service is ripe for taking.
Yes, the Civil War brought an end to the slave order of the South and the rule of the plantation oligarchs who embodied white supremacy. But the Northern victory was short lived -- Southern ideals spread quickly to the West. It's all about America’s ongoing battle between oligarchy and democracy.
Bill Moyers talks with historian Heather Cox Richardson about her decision last fall to start writing small essays on the history behind today’s politics and posting them on her Facebook page as LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN.
Steven was a litigator at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago and cited as one of the Best Lawyers in America. He created “The Trump-Russia Timeline” and now “The Pandemic Timeline.”
Dr. Bandy Lee saw it coming – the violence foretold in Donald Trump’s election. While millions of Americans were still trying to figure out if Trump was just a crude playboy and fast-talking con man she felt a duty to warn the country about dangerous possibilities stemming from a man who lacked the mental fitness to be president. For almost 20 years she had been trying to understand violence. It was her calling. After earning medical and divinity degrees while studying at Yale and Harvard, and a stint at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined Yale’s faculty to teach in both the school of medicine and the law school. In her clinical practice, she treated inmates in maximum security prisons. And in time she began applying psychiatric concepts to public health and safety. When Trump emerged as a political candidate, everything she had learned from her career in mental health seemed to converge. She began corresponding with kindred spirits and colleagues about how best to make their voices heard. She would become the catalyst of their collaboration, and the editor of the book they produced, titled THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP. It appeared just months after Trump’s inauguration and became an instant bestseller, dubbed by The Washington Post as “the most courageous book of the year.” But not without a price. Bandy Lee and colleagues had broken ranks to speak the truth, had stirred the hornet’s nest, and the hornets came after them in swarms. Now, Bandy Lee has published another book – PROFILE OF A NATION: TRUMP’S MIND, AMERICA’S SOUL.
Bill Moyers recorded this interview with Dr. Lee on January 14, 2021. It has been edited for clarity.
