The Gray Area with Sean Illing14 Mar 2017

Denis McDonough on how to run the White House

How do you actually run a White House? What is the president’s actual job? What is the chief of staff’s role? What happens if you screw up? These are questions I’ve been reflecting on rather a lot lately, for obvious reasons. And so I asked Denis McDonough on the podcast to talk about them.McDonough served as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff from 2013 to 2017 — a position in which he earned the nickname “Obama’s Obama.” This is his first lengthy interview since leaving the White House, and he was thoughtful, reflective, and sober about both the job he did, and the job his successors must do.This is a discussion about running the most important organization in the world well — and what happens when you fail. McDonough and the Obama administration did have their failures, and those failures taught them hard lessons.This discussion, to me, speaks to a great vulnerability opening up under the Trump White House. They are trying to pursue their agenda, but they are not effectively managing the vast organization they’re in charge of. That’s going to lead to mistakes, and those mistakes could come to define, or even destroy, this administration.Which is why, if there’s anyone who should listen to this podcast, it’s the current occupants of McDonough’s old workplace. This discussion is full of advice that’s useful to anyone running anything big, or anyone interested in how big things are run. I learned a lot from it. You will too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(764)

Halfway there: a philosopher’s guide to midlife crises

Philosophy often feels like a disconnected discipline, obsessed with tedious and abstract problems. But MIT professor Kieran Setiya believes philosophical inquiry has a practical purpose outside the c...

21 Apr 202550min

Whatever this is, it isn’t liberalism

What exactly is the basis for democracy? Arguably Iiberalism, the belief that the government serves the people, is the stone on which modern democracy was founded. That notion is so ingrained in the ...

14 Apr 202553min

A new way to listen

We have an exciting announcement! Vox Members now get access to ad-free podcasts. If you sign up, you’ll get unlimited access to reporting on vox.com, exclusive newsletters, and all of our podcasts — ...

11 Apr 20251min

The beliefs AI is built on

There’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to artificial intelligence. Technologists love to talk about all the good these tools can do in the world, all the problems they might solve. Yet, many of th...

7 Apr 202550min

Stop comparing yourself to AI

Why do we keep comparing AI to humans? Jaron Lanier — virtual reality pioneer, digital philosopher, and the author of several best-selling books on technology — thinks that we should stop. In his vie...

31 Mar 202555min

Democrats need to do something

American government has a speed issue. Both parties are slow to solve problems. Slow to build new things. Slow to make any change at all. Until now. The Trump administration is pushing through sweepi...

24 Mar 202550min

How to live in uncertain times

Humans hate uncertainty. It makes us feel unsafe and uneasy. We often organize our lives to avoid it. When it's foisted upon us, we don’t always know how to act. But writer and journalist Maggie Jacks...

17 Mar 202548min

How to sink into silence

How often do you find silence? And do you know what to do with it when you do? Today’s guest is essayist and travel writer Pico Iyer. His latest book is Aflame: Learning From Silence, which recounts h...

10 Mar 202546min