Byron is a political journalist. He was a news producer for CNN in the early years, a reporter for The American Spectator, and the White House correspondent for National Review. He’s currently the chief political correspondent for Washington Examiner and a contributor to Fox News. His most recent book is the 2020 bestseller, Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment’s Never-Ending War on Trump. We chewed over the recent political past and then got on to Trump, where things got stickier but still friendly.

For two clips of our convo — on Clinton Derangement Syndrome in the ‘90s, and Trump bungling his gains on immigration — pop over to our YouTube page.

Other topics: raised in Alabama; his dad a pioneer star in local TV news; the GOP takeover of the South; George Wallace; the Nation of Islam and AIDS; GOP fusionism in the Cold War; Mickey Kaus’ courage; David Brock’s war on the Clintons; Bill’s triangulation and the DLC; Vince Foster; Lewinsky and impeachment; Ken Starr; Iraq and WMD; covering Dubya for National Review; that mag marginalized since Trump; Birtherism and demonizing Obama; McCain and the market crash; Obamacare; the Santorum candidacy; Pat Buchanan; Trump vs Jeb on 9/11; Trump blowing up GOP orthodoxies; Hillary in 2016; Russiagate; pardoning all January 6-ers; Trump’s impeachments and McConnell; open borders under Biden; CHIPS and IRA; Trump hypocrisy on E-Verify; authoritarianism and self-deportation; Tom Homan; Bukele; the Alien Enemies Act; the SCOTUS standoff; judge shopping; DEI; Musk and DOGE; USAID and PEPFAR; Zelensky in the Oval; NATO; Chris Krebs; the tariff war; Trump’s yips; and the looming empty shelves.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Claire Lehmann on the woke right, David Graham on Project 2025, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on the Biden years, Robert Merry on President McKinley, Sam Tanenhaus on Bill Buckley, Walter Isaacson on Ben Franklin, and Paul Elie on his book The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Frances Lee is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton, and her books include The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Age. Steve Macedo —an old friend from Harvard — is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton, and his books include Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage. The book they just co-wrote is called In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us.

For two clips of our convo — on the demonization of dissent during Covid, and where the right went wrong on the pandemic — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: Frances raised in the Deep South; Steve from a family of educators in Massachusetts; his Jesuit schooling as a gay Catholic; how both were natural contrarians; the pre-pandemic plans for Covid; their personal reactions to the outbreak; the emergency after 9/11; the Spanish flu; the cost/benefit of lockdowns; the different reactions in red and blue states; the Sweden model; the trillions of dollars in Covid relief; Fauci’s appeal to authority; Partygate and Newsom’s French Laundry; the remote work enjoyed by elites; how blue-collar workers bore the brunt; the generational injustice suffered by kids; Operation Warp Speed; the early myths of the vaccine; the Ptown vaccinated outbreak; censorship on social media; the moralizing of the MSM; the public-health hypocrisy on BLM protests; the mask mandates after the vaccines; how boosters weren’t backed by good evidence; the Great Barrington Declaration; the Ebright testimony; the “Proximal Origin” paper; gain of function and the short-lived moratorium; the illiberal mistakes of Francis Collins; addressing his claims on lab leak; and the alarming current risks of viral escape.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Byron York on Trump 2.0, Claire Lehmann on the woke right, Robert Merry on President McKinley, Sam Tanenhaus on Bill Buckley, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on the Biden years, and Paul Elie on his book The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Francis is a physician and geneticist whose work has led to the discovery of the cause of cystic fibrosis, among other diseases. In 1993 he was appointed director of the Human Genome Project, which successfully sequenced all three billion letters of our DNA. He went on to serve three presidents as the director of the National Institutes of Health. The author of many books, including The Language of God, his latest is The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust.

Our conversation was entirely agreeable until we talked about trust, and his own handling of the Covid epidemic. I asked him in depth about the lab-leak theory and why he and Tony Fauci passionately dismissed it from the get-go, even as it now appears to be the likeliest source of the terrible virus. Things got intense.

For two clips of our convo — intense debate on the “Proximal Origin” paper outright denying a lab leak as the source of Covid-19, and Francis finding God after decades of atheism — pop over to our YouTube page.

Other topics: growing up on a rustic farm in Shenandoah; his parents creating a community theater; homeschooled until 6th grade; his amazing scientific accomplishments as a young adult; his scientism; his terminally ill Christian patients; the AIDS crisis; C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity; the First Mover question; Ross Douthat and “fine-tuning”; the multiverse; the limits to the materialist view; deism; cradle believers vs converts; evolution and sacrificial altruism; Socrates; Jesus dying for our sins; the doubting Thomas; how angels manifest; Francis Bacon; Richard Dawkins; being the NIH director during Covid; trust and mistrust in science; the early confusion in pandemics; tribalism; dismal safety standards at the Wuhan lab; gain-of-function; EcoHealth and Peter Daszak; intel agencies on lab leak; furin cleavage sites; Kristian Andersen; geopolitical fears over Trump and China; the opacity of the CCP; the Great Barrington Declaration; Trump threatening science funding at the Ivies; In Covid’s Wake; and if Francis has any regrets after Covid.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Claire Lehmann on the woke right, Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee on Covid’s political fallout, Byron York on Trump 2.0, Robert Merry on President McKinley, Sam Tanenhaus on Bill Buckley, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on the Biden years, and Paul Elie on his book The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.