TBD with Tina Brown

Just a decade ago, Ece Temelkuran was recognized as the most-read political columnist in Turkey, then a thriving secular democracy. Today, she no longer lives in Turkey and her homeland is on the knife’s edge of dictatorship under the rule of President Erdogan. Temelkuran, author of the new book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, spoke with Tina about what other challenged democracies can learn from the loss of liberty in Turkey and how to recognize the common playbook in the rise of many populist leaders. She says neither anger nor laughter are shelters in the storm of authoritarianism and that lies have become permissible because we have lost all sense of shame.

Bruna Papandrea is known for getting things done in Hollywood. With almost two dozen films and TV series in the works with her production company Made Up Stories, Papandrea is currently riding the Monterey waves of her latest release: season two of the smash hit HBO series Big Little Lies. The new season reunites the award-winning female ensemble cast and ups the ante with the addition of the all-powerful Meryl Streep. Streep plays Celeste's (Nicole Kidman) mother-in-law who comes to town seeking answers about the death of her son and testing the pact of secrecy made by the five women who know how he was killed--and who did it.Papandrea, who joined with Reese Witherspoon to produce the hit films Gone Girl and Wild, also talks about what she learned from working with Hollywood legends Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, and why more women need to be given the creative keys to the kingdom in the entertainment industry.

Tina talks with her friend Ian Schrager, who will forever be known for co-founding Studio 54, the nightclub that set the standard for all time for New York nightlife and celebrity and left thousands of people cursing its velvet rope. Unless, of course, you got in. In the decades since, Schrager has proved he can make lightning strike again by reinventing himself as a spectacularly successful hotelier. Reigning over a string of hip boutique hotels from London to LA, Schrager has upped his game in recent years by recasting luxury in a more affordable mode and bringing back cool, if not disco, to a gentrified Times Square. He also talks with Tina about the epic Vanity Fair bash they threw together, why he was never the life of the party, and why his home life beats life in a swanky hotel any day.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

Adam Gopnik, the celebrated New Yorker writer whom Tina worked with for many years when she was editor in chief, talks with her about his new book, A Thousand Small Sanities, born of a talk he had with his teenage daughter on the night President Trump was elected. In the book, Gopnik posits that it is not radical revolution that brings about stable, pluralistic nations but the daily small sanities which flow from, among other liberal principles, the ideals of thriving public education and a permanent commitment to reform. He credits such forces as the culture-poking premises of some American TV sitcoms as agents of sane, cumulative political change. Gopnik also shares with his former editor how the assignment she gave him years ago––a posting in Paris—changed his outlook on the world.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

Andrew Gillum says he has gone through all the stages of grief after coming within less than half a percentage point--a round error margin as he points out--of becoming the first black governor of Florida. Now, he’s off to the next race. But instead of joining the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates, Gillum is going back to political organizing with the goal of delivering Florida’s key 29 electoral votes go to a Democrat in 2020. Gillum spoke with Tina about why Florida voters deserve more love from both political parties, what billionaire Tom Steyer should do with his money instead of backing impeachment and why Gillum is finally taking his wife on that long-promised vacation.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.https://broward.us/2019/03/21/andrew-gillums-new-mission-register-1-million-new-voters-and-beat-trump-in-2020/

Phoebe Robinson’s career is dope. She has a new comedy tour called Sorry, Harriet Tubman. She’s developing a new series for Amazon and she’s giving equal time to everyone but white dudes on her podcast Sooo Many White Men. Plus, she’s followed up her 2016 New York Times bestseller with a new book Everything is Trash but That’s Okay, her musings on everything from faux-feminists to the best worst reality TV. And in her free time, she is chatting it up with Michelle Obama on Michelle’s epic book tour. Phoebe joined Tina to talk about all of this as well as why many Hollywood stylists need a reality check, why she walked out of a recent gig and how to kill eight days in Bournemouth, UK.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

Dr. Jennifer Ashton, the chief medical correspondent for ABC News and a prominent physician with a private practice, has made a career of explaining difficult medical issues to her patients and viewers. Now, she has written a book about a trauma in her own life and the lives of 47,000 other families who lose a loved one to suicide each year. The book is called Life After Suicide: Finding Courage, Comfort and Community after Unthinkable Loss.Dr. Ashton wrote the book after her ex-husband, Robert, a 52-year-old thoracic surgeon, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in 2017. Dr. Ashton talks with Tina about how she and her children are working to move forward in their lives, the proper way for journalists to report on these kinds of deaths, and why we all need to get comfortable with the discomfort of talking about suicide.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

Chris Christie is a boisterous, larger-than-life politician who served two terms as governor of New Jersey and briefly ran for president in 2016 before dropping out of the primaries and being the first prominent Republican to back Donald Trump. But when Trump won, he essentially threw Christie overboard, passing him over for the two jobs in the administration he coveted: Vice-President and Attorney General. Sitting on the political bench at age 56 and now an ABC News contributor, Christie has written a book called Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics. Christie joins Tina to talk candidly about what the Mueller report means for Trump, the president’s extraordinary self-preservation instincts and why hiring family members is a very bad idea.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

Tina Brown talks with David Brooks, the New York Times op-ed columnist and author of the new book The Second Mountain. Brooks posits that decades of unfettered individualism and social freedom have left us all morally adrift. But he has identified four principles that can get one out this collective moral ditch and onto the path of a purposeful life: devotion to family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and a commitment to community. Tina and David also discuss the Republican Party in the age of Trump and what almost all commencement speeches get wrong.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

After scoring more international goals than any other player in the history of soccer, Abby Wambach has a new goal: helping girls and women be their most powerful selves. Abby talks with Tina about why soccer parents need to zip it, why gratitude is overrated and how it took just ten minutes to fall in love with her wife.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

Bill Browder is a whistleblower against the most powerful and richest thug on the planet: Russian President Vladimir Putin. In response, the Kremlin has expelled and convicted him twice in absentia on trumped-up charges. Browder, a financier who made a fortune in Russia, talks with Tina about going after Putin and other corrupt Russian officials and avenging the murder of his lawyer by successfully lobbying Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown And if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe to help spread the word.

Author, actress and activist Amber Tamblyn talks with Tina about creepy men in Hollywood, how motherhood put her activism into overdrive, and what it was like seeing Harvey Weinstein stare down New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor in a recent courtroom hearing.Amber Tamblyn's new book:Amber Tamblyn Breaks a Cycle of Abuse With Era of IgnitionA Highlight from the Interview:ON THE PODCAST, TINA DISCUSSES WITH AMBER TAMBLYN BEING IN THE COURTROOM WITH HARVEY WEINSTEIN: Tina: Did he look in your direction at all? Amber: He made eye contact with a few people. The person he looked the hardest at was who we know very well was sitting right across from us. As he walked down, he just stared at Jodi Kantor. That's who he stared at. Tina: At Jodi Kantor, The New York Times journalist who broke the story. Amber: Jodi Kantor blew him a kiss with her eyes.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

The former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York talks with Tina about why he doesn’t feel sorry for Paul Manafort, why the superrich risk it all and break the law and how to make a mobster flip.

The Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated actress talks with Tina about portraying two legendary Maries—war correspondent Marie Colvin and Nobel Prize-winning scientist Marie Curie, being a working mum and why she would never move to LA.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Alyssa Mastromonaco, President Obama’s one-time deputy chief of staff, tells Tina who would win a dance-off between Michelle Obama and Susan Rice, and why Trump’s unexplained Executive Time is bad news for his staff and for America. Plus, an update on her cats.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Why are more and more women in the United States being incarcerated? Justice warrior Topeka Sam, who served three years in a federal prison, has vowed that losing freedom should not also mean losing dignity.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

In a reflective interview, Hillary Clinton tells Tina Brown: “Even in the last month, we've seen the kind of attacks on the four women running (for president) for all kinds of different things and certain words like 'likable.' There are a lot of men who are really unlikable who get themselves elected to very high positions.”Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

The New Yorker has had just five editors in its 94-year history. Editor #5 David Remnick and editor #4 Tina Brown discuss New Yorker stories, journalism’s existential crisis, and the time they thought an Easter parade was a protest march against the magazine.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, a passionate defender of liberty and democracy, joins Tina to talk about his new book “The Empire and the Five Kings” and why it’s not too late for the empire in question, America, to recover its “moxie” and fulfill its destiny.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Vanita Gupta, the daughter of Indian immigrants, is a legal rockstar who ran the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department under President Obama and is now head of the largest and most powerful civil rights group in the country. Gupta talks with Tina about policing police departments, the Department of Justice under Trump, and going into battle for civil rights every day.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Charming law student Ted Bundy became a mythic figure in American crime history, killing more than 30 women in six states in the 1970’s with a gruesome MO that included keeping some of their bodies for days. On the 30th anniversary of Bundy’s execution, Tina talks with Joe Berlinger, director of the new film "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” and the Netflix documentary “Conversations with a Killer” and Stephen Michaud, who taped over 100 hours of death-row conversations with Bundy and describes him as the “most personable sociopath I ever met.”Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

When is the best moment to ask for a pre-nup? Why do brides obsess about the dress, flowers and cake instead of checking their state's child custody laws? Laura Wasser's clients have included Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Kim Kardashian and, currently, Jeff Bezos's new passion, Lauren Sanchez and her husband Patrick Whitesell. In this conversation with Tina, Wasser talks about everything a spouse needs to know when it's time to say “I don’t.”Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

The former Fox News anchor fired the opening shot in MeToo when she brought down Fox titan Roger Ailes, and received a $20-million settlement with an apology to boot. Now she’s made a documentary about the women whose MeToo stories are not being told. Carlson, a Stanford and Oxford alum and former Miss America, talks with Tina about escaping two sexual assaults, stripping swimsuits from the Miss America pageant, and how she’s going after McDonald’s for their handling of sexual harassment complaints from employees.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Tina talks with British-born actress Felicity Jones about playing the fearless Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and with NPR’s Nina Totenberg whose expertise almost makes her the tenth the Supreme Court justice. Why was Ginsburg’s husband such a feminist hero in his own right? Did Ginsburg make the right decision in choosing to stay on the court at the age of 85? Stories about a woman who rules--from the bench.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Mad, bad rulers don't rise by accident. Tina talks with Harvard's Stephen Greenblatt, author of the provocative bestseller Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, about the uniformly infantile nature of tyrants, how they manipulate popular ignorance and how they're propelled by multiple enablers who only wake up when it's too late.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Even if Allison Janney weren’t five-foot-twelve, there are a lot of reasons to look up to her as an actress. In an intimate interview with Tina, Janney talks about how she found her inner evil to play Tonya Harding’s icy mother, what an agent once said to her about the parts she should play, and why she doesn't watch press briefings by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

The superb new film Mary Queen of Scots rehabilitates the image of one of history’s most maligned monarchs. In a multi-part conversation, Tina talks with Margot Robbie, who plays Mary’s cousin and rival Queen Elizabeth I, first-time director Josie Rourke and Cambridge historian John Guy, who wrote the riveting revisionist biography on which the film is based.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

The verdict is in: Aaron Sorkin’s reimagined To Kill A Mockingbird on Broadway is a hit. He talks with Tina about making Atticus Finch woke, what first made Aaron passionate about politics, and why Breitbart News was an unlikely source of inspiration.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

What would Gordon Gekko make of his fellow New York mogul Donald Trump being president? What’s it like to act your age in Hollywood? The two-time Oscar-winning actor and producer talks with Tina.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Ever wonder who the smartest person in Silicon Valley is? Can Mark Zuckerberg ever restore faith in Facebook? And why are so many internet billionaires getting into the media business? In a no-holds-barred interview with Tina, the industry's most feared (and loved) journalist, Recode cofounder Kara Swisher, holds forth on the titans of tech and about how she found her place in the world as a gay woman.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

The great thing about Emmy-winning filmmakers Alex Gibney and Blair Foster’s new six part docuseries The Clinton Affair is that it allows a new generation to savor the incredible gallery of aggrieved accusers, legal hounds and partisan furies who tore apart the body politic in the '90s. We see them all anew, from mealy-mouthed special prosecutor Ken Starr to treacherous political harridan Linda Tripp to surprising good guy Trent Lott. Most surprising of all is the new perspective of now 45-year-old Monica Lewinsky, liberated from the vengeful hypocrisies of the past. In this interview, Gibney and Foster talk with Tina Brown about what the public never knew about the Starr investigation, how Bill Clinton’s charisma insulated him from the ultimate political punishment, and why opening up about that period of her life may have finally set Monica Lewinsky free.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.

Did you know that a synonym for women’s genitalia has its root in the Latin word for “shame”? This is one of many intriguing observations that emerges from Tina Brown’s conversation with Jill Soloway, creator of the groundbreaking series Transparent, that was inspired by Soloway’s own parent, Harry, coming out as transgender. During the Amazon show’s acclaimed run, life and art formed a double helix of awakening in Soloway, who now identifies as genderqueer and nonbinary. That newfound clarity and freedom permeates She Wants It, Soloway’s intimate new memoir about love, identity, family and toppling the patriarchy.Tweet me @tinabrownlm #TBDwithTinaBrown and if you liked this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, it helps us spread the word.