Jeremi Suri: History of American Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #180

Lex Fridman talks with historian Jeremi Suri about the nature and evolution of American presidential power from Lincoln through the present. Suri argues that the office has changed beyond recognition, granting modern presidents dangerous, almost inhuman reach, while structure and institutions constrain leaders far more than personality does. They explore leadership through Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Clinton, and Henry Kissinger's realpolitik, examining empathy, storytelling, the corruption of power, and just war. The conversation closes on the Cold War's legacy, capitalism versus communism, guns and individualism, and advice on passion, networks, and excellence.

• Suri calls modern presidential power 'inhuman' and dangerous, with the ability to assassinate people worldwide with remarkable accuracy.
  00:16:27
• He flatly states targeted assassinations 'happen all the time' and 'we do it every day,' citing the killing of Osama bin Laden as an assassination operation.
  00:17:28
• He argues mediocre leaders intentionally avoid asking hard questions, and that Bush 'intentionally did not ask' about torture during the war on terror.
  00:27:42
• On Washington giving up power: 'sometimes you get more power by giving it up than by trying to hold on to every last piece of it.'
  00:39:04
• Suri's central FDR critique: the US had air superiority by 1944 and could have bombed the rail lines to Auschwitz, potentially saving up to a million Jews.
  01:00:18
• He argues Kissinger is NOT a war criminal, contradicting a common accusation, while admitting Kissinger misused military power.
  01:24:42
• Suri agrees there is no communism in America and never has been; even the farthest-left young people 'don't even understand what communism is.'
  01:35:32
• He admits Kissinger would call him and yell on the phone whenever Suri was quoted saying something critical in the press.
  01:19:33

• Tolstoy recounted that Caucasus peasants named Abraham Lincoln the greatest man in the world because he gave voice to the voiceless.
  00:01:33
• Lincoln's associate Herndon called him 'the little engine of ambition that couldn't stop.'
  00:04:09
• At the start of the Civil War, Lincoln lacked power to raise an army directly and had to ask state governors for soldiers.
  00:17:28
• Suri warns against hiring loyalists, who shield leaders, in favor of people of integrity who ask the right questions.
  00:29:46
• FDR's internment of 120,000 Japanese-American citizens is described as a horrible war crime committed by a heroic president.
  01:01:20
• Kissinger, sent from a lifelong kosher home, went 'to south carolina to eat ham for uncle sam' before being deployed back to Germany at age 20.
  01:05:30
• Kissinger told Mao he was the greatest leader in the history of the 20th century, feeding egos to build personal dependency.
  01:16:25
• During the Cold War the US had the highest marginal tax rates in its history, and deficit spending is a post-Cold-War phenomenon.
  01:36:35
• Suri argues learning a foreign language opens you to empathy because words and concepts never translate exactly one to one.
  01:54:11
• His grandmother Emily, who lived to 102, knew every bus driver in town and their birthdays, teaching him to treat everyone with equal respect.
  02:02:27