An episode pulled from the archives, Joe Grogan and Eric Ueland welcome Dr. Tevi Troy, former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, presidential historian, and best selling author of Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. First aired in February 2023 at the midpoint of the Biden administration, this conversation diagnoses how White House infighting actually works, why the Biden team leaked so much less than its predecessors, and what discipline does and does not buy a president.

From there the conversation turns to the machinery of the State of the Union, why the speech always collapses into a laundry list, and how Ronald Reagan invented the pageantry that every president has copied since. Troy then makes the bipartisan case for reforming the Centers for Disease Control, arguing for a congressional charter and a sharper pandemic mission separate from behavioral health. Along the way Joe, Eric, and Tevi cover Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam, Ed Koch and the art of criticizing opponents without alienating voters, the real origin of the Bull Connor line in Biden speeches, and why Troy believes the Republican party has a brighter future after Trump than the Democrats have after Biden.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00   Tevi Troy on a brighter Republican future after Trump

0:47   DC EKG intro

1:10   Joe and Eric welcome Tevi Troy, refill context from February 2023

3:00   Why the Biden White House leaks far less than Trump's did

6:15   Neera Tanden, Afghanistan, and where the grumbling did surface

9:30   Is the press softer on Democratic administrations

12:10   Lessons from the hyper disciplined Bush 43 operation

15:00   Friction as a feature: Johnson, Ford, and creative tension

18:20   Johnson, Vietnam, and the limits of dominating Congress

21:00   Biden faces a Republican House and a debt ceiling fight

24:15   How a State of the Union actually gets built

27:30   Why every State of the Union becomes a laundry list

30:45   Reagan, Lenny Skutnik, and the birth of pageantry

33:50   The case for reforming the CDC with a congressional charter

36:20   Behavioral health versus the pandemic mission

39:10   Ed Koch, Carter, and criticizing without alienating voters

41:40   Where Meacham's Bull Connor line came from

44:30   Troy's path to DC: AEI, Ben Wattenberg, and the PhD

47:15   The conservative movement in flux and the future of the parties

48:33   Wrap up

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Tevi Troy is a presidential historian, best selling author, and former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. An insider's insider in Washington, he warned of US vulnerability to coronavirus in 2016 and has since written widely on the failures at the CDC. He began his career at the American Enterprise Institute working for Ben Wattenberg, earned a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and served in a range of roles in the George W. Bush administration, including at the Domestic Policy Council. He is the author of Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted, and Intellectuals and the American Presidency, along with more than four hundred articles.

CREDITS

Podcast: DC EKG with Joe Grogan

Episode: 137b

Guest: Dr. Tevi Troy, former Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services

Sponsor: Survivors for Solutions, https://survivorsforsolutions.org

Executive Producer: John “CZ” Czwartacki, DC EKG Podcast

Producer: Stay on Course Studios, https://www.stayoncourse.studio