In this special 100th episode of Politics & Polls, Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang reflect on aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency that have surprised them both individually.
Zelizer is surprised by public tolerance of Trump’s most controversial actions, especially his immigration policies and behavior during the Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin. Wang is surprised by what he sees as the passivity of the judicial branch, including the Supreme Court on issues like the travel ban.
Both hosts also analyze the stability of our democratic institutions and explain why this is both a positive and a negative aspect of our government.
Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is also a CNN Political Analyst and columnist for the Atlantic. He is the author of several books including, most recently, "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society," which was just awarded the DB Hardeman Prize for the Best Book on Congress. He has edited and authored 19 books on American political history and published over 700 hundred op-eds, including his popular weekly column on CNN.com.
Wang is professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at Princeton University. He is known for his books "Welcome to Your Brain" and "Welcome to Your Child's Brain" and for his founding role at the Princeton Election Consortium, a blog providing U.S. election analyses. In 2004, Wang was one of the first to aggregate U.S. presidential polls using probabilistic methods. He has also developed new statistical standards for partisan gerrymandering. A neuroscientist, Wang's academic research focuses on the neuroscience of learning, the cerebellum.