Ed Caesar of The New Yorker joins us to discuss his latest piece, “The Reputation-Laundering Firm That Ruined Its Own Reputation,” on how a renowned British PR firm, Bell Pottinger,  worked with dictators and oligarchs and deliberately inflamed racial tensions in South Africa—and destroyed itself in the process. Caesar’s piece details how seemingly innocuous industries like public relations can take on accounts for corrupt political actors like the Gupta family and propagate evil consequences like those from Bell Pottinger’s “state capture” campaign in South Africa during the Jacob Zuma presidency.

And in the Fun Half: the infamous Sam Harris “REASON” tattoo, Sam Harris compares Ezra Klein to a Klansman, lamenting the death of Christopher Hitchen and the lack of intellectual challenge on the secular right, the conservative authoritarian movement sweeping Latin America, Trump supporters tell CNN “quit trying to make us feel teary-eyed about the children,” Tony Reali’s heartfelt monologue on grief and humanity in an era of moral bankruptcy, The President’s Show predicted the “Zero-Tolerance” policy in May 2017, Republican congressman Roger Marshall thinks 5-year-old Guatamalans are drug runners, the state of the “oppressed atheist,” the Jeffrey Epstein protester at Trump’s rally in Duluth, and, of course, your lovely IMs and calls!

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