JohnCassidyTNY

Being a columnist, I don't worry much about fake news. I just write what I think, read it through, and put it out there. If there is a fact I am not sure of, I do try to check it, or, at least, point out its source. Obviously, news organizations have to take the whole fake news thing more seriously, but the main thing is not to let Trump intimidate them. So far, I don't think they have. To the contrary, probably. Which explains why he seems to be getting more and more irate.

I'll make this the last question. My answer is, I don't know. But I will also say this. The way the Trump administration has started out, it is hard to see things going on like this for another four years. The level of passion, vitriol, and chaos that Trump has unleashed is unprecedented. It seems to me that there a few possibilities. If Trump carries on the way he is going, he will inevitably come into conflict with the Courts, with a majority of the American people, and, eventually, with Congress. The US system of government was designed to prevent the emergence of an authoritarian leader who seeks to rule by himself. Except in wartime--see below--it reacts against efforts to usurp the other two branches of government. So, at some stage, we'd have a constitutional crisis, if we haven't got one already. Now, Trump could always change course, get rid of Bannon, and embark on a more moderate course--one in which he tries to win over some of the people who didn't vote for him, rather than simply playing to his base. Given the way he's started out, and what appear to be his own authoritarian inclinations, that doesn't seem very likely. But it's still a possibility. The other possible outcome is the nightmare scenario. After some sort of terrorist attack or military confrontation, Trump seeks to declare a state of emergency, suspending some constitutional freedoms, such as freedom of the press. Or perhaps, he simply gets a compliant Republican Congress to pass an even harsher and more illiberal version of the original Patriot Act--one that brings back torture, CIA black sites, mass surveillance of Americans, and, perhaps, introduces some new limits on the freedom of the press and the freedom to protest. As I say, that is the nightmare scenario. And I hope that's as close as it ever gets to reality.

Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in. That's an excellent question, which I haven't thought about the way you formulated it. I've thought quite a bit about how different Trump is from previous presidents, and I don't there is any doubt that he represents something new. In terms of experience, outlook, and temperament, there has never been a president like him before. In terms of the administration as a whole, it's a bit different. If you take away Trump and some of the people immediately surrounding him, such as Steve Bannon and Stephe Miller, this administration could pass for a normal Republican administration. A very conservative one, certainly--Pence, Price, Pruitt, and DeVos are all right wing even by the standards of today's GOP. But you also have generals and business leaders playing a big role, which we've seen in the past. The question is how the two parallel administrations gets along--or, equivalently, how Trump deals with his cabinet .I don't think we know the answer to that yet.

Ah, a bit of respite from Trump and politics! Thanks. When I was a student, I studied history and economics, and as a graduate I specialized in economics, so I read a lot of pretty technical stuff. I do have some interest in economic theory, but the books and articles that really stayed with me were the ones that went beyond individual theories and looked at the big picture. An obvious one is Keynes's "General Theory." On the left, Paul Sweezey's "Theory of Capitalist Development, which was an effort to combine Keynesian short run theory with Marx's long run analysis, is a tour de force that I still go back to. On the right, Milton's Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom," is seminal and still central. All of these books are pretty old. If you want something newer and more up to date, the best textbook I've seen is by my old tutor, David Soskice and his longtime collaborator Wendy Carlin. It's called "Macroeconomics," I think. And if you want a history that covers a lot of ground and also includes the financial crisis and its aftermath, I would immodestly recommend my own book, "How Markets Fail." Hope that's helpful. As for advice, I would just plunge in and take some courses. There are some good online ones now, which are a good way of testing whether you really have a taste for a subject.

I'm going to split this one in two. I think the most memorable reporting I did was a trip to Iraq in May 2003 to find out how the Iraqi oil industry was going immediately after the US-led invasion. I drove from Basra to Baghdad to Kirkuk, and it was amazing to see how the country had collapsed. The oilfields were still littered with munitions, the oil ministry in Baghdad had been looted, and there was already a lot of ethnic tension in the Kirkuk area. Although the insurgency was in its early stages, I was relieved to get over the border to Jordan, and I came home with a clear sense that this wasn't going to end well. The most memorable piece I've written for the New Yorker, I think, was a long piece about David Kelly, the British expert on weapons of mass destruction, who killed himself in 2003 after being fingered as the source of some news stories that criticized the British government. The reporting wasn't that thrilling. It mainly involved sitting through weeks of testimony at a public inquiry in London. But Kelly's story was tragic, and it somehow encapsulated the whole misconceived, immoral, and screwed up Iraq venture.