Jonathan Alter and Ken Burns on Jimmy Carter: Faith Without Works is Dead

Scott is joined by journalist and historian Jonathan Alter, the author of His Very Best, Jimmy Carter a Life, which is the result of numerous interviews with the most religious of U.S. Presidents and the gold standard for ex-Presidents.

(31:54) Afterwards, Scott gets a few thoughts on Jimmy Carter from documentary filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, who will be a guest on an upcoming episode of Ye Gods! Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including sixteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations.

Guest: Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host. Alter’s most recent book is “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.” (2020), which received uniformly favorable reviews. His earlier books include three New York Times bestsellers: “The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies” (2013), “The Promise: President Obama, Year One” (2010) and “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope” (2006), also one of the Times’ “Notable Books” of the year. 

A former senior editor and columnist at Newsweek, Alter is a longtime political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.  He co-produced and co-directed the HBO documentary “Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists,” which won the 2020 Emmy for Outstanding Historical Documentary. In 2013-2014, he was an executive producer of “Alpha House,“ a comedy on Amazon.

Over the years, Alter has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Monthly, the New Yorker, Bloomberg, the Daily Beast and other publications. In 2021, he launched a weekly Substack newsletter called “OLD GOATS, Ruminating with Friends,” which includes frequent columns and his conversations with accomplished people of wisdom and experience. Since 2016, he has hosted “Alter Family Politics“ each week on Sirius XM, 102 with his three adult children.

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