Julian Zelizer is a CNN Political Analyst and the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of eighteen books on American political history. His most recent work is The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress and the Battle for the Great Society and Media Nation: The Political History of News in Modern America. Zelizer is a popular analyst on CNN television shows like Newsroom and New Day. Zelizer, who has published over 700 op-eds, writes a popular column for CNN.Com and The Atlantic. He has published in New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the Hollywood Reporter, the American Prospect, Newsweek, Slate, Salon, the Daily Beast, The New Yorker and more. Zelizer has been a fellow at New America, Brookings, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

The Limits of Presidential Power

The presidency looms larger in the American mind than ever before. Although many experts predicted the end of the “Imperial Presidency” with Richard Nixon, this did not come to pass. Yet the presidency is not nearly as imperial as people thing. Looking back at three iconic presidents, FDR, LBJ, and Ronald Reagan, I will show how Congress, the courts, and grass roots activists have been able to check presidential ambitions in ways we never imagined.

How LBJ Got So Much Done

Lyndon Johnson is considered the wizard of American politics. He is held up as the gold standard of a politician who “knew how things worked in Washington” and could push legislation through Congress where other presidents were tripped up. Yet. The myth of Lyndon Johnson misses how things got done and how he achieved his success and, as a result, we have false expectations about how our current presidents will be successful. In this discussion, Professor Zelizer revisits Lyndon Johnson and the 1960s to really explain how the U.S. built a Great Society.

Politics in the Age of Trump  

Our current political environment feels more volatile and more unpredictable than ever before in American history. Every day feels unprecedented and every piece of breaking news feels like it comes out of nowhere. But is this really the case? How should we understand politics in the age of Trump? Professor Zelizer tries to put this presidency in historical context and to make sense of some of the origins and long-term trends that produced the moment within which we live.

Beyond Israel: Jews and American Politics

Much of the discussion about Jews and American politics centers on the question of Israel. Yet American Jewish history tells a much richer story. In his lecture, Professor Zelizer examines why American Jews came to be so identified with modern liberalism and the Democratic Party in the twentieth century and why it has been so difficult for conservatives to break this bond even with all the tumult of the twenty first century.