Chris Christie was called President Donald Trump's "Opioid Czar" as the chair of the Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. WADE VANDERVORT/AFP via Getty Images
Carp, Cars and COVID: Czars Can Cover Any Issue
Tom Shoop joins the podcast to discuss how a Russian loanword came to be applied to American government officials.
More than one hundred people have held the colloquial title of “czar” in the U.S. federal government, from the commonly-known drug czars to the COVID-19 czars of recent vintage. The proliferation of czars has ebbed and flowed over the years, with Barack Obama being accused of having more than three dozen czars by his political opponents. Since, the term has fallen off a bit.
Tom Shoop is editor at large and the former executive vice president and editor in chief at GovExec Media. He is also the author of a post in his “That Time” series headlined “That Time the Federal Government Was Ruled By Czars.” He joined the podcast to discuss czars in American government.
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