According to Ira Shapiro, the Founding Fathers gave the US Senate many functions, but one fundamental responsibility was to provide the check against a dangerous president who threatened our democracy. Two hundred and thirty years later, when Donald Trump, a potential authoritarian, finally reached the White House, the Senate should have served as both America’s first and last lines of defense. Ira Shapiro the author of The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, forty-five-year Washington career has focused on American politics and international trade. Shapiro has served twelve years in senior staff positions in the U.S. Senate. Join us when Ira Shapiro examines the pivotal challenges the Senate underwent during the Trump administration, arguing that the body’s failure to provide leadership represented the most catastrophic failure of government in American history. As well as the Senate’s performance during President Biden’s first year in office, the 2022 Senate elections and beyond, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.