Martin Baron

Longtime journalist and newspaper editor Martin Baron joins Evan to discuss his storied career in journalism and his first book, Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post which covers the 2016 Presidential Election and Jeff Bezos’ purchase of the Post.

Katie Benner

Katie Benner, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and Justice Department reporter for the New York Times, discusses the indictments against former president Donald Trump and the legal fallout of the cases.

Jonathan Alter (2010)

Jonathan Alter is an author and commentator, who was at Newsweek for close to three decades. He has written several New York Times best-sellers about American presidents.

Carol Leonnig & Philip Rucker

Pulitzer Prize journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker discuss their book “A Very Stable Genius.”

Carol Leonnig is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has worked at The Washington Post since 2000. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her work on security failures and misconduct inside the Secret Service. She was part of a Post team that was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for revealing the U.S. government’s secret, broad surveillance of Americans through the disclosures of Edward Snowden. She is a three-time winner of the George Polk Award for investigative reporting. She reports on Donald Trump’s presidency and investigates Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Leonnig is also an on-air contributor to NBC News and MSNBC.

Philip Rucker is the White House Bureau Chief for The Washington Post. He previously has covered Congress, the Obama White House and the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Rucker also is a Political Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He joined The Post in 2005 as a local news reporter.

Leonnig and Rucker authored “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America” which debuted at number one on The New York Times best-seller list. The book tracks the first three years of the Trump presidency relying on intimate, revelatory interviews with first-hand witnesses and including never-before-reported details. 

Scott Pelley

“60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley discusses his memoir, “Truth Worth Telling.”

Scott Pelley has been a journalist for nearly five decades. He is the most awarded correspondent in the history of “60 Minutes,” and he is the former anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” His work has been recognized with three duPont-Columbia Awards, three Peabody Awards, the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism and 37 Emmy Awards. 

In his memoir, “Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter’s Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Time,” Pelley recounts the best and worst of his career – stories from 9/11 as he encounters extraordinary heroism, insight to the military fighting in the Middle East and the families they left behind and the grieving mothers and fathers of Sandy Hook. He gives behind-the-scenes looks at interviews with world-famous people, from Bruce Springsteen to Donald Trump, and examines both the impulse to serve and the arrogance that can sully a leader’s ethical perspective.

 

Anna Palmer & Jake Sherman

Politico’s Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman discuss their book, “The Hill to Die On,” a look at the Capitol Hill battle for power.

Anna Palmer is a senior Washington correspondent for Politico. She covers Congress, politics and the business of Washington. Anna previously covered House leadership and lobbying as a staff writer for Roll Call. She got her start in Washington journalism as a lobbying business reporter for the industry newsletter Influence. She has also worked at Legal Times, where she covered the intersection of money and politics for the legal and lobbying industry, first as a staff writer and then as an editor.

Jake Sherman is a senior writer for Politico. He covers the House Republican majority. Since 2009, Jake has chronicled all of the major legislative battles on Capitol Hill and has also traveled the country to cover the battle for control of Congress. Before landing at Politico, Jake worked in the Washington bureaus of The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Together, Palmer and Sherman co-authored “The Hill to Die On,” an insider’s look at divided American politics.

Jose Antonio Vargas

Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas discusses immigration and his memoir, “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.”

Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and a leading voice for the human rights of immigrants. He is the founder of Define American, the nation’s leading non-profit media and culture organization that fights injustice and anti-immigrant hate through the power of storytelling. His memoir, “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen,” was published by HarperCollins in 2018.

Lawrence O’Donnell

Journalist and author Lawrence O’Donnell discusses the modern news landscape, his various writing endeavors and his show “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.”

Lawrence O’Donnell hosts “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” on MSNBC. His background in politics, entertainment and news leads to lively discussions as he addresses the biggest issues and most compelling stories of the day. Among other political positions, O’Donnell served as Senior Advisor to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan from 1989 through 1992. He is an Emmy Award-winning executive producer and writer for the NBC series “The West Wing,” and creator and executive producer of the NBC series, Mister Sterling. Born in Boston, O’Donnell is a graduate of Harvard College.

Michael Schmidt

Journalist Michael Schmidt talks about the many high-profile stories he has written, the media’s role in politics and covering the Trump administration.

Michael Schmidt is a reporter for The New York Times and a contributor for MSNBC. Schmidt is known for his investigative reporting and coverage of Trump. In 2015, Schmidt broke the news of Hillary Clinton’s personal email usage for government business. He also was the first to report the James Comey memo on Trump’s orders to drop the Michael Flynn investigation. Before working for The Times, Schmidt worked at The Boston Globe.

 

Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd talks about the current political climate, the role of the media in shaping the 2016 election and her book “The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics.”

Maureen Dowd is a best-selling author and a columnist for The New York Times. In 1999, Dowd won the Pulitzer Prize for her columns on the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the Clinton administration.

Overheard with Evan Smith made possible with generous support from these underwriters.