Two weeks after graduating from USC, Tracy Walder began her career as a Staff Operations Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center before, during and after September 11th 2001, and as Special Agent at the FBI. During her time at the CIA, she lived in and travelled to countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe as well as served in war zones such as Afghanistan. After the CIA, Tracy became a Special Agent at the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, Santa Ana Resident Ag...
Jun 28, 2025•52 min•Ep. 373
George Conway is an attorney, political activist, legal and political commentator, and a founder of The Lincoln Project. He is a host of The Bulwark’s podcast George Conway Explains It All (to Sarah Longwell), and he is a contributing writer to The Atlantic. He previously worked as a litigator for three decades at the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City. Few people are smarter, funnier and more outspoken than George! And he's back with us to share his wit and wisdom o...
Jun 23, 2025•47 min•Ep. 372
Leah Litman is a professor of law at the University of Michigan and a former Supreme Court clerk. In addition to co-hosting Strict Scrutiny, she writes frequently about the Court for media outlets including The Washington Post, Slate, and The Atlantic, among others, and has appeared as a commentator on NPR and MSNBC, in addition to other venues. She has received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg award for her “scholarly excellence” from the American Constitution Society and published in top law reviews. H...
Jun 21, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 371
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is Professor of History at New York University. She writes about fascism, authoritarianism, and propaganda. She is the recipient of Guggenheim and other fellowships; an advisor to Protect Democracy; an MSNBC opinion columnist and television commentator; and publishes Lucid, a newsletter on threats to democracy. Her latest book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, looks at how illiberal leaders use propaganda, corruption, violence, and machismo - and how they can be defeated. What...
Jun 19, 2025•23 min•Ep. 370
Co-founder and Board Member of The Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson is a renowned political strategist, infamous award-winning ad-maker and podcast host, writer, speaker, and political commentator on MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, NPR, Real Time with Bill Maher, and various American and international news national outlets. A 30-year veteran of national Republican politics, Rick got his start in the 1988 Presidential campaign of George Herbert Walker Bush and has produced groundbreaking and award-winning poli...
Jun 16, 2025•23 min•Ep. 369
Jon Michaels is a UCLA professor of law specializing in constitutional and national security law. His award-winning scholarship has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, and Harvard Law Review, and he has written popular essays for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, and Guardian. A Yale Law graduate and Supreme Court clerk, Michaels is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on the advisory board of UCLA’s Safeguarding...
Jun 14, 2025•41 min•Ep. 368
Jake Tapper wrote the bestselling nonfiction book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, which was turned into a critically acclaimed film in 2020, and two New York Times bestselling novels, The Hellfire Club and The Devil May Dance. He is an Emmy Award-winning TV journalist as lead DC anchor and chief Washington correspondent for CNN. His new book, which he co-wrote with journalist Alex Thompson, ORIGINAL SIN: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Ag...
Jun 09, 2025•36 min•Ep. 367
Congressman Jamie Raskin represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. He is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. he was the lead impeachment manager in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial and served on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Prior to his time in Congress, he was a three-term State Senator in Maryland, and was also a professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington C...
Jun 07, 2025•47 min•Ep. 366
Brian Crano & David Joseph Craig are a married writer/director duo: David began his career as a writer and performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City and has worked with director Joel Edgerton for over a decade producing and acting in features Boy Erased and The Gift. Brian’s directorial debut, A Bag Of Hammers, starred Jason Ritter and Rebecca Hall and premiered at SXSW. His feature film Permission, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and starred Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens and...
Jun 05, 2025•30 min•Ep. 365
Alec MacGillis worked for six newspapers, including The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post, before transitioning to magazines in 2011, at The New Republic before eventually joining ProPublica in 2015. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine, among others. He won the 2016 Robin Toner Prize for Excellence in Political reporting, the 2017 Polk Award for National Reporting and the 2017 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award. He is the author of “The Cynic: The P...
Jun 03, 2025•30 min•Ep. 364
Elie Honig is an attorney and CNN senior legal analyst and the bestselling author of Hatchet Man and last year's Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It. He’s a former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. He also hosts podcasts, writes for CAFE, Vox Media and writes a weekly column for New York Magazine. Eli's back in THE BACK ROOM discussing the latest legal cases and court decisions relating to Trump's tariffs, deportations, Harvard, Cuomo, P. Diddy...
May 31, 2025•46 min•Ep. 363
Deja Foxx was raised by a single mom in Tucson, Arizona. As a free lunch kid in public schools, her family relied on SNAP benefits, Section 8 housing, and Medicaid to make ends meet. Having experienced homelessness because of her mother’s struggles with substance abuse, she balanced high school classes with long nights working at a gas station. Deja found her first fight advocating for better sex education in Tucson schools where she organized a campaign of student storytellers, delivering a win...
May 29, 2025•40 min•Ep. 362
Deborah Archer is a tenured professor and Associate Dean at New York University School of Law. She is also the president of the ACLU and a nationally recognized expert on civil liberties, civil rights, and racial justice. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and an award-winning teacher and legal scholar. Before full-time teaching, she worked as an attorney with the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where...
May 27, 2025•28 min•Ep. 361
Rep. Jake Auchincloss is serving his third term representing Massachusetts 4th Congressional District. In addition to his work on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, his areas of focus include healthcare, clean energy, gun violence, and building a strong middle class. He’s a former Marine who commanded infantry in Afghanistan and special operations in Panama. Following his military service, he continued his service as a three-term city councilor in Newton. While working at City Hall on...
May 24, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 360
Chely Wright is country-music artist, author and LGBTQ+ activist. Named "Top New Female Vocalist" by The Academy of Country Music, she rose to fame as a commercial country singer in the '90s, and has since released 9 studio albums and charted more than 17 singles on the Billboard charts, including "Shut Up and Drive," "Single White Female," and "The Bumper of My S.U.V." She made history by being the first country music star to publicly come out as gay, which she wrote about in her 2010 memoir Li...
May 22, 2025•54 min•Ep. 359
Steven Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author of How Democracies Die, which was a New York Times Best-Seller and was published in 30 languages, and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy R...
May 19, 2025•30 min•Ep. 358
Dr. Fiona Hill CMG is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and Chancellor of Durham University. She served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the U.S. National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, as well as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2006 to 2009. Dr. Hill has researched and published extensively on issues related...
May 17, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 357
Alexander Vindman is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and was the director for European Affairs on the National Security Council. Before that, he served as the Political-Military Affairs Officer for Russia for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as an attaché at the US Embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. While on the Joint Staff, he authored the National Military Strategy for Russia. He earned an MA from Harvard University, where he served as a Hauser Leader, and an MA and PhD from Johns...
May 15, 2025•43 min•Ep. 356
After surviving the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, David Hogg turned his grief into action, co-founding March For Our Lives, one of the largest youth movements in our country’s history. Last year, Hogg co-founded Leaders We Deserve, a grassroots organization dedicated to electing young people at the local and state level. Through his work, David campaigned across the country and raised over $11 million dollars for candidates nationwide. He was el...
May 13, 2025•34 min•Ep. 355
Congresswoman Jahana Hayes represents Connecticut’s 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She serves on the Education and Workforce Committee and the Agriculture Committee, where she is Ranking Member of the Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee. Her legislative priorities include education, healthcare, labor, agriculture, and veterans issues. A former history teacher and the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, Congresswoman Hayes was the first African-American woman to repr...
May 10, 2025•40 min•Ep. 354
Representative Ro Khanna is a leading progressive voice in the House, representing California's 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and is serving his fifth term. He serves as vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on the House Armed Services Committee as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems (CITI), is a member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and th...
May 08, 2025•27 min•Ep. 353
Jocelyn Benson is Michigan's 43rd Secretary of State and is running in the 2026 election to be the state’s next governor. She has become one of the nation’s most prominent leaders in ensuring elections are secure and accessible. Her work overseeing Michigan’s 2020 and 2022 general elections earned her national recognition, including the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and the Presidential Citizens Medal. She also implemented new voting rights for all eligible Michiganders prior to the 2...
May 05, 2025•34 min•Ep. 352
After Googling “how to run for office” in the wake of the 2016 election, Mallory McMorrow took on an incumbent Republican State Senator and won, moving the seat 20 percentage points. When a right-wing state senator baselessly called her a “groomer”, she took to the floor in a now viral speech and declared "we will not let hate win.” NY Magazine called the speech “remarkable.” James Carville said it was “enormously effective.” The Atlantic wrote that it was “stunning.” After her viral speech, Mal...
May 03, 2025•54 min•Ep. 351
Amy McGrath is a political and national security analyst, a former fighter pilot and U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran, founder of Democratic Majority Action PAC, Democratic nominee for the U.S. House and Senate from Kentucky and the author of "Honor Bound: An American Story of Dreams and Service." She, along with co-host Denver Riggleman, recently launched the brand new podcast, “Truth in the Barrel,” about politics and national security. Join us for this insightful convo about Trump 2.0, the Pe...
Apr 30, 2025•47 min•Ep. 350
Jessica Tarlov joined FOX News Channel as a contributor in 2017 and serves as a rotating co-host of The Five. She also offers political analysis across FNC and FOX Business Network’s programming. In May 2024,, she was named one of Variety’s 2024 Women of Impact for her political commentary across FOX News Media. She also co-hosts the Raging Moderates podcast. Jessica's back with us sharing her awesome insights (and humor!) on a range of topics including Trump, the economy, tariffs, SignalGate, t...
Apr 28, 2025•50 min•Ep. 349
Congressman Adam Kinzinger served six terms in the US House of Representatives representing Illinois’ 16th Congressional District. He served on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Foreign Affairs, and on the non-partisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the US Capitol. Prior to Congress, he served in the Air Force in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom and continued his service in the Air National Guard throughout his time in Congress, retiring in...
Apr 26, 2025•53 min•Ep. 348
He represents Colorado’s 6th Congressional District and serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Armed Services Committee, on which he is the Ranking Democrat of the Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee. He’s a former Army Ranger and Bronze Star recipient who enlisted in the National Guard and worked construction to help pay his way through college. Congressman Crow and I chat about Trump 2.0, Pete Hegseth and SignalGate, the economy, tariffs and t...
Apr 24, 2025•30 min•Ep. 347
As a scientist, clean energy entrepreneur and CEO, and now a member of Congress representing Illinois’ 6th Congressional district. Rep. Sean Casten has dedicated his life to fighting climate change. He serves on the House Financial Services Committee and the Joint Economic Committee. He also serves as Vice-Chair of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) and is a Co-Chair of the Sustainable Investment Caucus. Join us for this insightful chat about Trump 2.0 and the challenging ro...
Apr 23, 2025•30 min•Ep. 346
Mary Trump is an American psychologist and author. Her first book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man (2020), sold nearly one million copies on its first day of publication. She is the author of two other New York Times bestsellers, The Reckoning, and a memoir, Who Could Ever Love You. Mary holds a PhD in clinical psychology and, as an adjunct professor at Adelphi University, taught graduate courses in developmental psychology, psychopathology, and tr...
Apr 21, 2025•36 min•Ep. 345
Congressman John Larson represents Connecticut's First District. Now in his thirteenth term, he sits on the influential House Ways and Means Committee—including the Subcommittee on Trade and the Social Security Subcommittee, where he serves as the Ranking Member. Join us for this important conversation about the attack on Social Security by Trump, Musk and DOGE. Got somethin' to say?! Email us at BackroomAndy@gmail.com Leave us a message: 845-307-7446 Twitter: @AndyOstroy Produced by Andy Ostroy...
Apr 19, 2025•58 min•Ep. 344
