Booked Up with Jen Taub

Today for the October book club, Jen Taub’s friends, authors Jennifer Rubin and Brian Karem discuss Cassidy Hutchinson’s new best-selling memoir, ENOUGH. 

Is Cassidy Hutchinson a heroic champion of the truth or just another Trump Administration insider who could have spoken sooner when it really mattered? Does the story she tells in ENOUGH make readers more empathic or more resentful? These questions and more are the focus of Jen’s conversation today with Jen and Brian.

Unless you have been living under a rock (which actually sounds kind of pleasant given the current overwhelm), you know Cassidy Hutchinson is a former special assistant to President Donald Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Cassidy became a public figure when she appeared as a key witness in June of 2022 before the House Select Comittee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol. The world watched her testify under oath that Donald Trump knew his supporters were armed and angry and that he physically assaulted  his own driver in a failed attempt to force him to drive from the eclipse to the Capitol where the violent mob would gather. 

Cassidy’s bombshell testimony last June took place during the “before times,” meaning this was just before the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in August, before a special counsel was appointed in November to investigate her former boss for the national security document hoarding and for the insurrection. This was before Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury in Manhattan, a federal grand jury in Flordia, a federal grand jury in Washington D.C. and a Georgia grand jury in Fulton County. 

With ENOUGH, we learn so much more from Cassidy about her painful family history and the adults around her who supported her so that she could find the strength to tell the truth and stand up to one of the world's biggest bullies.

Guest Jennifer Rubin writes a column for The Washington Post where she covers politics and policy, foreign and domestic, and provides insight into the conservative movement, the Republican and Democratic parties, and threats to Western democracies. Prior to her career in journalism, Jen Rubin practiced labor law for two decades, an experience that informs and enriches her work. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump” and is host of the podcast Jen Rubin's "Green Room."

And Brian Karem is an award-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated reporter and author of seven books including Free the Press: The Death of American Journalism and How to Revive It. Brian is a veteran White House correspondent and former senior correspondent for Playboy Magazine. He currently writes a weekly column on the White House for Salon.com.  He is also a frequent guest on numerous radio shows throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. ​Brian also hosts the  podcast, “Just Ask the Question.”


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061



Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

The hilarious self-named “progressive hillbilly” comedians Trae Crowder and Corey Ryan Forrester are Jen’s guests today. They co-authored the super-funny book  Round Here and Over Yonder.  I’m just going to steal their bios right from their book because nothing I could say would compare.

Trae Crowder grew up in Celina, TN, a town sometimes described as having “more liquor stores than traffic lights” (2-0 as of the last count). He first cained national attention for his “Liberal Redneck” series of viral videos. He has been performing his particular brand of gravy-covered intellectual comedy for over a decade and touring nationally with Corey and their comedy and drinking partner, Drew.

Corey Ryan Forrester grew up in Chicakmunga, Georgia where he fell in love with comedy watching Carson and then Leno from a blanket on the floor next to his daddy Dale. At sixteen lying about his age he worked up the nerve to do his first open mic. He also ran the family bakery with his mom, where he was known as the “head Quiche Chef.”

This is Trae and Corey’s second book. The first one they wrote with their aforementioned buddy Drew. Who has a last name although it’s not on the jacket flap. It’s Morgan. Drew Morgan. The book was called THE LIBERAL REDNECK MANIFESTO.


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Trae Crowder 
Twitter| Website | Author of ROUND HERE AND OVER YONDER and THE LIBERAL REDNECK MANIFESTO

Get More from Corey Ryan Forrester
Twitter| Website | Author of ROUND HERE AND OVER YONDER  


Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Zeke Faux, author of the new bestseller, Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall is Jen’s guest today. 

Of all the books, and scholarly articles, and news stories, and blog posts, and legal complaints and, you get the idea…  on crypto, Number Go Up is truly the first one to pull everything together in one place. And that result is something immensely entertaining and informative. And to be clear, this is not a condemnation of those other works, readers can learn so much from. Instead, it’s an expression of high praise for what Zeke has accomplished here.

If name-dropping is helpful for you in judging the strength of a book, then let me throw out a few who have heaped praise on Number Go Up. 

Evan Osnos National Book Award–winning author of Age of Ambition said: “This book is ludicrously compelling. I, quite literally, couldn’t put it down—and I don’t even care about crypto.”

Matt Levine, the Money Stuff columnist said: “This book is what happens when the funniest financial journalist in America takes on the funniest story in modern finance. The results are as darkly hilarious as you could hope for.”

Bethany McLean, author of The SMartest Guys in the Room (that was made into a brilliant documentary said “Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the mass delusion that was crypto.”




Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Zeke Faux
Twitter| Website | Author of NUMBER GO UP

Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Author Michael Lewis joins Jen Taub today to talk about Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, his new book that focuses on Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto-wunderkind who is now on trial on federal criminal charges including wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money laundering. 

Though Michael needs no introduction, here’s one anyway. You know Michael from his numerous bestselling works of narrative nonfiction. You may in fact be someone like John Williams of the New York Times book review who wrote: “I would read an 800-page history of the stapler if he wrote it.”  I’m certain that I would as well, and not just because my preliminary research of the stapler shows that there is some controversy as to its origins. But, I digress.

Michael Lewis may be best known for his follow-the-money books. These include his debut work  Liar’s Poker about binge-eating bond traders on Wall Street in the 1980s, as well as The Big Short published in 2010, about a scrappy selection of investors who saw that the toxic-mortgage-linked securities bubble was about to burst and made billions on their related trades. Several of Michael’s books have been made into feature films including the Big Short, directed by Adam McKay; Moneyball, and The Blind Side.

Beyond his story-telling excellence, what makes Michael’s work so compellihg are the unexpected discoveries about the fragility of our government infrastructure such as with the Fifth Risk and his ability to make us think in a more nuanced way about high-profile topics, including his already controversial take on SBF. Jen and Michael Lewis talk about indicted crypto-wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). 

In their discussion they contemplated whether SBF ran his businesses like an absent-minded parent setting up an Easter Egg hunt without making note of how many and where the eggs were. As an alternative, he might have deliberately siphoned off customer and investor assets and hide them in accounts to use later for himself or his charitable causes. 

Let’s dive in,

Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Michael Lewis
 Website | Author of GOING INFINITE  and Many more books!

Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

We are extraordinarily grateful that historian and biographer Dr. Helen Fry made time for us right as her latest book Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars was released in the UK and is poised to launch in the United States. 

This new book is filled with intrigue hidden in plain sight. Spies recruited at cafés, ordinary women bicycling around town passing along messages to help the Allies, secret codes knit into jumpers (that’s the British English word for what we Americans call sweaters). Helen Fry has authored too many popular books to count. These include: The London Cage, The Walls Have Ears, MI9, Spymaster: The Man who Saved M16 and more than twenty books on intelligence, prisoners of war, and the social history of World War II. She appears regularly in media interviews and podcasts and has been involved in numerous documentaries.

Here’s the official, delicious description of Women in Intelligence: “In this major, panoramic history, Helen Fry looks at the rich and varied work women undertook as civilians and in uniform. From spies who worked for the Belgian network ‘La Dame Blanche’, knitting coded messages into jumpers, to those who interpreted aerial images and even ran entire sections, Fry shows just how crucial women were in the intelligence mission.”

Nigel West, author of Spies Who Changed History described Women in Intelligence as “A fascinating, minutely researched study of women in the espionage business.” And Clare Mulley, author of The Spy Who Loved, warns us: “Beware – this is a book full of danger and deception, sabotage and secret codes, and some brilliant, unstoppable women. 

“This account is long overdue. Helen Fry redresses the relative neglect of the contribution of women as intelligence officer and agents during and between the two world wars, with gripping personal stories of bravery, grit and analytic brilliance.”—Sir David Omand GCB, former Director of GCHQ

Helen Fry was raised in North Devon and went on to graduate from the University of Exeter with a degree and Ph.D. The focus of her (okay, we’ve counted now. It’s ) 25 books has been the 10,000 Germans and Austrians who fought for Britain, and intelligence, espionage and prisoners of war. Her highly acclaimed book The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of WWII was in the top 8 Daily Mail’s Books of the Year in War, and has been optioned for film. 


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Helen Fry
Twitter| Website | Author of WOMEN IN INTELLIGENCE and Many more books!

Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Believe or not, this month’s Booked Up Book Club is TUCKER, the book, the man, the walking grievance machine. It’s true, Jen read Chadwick Moore’s authorized biography of Tucker Carlson. And joining her are Rick Wilson and Martin Pengelly, to talk about it so you don’t have to. 

Rick Wilson is a longtime Republican political strategist, award-winning ad-maker, and political commentator (and fifth generation Florida man). In 2015, Rick emerged as one of the earliest and most vocal critics of Donald Trump, helping found the Never Trump movement. His bestselling book EVERYTHING TRUMP TOUCHES DIES sprung from and perpetuated the acronym ETTD, used by millions on social media as a glib-schandenfraude-tinged response to each and every indictment or other misfortunte that befalls those who hitched their wagons to the Donald. 

Martin Pengelly is the Washington-based breaking news correspondent for the Guardian U.S. Born in Leeds, Martin played rugby for Durham University and Rosslyn Park FC and worked for Rugby News, the Guardian and the Independent before moving to the US in 2012. Since then, he has written about politics, books, and rugby in America. His work has also appeared in Sports Illustrated and the New York Times. His first book, Brotherhood: When West Point Rugby Went to War with an introduction by H. R. McMaster comes out on October 31.


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Rick Wilson
Twitter| Website | Author of EVERYTHING TRUMP TOUCHES DIES and RUNNING GAINST THE DEVIL

Get More from Martin Pengelly
Twitter| Guardian | Author of BROTHERHOOD

Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Ali Velshi is Jen’s guest today. You know him as an anchor and business correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. His show Velshi appears every Saturday and Sunday from 10 - noon.  Ali is also the host of the podcast Velshi Banned Book Club. And, in keeping with the focus of Booked Up, Ali is a nonfiction author himself. He wrote Gimme My Money Back and co-authored  How to Speak Money. Plus he has several new books forthcoming. On September 25th, is the publication date for The Trump Indictments comes out with his preface, and then in spring of 2023, Ali’s book Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy Of Endurance And The Fight For Democracy is coming out.

Ali Velshi has covered a broad range of breaking news events and global affairs throughout his career, including US presidential elections, the global financial crisis of 2008, and recently on the ground in the war in Ukraine. 

An award-winning journalist, Ali Velshi has been honored with two National Headliner Awards. The first was for “How the Wheels Came Off,” a special on the near collapse of the American auto industry. And, recently last year for his coverage of Hurricane Ian. His work on disabled workers and Chicago’s red-light camera scandal in 2016 also earned him two News and Documentary Emmy Award nominations, adding to a nomination in 2010 for his terrorism coverage. 

Born in Kenya and raised in Canada, Ali graduated from Queen’s University in Canada, which awarded him an honorary doctorate of laws in 2016.


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Ali Velshi
Twitter| Velshi Banned Book Club Podcast | Website | Author of THE TRUMP INDICTMENTS

Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Hadley Vlahos is the author of the bestelling new book The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments. She is a hospice registered nurse, mother, and wife. Hadley’s husband Chris also works in the medical field as a doctor of physical therapy. She started her career as a registered nurse at twenty-two. Today as  a hospice nurse, she now visits people at their home while also educating and sharing stories about hospice care on social media, where she has 1.6 million followers on TikTok alone.

Jen read, or, rather listened on Audible to The In-Between in one sitting. This is a story you cannot put down. Hadley has a way of easing readers, and listeners, into some of the most challenging, yet so enriching moments of human existence – the  inevitable transition from this life to wherever and whatever awaits beyond.

Organized around the stories of twelve of her hospice patients (whose names and personally identifiable details have been changed), with The In-Between, Hadley also shares her own journey, including painful memories growing up and self-doubts as an adult. Her vulnerability allows readers to face and tend to our own wounds and grow stronger.


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Hadley Vlahos
Instagram| Tik-Tok | Website | Author of THE IN-BETWEEN


Get More from Jen Taub:
taubjen on Threads| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

In this haunting new book, LAWYER, JAILER, ALLY, FOE, Eric L. Muller brings into vivid color a world that is largely forgotten paper records. It’s no wonder that his book caught the attention of novelist John Grisham whose praise appears on the cover: “A fascinating and detailed account of one of America’s darkest chapters.”

Eric’s accomplishments with this work cannot be overstated. He made a complex topic emotionally moving by unearthing the stories of three men who worked as lawyers inside of the concentration camps in Wyoming, Arizona, and on an Indian Reservation where Japanese-Americans were held as prisoners during World War II. Like Eric, I choose to use the terms “concentration camps” and “prisoners” to describe what the officials euphemistically referred to then as “relocation centers” and “evacuees.”  Today, you may be more familiar with them referred to as Japanese internment camps.

Eric is the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law. It won’t surprise you to learn that he is one of the leading scholars of the removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans in World War II. He also focuses his research and writing in the areas of constitutional criminal procedure, the law of slavery, and the Nazi legal system. 


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Eric Muller
Twitter | Website | Author of LAWYER, JAILER, ALLY, FOE


Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Donald Trump is the subject of our book club today. Trump is not known to be a big reader or even an author – his most popular book Art of the Deal, was ghost written by Tony Schwarz, as you probably know. Nevertheless, our book club episode today focuses on him. Not a book, but on the day he got booked up in Georgia. We recorded this episode on Thursday, August 24th, just hours before Mr. Trump was scheduled to surrender at a jail in Georgia. 

He will be there to answer to thirteen charges brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for racketeering and more in connection with his failed efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Joining Jen is Jill Wine-Banks and Morgan Cloud. Jill is an author, MSNBC legal analyst, and podcast host. Jill was the first woman to serve as an organized crime prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.. Just four years later, she was selected to be an Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutor in the obstruction of justice trial against President Nixon's top aides. You should read The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President to learn about that experience. Jill was also in the Organized Crime Section at Justice when the federal Rackeeteer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) passed.

Morgan is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law Emeritus, located in Atlanta, Georgia. Morgan has been working with RICO statutes since 1975, because Bob Blakey, the primary architect of the original federal statute, was his teacher and boss in law school. Before joining the Emory faculty, he was a trial lawyer and litigator in Florida and California, litigating cases throughout the United States. He writes and teaches about white collar crime, constitutional criminal procedure, and digital privacy. In addition to publishing in prestigious academic journals, Prof. Cloud has also taught courses in Germany, Hungary and France.


Contact Booked Up:
You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 
P.O. BOX 147
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Get More from Jill Wine-Banks
Twitter | Website | Author of THE WATERGATE GIRL: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President

Get More from Morgan Cloud
Website | Politics War Room


Get More from Jen Taub:
Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY