Overheard with Evan Smith

Kara Swisher is the Executive Editor of Recode, Host of the Recode Decode podcast and Executive Producer of the Code Conference, which brings together technology influencers and CEOs. Swisher has been covering technology and digital issues since 1997 when she was a reporter in the Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau.

Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He won the National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2003 for his reporting on terrorism. His 2006 book "Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide" was hailed as one of the best books of that year. Goldberg's most recent Atlantic cover story was “The Obama Doctrine”.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, as well as Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Dr. Gates is also an author, cultural critic, and filmmaker. He's produced numerous series for PBS including Looking for Lincoln, Many Rivers to Cross: The History of the African American People, and Finding Your Roots, many of which he also hosts. His next documentary series, Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise will a

Anthony Foxx is the 17th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Foxx was Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina from 2009-2013. He also served as Charlotte City Council Member At-Large for two terms. While he was mayor, Charlotte extended the city’s light rail system, expanded the airport, made highway improvements, and started a streetcar project.

Ken Burns is an acclaimed historical documentary filmmaker. His films have won 13 Emmys and two Oscar nominations and he’s been honored by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. His films and series, most of which appear on PBS, include The Civil War, The Dust Bowl, and Baseball. His next film, Jackie Robinson, will air on PBS on April 11 and 12 of 2016.

Ethan Hawke is an Academy Award-nominated actor and screenwriter. He’s also an author of three novels, including his most recent Rules for a Knight, which The New Yorker called “a hybrid parenting guide and self-help book.” Hawke was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role last year for his performance in Boyhood. In his newest film, “Born to be Blue,” he plays legendary jazz musician Chet Baker.

In a special episode of Overheard, Evan sits down with President Barack Obama for a discussion about civic engagement in the 21st Century. The interview is an excerpt of the Keynote Conversation at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas on March 11, 2016.

Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling, presidential historian. He won the Pulitzer for biography in 2009 with his book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Meacham is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of American Lion, Franklin and Winston, and Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. Meacham’s most recent book is Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush.

Wendell Pierce is an actor, producer, and author, best known for playing Detective Bunk Moreland on HBO’s “The Wire.” A New Orleans native, he starred as Antoine Batiste in Treme, the HBO series about the city after Hurricane Katrina. Pierce is a three-time NAACP Image Award Nominee for best actor in a television drama and won the 2008 Image Award for best actor in a television movie. His memoir The Wind in the Reeds: A Storm, A Play, and the City That Would Not Be Broken was recently published.