Politics and Policy on the Potomac

Mark hosts Ed Goeas, co-author with Celinda Lake of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book A Question of Respect: Bringing Us Together in a Deeply Divided Nation.  Goeas reflected on the root causes of polarization and the loss of trust in America’s political system, drawing on decades of experience as a leading Republican pollster and co-director of the bipartisan Battleground Poll. He shared insights from the book on the dangers of cynicism and toxic incentives in politics, as well as potential paths forward—from reforming social media and cable news to tackling campaign finance and rebuilding respect across divides.

Mark hosts Congressman Buddy Carter (R-GA) on U.S. Energy Policy: Developments from “One Big Beautiful Bill”.

Congressman Buddy Carter was a webinar guest in 2023 and frequent attendee of the ACCF’s “Washington’s Last Salon,” a bipartisan forum for public policy discussion. A committed public servant, Rep. Carter previously served as the Mayor of Pooler, Georgia, and in the Georgia General Assembly, where he used three decades of business experience as the owner of Carter’s Pharmacy to make government more efficient and responsive to the people.

Congressman Carter is serving his fifth term in the United States House of Representatives and is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Budget Committee. He is a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2026.

Mark invites his very first guest back for his 100th episode for A Conversation with the Hon. Lawrence H. Summers about “US Economic Policy: Lessons from the Past for Today and the Future”.

Professor Summers was the 71st US Secretary of the Treasury,1999 to 2001; Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, 2009 to 2010; the 27th President of Harvard, 2001 to 2006; and today the Charles W. Eliot Professor at Harvard. In November 2023, Professor Summers joined the Board of Directors of the artificial intelligence company, OpenAI. 

Mark hosts Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) for a Conversation About “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Senator Johnson has called the legislation “immoral and grotesque” due to its projected $2.4 trillion increase in the national deficit over the next decade. How Senator Johnson votes on the bill may very well determine its fate. He has raised concerns about our growing debt with every president, Democrat and Republican alike, since coming to the Senate, beginning with President Obama to the present.

Prior to being elected to the US Senate in 2010, Senator Johnson ran a successful manufacturing business in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for 30 years. From 2015 to 2021, he was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and remains a member. Senator Johnson currently serves as Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and is also a member of the Senate Budget and Finance Committees.

Mark hosts A Conversation with David Malpass, the 13th Chairman of the World Bank (2019-2023) about “Economic Policy Today”.

 Mr. Malpass served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs for President Trump and an economic advisor to candidate Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Earlier, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for President G.H. Bush, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for President Reagan, Director of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and Chief Economist at Bear Stern, the investment banking firm.

Mark Bloomfield welcomes House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-AR) for A Conversation on the European Union’s Evolving and Far-Reaching Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and its Impacts on U.S. Businesses.

Chairman Hill brings a unique private sector experience and public service to his chairmanship. He served President George H.W. Bush as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Corporate Finance and Secretary of the President’s Economic Policy Council. Treasury Secretary Brady awarded Mr. Hill the distinguished service award. Earlier, he was a founder, chairman and CEO of Delta Trust & Banking Corporation. Chairman Hill is a ninth-generation Arkansan.

John Sullivan served as the former US Ambassador to Russia under Presidents Trump and Biden. His very timely book documents his time in Moscow when Russia invaded the Ukraine, and that’s why the appropriate subtitle is “A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia’s War Against the West".

 Previously, Ambassador Sullivan was the US Deputy Secretary of State. He has served five presidents in prominent diplomatic and legal positions. Ambassador Sullivan is currently a distinguished fellow at Georgetown and Columbia universities, a foreign policy affairs contributor to CBS News, and a partner in the law firm, Mayer Brown L.L.P.

Kevin Brady, former Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, was the main architect of the TCJA, the first major reform of the Internal Revenue Code since 1986.

Chairman Brady also served as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and Joint Committee on Taxation. Currently he is on the board of the Tax Foundation. He is also a senior consultant to the Akin Gump law firm.

Mark hosts Stephen Moore, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, on ‘Trumponomics’”

Stephen Moore is the co-author of Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy, along with Arthur Laffer, the father of SupplySide economics.

Steve is a former member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and was a senior economic advisor to President Trump in 2016. He is the co-founder and former president of the Club for Growth, the author of six books, and is a regular commentator on economic issues for various media outlets. Steve also serves on the ACCF Board of Advisors.

Mark Bloomfield welcomes H.E. Oksana Markarova, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States for a conversation on “The Economic Challenges for Ukraine.”

Oksana Markova has served as Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States since February 2021. The Ambassador previously served as Minister of Finance where she co-authored Ukraine’s macroeconomic revival program with unprecedented fiscal success. She created the UkraineInvest government promotion agency and the Ukraine Startup Fund.

Before her government service, the ambassador spent 17 years in private equity and financial advisory roles, including founding Archidata, a start-up electronic archive company.