The Back Room with Andy Ostroy

Jill Schlesinger is the Emmy and Gracie Award winning Business Analyst for CBS News. She appears on CBS radio and television stations nationwide covering the economy, markets, investing and anything else with a dollar sign. She is a weekly guest on NPR’s “Here and Now” and writes the nationally syndicated column “Jill on Money”. She is the author of two books, The Great Money Reset and The Dumb Things Smart People Do With Their Money. Jill is also the host of the “Jill on Money” and the “MoneyWatch” podcasts and of the nationally syndicated radio show, “Jill on Money”. She is a frequent speaker on a variety of topics, including macroeconomic, market and demographic trends; workplace issues for women and LGBT employees in financial services; and how to create authentic branding. She serves on the board of the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center.

Jill's back to discuss the shutdown, the economy, the stock market, and what investors should be doing in Q4. And, we also found time to address the Carole King vs Taylor Swift debate and whether Boomer music is better than Gen Z's/Millennials'!

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Cait Conley is a fourth-generation Hudson Valley native, daughter of a postal worker and a construction worker, a decorated combat veteran and national security expert. And she’s running for the House in NY’s 17th Congressional district.

Cait discusses the shutdown, affordability, national security, Trump, Hegseth, her campaign and the fight to defeat Mike Lawler

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Cass Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as Chair of its technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. He was advisor to presidents Obama and Biden, has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many nations on issues of law and public policy. He is author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide, The Cost-Benefit Revolution, On Freedom, Nudge. The World According to Star Wars, Too Much Information and his new book, "On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom”.

Cass joins me for an insightful discussion about his new book.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Jake Tapper wrote the NY Times bestselling nonfiction books The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, which was turned into a critically acclaimed film in 2020, and this year’s ORIGINAL SIN: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. He’s also written 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, RACE AGAINST TERROR: Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War, comes out Tuesday October 7th.

Jake and I talk a little sports and then dive into the government shutdown and his terrific new non-fiction thriller.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Peter Baker is the Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times and a political analyst for MSNBC. He has covered the last five presidents for The Times and The Washington Post. At The Post, he also served as Moscow Co-Bureau Chief and covered the opening months of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is author of seven books, including the best-selling The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, and The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, both with his wife, Susan Glasser of The New Yorker. He is a frequent panelist on Washington Week on PBS.

Peter and I discuss the government shutdown, the Comey indictment and Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department, and Howard Lutnick's jaw-dropping new Epstein comments.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud @ Radio Free Rhiniecliff

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Osita Nwanevu is a contributing editor at The New Republic, a columnist at The Guardian, and the Democratic Institutions fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He is a former staff writer at The New Republic, The New Yorker, and Slate, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, In These Times, Flaming Hydra, and Gawker. His new book is The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.

Osita discusses his new book about democracy's many flaws and the desperate need to amend the Constitution to correct the inequities in representation including those in the Supreme Court, Senate, and the electoral college.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Marc Levin is an award-winning, independent filmmaker. He has made over 50 films, including documentaries, TV series, dramatic feature films and episodic television. He’s won four Emmys and four duPont-Columbia Awards, among other prominent accolades. Highlights include his dramatic hit SLAM; the groundbreaking docuseries Brick City; and several films for HBO including Gang War: Bangin’ in Little Rock, Thug Life in DC; and Class Divide. His most recent HBO film, An American Bombing, is streaming on Max and was recently nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Historical Documentary. His latest film, which premieres Sept 30th on PBS, is HARD HAT RIOT.

David Paul Kuhn is a writer and political analyst and author of several books including his most recent, The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution. He’s served as the chief political writer for CBS News online, a senior political writer for Politico, as well as chief political correspondent at RealClearPolitics. He’s also written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, National Review, New Republic, among other publications, and regularly appears on networks ranging from BBC to Fox News.

Marc's new film is partly based on David's book. Join us for this super-interesting discussion about the riot, this violent end to the turbulent Sixties, and its stunning parallels to the current political chaos.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Katie Phang is an independent journalist and trial lawyer. Formerly the host of “The Katie Phang Show” on MSNBC, Katie also has served as a legal contributor/legal correspondent for several media outlets, such as NBC, MSNBC, and Fox News. She’s had a front-row seat to some of the most consequential moments in recent history, including the unsealing of multiple criminal indictments against Donald Trump, oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court on presidential immunity, and attending the only criminal trial of an American president.

After several years in mainstream media, Katie departed cable tv to dive into independent media, launching her own YouTube channel (@katiephangnews) and Substack (@katiephang), leveraging her experience, including as a trial lawyer for more than 25 years, to provide compelling analysis and commentary on the latest legal and political issues across the globe.

Katie shares her astute insights into Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department and overall assault on democracy; the Comey indictment; the Jimmy Kimmel debacle; Kamala Harris and her new book; the big Hegseth military gathering next week; and more.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Mark S. Zaid is a Washington, D.C. based attorney specializing in crisis management and handling administrative and litigation matters relating to national security, international law, foreign sovereign and diplomatic immunity, and the Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts. His clients typically include former/current federal employees, particularly intelligence and military officers, defense contractors, Whistleblowers and members of the media who have grievances, have been wronged or are being investigated by agencies of the United States Government or foreign governments. Mark is also the Executive Director and founder of the James Madison Project, a Washington, D.C.-based organization with the primary purpose of educating the public on issues relating to intelligence gathering and operations, secrecy policies, national security and government wrongdoing. And in 2017 he co-founded Whistleblower Aid, a non-profit law firm that provides pro bono legal representation to whistleblowers, particularly in the national security arena, and serves as legal counsel.

Mark discusses the Jimmy Kimmel/Disney/FCC free speech debacle, RFK Jr's firing of CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez, Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department, the strength (or lack thereof) of the judicial system, and the future of democracy.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Vicky Ward is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, podcaster, documentary host and producer, former CNN Senior Reporter, magazine editor at large, entrepreneur, and Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her investigative reporting focuses on power, money, and corruption in the United States and abroad. She is the author of the bestselling Substack newsletter, “Vicky Ward Investigates.” And her most recent book about the 2022 killing of four University of Idaho students, which she co-wrote best selling novelist James Patterson, is The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy, was published in July and became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller.

Vicky discusses her new book about the horrific 2022 murders at the University of Idaho. She also shares in gripping detail how she first learned of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of teenage girls while writing her 2003 Vanity Fair profile of him and the investigative journey it's taken her on over the past 22 years.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud