The Back Room with Andy Ostroy

Max Boot is a historian, best-selling author and foreign-policy analyst. He is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a weekly columnist for The Washington Post. He just released the critically-acclaimed new book "Reagan: His Life and Legend". His previous biography, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in biography.

Max discusses his new book about Ronald Reagan and weighs in on the current presidential campaign.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Michael Cohen is the former personal attorney for Donald Trump and served for years as an executive in the Trump Organization. He is host of the Mea Culpa With Michael Cohen podcast and co-host of Political Beatdown with Michael Cohen and Ben Meiselas podcast, and is a 2x NYT best-selling author. His latest book is “Revenge: How Donald Trump Weaponized the US Department of Justice Against His Critics. He’s also Principal of crisis management firm Crisis-X.

It's always both insightful and fun when Michael's in The Back Room! He joins us this week to share his unique perspective on Tuesday night's debate, Trump's increasingly unhinged, dangerous behavior, and what it all means these next two months as we race towards the election.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Modi Rosenfeld was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and at 7 emigrated with his family to the United States and was raised on Long Island. After graduating from Boston University, he worked as an investment banker until he fell in love with stand-up comedy during his first open-mic performance. He’s a regular at the New York and Los Angeles comedy clubs and headlines around the country and across the globe.

His current 'Pause For Laughter' tour includes stops in Zurich, London, Chicago, St. Paul, Montreal, and Denver before finally concluding at the iconic Beacon Theatre in NYC. His debut special, "Know Your Audience", is available on YouTube.

Modi is one of the funniest humans on the planet! I hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did!

Check out Modi's "Know Your Audience" comedy special here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPF3GkKuPVc. And find him on Instagram @Modi_Live!

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Jesselyn Cook is an award-winning investigative reporter and journalism lecturer who has written extensively about online conspiracy theories and their offline harms. Prior to covering the tech beat at NBC News, she was a senior reporter on HuffPost's national enterprise desk. Her new book is The Quiet Damage: Q Anon and the Destruction of the American Family.

Jesselyn shares her fascinating and at times chilling insights into the QAnon conspiracy phenomenon and its devastating effects on its followers' families. Her book is rare, intimate look into the psychology of how and why ordinary people come to believe the unbelievable.

More about the book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/706443/the-quiet-damage-by-jesselyn-cook/

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

S.E. Cupp is a CNN political commentator and host of the daily TV show Battleground. She was most recently host of CNN's S.E. Cupp Unfiltered. Before joining CNN she co-hosted MSNBC's The Cycle. She's a nationally syndicated political columnist, culture critic, author and consultant who regularly writes for the New York Daily News, Glamour and CNN.com. She was previously a consultant for Apple TV+'s The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell and HBO's hit series, The Newsroom.

It's always fun when S.E. stops by The Back Room! We discuss Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and the presidential campaign and the battleground states, the impact (or lack thereof) of RFK Jr on the election, and the upcoming debate. And, she reveals whether or not she'll be reading Melania's new memoir!

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Jeremy Sisto is a film, television and theater actor currently starring in the hit CBS show FBI. He is also a writer, producer and musician. His past tv credits include SIX FEET UNDER, LAW AND ORDER and the hit ABC sitcom SUBURGATORY. 
His extensive film credits include the 1995 classic CLUELESS, WAITRESS, the tennis comedy BREAK POINT, which he co-wrote and produced, the Oscar-nominated animated hit FROZEN II, and the Oscar-and Golden Globe-nominated animated film FERDINAND.

Jeremy's Los Angeles theater credits include “Take Me Out,” which earned him a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Featured Performance, Sidney Kingsley’s “Dead End”, and the one-man show “Sanguine”. In New York, he made his Broadway debut in “Festen,” a stage adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg’s film THE CELEBRATION, and starred in Beau Willimon’s “Spirit Control”, about a man’s 30-year struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.

It's a truly fun, in-depth chat about Jeremy's early years, his diverse career, and his experience raising kids!

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Deja Foxx, a speaker at the recent Democratic Convention in Chicago, is 24 years old and leading thought at the intersection of social justice and social media. She is the founder of GenZ Girl Gang, a Graduate of Columbia University, and a Digital Creator with Ford Models who got her start advocating for reproductive justice after experiencing homelessness in her teenage years.

At just 19, Deja worked for Kamala Harris as the Influencer and Surrogate Strategist and became one of the youngest presidential campaign staffers in history. She is the recipient of Planned Parenthood's Catalyst of Change award, the Global Citizen Prize, and Gloria Steinem's Ms. Foundation's 'Free to Be You and Me' Woman of Vision award. She is currently living and working in her home state of Arizona where abortion is on the ballot.

Deja discusses her incredibly inspiring journey from homeless teen to nationally-recognized advocacy and activism...and the critical importance of the November election on reproductive rights and women's bodily autonomy.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Andrew Weissmann is the co-host of the popular podcast Prosecuting Donald Trump and is a frequent legal analyst for NBC/MSNBC. He serves on the board of Just Security and writes frequently for it, as well as The New York Times, The Atlantic, & The Washington Post. From 2017-2019 Andrew served as a lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office. His memoir about the Special Counsel investigation, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation , was a New York Times bestseller. He is also a Professor of Practice at New York University and teaches courses in national security and criminal procedure. He also served as the General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and from 2002-2005 he served as the Deputy and then the Director of the Enron Task Force where he supervised the prosecution of more than 30 individuals in connection with the company’s collapse.

Andrew was also a federal prosecutor for 15 years in the Eastern District of New York, where he served as the Chief of the Criminal Division and prosecuted numerous members of the Colombo, Gambino, and Genovese families, including the bosses of the Colombo and Genovese families.

Join us for this informative, insightful chat as Andrew brings us up-to-date on Trump's ongoing, ever-changing legal cases and shares his views on the current political landscape. And, he also reveals his top 5 musical artists of all time!

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

Julie Roginsky is a founding partner of Baro Strategies and has nearly three decades of public and private sector experience as an adviser on strategic communications, political strategy and public relations…working on behalf of corporate and political clients which include Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, non-profits and dozens of elected officials including governors, United States senators, members of the House of Representatives and state legislators. Earlier in her career, she served as the communications director for Senator Jon Corzine.

Julie is also the co-founder of Lift Our Voices, a national non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the American workplace by banning forced arbitration clauses and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) for toxic workplace issues. The organization has been credited with helping to pass sweeping bans on NDAs across the nation and with the passage of the federal Ending Forced Arbitration for Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act and the Speak Out Act, which have been called the strongest labor law change in the last 100 years. She’s a former contributor at Fox News Channel, where she was a frequent co-host of Outnumbered and The Five. Prior to that, she was a contributor at CNBC, the financial news network.

Julie and I discuss the critical work of Lift Our voices; Donald Trump and Trumpism; and Kamala Harris, the campaign and the huge stakes for America in the upcoming November election.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud

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. Prior to joining FNC, she appeared as a frequent guest on the network since 2014.

In addition to her role on FNC, Jessica also serves as the Vice President of Research and Consumer Insight for Bustle Digital Group. Prior to this, she served as a senior strategist with Schoen Consulting, where she advised domestic and international clients on messaging strategies for more than five years and worked as a democratic pollster. In May 2024, she was named one of Variety’s 2024 Women of Impact for her political commentary across FOX News Media.

Back from the DNC convention, Jessica shares her big takeaways from the week, as well as Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and the overall campaign.

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Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud