Chris Riback's Conversations

So you’re in a restaurant. Great meal. The bill comes, and it’s got a surprise – an unexpected $10 charge because, well it turns out your entrée required a special ingredient the server forgot to mention.   Would you pay it? Would you expect to have to pay it? Now look at our health care. You go to the Emergency Room. They take your insurance. Only it turns out, your in-network ER is being staffed...

This is a special live edition of Political Wire Conversations. On Friday, I hosted an outstanding live event and discussion at Harvard’s Kennedy School: Midterm Elections Preview: Blue Wave or Red Save? I was joined onstage by an All Star cast of panelists: Rick Wilson, Republican Political Strategist  Asha Rangappa, CNN Legal & National Affairs Analyst Clare Malone, 538 Political Reporter Taegan...

The countdown to Midterms is on. With less than three weeks to go, many questions remain and the stakes couldn’t be higher. How high? According to my guest today, “the nature of our democracy is on the ballot.” I’m not sure I disagree. You  may remember Richard Clarke for his 30 years in the U.S government, including 10 continuous years as a White House official, serving three consecutive presiden...

How do you make the most arcane, overlooked, eyes-glaze-over – and most critical – aspect of the U.S. government – interesting? How do you help folks understand that the so-called deep state – the parts of the bureaucracy that some people ignore and belittle – is actually vital to our safety, well-being and, frankly, our future? Simple: Have Michael Lewis write about. And now he has. In his new bo...

One thing is sure about the extraordinary, once-in-a-generation Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing last week: There was a lot of anger in the room. Judge Brett Kavanaugh: Angry. Senator Lindsay Graham: Angry. But it might have been the anger outside the room that changed everything. You’ve seen the video – two women somehow got hold of Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator, and they unleashed: “Look...

Think your life is crazy? How’d you like to be a White House correspondent with Donald Trump in the Oval Office? After all, if your daily schedule doesn’t get turned around multiple times, you always could get cursed or threatened at a campaign rally. In fact, just 60 minutes before my conversation with CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett began, news broke that Deputy Attorney G...

Doris Kearns Goodwin. Do I need to say more? Seven books; multiple New York Times’ best sellers; Pulitzer Prize. She is simply one of our nation’s great presidential historians. And Doris has spent much of her career studying four of the best – Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ. Now she takes a new look at all of them through a lens that – as you’ll hear – feels as much a commentary about tod...

How important has the Supreme Court become in American life? From gun rights to personal relationships, from money in politics to healthcare, whether it’s access to abortion, the voting booth or even our borders, the Supreme Court increasingly dominates how we work, live, and play – it defines, quite often, what kind of country we are. You could argue that it was the deciding factor for millions o...

Who is Mike Pence? It seems strange, but more than two years after he entered our national stage, how much do you feel you know about the Vice President? He’s a man of faith – we know that… but what exactly does it mean? He has acted as something of an economic libertarian – he’s a favorite of the Koch Brothers. But again, what does that mean – and how does it connect with his religious beliefs? A...

Jason Kander has a lot going on. To begin, he’s running for mayor of Kansas City. For most of us, that would be a full-time job. But as you’ll hear, Jason Kander is most definitely not the rest of us. It’s not just that he can rebuild a combat weapon while blindfolded, as he proved in a 2016 political ad. It ’s also not simply that in reaction to 9/11, he did what only a few other brave and patrio...

Rick Wilson doesn’t expect you to like him. For the last 30 years, Rick has been part of the underbelly of American politics: A self-described “Republican political strategist and infamous negative ad-maker.” And he’s done it for Republicans at all levels – state, local, & national, ranging from George H.W. Bush to Rudy Giuliani. As he says, he’s the one you called when you needed an attack. Not t...

The latest economic numbers are out, and by the time you hear this podcast, Donald Trump surely will have told us all why they are great, why tariffs work, and why this economy is the best ever. But you know better. Or at least Washington Post opinion columnist Catherine Rampell does. While we may have one or multiple months of strong GDP, the key question remains: Is that growth sustainable? And...

Well, that was quite a week. And no doubt, in the few hours between my recording this intro and when the podcast drops, another extraordinary week will have passed. How to make sense of it? To fashionably employ the double negative – it’s so good to see grammar finally get its due on the world stage – I don’t think it’s unfair to ask: Where are we as a nation? For guidance, I turned to former U.S....

It feels like a lifetime ago, I know. But so much of what’s happening today – the divides, anger, insults, policy realities – have emerged as a reaction to the Obama years. To understand today, it helps to understand what came before. Brian Abrams makes an important contribution to the process. Abrams specializes in oral histories – talking with key players and letting their words, almost exclusiv...

So here’s the timeline: Two days ago, I spoke with Dan Pfeiffer. As you surely know, he’s President Obama's former communications director and senior advisor and co-host of a podcast you might have heard of: Pod Save America. Then yesterday, Dan’s new book -- Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump – debuts at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Co-incidence?...

In the face of jailing immigrant children, questions about capitalism amid tariffs and possible trade wars, and concerns about democracy as we reject western allies and warmly welcome authoritarians and dictators, a lot of us are wondering not just who are we, but also, how in the world did we get here? Steven Brill feels he has an  answer. You likely know: Brill is a serial ideas entrepreneur. He...

For many on the right and left, the question has been “what’s happening to the GOP?” Free Trade? Gone. Budget deficits? No problem Free movement of labor? Not so much. Military war exercises? Who needs’em? Russia as outlaw state? How about Russia in the G8? I think a more fair – and probably more relevant question: What is the GOP?And frankly, the question comes more from the right than the left....

Does President Trump think he’s a king? That was the provocative headline to a recent piece by Harry Litman, a former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General. Litman made his argument after reviewing the legal arguments made in that confidential 20-page memo sent by President Trump’s lawyers to the special counsel, Robert Mueller. I wanted to talk with Litman for many reasons, not...

If you know Bill Browder's story already, you surely won’t mind hearing it again. It’s extraordinary. If you haven’t heard it before, get ready. Bill Browder very well may be Vladimir Putin’s public enemy No. 1. Why? Remember that “Hillary dirt” Russia meeting that Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort had with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 – the one the White House said wa...

Of the many institutions that Donald Trump has attacked – Courts, Congress, media, political parties, diplomats, former Presidents – perhaps the most surprising and unnerving has been the relentless attacks on our intelligence community. Even before that second day in office – the one where he stood before the 117 stars honoring the CIA’s fallen and said we should’ve kept Iraq’s oil, claimed almos...

Can we talk politics? In the last weeks on this podcast, we’ve talked about racism, our shrinking diplomacy, the Mueller investigation, how democracies die, and more. But we ought not forget: it’s the political elections that deliver the policies that define our democracy. Not happy with how things are going? You might want to vote. Thrilled? Well, you may want to, also. So where’s our Midterm vot...

Usually we drop these conversations on Friday mornings – you know, something to look forward to since the workweek excitement is about to end. But we’re posting this on Monday, May 7 because of my guest: It’s his last day as Mayor of New Orleans. Did you see the speech? It was about a year ago and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu stood up and explained to his city and the nation, really, why he re...

Iran, North Korea, Syria, Brexit, Paris Agreement, China. Prime Minister Abe, Macron, Merkel, Xi, a fellow named Putin. At a time when U.S. foreign policy – when diplomacy itself – requires as much clarity and coordination and skill as it has in decades, ours has been going through – to put it diplomatically – a major transition. You know the headlines: Thousands of State Department positions unfi...

Forget everything you think you know about President Jimmy Carter and get ready to ask yourself: Was he an ineffective, overwhelmed outsider who oversaw four of the worst years in our history… or, as my guest today argues, was Carter’s presidency one of the most consequential in modern history. I confess – I forgot just how much occurred during Carter’s four years – and how much of what he did set...

How will it end? For any of us following the Mueller investigation -- hanging on the latest leaks around the mood inside the White House and who might get fired or not fired – the wonder of what’s next is relentless. The possibilities seem endless. That’s why for many of us, we’re getting a crash course in Constitutional Law – indeed in our Constitution itself – seeing in real time how and whether...