Firing Line with Margaret Hoover

Photojournalist Lynsey Addario joins Margaret Hoover from Kyiv to discuss her coverage of the war in Ukraine, including a photo of victims of Russian artillery fire featured on the front page of The New York Times that has become a defining image of the conflict. Addario, who has been documenting combat and crisis zones around the world for over 20 years, recounts the moments of horror and humanit...

Acclaimed author Margaret Atwood joins Margaret Hoover to discuss the legacy of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the success of Hulu’s adaptation of the 1985 novel, and the “Burning Questions” about democracy, climate change, and human rights at the heart of her new non-fiction collection. As Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine rages on, Atwood suggests the horror of the conflict may change attitudes towar...

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third week, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor joins Margaret Hoover to discuss the fierce Ukrainian resistance, Vladimir Putin’s endgame, and the potential global fallout from the conflict. Taylor – who served as ambassador from 2006 to 2009 and returned to Kyiv as acting ambassador in 2019 before becoming a key witness in former President...

As the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul joins Margaret Hoover to discuss Vladimir Putin’s latest provocations, the Biden administration’s response, and the possibility that the world is on the brink of “the biggest conventional war in Europe since 1939.” McFaul, who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Moscow from 2012 to th...

Just 24 hours before being traded from the Boston Celtics to the Houston Rockets and released from the roster, NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom tells Margaret Hoover he suspects the league is trying to silence him for speaking out against human rights abuses in China. A newly naturalized American citizen, Kanter Freedom has been increasingly vocal about the oppression of his fellow Muslims in the Xi...

Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch joins Margaret Hoover at the start of Black History Month for a discussion on the importance of studying a complete history and his continued work to preserve the American story for the next generation. Bunch is the Smithsonian’s 14th secretary and is the first Black leader and the first historian to oversee the world’s largest museum, education and resear...

Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz joins Margaret Hoover to discuss the problems with education in America and her ideas to fix it. Moskowitz, who served as a Democrat in the New York City Council, founded a network of charter schools that has grown to include 20,000 students at 47 schools. She has taken on the teachers unions, a position that puts her at odds with her own party line. She is also a...

Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi joins Margaret Hoover to discuss the future of the workplace, the care economy and the role companies should play in addressing problems in society. Nooyi, who has written a new memoir My Life in Full: Work, Family, and our Future , talks about her childhood in India, her decision to come to the United States and her rise up the corporate ladder. She describes her pe...

CNN anchor, Washington Post columnist and author Fareed Zakaria discusses his latest book, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World , assessing where the U.S. response has fallen short under both the Trump and Biden administrations and defining what he views as the long-term consequences. Zakaria also analyzes current threats to democracy at home and abroad, including the build-up of Russian troops a...

Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger—an Air Force veteran and one of just two GOP lawmakers on the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack—reflects on the threats to democracy he witnessed that day and the questions the committee is attempting to answer. Kinzinger hid in his office for six hours during the siege with his gun on his desk, fearing that he may be targeted as one...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Simon & Schuster publisher Dana Canedy shares a personal story of love, loss and resilience that inspired her best-selling book and now the Denzel Washington-directed film “A Journal for Jordan.” Canedy gave her fiancé, First Sergeant Charles Monroe King, a journal to write to their unborn son before his deployment to Iraq. King was able to meet their son...

Republican Chris Christie discusses his new book about why the GOP needs to renounce conspiracy theories — including Trump's election fraud lies — in order to win again. The former New Jersey Governor, who spent a week in intensive care fighting COVID-19, responds to new reporting that President Trump tested positive the day Christie started prepping him for the presidential debate — and neither T...

Progressive socialist Dr. Cornel West and conservative Christian thinker Dr. Robert George, the “ideological odd couple,” discuss how their disagreements over policy — and their ability to talk about them openly and respectfully — have led to an enduring friendship. Their conversation with Margaret Hoover was originally broadcast on Firing Line in February 2020 and is now available as a podcast in...

Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, sits down with Margaret Hoover in Washington, D.C. to discuss his personal story of overcoming poverty to take his historic seat in Congress. The only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate and a rising star in the GOP, Scott assesses the impact of opportunity zones, which provide tax incentives for investment in economically distressed areas. "What I do not want," he...

World-renowned artist and former political prisoner Ai Weiwei sits down with Margaret Hoover at The Art Students League of New York, where he studied in the 1980s, to reflect on his life’s work and his new memoir, “1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows.” Ai describes his resistance to Chinese authoritarianism and the 81 days he spent in secret detention; he says he is hesitant to return to a China that h...

Author and political commentator Andrew Sullivan joins Margaret Hoover for a discussion about what he calls woke "overkill" and "fanaticism" even as he continues to warn about the “crazy cult figure” of Trump.  Sullivan says Republican Glenn Youngkin's defeat of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia Governor's race — in which parental choice and critical race theory became flashpoints — pu...

Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, joins Margaret Hoover to discuss his legislative proposals to provide temporary legal status for 8 million undocumented immigrants as part of the reconciliation deal and to protect Americans against flood insurance “rate shock.”  Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also explains how the U.S. can support Taiwan against aggres...

This week’s guest is Russia expert Dr. Fiona Hill, a former official in Trump’s National Security Council, a 2019 impeachment witness, and a current Brookings Institution senior fellow. Hill joins Margaret Hoover to discuss her new memoir, “There’s Nothing For You Here,” in which she details how her upbringing in the northeast of England and rise from “the coal house to the White House" has inform...

Award-winning actor and best-selling author John Lithgow sits down with host Margaret Hoover in New York City to discuss the third book in his trilogy of poetry satirizing America’s “scoundrels.” After taking direct aim at the Trump White House in the first two, Lithgow now shifts his focus to some of history’s earlier rogues, leveling them with limericks and illustrations. Lithgow also reflects o...

Firing Line is on the road as host Margaret Hoover sits down with three dissidents during the Human Rights Foundation’s Oslo Freedom Forum in Miami for a discussion on the global fight against human rights abuses. Hatice Cengiz is the fianceé of slain Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. She has inherited his fight for human rights after his murder three years ago at the Saudi consulate in...

Billionaire real estate mogul, sports team owner and civic entrepreneur Frank McCourt discusses his $250 million investment to transform the internet and fix social media’s “broken model.” Frank McCourt tells host Margaret Hoover “surveillance” capitalism has allowed tech giants like Facebook to “weaponize” user data against them. He says the new blockchain-powered Internet protocol created by Pro...

Economist Mohamed A. El-Erian explains his concern that inflation exacerbated by the pandemic response will persist and says the Federal Reserve must take action or risk missing “the window.”   El-Erian tells host Margaret Hoover, "The minute you have a whiff of persistent inflation — and I think we have much more than a whiff right now — you've got to do something about it." El-Erian al...

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author George Will joins Firing Line's Margaret Hoover for an in-depth conversation examining the conservative movement from William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review to today.  Will, who was hired by Buckley as his Washington editor in 1973, reflects on why he left the Republican Party in 2016 and his belief that many mainstream Republican politicians toda...

As America marks the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, Rep. Peter Meijer, R-MI, discusses the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, his decision to fly into Kabul amid the evacuation and who should be held accountable for the botched ending of a two-decade war. Support for “Firing Line for Margaret Hoover” is provided by The Margaret and Daniel Loeb Foundation, Robert Granieri, Charles R. Schwab, The David Tepp...

Let. Gen. H.R. McMaster joins host Margaret Hoover to respond to the suicide bombings that killed more than a dozen U.S. service members outside the Kabul airport. American forces will pursue the terrorists “to the ends of the earth,” McMaster says, but the attack shows “the limits of this sort of over-the-horizon approach to counterterrorism.” Gen. David Petraeus, interviewed the day before the a...