Overheard with Evan Smith

Rick Wilson is a longtime Republican political strategist, writer, speaker and political commentator. He is the author of the #1  New York Times  bestseller  Everything Trump Touches Dies . His award-winning column with  The Daily Beast  is a must-read in the political community. Rick also writes for  The Washington Post ,  Politico ,  Rolling Stone , the  New York Daily News ,  The Hill ,  The Bu...

Senator Bill Bradley served in the U.S. Senate from 1979 – 1997 representing the state of New Jersey. In 2000, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Prior to serving in the Senate, he was an Olympic gold medalist in 1964 and a professional basketball player with the New York Knicks from 1967 – 1977 during which time they won two NBA championships. In...

John Cameron Mitchell is a screenwriter, director and actor whose cult rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch won Mitchell Best Director at the Sundance Festival. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actor for that same film. His recent Broadway production of Hedwig garnered him Tony Awards for his performance and for Best Revival. Mitchell has directed other films including How to Tal...

Robyn Hitchcock is one of England's most enduring contemporary singer-songwriters. A surrealist poet, talented guitarist, cult artist, and musician's musician, Hitchcock is among alternative rock's father figures. Since founding the art-rock band The Soft Boys in 1976, Robyn has recorded more than 20 albums and starred in Storefront Hitchcock , a concert film recorded in New York and directed by J...

Isabella Rossellini grew up in Paris and Rome. At 19, she moved to New York City to work as a translator and journalist for RAI-Italian Television. She began her modeling career at age 28, and in 1982 began a 14-year run as the exclusive spokesperson for the cosmetic brand Lancome.  Ms. Rossellini, who is the daughter of film legends Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, made her cinematic debut...

John Grisham is the author of thirty-three novels, one work of non-fiction, a collection of stories, and seven novels for young readers. A master of the legal thriller, nine of his novels have been turned into films - The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Chamber, A Painted House, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas . There are currently more than 300 mil...

Scott Pelley has been a journalist for nearly five decades. He is the most awarded correspondent in the history of 60 Minutes , and he is the former anchor of the CBS Evening News . His work has been recognized with three duPont-Columbia Awards, three Peabody Awards, the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, and 37 Emmy Awards.  In his memoir, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search...

Saeed Jones is the author of Prelude to Bruise , winner of the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry and the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. The poetry collection was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as awards from Lambda Literary and the Publishing Triangle in 2015. Jones is a former co-host of BuzzFeed's morning show, AM to...

Susan Rice began her service in the public sector in 1993. In the Clinton administration, she was a foreign policy analyst on the National Security Council, and assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Under President Barack Obama, she served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and national security advisor. She is currently a distinguished visiting research fellow at the School...

Aarón Sánchez is an award-winning chef, TV personality , cookbook author and philanthropist .  He is the chef/owner of Mexican restaurant Johnny Sánchez in New Orleans, and a judge on FOX's culinary competition series MasterChef . He co-starred on Food Network's Chopped and Chopped Junior . A third-generation cookbook author, Sánchez has written three books. His latest is a memoir, Where I Come Fr...

Jeff Tweedy is the Grammy Award-winning founding member and leader of the rock band Wilco. He is one of contemporary American music's most accomplished songwriters, musicians and performers. Rolling Stone magazine cited Wilco's 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as the third best album of the decade. Since founding Wilco in 1994, Tweedy has toured solo, produced three albums for iconic soul and gospe...

Tim O'Brien's acclaimed novels include "The Things They Carried" (an NEA Big Read, which the New York Times said belongs on "the shortlist of essential fiction about Vietnam"), "If I Die in a Combat Zone," "In the Lake of the Woods," and "Going After Cacciato" (which won the 1979 National Book Award in fiction), among others. In 2013 he was awarded the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award fo...

Houston native Tilman Fertitta is an accomplished businessman and self-made billionaire who is often referred to as "the world's richest restaurateur." He is the sole owner of Fertitta Entertainment which owns the restaurant giant Landry's, five Golden Nugget Casinos and Hotels, and the NBA's Houston Rockets. Fertitta is one of the largest employers in the nation, with more than 60,000 employees....

Bari Weiss is a writer and editor for The New York Times opinion section. Before joining the Times, Bari was an Op-Ed editor at the Wall Street Journal and an associate book review editor there. For two years, she was a senior editor at Tablet , the online magazine of Jewish news, politics, and culture, where she edited the site's political and news  coverage. Bari regularly appears on shows like...

Stacey Abrams is a  New York Times  bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, nonprofit CEO and political leader. After serving for eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives, and seven as Minority Leader, Abrams became the 2018 Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia. She won more votes than any other Democrat in the state's history and was the first black woman to become the gubernat...

Jeff Flake served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was then elected to the United States Senate where he served for six years. Working across the aisle, Senator Flake was the lead House Republican in a successful effort to prohibit spending earmarks, and the lead Senate Republican to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. Flake did not seek re-election in 2018 and became a contr...

Keb' Mo' has cultivated a reputation as a modern master of American roots music in the 25 years since the release of his debut album. After 14 albums, he is a musical force that defies typical genre labels. He has co-written with The Dixie Chicks and collaborated with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Natalie Cole, and Lyle Lovett. His guitar playing inspired two instrument makers to name...

Major League pitching legend Roger Clemens got his start at Houston's Spring Woods High School. He then attended San Jacinto Jr. College and went on to have a successful career as a University of Texas Longhorn. Clemens was the winning pitcher in the final game of the 1983 College World Series.  Roger was drafted by the Boston Red Sox and one year later named Rookie of the Year. Clemens is a seven...

Terrence McNally is an award-winning playwright and LGBT(Q) activist whose remarkably far-ranging career has spanned six decades. He has won four Tony Awards for his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and his musical books for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime . He is the writer of the book for the musical Anastasia . He was recognized with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achiev...

Presiding Bishop Curry graduated with high honors from Hobart College in Geneva, NY, and received a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University Divinity School. Throughout his ministry, he has been active in issues of social justice, reconciliation, speaking out on immigration policy and marriage equality. Presiding Bishop Curry maintains a national preaching and teaching ministry, having been...

Singer-songwriter and Grammy winner Ani DiFranco has been known as the "Little Folksinger" but her music has embraced punk, funk, hip hop, jazz, soul, electronica, and even more distant sounds. Rejecting the major label system, she became one of the first artists to create her own record label, Righteous Babe Records, in 1990. Her collaborators have included everyone from Utah Phillips to legendar...

Anna Palmer is a senior Washington correspondent for Politico . She covers Congress, politics and the business of Washington. Jake Sherman is a senior writer for Politico . He covers the House Republican majority. Together, Palmer and Sherman co-authored The Hill to Die On , an insider's look at divided American politics and the Capitol Hill players battling for power.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has served as the junior U.S. senator from New York since 2009. A magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College in 1988, Gillibrand went on to receive her law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 1991 and served as a law clerk on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. After working as an attorney in New York City for more than a decade, Senator Gillibrand served as Specia...

Ed Zwick is an award-winning film and television director and producer. He co-created the television series thirtysomething  and produced My So-Called Life ,  Once and Again , and  Nashville . Zwick directed the Academy Award-winning films Glory and Legends of the Fall . Zwick received an Academy Award as a producer of  Shakespeare in Love . His 2019 film, Trial by Fire , starring Laura Dern, is t...

Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and a leading voice for the human rights of immigrants. He is the founder of Define American, the nation's leading non-profit media and culture organization that fights injustice and anti-immigrant hate through the power of storytelling. His memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen , was published b...