The Back Room with Andy Ostroy

Democrat Elissa Slotkin represents Michigan’s 7th Congressional District and serves on the Armed Services and Agriculture Committees. Following grad school after the September 11 attacks, she was recruited by the CIA to be a Middle East analyst, and within a year she was sent on the first of three tours in Iraq alongside the U.S. military. She’s held national security roles in the George W. Bush a...

Stephanie Grisham is the New York Times bestselling author of “I’ll Take Your Questions Now, What I Saw in the Trump White House.” During the Trump Administration she served as White House press secretary and director of communications for both the President and First Lady, Melania Trump. She is the only person in history who has held three senior roles at once, while representing both the east an...

Gershon Baskin is an Israeli writer, columnist, author and one of the most recognizable names in the Middle East Peace process. He is the Middle East Director of ICO…International Communities Organization and is the Director of the Holy Land Bond. Ad he is the co-founder and former co-director of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. During the Premiership of the late Yitzhak R...

Susan B. Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes a weekly column on life in Washington. She’s served as the top editor of several Washington publications, including Politico, where she founded the award-winning Politico Magazine, and Foreign Policy, which won three National Magazine Awards, among other honors, during her tenure as editor in chief. Before that, she worked for...

Eric J. Segall is a constitutional law scholar, professor, and author of the books Originalism as Faith, and Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is not a Court and its Justices are not Judges. His articles on constitutional law have appeared in, among others, the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Stanford Law Review On Line, the UCLA Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, the Washington Univer...

It was a dizzying week in court for Donald Trump, from the Supreme Court's hearing on immunity to the New York election-interference ("hush-money") trial. Criminal defense attorney and MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos makes his first appearance in THE BACK ROOM to help unpack it all and more. Got somethin' to say?! Email us at BackroomAndy@gmail.com Leave us a message: 845-307-7446 Twitter: @And...

Mary L Trump is a trained Clinical Psychologist with a PhD from The Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies. She’s the author of two New York Times best-selling books… Too Much and Never Enough and The Reckoning. her next BOOK, Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir, will be published in September. She publishes The Good In Us newsletter on Substack, and is well-known as the niece and...

If you're a 21st Century parent you likely know what KIDZ BOP is! My close pal of 30 years Cliff Chenfeld co-founded this wildly popular and successful music franchise, and he joined me in THE BACK ROOM for a fun, intimate chat about his illustrious career and the ever-changing music business. Cliff's an NYU law school graduate, music entrepreneur, writer, radio host, and film producer. He co-foun...

Yes, it's true! At 13 Jonathan worked as a camera operator at a television station on Nantucket for its 5:30pm newscast and then was promoted 2 years later to news director. After college he worked as a cameraman for film and tv. His film credits include Spike Lee's “Do the Right Thing” and “Mo' Better Blues,” “Mountain View” for John Sayles, “A Better Tomorrow” for John Woo, and “Dazed and Confus...

Tonya Mosley is an Emmy award-winning journalist and co-host of Fresh Air with Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley. She is also the founder of TMI Productions, an audio documentary production company that produces the award-winning podcast Truth Be Told and the documentary She Has A Name in collaboration with American Public Media. Previously, Tonya was a television correspondent for various news outlets...

Bill Weir is a veteran award-winning anchor, writer, producer, and host who came to CNN in 2013 after a decade of award-winning journalism at ABC News. In 2019, he was named the network’s first Chief Climate Correspondent, drawing on his experience creating and hosting the primetime CNN Original Series “The Wonder List with Bill Weir,” now streaming on Discovery+. Throughout his network career, Bi...

Stephanie Mencimer covers legal affairs and domestic policy in Mother Jones’ Washington Bureau. She is the author of Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and Its Corporate Allies Are Taking Away Your Right to Sue. She appeared in the documentary “Hot Coffee,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and was based in part on her book. She is also a contributing editor...

Sarah McCammon is a National Political Correspondent for NPR and cohost of The NPR Politics Podcast. Her work focuses on political, social and cultural divides in America, including the intersections of politics and religion, reproductive rights, and the conservative movement. She is also a frequent guest host for NPR news magazines, and has appeared on the BBC, CNN, PBS, and MSNBC. During the 201...

Paul Begala is a CNN political commentator, consultant and NY Times best-selling author. Along with his partner James Carville, he was one of the masterminds behind Bill Clinton's winning presidential campaign in 1992 and later served as Counselor to the President, serving as one of President Clinton's closest aides, and coordinating policy, politics, and communications. In the 2012 campaign, Paul...

Miles Taylor is a national security expert who served in the Trump administration as chief of staff at the US Department of Homeland Security, where he published an “Anonymous” essay in The New York Times, blowing the whistle on presidential misconduct. He later published the #1 national bestseller A Warning, revealed himself to be the author, and launched a campaign of ex-officials to oppose Dona...

Ian Bremmer is a political scientist, Columbia University professor and president and founder of geopolitical risk advisory firm Eurasia Group, and GZERO Media, which covers international affairs. He is the author of eleven books, including the New York Times bestsellers “Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism,” and his latest book, “The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats—and Our Response—Will Chan...

Jonathan Vigliotti is an Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Award–winning CBS News national correspondent whose work has appeared on numerous platforms including CBS Sunday Morning, Face the Nation, 48 Hours, and more. His reporting has taken him to more than forty countries and territories across six continents. His just released debut book is Before It’s Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Chan...

Jocelyn Benson is Michigan's 43rd Secretary of State, and has become one of the nation’s most prominent leaders in ensuring elections are secure and accessible. Her work overseeing Michigan’s 2020 and 2022 general elections, earned her national recognition, including the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and the Presidential Citizens Medal. She also implemented new voting rights for all eli...

Don Lemon is a best-selling author, journalist and former anchor of the long-running CNN primetime program, Don Lemon Tonight. He made headlines recently when his newly launched The Don Lemon Show, originally set to launch on X, formerly Twitter, was cancelled by Elon Musk after his interview with the testy billionaire tech-bro. The show is available on YouTube and all audio and video platforms. D...

Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent for The New York Times, where she has worked since 2014. She has traveled the world covering two presidential administrations, writing extensively about domestic policy, foreign policy and the complicated dynamics of first families. Her just published first book is American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill...

Tom Nichols is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He’s an expert on international security issues who taught national security affairs for 25 years at the U.S. Naval War College, as well as at the Harvard Extension School, Dartmouth College, and Georgetown University. He is the author of several books on Russia, the Cold War, and international politics. A new, updated edition of his most recent book,...

Jennifer Rodgers is a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School, an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law at the NYU School of Law, and a Legal Analyst for CNN. She teaches, writes, and speaks about government ethics, public corruption, sports corruption, and criminal law issues. Between 2000-2013, Jennifer worked at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she ser...

Brian Karem is a weekly columnist for Salon. He is the former executive editor for The Sentinel newspaper group and the former senior WH correspondent for Playboy Magazine. He’s also a regular columnist for The Washington Diplomat and appears frequently on the country’s top-rated news shows. He has covered every presidential administration since Ronald Reagan, sued Donald Trump 3 times successfull...

Rachel Bitecofer is a political scientist and election forecaster turned political strategist. Bitecofer’s interviews and analysis have been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Politico, The New Republic, Real Time with Bill Maher, CNN, MSNBC, and many other prominent news sources. She's worked with Democratic Party candidates and organizations to implement negative partisa...

S.E. Cupp is a CNN political commentator and 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, R...