The Back Room with Andy Ostroy

Cenk Uygur is the host and founder of online progressive news and commentary show The Young Turks and is CEO of TYT Network, which cites a global audience of more than 500-million monthly views per month and 21-billion total video views. he launched The Young Turks as a talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio in 2002 and started uploading videos on YouTube in 2005. Prior, he was the host of The Young...

James “The Ragin’ Cajun” Carville is America’s best-known political consultant with a knack for steering overlooked campaigns into unexpected landslide victories and for re-making political underdogs into upset winners. He most notably helped steer Bill "The Comeback Kid" Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign to victory. More recently he’s been focusing his strategic-thinking on international campa...

Tim Miller is The Bulwark’s writer-at-large and the author of the best-selling book Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. He was previously political director for Republican Voters Against Trump, communications director for Jeb Bush 2016, and spokesman for the Republican National Committee in 2012. He is an MSNBC political analyst and host of Not My Party on Snapchat. He's...

The daughter of legendary author and social critic Erica Jong, Molly Jong-Fast is a special contributor to Vanity Fair and the host of the Fast Politics podcast. Join us for a fun, funny, insightful and frank conversation about a range of subjects including childhood family dysfunction, rehab, life with teenagers, Trump, Trumpism, the midterms, Nancy Pelosi, Marjorie Taylor Greene, anti-Semitism a...

Chris Matthews is an award-winning journalist, columnist, author, political commentator, television host and professor. His 15 years in politics and government includes serving as speechwriter for president Jimmy Carter and administrative assistant to House Speaker Tip O’Neil. He was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle; syndicated columnist and Washington Bureau Chief for the San Francisco...

Mary L Trump is a trained Clinical Psychologist with a PhD from The Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies. She also has a Master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. As an adjunct professor at Adelphi University, she taught graduate level courses in developmental psychology, psychopathology, and trauma. In 2017 Mary provided over 40,000 pages of doc...

Stuart Stevens is a Senior Advisor to the Lincoln Project. For twenty-five years he was the lead strategist and media consultant for some of the nation's toughest political campaigns including the presidential bids of Bob Dole, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. He is the author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump (202...

Michael Fanone served as a DC Metropolitan Police Department Officer for twenty years. He spent the majority of his career as a vice cop, participating in over 2,000 arrests for violent crimes and narcotics trafficking. He served as a special task force officer for the FBI, ATF, and DEA and has earned over three dozen commendations for his work. But Michael's best known as one of the many law enfo...

Soledad O’Brien is a multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, speaker, author, philanthropist and founder of Soledad O’Brien Productions, a multi-platform media production company dedicated to telling empowering and authentic stories on a range of social issues. She anchors and produces the Hearst TV political magazine program "Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien" and is a correspond...

Alexander Vindman is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who most recently served on the National Security Council. He was thrust into the national spotlight in October 2019 when he testified before Congress during former president Donald Trump's first impeachment hearing. He is the author of the book "Here, Right Matters: An American Story". Rachel Vindman is an opinion columnist at USA TODAY...

Join us this week for an incredibly entertaining chat with the very talented, very funny comedian and impressionist Matt Friend! Matt, just 24-years-old, is an indisputable comedy sensation, having launched like a rocket from social media apps TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter where he's built a loyal following that'll soon reach 1-million fans. In addition to his transcendent Donald Trump i...

Finneas is a singer, songwriter, actor, and music producer. His sister is Billie Eilish, with whom he co-writes, produces and collaborates. Their 2020 theme song "No Time to Die" for the James Bond film of the same name is a Grammy, Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Academy Award winner for best film song. Overall he's won eight Grammys and received 13 nominations. Join us for a truly fun chat abou...

Rick Wilson is a renowned political strategist, infamous ad-maker, writer, speaker, political commentator and co-founder of the political action committee the Lincoln Project. He’s the author of two New York Times bestsellers, writes for The Washington Post, Politico, Rolling Stone, The Hill, The Bulwark and the London Spectator and frequently appears on CNN, MSNBC, NPR and HBO's Real Time With Bi...

Join us this week in The Back Room for a brutally honest, insightful, lively chat with Stephanie Grisham, former Trump White House Press Secretary and Communications Director for both the former president and First Lady. She also served as Melania's Chief of Staff. Through genuine contrition and a true desire to prevent the Trump era's ugly history from repeating itself, Stephanie pulls no punches...

Join us this week in The Back Room for an insightful conversation with California Congressman Ro Khann, currently serving his third term representing District 17 in the heart of Silicon Valley. Rep. Khanna shares his views on a range of critical subjects including America's biggest socio-economic challenges, President Biden. Trump and Trumpism, the midterms, the 2024 election, climate and whether...

Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci is founder and managing partner of global investment firm SkyBridge and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio...but he's best known for his roller-coaster 11 days as former President Donald Trump's Communications Director in 2017. Join us for a brutally honest, insightful, behind-the-scenes look into The Mooch's life, care...

Judd Apatow has directed, produced and written many of the most iconic films and hit TV shows over the last couple of decades. The film's he's directed include THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, KNOCKED UP, THIS IS 40 and the current HBO documentary GEORGE CARLIN'S AMERICAN DREAM. The movies he's produced include ANCHORMAN, THE BIG SICK, BRIDESMAIDS, SUPERBAD, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, and FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL...

Join us for a very important conversation with New York Congressional candidate Pat Ryan in one of the most closely-watched bellwether races in the country. Pat’s running in the August 23rd Democratic primary to fill the remaining four months of the District 19 seat formerly held by Lt Gov Antonio Delgado. He’s a West Point graduate, former Army Captain, entrepreneur and Ulster County Executive. H...

Join us for an important, insightful conversation with Florida Secretary of Agriculture and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried, who's fighting to ultimately unseat fascist-dictator-wannabe Gov. Ron DeSantis. She faces Charlie Crist in their August 23rd primary. Nikki explains why she's best suited to lead the Sunshine State through it's current, economic, housing, healthcare, insurance...

Katie Couric is an award-winning journalist, author, documentarian, television host, podcaster, newsletter publisher and founder of Katie Couric media. Following the death of her husband Jay Monahan from colon cancer in 1998, Katie co-founded Stand Up to. Cancer and has received numerous awards for her cancer advocacy work. Join Katie and I for a truly insightful chat about life, love, loss, work,...

A special bonus episode dedicated to the chilling revelations...and the comic relief...of the January 6th Committee's Thursday night hearing. This was the 8th and final hearing before their August break and return in September. Join us as we break down the key takeaways of the session, including the hilarious (and somewhat terrifying?) outtakes from Trump's January 7th video message. Who knew the...

A lively, insightful chat with the always astute & entertaining Paul Begala...renowned political consultant, author, teacher, CNN commentator and one of the chief architects of Bill Clinton's 1992 winning presidential campaign. We discuss the January 6th hearings, the November midterms, Trump, Democrats and Republicans, gun reform....and....we go back in time to chat about what it was like bei...

This week’s episode has very special meaning to me, as it’s a deeply personal, heartfelt conversation with an incredible man who’s been to hell and back and is harnessing his grief, anger, emotion and passion into helping others. I am in awe of Fred Guttenberg…gun reform and political advocate and father of Jaime, who at 14-years-old was murdered in the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School mass-shoot...

A fascinating chat with attorney and author Spencer Schneider, who discusses his new book "Manhattan Cult Story", detailing his 23 years in a secret NYC cult through which every aspect of his life was controlled. We explore how he got in, what it was like inside and what eventually led to his exit. Jill Schlesinger, CBS News Business Analyst & Host of Jill On Money, also joins us for a truly i...

A discussion of the short and long-term ramifications of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs Wade with filmmaker Annie Sundberg, co-director/producer of the 2018 Netflix Original documentary "Reversing Roe". We also chat with actor, producer, tv host, author and entrepreneur Hilarie Burton about her personal infertility and abortion experience. Got somethin' to say?! Email us at BackroomAndy...