The Back Room with Andy Ostroy

David Frum is a staff writer at the Atlantic and host of “The David Frum show” podcast. He is the author of ten books, most recently TRUMPOCALYPSE: Restoring American Democracy. David has been active in Republican politics since the first Reagan campaign of 1980. From 2014 through 2017 he served as chairman of the board of trustees of the leading UK center-right think tank, Policy Exchange. In 200...

Celina Stewart is the Chief Executive Officer of the League of Women Voters of the United States. Prior to joining the League, she was acting Chief Operating Officer and Director of Philanthropy at an electoral reform nonprofit; served as a litigation consultant to several Am 100 law firms handling complex merger and acquisition transactions; legislative aide at the Michigan legislature handling t...

Joe Walsh is a former Republican Congressman from Illinois elected to Congress in the TEA Party wave of 2010. Following his service in Congress, Walsh became one of the most popular conservative talk radio hosts in the country, syndicated in major markets throughout the U.S. In August of 2019 Joe became a candidate for President of the United States, waging a Republican primary challenge against D...

Alex Gibney is an award-winning filmmaker who's been called “the most important documentarian of our time” by Esquire Magazine. His work has been the recipient of an Academy Award, multiple Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, several Peabody Awards, DuPont-Columbia Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, Writers Guild Awards, and more. His films include TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE R...

Adam Arkin is an award-winning actor, director, and producer whose distinguished career has spanned over four decades. As a director and executive producer, Adam’s most recent work is featured in season two of the award-winning Peacock series “Poker Face,” which premiered last month and stars Natasha Lyonne. He also recently directed six episodes of Netflix’s “The Night Agent.” Adam has also execu...

Two weeks after graduating from USC, Tracy Walder began her career as a Staff Operations Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center before, during and after September 11th 2001, and as Special Agent at the FBI. During her time at the CIA, she lived in and travelled to countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe as well as served in war zones such as Afghanistan. Afte...

George Conway is an attorney, political activist, legal and political commentator, and a founder of The Lincoln Project. He is a host of The Bulwark’s podcast George Conway Explains It All (to Sarah Longwell), and he is a contributing writer to The Atlantic. He previously worked as a litigator for three decades at the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City. Few people are...

Leah Litman is a professor of law at the University of Michigan and a former Supreme Court clerk. In addition to co-hosting Strict Scrutiny, she writes frequently about the Court for media outlets including The Washington Post, Slate, and The Atlantic, among others, and has appeared as a commentator on NPR and MSNBC, in addition to other venues. She has received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg award for h...

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is Professor of History at New York University. She writes about fascism, authoritarianism, and propaganda. She is the recipient of Guggenheim and other fellowships; an advisor to Protect Democracy; an MSNBC opinion columnist and television commentator; and publishes Lucid, a newsletter on threats to democracy. Her latest book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, looks at how illib...

Co-founder and Board Member of The Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson is a renowned political strategist, infamous award-winning ad-maker and podcast host, writer, speaker, and political commentator on MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, NPR, Real Time with Bill Maher, and various American and international news national outlets. A 30-year veteran of national Republican politics, Rick got his start in the 1988 Presid...

Jon Michaels is a UCLA professor of law specializing in constitutional and national security law. His award-winning scholarship has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, and Harvard Law Review, and he has written popular essays for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, and Guardian. A Yale Law graduate and Supreme Court clerk, Michae...

Jake Tapper wrote the bestselling nonfiction book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, which was turned into a critically acclaimed film in 2020, and two New York Times bestselling novels, The Hellfire Club and The Devil May Dance. He is an Emmy Award-winning TV journalist as lead DC anchor and chief Washington correspondent for CNN. His new book, which he co-wrote with journalist Alex...

Congressman Jamie Raskin represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. He is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. he was the lead impeachment manager in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial and served on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Prior to his time in Congress, he was a three-term State Senat...

Brian Crano & David Joseph Craig are a married writer/director duo: David began his career as a writer and performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City and has worked with director Joel Edgerton for over a decade producing and acting in features Boy Erased and The Gift. Brian’s directorial debut, A Bag Of Hammers, starred Jason Ritter and Rebecca Hall and premiered at SXSW. His f...

Alec MacGillis worked for six newspapers, including The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post, before transitioning to magazines in 2011, at The New Republic before eventually joining ProPublica in 2015. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine, among others. He won the 2016 Robin Toner Prize for Excellence in Political reporting, the 2017 Polk Award fo...

Elie Honig is an attorney and CNN senior legal analyst and the bestselling author of Hatchet Man and last year's Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It. He’s a former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. He also hosts podcasts, writes for CAFE, Vox Media and writes a weekly column for New York Magazine. Eli's back in THE BACK ROOM discussing the latest...

Deja Foxx was raised by a single mom in Tucson, Arizona. As a free lunch kid in public schools, her family relied on SNAP benefits, Section 8 housing, and Medicaid to make ends meet. Having experienced homelessness because of her mother’s struggles with substance abuse, she balanced high school classes with long nights working at a gas station. Deja found her first fight advocating for better sex...

Deborah Archer is a tenured professor and Associate Dean at New York University School of Law. She is also the president of the ACLU and a nationally recognized expert on civil liberties, civil rights, and racial justice. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and an award-winning teacher and legal scholar. Before full-time teaching, s...

Rep. Jake Auchincloss is serving his third term representing Massachusetts 4th Congressional District. In addition to his work on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, his areas of focus include healthcare, clean energy, gun violence, and building a strong middle class. He’s a former Marine who commanded infantry in Afghanistan and special operations in Panama. Following his military servi...

Chely Wright is country-music artist, author and LGBTQ+ activist. Named "Top New Female Vocalist" by The Academy of Country Music, she rose to fame as a commercial country singer in the '90s, and has since released 9 studio albums and charted more than 17 singles on the Billboard charts, including "Shut Up and Drive," "Single White Female," and "The Bumper of My S.U.V." She made history by being t...

Steven Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author of How Democracies Die, which was a New York Times...

Dr. Fiona Hill CMG is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and Chancellor of Durham University. She served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the U.S. National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, as well as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelli...

Alexander Vindman is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and was the director for European Affairs on the National Security Council. Before that, he served as the Political-Military Affairs Officer for Russia for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as an attaché at the US Embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. While on the Joint Staff, he authored the National Military Strategy for Russia. He ea...

After surviving the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, David Hogg turned his grief into action, co-founding March For Our Lives, one of the largest youth movements in our country’s history. Last year, Hogg co-founded Leaders We Deserve, a grassroots organization dedicated to electing young people at the local and state level. Through his work, David ca...

Congresswoman Jahana Hayes represents Connecticut’s 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She serves on the Education and Workforce Committee and the Agriculture Committee, where she is Ranking Member of the Nutrition and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee. Her legislative priorities include education, healthcare, labor, agriculture, and veterans issues. A former history teacher and the...