The Forum with Josh Cowen Podcast

We’re capping off a half-year of conversations with members of elected officials and candidates about the politics and policy of serving kids and families. There will be more over the next few months, and look for a special recap next week. Today’s guest is an especially important leader in all things child and family policy: early education, child care, K-12 schooling, and access to higher educat...

I’ve been wanting to sit down with Neera Tanden for quite awhile now. She’s currently the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress —the premier policy institute in D.C. focused on standing up policy and political strategy from the center-left. Neera Tanden has a long history in Democratic politics. She served in Joe Biden’s White House in several different roles, was most recently as...

Over the past several decades, one of the big developments in the American economy has been the growth of private equity: an investment strategy in which wealthy individuals and managed funds get together to buy out companies, strip them of costs, and sell them for a profit. It’s a complicated scheme, and it depends on favorable treatment in both state and the federal tax code. It’s also led to un...

This week I’m talking to Anne Kim , co-editor of a new book called Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This . It’s a compilation of chapters by seasoned policy experts, and longtime policymakers and advisors at senior levels of the federal government. It’s basically a damage assessment that takes a look at where we are midway through Trump’s second term, what’s been done and what’s coming ahead. Bet...

I’ve wanted to talk here about immigration policy for awhile now. But I’ve been waiting to connect with an expert on the topic who could offer some insights into both the policy and politics. Andrea R. Flores is an attorney, policy expert, and media commentator with more than 15 years of experience trying to reform U.S. immigration law and domestic policy at the highest levels of government. She h...

Late last year, and early into this year, I began sitting down with a number of congressional candidates and candidates for governor in battleground races across the country. I wanted to talk to them about their campaigns, but also—because of our focus here at The Forum— how they saw policy issues related to kids and families. And especially schools—pre-K through higher education. So this week I’m...

I’ve been looking forward to chatting with Amanda Litman for a few weeks now. She’s the co-founder and president of Run for Something —the wildly successful grassroots organizing group that helps recruit and train thousands of progressive political candidates across the country. If you admire a progressive state or local leader in your community, there’s a good chance they’ve worked with Run for S...

This week, my conversation is with author and Harvard law professor Leah Plunkett. She is also a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society . Leah’s book Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online (MIT Press) was released a couple years ago, and since then she’s been one of the country’s leading experts on children and families when it c...

This week I’m going out of order a bit on Forum postings. Normally I’d do a Monday newsletter, with a conversation/interview scheduled for release Thursday. But I’m flipping the schedule to post my recent chat with Eli Savit, who last weekend became the de facto Democratic nominee for Michigan Attorney General. The Michigan Democratic Party convention that ultimately endorsed Savit’s bid made nati...

Something I’ve been writing and speaking about all over the country—culminating in my book The Privateers —is the right-wing effort to create a “counter-intelligentsia” of “soldier-scholars” to push far-right policy priorities. They’ve do so with almost unlimited cash from a handful of billionaires and a larger group of wealthy conservative patrons over time. Until 2016, most of that effort came w...

This week’s conversation is with the author and journalist Brian Goldstone , whose book There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America was first released last year and is now out in paperback. There is No Place for Us was one of the best-reviewed nonfiction books of the past year, and landed in the top ten lists for both The New York Times and The Atlantic. The book tells the story of f...

Whether you’re a first-time or long-time reader of this series, you know the main connecting points for me are policy and political questions around kids and families. In my own writing that means focusing on the big issues around resources, attention—and attacks—on education, child care and other important investments. But when I talk to other authors or to public figures, I’m interested in how t...

Tonight marks Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, in the Christian Tradition. It’s the night we commemorate the Last Supper, and Jesus Christ’s Agony in the Garden. Last night, Passover began in the Jewish tradition, commemorating the end of slavery and exodus from Egypt for the ancient Israelites. It’s an incredibly important spiritual week for many Americans—both those who support what Donald Tru...

If you’ve been reading these newsletters—or you’re just now checking in—there are three broad themes. The first is ongoing exploration of right-wing politics—especially around kids, families, and schools . The second is regular conversation with policymakers, candidates, and other public figures on those issues. The third is exploring different ways to push public education forward —both for its o...

One of the persistent themes in American politics right now is the influence of dark money on our elections and public policy. Especially dark money when it comes to corporate dollars, right-wing advocacy, and billionaire influence. The entire point of my book The Privateers is that a handful of billionaires created right-wing think tanks to stand up arguments for specific policy priorities in edu...

Hi everyone, I hope you’ll take a moment at some point over the next few days to check out this particular conversation. I appreciated the chance to chat with the renowned Heather Cox Richardson about education history, politics, and policy. We covered school vouchers, why the American Right is so obsessed with schools, and the importance of education to democracy and the American project. This is...

I had a chance to sit down at the end of last week with Bridget Brink, who served as Ambassador to Ukraine under President Biden—the first woman to serve as ambassador in a war zone. Bridget is now running for Congress back home in Michigan, in a district that could determine control of the House. We talked about Trump’s war in Iran, and what Putin’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine means both for in...

Earlier today I sat down with Elaine Godfrey from The Atlantic, who just returned from Texas after covering the Democratic primary between James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett. I asked about that coverage, as well as her ongoing series reporting on conservative women in the MAGA movement , the Democrats efforts to build a “big tent,” and new groups like the Searchlight Institute making the case for...

Thank you to all who tuned in live for the chat with Jason Zengerle ! To recap, Jason is a staff writer with The New Yorker , and author of Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind In my twenties, I worked for Tucker and the other three hosts of CNN’s Crossfire , and saw first-hand many of the stories recounted in Jason’s new book. Jason Zengerle an...

Thanks to everyone who tuned into the chat with Katherine Stewart ! You can watch the full conversation linked to this message. To recap: Katherine’s the author of the New York Times bestseller Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy . In just a half-hour, we went through a whirlwind of history on the Christian Right, billionaires, schools, and democracy itself. Thi...

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live. Here’s our full conversation on how Milton Friedman’s DIY economy hurts kids and families across the country. Check out Jess’s book Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net for more. On Thursday, watch for my next 5 Questions newsletter interview with MN State Rep. Kaela Berg, running for Congress in the Minneapolis suburbs. She talked abo...