anderson, thank you. matt gaetz, he single handedly held up kevin mccarthy s election as speaker, you ll recall. well, tonight, he s threatening to do it again in a new battle on capitol hill. and he s here. i m michael smerconish. live from new york city on the day that president joe biden asks americans for another four years, the nation is at risk of a potential economic disaster. thanks to partisan and interparty politics in washington, the u.s. is scheduled to default on its debt as early as june. something that s never happened before. and if the nation defaults, that means massive job losses, almost assures a recession. federal benefits, like social security are at risk. interest rates, what you pay on your house, your car, your college loan, they all skyrocket. the stock market, it tumbles, drag with it your 401(k)s. i know what you re thinking. michael, come on. we have seen the movie before and we know how it ends. they re going to figure it out. just before t
he says he faced opposition when his agent started pitching his latest book to publishing houses. it s a story said in a fictional georgia county about a black voting rights advocates teen son, who s arrested for killing eight during a traffic stop. the author is a white man who lives in martha s vineyard. he says for that reason, many will not touch the. book the post says they will release trial, that s the title, in june. in the meantime, you can find experts online at the website richard norton patterson dot substack.com. bestselling author rick patterson joins me now. rick, the advice historically to authors has been right about that what you know. is that sort of the modern interpretation? that are people saying, well, you don t know about this aspect of life? well, if you re going to write a book like this, you have to do the work. so, i went to georgia, i talked to the head of the legal voting rights group there, the north georgia group. i talked to ministers, i talk