Here who. Probably are not comfortable with playing that role, especially since thats not really focus of their books. So at least two out of three. So well talk about their books and give them a chance, talk about their books and then well lead some questions. They try to connect with the fall election, ill do a brief introduction of the authors and then ill get to the discussions. Ill try encourage some crosstalk because the three books on the panel are really interestingly different. Our first author, franklin foer, is currently a writer at the atlantic and previously wrote for slate, the new York Magazine and the new republic, where he was editor for some time and left with controversy over the takeover of of that media. His set out some intriguing claims as evident and some titles. His recent articles how trump is killing politics, why liberalism disappoints, which is a really interesting argument and Vladimir Putin has a plan for destroying the west and it looks a lot like donald trump trump. Hes also published three books with equally intriguing titles. And i encourage you to consider them as well. How soccer explains the world in 2000, four jewish jocks and hall of fame in thousand 12 and World Without mind existential threat of tech. We will be discussing his insider account and the hundreds of hours of interviews that he held with biden administrative functionaries. Well, as National Leaders for those for of us who have worked most of our career behind the scene, we know that nothing done without the people behind the scene. And he had conversations with those people as well as the names youd recognize for this book that well be discussing the last politician inside Joe Bidens White and the struggle for americas which came out in 2023 from penguin press. Our second place. Our second author tina nguyen, is a journalist who has written for vanity fair, politico and puck as a College Student was recruited to the conservative cause by a wellfunded network of clubs, paid internships and mentorships. She got her first job working for tucker. Everybodys favorite expert media voice. She became alienated from her maga mentors as she came to how she and other young were being used to promote White National autism and misinformation and he writes, she writes with considerable insight. And and engaging detail about how hard it was for as someone who really characterized herself as coming from a more conservative to recognize that she was being paid and had been supported to kind of promote misinformation including White Nationalism, rather doing the work of journalism, which she had a great love and respect as a journalist. The scene at the capitol on january sixth, she witnessed how these efforts led up to the riots that sought to overturn the 2220 election. And she notes in her book, how many flags south vietnamese flags flew among the rioters that day, which is a kind of detail that i think has really telling power, she recounts. Her college experiences and her early career in the book. Well discuss maga diaries. My surreal inside the right and how i got out, which came in 2024 from one signal publishers. Our final author, patrick ruffini, is a leading republic and pollster and expert on political and demography. He cofounded echelon inside sites, which is one of the highest ranks private, highest ranked private polling firms in the nation. Ruffini has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, 538 the atlantic politico and time and has been on Media Outlets from npr to fox news and entertainment. Patrick began his career working for George W Bushs 2004 reelection campaign. Patrick examines how the Republic Party has been transformed by the make America Great movement. In the book we will discuss today the party of the people inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition remaking the gop came out in 2023 from simon and schuster schuster. So lets start out by having frank, tina and patrick talk about their books and the ways they can help us understand our times and the upcoming election. Frank, your book recounts the countless interviews you had with people in the Biden White House as they worked. Stop the rising numbers of deaths during the pandemic. Seems like ancient history now doesnt. I mean going back to those times, we were cloistered in our homes, just watching millions americans die. You also have talked to people about the historic legislation, the infrastructure bills, the Chip Semiconductor bill and the inflamm inflation act. These are pretty historic development. So tell us about how you came to understand and how you came to understand bidens character and his administration it through these interviews. Thank you thank you for lovely introduction and thank you for not making me soothsayer because i would bet against political prediction that i would make. And can i just say one thing . I just to preface this to the kind of your introduction to the idea of ive thought a lot about i a book about big tech and the threat that poses and one of the things that i that makes me most optimistic about the world is that ten years ago everybody that the ebook was going to kill these things up here and it was treated as like an inevitability, an iron of history, and yet we we still consume books in this form. And to me, these books in a certain way constitute a form of resistance against. These and against all the algorithm nick forces that addict us and compel us to pick up these all the time. So when we about whats going to happen now and november, i like to think about books and to think that there is inevitable in this world. So quickly. I just ive just wasted my time talking about books now joe biden. But when started writing about joe biden in the title of book is the last politician, and youll ask, well, pretty obviously hes not the last politician. There are lots of other politicians to exist in the world. I was thinking about how both barack obama, donald trump in their different ways, people who positioned themselves as anti politicians, they people who came from outside the system, who decried washington, who they were going to lead social movements that were going to shock american politics, into some sort of new, different formation. But when we think about joe biden, i cant think of him as anything other than a lifelong politician. And as he came into he was facing this crisis of american democracy. And he thought about it in a holistic sort of way. There was a crisis, american democracy at home. And he was inaugurated on steps of the capitol weeks after the insurrection. He walked through doors that were where the glass had been broken by the insurrection. And below him he could see concrete that had been stained the blood of a body fight that had happened on the grounds the capitol. And he faced the problem of autocracy in the form he thought most primarily of china, but also he was thinking a lot about russia and the way that he thought he could win this war to save democracy was, in effect, prove that politics was the most effective way of mediating the differences of opinion that we have. And society that in a society were not going to agree on everything and nobodys to get what they want all of the time. Thats just the nature of the beast and he set out to prove that all of these things that people had dismissed as antiquated are boring or distasteful. The horse counting the horse trading, the nose counting, the persuading. People who disagree with you, were still effective ways of delivering things for the citizen. And of course, he went about and i think he compiled a pretty impressive record of delivering things for the citizenry in the way that tom just outlined. He did things that are he gets really almost no credit for for redirecting the way that we conduct political economy in this nation. The bills that he described will our political economy for generations, administrations follow will be working within this context that he set up in, the way in which the state is now acting as an investment banker and making these big bets on what will be the commanding industries of future. And were going to have semiconductor plants, a lot of them in arizona, going to have Green Energy Manufacturing plants, electric vehicles, etc. , supply chains that will exist throughout the country because of this. And it represents a real change from the Clinton Obama reagan way of doing things and its incredibly significant, of course, the ultimate of politics is now standing right before us and. So all of that accomplishment, all of the things that he was able to deliver for citizenry doesnt matter if it fails to connect with citizens and if they fail to reelect him. President of the United States. And so when i did the title, the last politician, i always had that that that that passage looming there in front me that that in some sense if we turn in an autocratic direction in you know politics will be very different. Okay frank before, we move on to tina and patrick, a up question. So, i mean, democrats have the environmentalists, frankly, they have nowhere else to go. But this election is going to be determined by. A prop as according to analysis and other analysis by the working class. Why isnt biden and the Biden Administration getting any respect or support for the Economic Impact they have had . I mean, it wasnt more than a year or so ago when we were all thinking recessions coming. What are we going to do about the upcoming recession . The recession that didnt happen doesnt seem to register it with the voters in terms their support for president biden. Yeah, theres theres a whole lot of glory in averting crisis, although thats now the narrative that i think he began to articulate in the state the union that this idea of a comeback that people are very nostalgic for the third year of the Trump Presidency before the pandemic kicked in. Its a hard a hard sell for a couple of reasons. One is inflation is a very painful thing for people to have to live through. And food prices are still pretty high, even though the rest inflation has started to recede. And there is a long tail where people experiences and how they describe economy begin to adjust long after. I a new economic reality has set in. I think is age is a real liability that he has in connecting with voters because so many of the crises that hes experienced, whether its the border, whether its inflation, whether these wars that are happening in other parts of the world make it feel like the world is on fire and something is spinning out of control. And when they look at him, their instinct is, well, hes an old guy. He cant possibly be in control, even though thats not an evidence based analysis. Okay. So, tina, like many Younger Voters in america right now, you dont feel terrible from your maga diaries, at least at first. I get the feeling that you dont feel really comfortable in the republican or the democratic camp. Hmm. I get the sense from the book that dont really identify with either one of those insofar as in in maga diaries you recount, you gravitated toward conservative out of a love of the cons and a belief in freedom. While you have renounced the maga movement, you remain what your characterize as a quasi. Tell us about political odyssey and how it can help us understand the voters you have to identify with in your journey, including the voters 40 who are very likely going to be a decisive force in the upcoming, especially if they decide not to show up. Hmm. So quasi libertarian. Certainly a weird term, but i guess its the one i gave out. So. I would describe it as that one period. When you were in college age where you think men what if people acted according to rational selfinterest from the expectation that were all good people and you know maybe we would all get along that way. Clearly human nature doesnt allow for that. But there was this one glorious moment, 2008, with the ron paul revolution, where enough people thought it would be so. But the repubs akin conservative interest structure and network has existed for decades this point, and they do so by identify in young people at a specific moment in time who lean conservative or lean against prevailing liberal ideology on campuses and go, hey, you know what . Thats a great idea. Heres a whole bunch of. Internships and jobs and Networking Events and a career path. The future that would take those ideals and make them manifest into reality. Years passed however and all of a sudden the party that you grew up in is no longer the party you exist in is no longer party you grew up in. But this is still your job and your livelihood and your and the Younger Generation who come in are now believing something completely different and it goes. It just kind shifts along with the times. But the overwhelming impetus that this network must survive all costs and it will change with the times and youre just going to have to go along it because this is where you live now. And the reason i broke away from it was because the way that i entered this world was through libertarian, conservative leaning journalism programs that were funded at that point by the koch network and they identified me early on as someone who was pretty gung ho about these causes to begin with and then in exchange for giving me, jobs in journalism and was 29 after the recession and newsrooms were collapsing and i didnt have money to go to jschool was here is your job but heres what you have to do the job do it or do it and shut up and dont really question things. My first job at the daily caller, i realized maybe a month in that the editor whod hired me wasnt actually hired by the company. He was an outside comms person. And i covering tech policy at the time. And the i brought that up all of a sudden there was no more financing for my job and now were sorry, but were going have to let you go. They were Tucker Carlson was very lovely about it, which is a topic i grapple with in the book. But the network that id mentored be started connecting me with other job opportunities. These groups in madison that were about to start a state bureau. But they wanted me to specifically cover terrible teachers. Unions were and this was 2011 if you remember what happened between scott walker and the Teachers Union then that raised a lot of alarm bells and the job that actually like made me go what am i doing here . I am a chess piece, a place called the colorado observer. And they were looking for a washington stringer to file copy out of the capitol on Colorado News and moment i took on this job. This guy, my editor, started putting these stories in front of me specifically like digging into democrat the democrats from colorado in washington and the assignment they gave was something i forget exactly what it was but i looked the republican and i was like the republicans doing the exact thing. Why are we so mad at the democrat . And he starts telling me that its all about hypocrisy and that we have to cover every democrat, even if the republicans doing the same thing. Because the Washington Post going to be attacking the republican more than the democrat. And at this point ive been people from these Interest Groups have been leading me astray and im like, no, where is this guy from . Turns out hes never been an editor in his life and his first and the job that he had before that was at americans for prosperity, which is the Koch Brothers network. Prior to that, he was the chief of staff for tom tancredo. Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. This is a congressman who in colorado was speaking at like pro confederacy events and the moment. And theres a difference between idealism and what are asked to do for the sake of that idealism. And i was definitely pro i thought freedom was at the time but i entered this world to become a journalist and what the network asked of me was not do journalism and i could not reconcile the two. So when i say broke from the conservative movement, that is what i broke. So as journalist, as you know, sometimes have to challenge your audience. And so i want to follow up on your comments to challenge you the audience a bit. The next question in maga diaries, you note how you are often asked about why you continue to write about the right since you have moved beyond it. You responded, first of all, the left is incompetent to quote you observed that progressives think they can set out a plan and just it into action. They have no idea about the mountain that lies between the here and the there. They intend to go, as you put it. I dont think the left or the regular card carrying republicans whos wondering why everyone went back over the last past five years, understands that even now, the scale or geography of the mountain, thats in the way. So tell us about what liberals, progressives dont understand about the maga mountain. If you go back to the very of the conservative movement which is very different from the maga movement. At the core of conservatism, american conservatism at least comes from the idea that if you move Society Forward too quickly, its going to destroy social fabric and everything will fall into chaos. The idea comes from this 18th century politician, philosopher named edmund burke, who saw the french revolution occur. And it was like a well, i mean, wonderful that you want all these liberties. But in the process of doing so, youre beheading aristocrats. I would rather maintain institute actions that are backwards in order to keep stable. Then try to move forward at all. And american conservatism in the 1950s took that argument, made it the basis for their mission. And in this case, the french revolution was communism. And over the decade, the entire idea has been we standing athwart history, stop, dont move forward. Lets try to remain right here so we dont like spiral into ruin and it is much easier keep a Movement Togeth