Overheard With Evan Smith On Klru-tv

Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling, presidential historian. He won the Pulitzer for biography in 2009 with his book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Meacham is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of American Lion, Franklin and Winston, and Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. Meacham’s most recent book is Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush.

Martin O’Malley is a 2016 candidate for President. He was the 61st Governor of Maryland, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association and is the former Mayor of Baltimore. We interviewed him in 2015 and for the first time in 2012, just days after President Obama was re-elected.

Margaret Atwood is an award-winning author of more than 40 volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and nonfiction. She’s best known for her novels, including The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Blind Assassin, which won the Booker Prize in 2000. Her newest novel, The Heart Goes Last, was published in September.

Wendell Pierce is an actor, producer, and author, best known for playing Detective Bunk Moreland on HBO’s “The Wire.” A New Orleans native, he starred as Antoine Batiste in Treme, the HBO series about the city after Hurricane Katrina. Pierce is a three-time NAACP Image Award Nominee for best actor in a television drama and won the 2008 Image Award for best actor in a television movie. His memoir The Wind in the Reeds: A Storm, A Play, and the City That Would Not Be Broken was recently published.

Ambassador Ron Kirk served as the 16th U.S. Trade Representative and served in President Obama’s Cabinet. He negotiated trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, and Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Kirk was the first African-American Mayor of Dallas from 1995-2001, and was appointed Texas Secretary of State by Governor Ann Richards.

Mary Lynn Rajskub is a comedian and actress, best known for playing Chloe on Fox’s super‐popular series 24. She has also appeared on 2 Broke Girls, Californication, Arrested Development, Mr. Show, and as a regular panelist on Chelsea Lately. Rajskub has also been seen in movies, including Safety Not Guaranteed and The Kings of Summer.

Thomas Mallon is a novelist and critic who has written 9 novels and 7 works of non-fiction. His 2012 novel Watergate was a finalist for the PEN /​ Faulkner Award. He frequently contributes to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The Atlantic. His newest novel, Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years was published in September.

Robert Reich is a leading expert on work and the economy. He served in 3 U.S. administrations, including as Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and on President Obama’s economic transition advisory board. In 2008 TIME magazine named him one of the 10 most successful cabinet secretaries of the past century.

A dozen years ago, Andy Roddick was the number one men’s tennis player in the world — the last American male to hold that title, and the last to win a Grand Slam singles event. Today he’s a TV sports commentator, and a philanthropist whose namesake foundation is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary.

Taylor Branch is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, historian, and public speaker, best known for his Civil Rights era trilogy America in the King Years. His other titles include The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, and The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA.

Cokie Roberts is a best-selling author, a contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition and a Political Commentator for ABC News. She’s won numerous awards, including three Emmys, and was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.

Former Congressman Barney Frank represented the Fourth District of Massachusetts for more than three decades.One of the most prominent gay politicians in American history, he was the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. His memoir Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage was recently published.

Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian, writer, and podcast host. His podcast “WTF with Marc Maron” is regularly one of the most popular on iTunes. His eponymous IFC show Maron returns this month.

Kim Gordon is a founding member of Sonic Youth and author of the best-selling memoir Girl in a Band. The memoir chronicles her childhood in California, her time in New York City in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and the rise of Sonic Youth. In addition to being a musician and author, Gordon is a fashion designer, actress and artist.

Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, a non-profit providing online instruction to people all over the world. He began by tutoring his cousins remotely by video. The videos attracted a large YouTube following. Today, Khan Academy is an online learning platform which includes practice exercises, instructional videos, analytics and teacher tools with 15 million registered users.

Bernie Sanders is a United States Senator from Vermont who describes himself as a Socialist, serves as an Independent, and may run for president as a Democrat in 2016. Sanders is the longest-serving Congressional Independent in US history.

Hendrik Hertzberg is a Senior Editor and Staff Writer at The New Yorker. His writing for The New Yorker’s The Talk of the Town has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary 6 times, and won the award in 2006. He’s written three books, Politics: Observations and Arguments, ¡Obamanos!: The Birth of a New Political Era, and One Million.

Alex Gibney is an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Alex’s film Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief will air on HBO on March 29th. Based on Lawrence Wright’s book by the same name, the film was one of the most talked about at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

David Axelrod is a political strategist and former Senior Advisor to President Obama. Axelrod ran both of President Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. He’s also worked for a number of other big names in Democratic politics - Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Deval Patrick, and Rahm Emanuel, just to name a few. His memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, has just been published.

S. C. Gwynne is a best-selling author and journalist, whose most recent book Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson is a finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award. His 2010 book Empire of the Summer Moon was a New York Times best-seller and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.