Thank You

No Stack the Week but Verily, a Stacked Week

Hello everyone!

Happy Fourth of July! I’m back from the Aspen Ideas Festival which was extremely busy and meaningful. In New York, the temperature approaches the surface of the sun, so I’m typing this to you from a stool positioned near the open freezer door.

Thank you for following along and for the many who subscribed after hearing me banter with Tim Miller on the Bulwark podcast. Your support makes it all possible. (That, and my insatiable need for approval).

I’m not sure what next week will bring. More experiments certainly. For now I will hydrate in anticipation of looking at the fireworks which will require standing outside.

Here’s what I have been up to since we last communed. Aspen panels and a few podcasts.

1. The Future of Public Media (with Paula Kerger and Ken Burns)
What role should public media play when trust has fractured and audiences have more choices than ever? I sat down with PBS President Paula Kerger and filmmaker Ken Burns to talk about whether public broadcasting still has a unique civic mission, how institutions earn credibility, and why telling America’s story has become both more difficult and more necessary.

2. Trust in an Age of Distrust (with David Brooks and Tom Wilson)
Everyone talks about the collapse of trust. David Brooks and Allstate CEO Tom Wilson explored what trust actually looks like—in friendships, neighborhoods, businesses, politics, and daily life—and why it often grows from countless small acts rather than sweeping reforms. We talked about character, institutions, and the habits that hold a society together.

3. Journalism, Power, and Watergate (with Carl Bernstein and Katie Couric)
I joined Carl Bernstein and Katie Couric for a conversation about what investigative reporting looked like fifty years ago, how it differs today, and what has changed about the relationship between journalists, power, and the public. It became a conversation not only about reporting but about skepticism, evidence, and the responsibilities of both journalists and citizens.

4. Christian McBride on Improvisation, Listening, and Leadership
Christian McBride is one of the world’s great jazz musicians, but our conversation reached far beyond music. We talked about improvisation, trust, mastery, leadership. Jazz can teach us about collaboration, democracy, and living with other people.

5. Can America’s Constitutional System Still Work? (with Jack Goldsmith, Maya Kornberg, and Steve Vladeck)
Congress seems weaker. Presidents seem stronger. The Supreme Court occupies an ever larger place in American life. So how did we get here—and can the constitutional system rebalance itself? Jack Goldsmith, Maya Kornberg, and Steve Vladeck wrestled with the separation of powers, polarization, money in politics, war powers, and judicial authority. Rather than simply diagnosing what’s broken, we asked what reforms might actually restore the institutions the Founders imagined—and whether voters should start asking different questions of the people who want to lead them.

6. Now Hiring: The Future of Work Is Wide Open
One of the liveliest conversations I had in Aspen started with a deceptively simple question: what does the workforce look like now? The answers quickly moved beyond AI. We talked about why companies struggle to find skilled workers, why more young people are rediscovering the trades, which jobs become more valuable because of artificial intelligence, and what employers are learning about hiring, training, and keeping people. It left me thinking that we’re living through something bigger than a technology story.

7. The Bulwark Podcast (with Tim Miller)
I joined Tim Miller for a wide-ranging conversation that mixed politics, journalism, and the challenge of making sense of events without surrendering to the day’s outrage. Tim asks sharp questions, pushes back, and keeps the pace moving. I always enjoy conversations where disagreement isn’t the point—understanding is.

8. Wild Card (with Rachel Martin) [Link TK]
Rachel Martin’s Wild Card isn’t an interview so much as a conversation disguised as a card game. The questions are unexpected, personal, and often revealing in ways conventional interviews aren’t. We talked about journalism, curiosity, memory, and a few things I hadn’t expected to say out loud.

Thanks again to all of you out there reading and thinking and listening.