262 David Frum of The Atlantic and David Cay Johnston of DC Report

20:47 David Frum is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Frum is the author of ten books, most recently TRUMPOCALYPSE: Restoring American Democracy(HarperCollins, 2020). His first book, Dead Right, won praise from William F. Buckley as “the most refreshing intellectual experience in a generation” and from Frank Rich in the New York Times as “the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative movement.” In National Review, John Podhoretz hailed Frum’s history of the 1970s, How We Got Here, as “an audacious act of revisionism, written in a voice and style so original it deserves to be called revolutionary.” Arianna Huffington said of Frum’s 2012 novel, Patriots, “David Frum is someone who fearlessly speaks his mind, regardless of where the chips may fall, so it’s no surprise he’s able to convey so much truth in his fiction.” Frum’s memoir of his service in the George W. Bush administration, The Right Man, was a New York Times bestseller, as was his 2018 book, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic.

David Frum has been active in Republican politics since the first Reagan campaign of 1980. From 2014 through 2017, Frum served as chairman of the board of trustees of the leading UK center-right think tank, Policy Exchange. In 2001-2002, he served as speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush.

David Frum holds a BA and MA in history from Yale and a law degree from Harvard, where he served as President of the Federalist Society.

53:20 David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and best-selling author.

The Washington Monthly called him as “one of America’s most important journalists.” The Portland Oregonian said his work equals the original muckrakers: Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair and Lincoln Steffens.

Johnston met Donald Trump in 1988 and in April 1990 revealed that Trump’s was no billionaire. When Trump announced his latest run for the White House in June 2015, Johnston was the only nationally-known journalist who immediately said Trump was serious this time and might get the GOP nomination. His reporting over the next year led to the Making of Donald Trump, published around the world in English and German on August 2, 2016, by Melville House.

The San Jose Mercury recruited Johnston when he was just 18 years old because of his reporting for two small weekly newspapers in Santa Cruz, Calif. At age 19 The Mercury hired him as a staff writer. Within weeks his byline made the front page.

Over the next four decades his award-winning investigations appeared in that paper, the Detroit Free Press, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times.

Since 2009 Johnston has taught the business regulation, property and tax law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law. He previously taught writing, reporting and magazine writing at the University of Southern California and UCLA Extension. He has lectured on four continents about journalistic techniques, ethics, legal theory and tax policy.

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