Barton Gellman

Barton Gellman is a highly respected and much-honored author and journalist, a staff writer at The Atlantic, and Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation in New York. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy for documentary filmmaking, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

His recent articles from The Atlantic have been widely praised for the cogent look at the turmoil and chaos that could erupt from the 2020 election. 

Gellman is responsible for many important stories. He led The Washington Post's coverage of the U.S. National Security Agency, which was based in large measure on top-secret documents provided to him by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. He published a book for Penguin Press on the rise of the surveillance-industrial state in May 2020.

Gellman joined TCG on Wednesday October 28th, 2020 for “The Election that Could Break America”, a discussion about what to expect after the 2020 Biden-Trump election. The event was moderated by Tom Rogers, the founder of CNBC and a CNBC contributor. 

Clyde Haberman

Clyde Haberman

American Journalist

Clyde Haberman has served as a journalist with The New York Times since 1977. His assignments included staff editor of The Week in Review; Metro reporter; City Hall bureau chief; and foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Rome, and bureau chief in Jerusalem. He is known and received tremendous praise for his coverage of the Attica prison rebellion, the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians, the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the rise of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East. 

He was part of a Times team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News, awarded for coverage of the prostitution scandal that led to Eliot Spitzer's resignation as New York governor. He continues to be a NYT columnist  and writes the Retro Report essays for The New York Times.

Clyde Haberman moderated our event, The White Working-Class Political Revolution with David Kuhn, Charlie Cook, and Jim Webb on January 7, 2021. Kuhn, Webb, Cook, and Haberman discussed how the white working-class was driven away from the Democratic party and towards Republicans and how that schism continues to drive class conflict and political polarization today. The discussion also broached the Democrats inability to make inroads with this demographic and if white working-class voters support Republicans in spite of their own policy preferences.

Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt

Michael S. Schmidt is an American journalist, author, and correspondent for The New York Times in Washington, D.C. and national security contributor for MSNBC and NBC News. He covers national security and federal law enforcement and has broken several high-profile stories. The Pulitzer-winning reporter broke news of Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email while secretary of state, and of James Comey authoring a memo that detailed the president ordering him to end the FBI investigation of Gen Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

All of these are detailed in his most recent book Donald Trump V. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President. Schmidt dives in to his experiences having that he describes as a “front row seat” as these pinnacle events came to fruition. This New York Time Bestseller offers one more startling dissections of the Trump presidency.

Click here for more.

Schmitt discussed his impromptu interview with President Donald Trump on the Late Night Show with Seth Meyers. Describing his interview with President Trump like “unzipping fog” as he unpacks with Meyers the experience. He details the extent of the work and how quickly he had to maneuver to keep up with the constant stream of news coming out day by day.

Michael Schmidt’s vast knowledge of the Trump presidency makes him an ideal panelist to discuss the highs and lows of the Final Presidential Debate. Join The Common Good Friday, October 23rd, 12:00pm EST to for a recap and discussion on the debate. Get your questions answered by Schmidt and our other expert panelists. Click the button to RSVP!

Jose Antonio Vargas

Jose Antonio Vargas

Journalist, filmmaker, activist

Jose Antonio Vargas is a journalist, filmmaker, and immigration rights activist. He was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2008 for coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings online and in print. Vargas also has worked for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Daily News, and The Huffington Post. He wrote, produced, and directed the autobiographical 2013 film, Documented, which CNN Films broadcast in June 2014.

In a June 2011 essay in The New York Times Magazine, Vargas revealed his status as an undocumented immigrant in an effort to promote dialogue about the immigration system in the U.S. and to advocate for the DREAM Act, which would provide children in similar circumstances with a path to citizenship. A year later, a day after the publication of his Time cover story about his continued uncertainty regarding his immigration status, the Obama administration announced it was halting the deportation of undocumented immigrants age 30 and under, who would be eligible for the DREAM Act. Vargas, who had just turned 31, did not qualify.

Vargas is the founder of Define American, a nonprofit organization intended to open up dialogue about the criteria people use to determine who is an American.

Vargas was awarded the American Spirit Award for Citizen Activism at The Common Good Forum & The American Spirit Awards 2014.

Twitter: @joseiswriting

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Read more:

Nicole Galluci, ‘Jose Antonio Vargas on the LGBTQ movement, immigration, and the importance of storytelling’, Mashable.com, 26 June 2019

‘You Cannot Divorce Race From Immigration, Jose Antonio Vargas Says’, NPR Morning Edition, 8 May 2019

Tim Weiner

Tim Weiner

Journalist

Tim Weiner is a reporter, author of three books and co-author of a fourth, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. He is a graduate of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and has worked for the Times since 1993, as a foreign correspondent in Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan and as a national security correspondent in Washington, DC.

Weiner won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting as an investigative reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, for his articles on the black budget spending at the Pentagon and the CIA. His book Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget is based on that newspaper series.

He won the National Book Award in Nonfiction for his 2007 book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

He is featured along with other foreign affairs experts in interviews in Denis Delestrac’s 2010 “Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space”. Enemies: A History of the FBI, Tim Weiner’s latest book, traces the history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, from the bureau’s creation in the early 20th century through its ongoing fight in the current war on terrorism. He explains how Hoover’s increasing concerns about communist threats against the United States led to the FBI’s secret intelligence operations against anyone deemed “subversive.”

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Read more:

Tim Weiner, ‘Trump Is Not a King, The New York Times, 17 August 2018

Tim Weiner, Sean Patrick Farrell, Robin, ‘The Last Word: Lorraine Gordon’ The New York Times, 9 July 2018