No Kings and More – Carrying Forward the Spirit of Revolution

Carlos Eduardo Espina, Leah Greenberg, & Ezra Levin
moderated by Margaret Hoover

Tuesday, July 7, 7-8:30pm ET at Guild Hall

Presented by Guild Hall & The Common Good
Series programmed by Ellen Chesler and Patricia Duff

Eight million people. 3,300 protests. The largest mass demonstrations in modern American history. So who’s organizing this new wave of civic action — and where is it headed next?

Indivisible co-founders Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin join influential digital organizer and immigrant rights advocate Carlos Eduardo Espina for a timely conversation on the new machinery of activism: from “No Kings” rallies and grassroots mobilization to the power of social media, political pressure campaigns, and the fight over democracy itself.

Moderated by CNN’s Margaret Hoover and host of Firing Line, our panel will explore civic responsibility, collective action, and how democratic ideals continue to evolve in a divided country.

About Our Speakers

Carlos Eduardo Espina is a 27-year-old nonprofit director, activist, and content creator who works to uplift the immigrant community through social media content, community organizing, and charitable causes. Carlos was born to a Uruguayan father and a Mexican mother and grew up in College Station, TX. Since he was a teenager, Carlos has been involved in community work. In 2017, Carlos founded his first nonprofit, Football for the Future which provided free soccer and educational camps for hundreds of low-income kids in central Texas until 2020. In 2019, Carlos founded his second nonprofit, the Detained Refugee Solidarity Fund, to morally and economically support migrants and refugees detained in ICE detention centers throughout the United States.

Currently, he has over 23 million followers on social media, where he posts bilingual videos informing and uplifting the Latino community in the United States. Carlos is the most followed Latino activist in the United States. Beyond making content, Carlos now spends most of his time leading the nonprofit organization "The Espina Project" and his community center in Houston, Texas.

Leah Greenberg is a co-founder and co-Executive Director of Indivisible. Prior to founding the Indivisible Project, Leah served as Policy Director for the Tom Perriello for Governor of Virginia campaign. She has managed human trafficking grants and programs as an Investments Manager for Humanity United, served as an Advisor to the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, and worked on Capitol Hill for Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA).

Along with her co-founder and spouse Ezra Levin, Leah has been featured as one of TIME 100’s Most Influential People of 2019, included on GQ’s 50 Most Powerful People in Trump’s Washington, and ranked #2 on the Politico 50 list of top thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics. She is the co-author of We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump, published by Simon & Schuster’s One Signal Publishers in 2019.

Margaret Hoover is the host of PBS’ “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover,” a public affairs, multi-platform program that engages in long-form interviews and a rigorous exchange of ideas with the guiding principle that civil discourse is a civic responsibility.

Hoover has served in The White House under President George W. Bush, in the Department of Homeland Security, on Capitol Hill and on two presidential campaigns. She is the President of American Unity Fund, a political organization focused on achieving full freedom and equality for LGBT Americans. A bestselling author, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The Daily Beast, CNN.com and FoxNews.com.

Hoover serves on the boards of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, the Hoover Presidential Foundation, the Belgian American Educational Foundation, The Markle Foundation, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Ezra Levin is the co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible. Prior to founding Indivisible, Ezra served as Associate Director of Federal Policy for Prosperity Now, a national anti-poverty nonprofit. Previously, he was the Deputy Policy Director for Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Field Director for Doggett’s 2010 reelection campaign, and an AmeriCorps VISTA in the Homeless Services Division of the San Jose Housing Department.

Along with his co-founder and spouse Leah Greenberg, Ezra has been featured as one of TIME 100’s Most Influential People of 2019, included on GQ’s 50 Most Powerful People in Trump’s Washington, and ranked #2 on the Politico 50 list of top thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics. He has appeared as a commentator on and/or been interviewed by MSNBC, CNN, NPR, Pod Save America, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, TIME Magazine, the New Yorker, the Nation, Slate, and Rolling Stone, among others. He is the co-author of We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump, published by Simon & Schuster’s One Signal Publishers in 2019.

The Changing Media Landscape

Tina Brown & Tom Freston
moderated by Ken Auletta

Monday, July 13, 7-8:30pm ET at Guild Hall

Presented by Guild Hall & The Common Good
Series programmed by Ellen Chesler and Patricia Duff

The media landscape has been reshaped drastically over the past three decades. Newspapers and magazines shuttered; three broadcast networks gave way to cable television and then fragmented further into a world of digital platforms, streaming, and artificial intelligence. 

Join media legends Tina Brown,  the influential editor behind Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and founder of The Daily Beast, and Tom Freston, co-founder of MTV, former CEO of Viacom, and author of the 2025 book Unplugged — two media icons who helped drive that transformation, for a sharp conversation on how we got here, what broke along the way, and where journalism, entertainment, and public trust go next.

Moderated by Ken Auletta, longtime New Yorker writer and one of the country’s most trusted media observers.

About Our Speakers

Ken Auletta launched the Annals of Communications column for The New Yorker magazine in 1992. He is the author of thirteen books, including five national bestsellers—Three blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed and Glory On Wall Street: The Fall of the House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It. His twelfth book, Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (And Everything Else), was published in June 2018. His thirteenth book, Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence, was published in July 2022. 

Ken is currently reporting a documentary on Murdoch with acclaimed director Matt Tyrnauer, and is also writing about The Murdoch Puzzle anti-poverty advocacy organization focusing on Africa.

Tina Brown is an award-winning journalist, editor and author.  Between 1979 and 2001, she was editor-in-chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Talk. For her services to journalism, she was awarded the honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire by H.M. Queen Elizabeth in 2000. She was inducted into the Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame in 2007.  

In 2008, Brown launched and edited the digital news site The Daily Beast which won the news website of the year award in 2012 and 2013. She founded Women in the World in 2009 as a live journalism platform for female leaders, CEO’s, celebrities, and global activists and hosted ten sold-out summits at New York’s Lincoln Center from 2010 to 2020.

Tom Freston is a cofounder of MTV and the former CEO of Viacom, where he oversaw Paramount Pictures. After launching a successful clothing export company out of Afghanistan and India, Freston transitioned into the media landscape, helping found MTV and bringing it to international fame in more than 150 countries. Before his Viacom roles, he ran MTV Networks for seventeen years, overseeing Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, and other legendary networks. 

He is a board member of Imagine Entertainment and a board member emeritus of both the American Museum of Natural History and the think tank New America. He currently serves as Board Chair of The ONE Campaign, an anti-poverty advocacy organization focusing on Africa.

Midterms 2026: Is Democracy Itself on the Ballot?

Secretary Jeh Johnson & Judge J Michael Luttig
moderated Michael Waldman

Monday, July 20, 7-8:30pm ET at Guild Hall

Presented by Guild Hall & The Common Good
Series programmed by Ellen Chesler and Patricia Duff

President Trump has asserted an expansive vision of executive power, challenging established legal and constitutional norms: he has dismantled congressionally authorized federal agencies and programs; imposed unilateral tariffs; summarily arrested and deported immigrants; canceled university grants for scientific and medical research; pardoned convicted criminals; and ignored protections against conflicts of interest. He has authorized military incursions in Venezuela and elsewhere, engaged in war in Iran, and publicly threatened interference with midterm elections.

The courts have pushed back, reversing many—but not all—of these actions. Litigation continues. Where do we stand today? How strong is our democracy? Midterms 2026: Is Democracy Itself on the Ballot? will bring together leading legal and national security voices to examine what is at stake in the months ahead.

Jeh Johnson, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and General Counsel of the Department of Defense, has served at the highest levels of government during moments of crisis. Michael Luttig, a former federal appellate judge and one of the country’s most respected conservative legal thinkers, has become a prominent voice on the rule of law and constitutional limits.

The conversation will be moderated by Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice and a leading authority on voting rights and constitutional law.

About Our Speakers

Jeh Johnson was Secretary of Homeland Security (2013-2017) and General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2009-2012) in the Obama Administration, and General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force (1998-2001) in the Clinton Administration.  Earlier in his career, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York (1989-1991).

For most of his career Johnson had been a lawyer and trial lawyer in private practice at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.  Johnson is also a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.  In 1993, Johnson became the first African American elected to partnership at Paul Weiss.  He retired from the firm in June 2025.  

Johnson is currently on the board of directors of MetLife and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.  He previously served on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin, U.S. Steel, PG&E, and the Council on Foreign Relations.   Johnson is a regular commentator on NBC’s Meet The Press, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, FOX’s Fox & Friends, CNN, NewsNation and other news networks.  In September 2024 Johnson played the role of the incumbent President running for reelection in the PBS special “Deadlock.”

Johnson is a graduate of Morehouse College and Columbia Law School and the recipient of 13 honorary degrees. He has debated numerous times at the Oxford and Cambridge Unions in England, and an honorary life member of the Cambridge Union.  

Johnson is the 2024 recipient of the Gold Medal, the New York State Bar Association’s highest honor, a 2024 recipient of the National Law Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award, a 2022 recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, a 2021 recipient of the American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as “an American statesman [who] has devoted his career to the public interest,” and a 2018 recipient of the Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Award, presented at the Reagan Presidential Library, for “contribut[ing] greatly to the defense of our nation,” and “guiding us through turbulent times with courage and wisdom.”

Judge Michael Luttig served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for 15 years, from 1991 to 2006. Judge Luttig was Counselor and Special Advisor to The Coca-Cola Company and the Board of Directors of the Coca-Cola Company from January 2021 to January 2025. 

Prior to joining The Coca-Cola Company, Judge Luttig was Counselor and Senior Advisor to The Boeing Company CEO and The Boeing Company Board of Directors from January 2019 to January 2020 and Executive Vice President and General Counsel of The Boeing Company from 2006 to 2020.

Before he was appointed to the Federal Bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, he served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel and Counselor to the Attorney General of the United States at the U.S. Department of Justice 1990-1991. He was Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1989-1990. 

He was Assistant Counsel to the President at The White House from 1981 to 1982 under President Ronald Reagan. From 1982 to 1983, he was a law clerk to then-Judge Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  From 1983 to 1985, he served as a law clerk and then Special Assistant to the Chief Justice of the United States, Warren E. Burger.

Judge Luttig is currently a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Franklin-Templeton Mutual Funds, a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Aspen Institute, a Member of the Board of the Society for the Rule of Law, Senior Fellow of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Co-Chair of the Task Force for American Democracy, a Member of the Board of the Carter/Ford National Alliance for An Enduring Democracy, and a Member of the National Advisory Council of More Perfect, and a Member of the George Washington Presidential Library Advisory Council.

Judge Luttig was formerly Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Task Force for American Democracy, a Member of the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center, a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Thomas Jefferson/Monticello Foundation, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Karsh Institute of Democracy and the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy.

Michael Waldman is president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. A nonpartisan law and policy institute that focuses on improving systems of democracy and justice, the Brennan Center is a leading national voice on voting rights, money in politics, criminal justice reform, and constitutional law. Waldman, a constitutional lawyer and writer who is an expert on the presidency and American democracy, has led the center since 2005. He was a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States in 2021.

Waldman was director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1999, serving as assistant to the president. He was responsible for writing or editing nearly two thousand speeches, including four State of the Union and two inaugural addresses. He was special assistant to the president for policy coordination from 1993 to 1995.

Waldman is the author of The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America (Simon & Schuster, 2023). The Supreme Court’s 2022–2023 term, he argues, was the most consequential in decades, with decisions such as Dobbs, Bruen, and West Virginia v. EPA reshaping American politics. Waldman explains how the Court has gained so much power over Americans’ lives with so little connection to the public will. He shows the supermajority’s dangerous reliance on a newfound, radical “originalism.” He traces the similarities between this Court and its most activist and controversial predecessors. And he offers a path forward. Kirkus Reviews called it “a damning account of a Supreme Court gone wildly activist in shredding the Constitution.” Jane Mayer of the New Yorker called The Supermajority “nothing less than a public service.”

Waldman is also the author of The Fight to Vote (Simon & Schuster, 2016, reissued in 2022), a history of the struggle to win voting rights for all citizens. The Fight to Vote was a Washington Post notable nonfiction book for 2016. The  Post wrote, “Waldman’s important and engaging account demonstrates that over the long term, the power of the democratic ideal prevails — as long as the people so demand.” The Wall Street Journal called it “an engaging, concise history of American voting practices,” and the Miami Herald described it as “an important history in an election year.” 

Waldman is also the author of The Second Amendment: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, 2014). Publishers Weekly called it “the best narrative of its subject.” In the New York Times, Joe Nocera called it “rigorous, scholarly, but accessible.” The Los Angeles Times wrote, “[Waldman’s] calm tone and habit of taking the long view offers a refreshing tonic in this most loaded of debates.” In a Cardozo Law Review symposium devoted to the book, a historian wrote, “The Second Amendment is, without doubt, among the best efforts at melding constitutional history and constitutional law on any topic — at least since the modern revival of originalism two generations ago.”

His previous books are My Fellow Americans: The Most Important Speeches of America’s Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama (2003, reissued 2010), A Return to Common Sense (2007), POTUS Speaks (2000), and Who Robbed America? A Citizen’s Guide to the S&L Scandal (1990).

The Global Economy: Where Is It Headed?

Lloyd Blankfein & Steven Rattner
moderated by Gillian Tett

Monday, August 17, 7-8:30pm ET at Guild Hall

Presented by Guild Hall & The Common Good
Series programmed by Ellen Chesler and Patricia Duff

With inflation, interest rates, geopolitical tensions, and rapid technological change all in play, the global economic outlook feels unusually uncertain. The Global Economy: Where Is It Headed? will feature experienced voices from finance and public policy to unpack what matters most right now and what may be coming next.

Lloyd Blankfein, former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs and author of a bestselling memoir, led one of the world’s most influential financial institutions through periods of both crisis and growth. Steven Rattner, financier, former head of the Obama administration’s Auto Task Force, and frequent economic commentator, brings perspective from both Wall Street and government. Gillian Tett, U.S. editor-at-large at the Financial Times, known for making complex financial systems accessible and relevant, will moderate.

A book signing in the lobby will follow the program.

About Our Speakers

Lloyd Blankfein is senior chairman of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. He joined the J. Aron Currency and Commodities Division of Goldman Sachs in 1982 after working as an attorney in a law firm. Lloyd was named partner in 1988 and co-head of the J. Aron Division in 1994. He became co-head of the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Division as of its formation in 1997 and was based in London from 1997 to 1999 in that capacity.

Lloyd served as vice chairman of Goldman Sachs from 2002 through 2003, with management responsibility for the FICC and Equities Divisions. Prior to assuming his current responsibilities, he served as the firm’s president and chief operating officer from December 2003 through June 2006. He served as the firm’s chairman and chief executive officer from 2006 through September 2018, and remained as chairman through December 2018.

Among his affiliations with nonprofit organizations, Lloyd is a member of several Harvard advisory boards, a member of the Executive Committee of the UJA Federation of New York, a Board Fellow of Weill Cornell Medical College and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lloyd earned a JD from Harvard Law School in 1978 and anAB from Harvard College in 1975.

Steven Rattner is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Willett Advisors LLC, the investment arm for former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s personal and philanthropic assets. In addition, he serves as the Economic Analyst on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and is a contributing writer to The New York Times Op Ed page. He previously served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and led the Obama Administration’s successful effort to restructure the automobile industry, which he chronicled in his book,Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry.

Mr. Rattner wrote the book Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry about his time as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury leading the Obama Administration’s successful restructure of the automobile industry. Before this, in 2000, Mr. Rattner formed Quadrangle Group LLC, a private investment firm that had more than $6 billion of assets under management. He was Managing Principal there until February 2009.

Before the start of his investment banking career, Mr. Rattner worked as a journalist for The New York Times for nine years, mostly as an economic correspondent in New York, London and Washington. In 1982, he joined Lehman Brothers and was then a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley before leaving to become a General Partner at Lazard Frères in 1989. While at Lazard Frères & Co., he served as Deputy Chairman and Deputy Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Rattner has dedicated time to both public and philanthropic organizations as a board member or trustee. He was the Chairman of the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, a Fellow at Brown University and Chairman of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, among others. He is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Gillian Tett is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Financial Times. She writes a weekly column on Friday, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues. She also serves as Provost of King's College, Cambridge.

Previously, she chaired the FT editorial board, ran Moral Money, the FT's sustainability newsletter which she co-founded, and wrote two columns a week. Gillian's earlier roles included US managing editor for the FT; assistant editor; capital markets editor; deputy editor of the Lex column; Tokyo bureau chief; reporter in Russia and Brussels.

She has been named Columnist of the Year (2014), Journalist of the Year (2009) and Business Journalist of the Year (2008) in the British Press Awards, and received three awards from America's Society of Business and Economic Writers Awards. She is a best-selling and award-winning author of four books, and received the Royal Anthropological Institute Marsh Award and the American Anthropological Association President Medal for her work in social science. She has received honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon, Miami and Baruch universities in America, and Exeter, Lancaster, Goldsmith's, London in the UK.

The Siege of Ruby Ridge: Why it Matters Today

featuringChris Jennings

Best-selling Author & former editorial staffer at The New Yorker

Wednesday, August 19th, 5-6pm ET, on Zoom

How could this single event in the middle of nowhere, Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 help ignite this powerful wave of extremism that still shapes our country today? 

Chris Jennings joins The Common Good Forum to help us understand how the siege of Ruby RIdge inflamed anti-government extremism, apocalyptic Christianity, and conspiracy politics and the powerful currents in our governance today.

“If you want to understand our troubled and fraught times, you need to grapple with the forces that led to Ruby Ridge. This book [End of Days] blew me away and opened my eyes.” says Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker and Elon Musk.

“A riveting and thoroughly researched chronicle…reminiscent of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.”—The New York Times Book Review

“With eloquence and insight, Chris Jennings has given us an absorbing portrait of a moment whose implications still shape American life and politics. This is an important story, beautifully told.” —  Past TCGF Speaker Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of And There Was Light and The Soul of America

“Intellectually rich, superbly written, compulsively readable, End of Days tells the story of Ruby Ridge so well that you will find it hard not to sympathize with its terrible protagonists, whose conspiratorial theology has migrated in three decades from the lunatic fringe to the seat of government.” — Past TCGF Speaker George Packer, National Book Award–winning author of The Unwinding and The Emergency

We encourage attendees to preorder a copy of End Of Days available now via BookShop. 

Please let us know if you purchased a book and would like to receive a bookplate signed by the author. 

About Our Speaker

Chris Jennings is the author of End of Days: Ruby Ridge The Apocalypse and The Unmaking of America (2026) and Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism (2016).

A former editorial staffer at The New Yorker, he grew up in New York City and graduated from Deep Springs College and Wesleyan University. Jennings lives in Northern California with his family.

America in the World as We Celebrate 250 Years

Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
moderated by Michael Froman

Monday, August 24, 7-8:30pm ET at Guild Hall

Presented by Guild Hall & The Common Good
Series programmed by Ellen Chesler and Patricia Duff

Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton—former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York, U.S. Secretary of State, two-time presidential candidate, bestselling author, and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia—has spent decades at the center of American public life and global diplomacy. From advocating for women’s rights on the world stage to navigating moments of crisis and change in U.S. foreign policy, Secretary Clinton has engaged with some of the most complex challenges facing the world.

She will be joined in conversation by Michael Froman, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, for a wide-ranging discussion of diplomacy, development, and national security, touching on war and peace, shifting alliances, and the evolving role of the United States in a rapidly changing global landscape. At a time of uncertainty and realignment, Secretary Clinton offers both hard-earned insight and a clear-eyed view of what global leadership and cooperation might look like in the years ahead.