Roy Cohn and the Making of Trump’s America:
The Dark Side of American Power
a conversation with
Kai Bird & Susan Goldmark
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer & author of American Scoundrel – Chief Researcher of American Scoundrel
Moderated by
Jim Zirin
Lawyer, former federal prosecutor, talk show host, author & columnist
Tuesday, November 10, 4-5pm, on Zoom
Before Donald Trump, there was Roy Cohn. He was Joe McCarthy's attack dog, a fixer for mob bosses, and the mentor who taught a young Trump to attack first, never apologize, and never back down. The Roy Cohn story shows how power can work in America when access, fear and favors count for more than the rules. Cohn rarely won by being right. He won by knowing who to call, what they owed him and what he knew about them. He died in 1986, but his playbook is still running through American politics.
Join The Common Good for a live conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark, his wife and Chief Researcher, who spent years inside Cohn's world for their new book, American Scoundrel. We'll talk about how Cohn operated, why his methods still work, and what his rise says about power in America, from the Red Scare to today.
Register now to join us and bring your questions.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“A narrative masterwork. Bird vividly creates the sinister web of charm and deceit that Cohn was able to spin through his decades at the very center of power.” —Marie Brenner, award-winning writer-at-large for Vanity Fair and coproducer of the documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn?
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of American Prometheus, inspiration for the box-office sensation Oppenheimer, a penetrating biography of super-lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn, whose shocking exploits over four decades have shaped the modern political era, most prominently the ascent of Donald Trump.
“A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO UNDERSTAND NOT JUST THE DARK ROLE PLAYED BY ROY COHN IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN POLITICS, BUT THE MAN’S LASTING INFLUENCE INTO THIS CENTURY….There is, it turns out, a direct line from the malign influence of McCarthyism to that of Trumpism, and Roy Cohn is it.” — Susan Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker and bestselling coauthor of The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021
We encourage attendees to purchase a copy of “American Scoundrel” available now via your local independent bookstore, Theodore’s Books, or Barnes&Noble.
About Our Speakers
Kai Bird is an acclaimed biographer and journalist. With Martin J. Sherwin, he won the Pulitzer Prize for biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which was the inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award–winning Best Picture, Oppenheimer.
Bird is Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. He has won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Duff Cooper Prize for History and is the recipient of numerous fellowships. His work includes critical writings on the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the CIA. He is an elected member of the prestigious Society of American Historians.
Susan Goldmark, Kai Bird’s wife and Chief Researcher, has worked in over seventy-five countries—in consulting, for nonprofits, and at the World Bank.
She was a World Bank Country Director in Nepal and later in Latin America. She holds a BA from Carleton College and a graduate degree in development economics from Princeton University. Susan has been Kai’s muse for decades and led the research for American Scoundrel.
Jim Zirin is author of three books, the latest of which is Plaintiff in Chief-Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits. He is host of the critically acclaimed television talk show, Conversations with Jim Zirin, which can be seen weekly throughout the New York metropolitan area, and on PBS stations nationwide.
Jim is a leading litigator, who has appeared in federal and state courts around the nation. He is a former federal prosecutor in New York, having served in that office under the legendary Robert M. Morgenthau.
In August 2003, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appointed him to the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption.
His first book, The Mother Court, published in 2014, is about the great trials that went down in the Southern District in the mid twentieth century. It inspired the Shonda Rhimes TV series “For the People.” His second book, Supremely Partisan, questioned the politicization of certain decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a principal interlocutor in the critically acclaimed documentary film, Where’s My Roy Cohn? released in theaters everywhere.
Jim has written over 200 op-ed articles for The Hill, the Washington Monthly, Time, Forbes, Barron’s, the LA Times, the London Times, the Washington Post, the New York Sun and the Nation. He has lectured on the Supreme Court at Churchill College, Cambridge and Chatham House in London. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.