David Corn

Political keynote speaker David Corn is a veteran Washington journalist and political commentator. He is the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine and an on-air analyst for MSNBC. He won the 2012 George Polk award and a National Magazine Award for breaking the 47-percent video story that influenced the Obama-Romney presidential contest. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, Showdown, Hubris (with Michael Isikoff), and The Lies of George W. Bush, and the e-book, 47 Percent: Uncovering the Romney Video that Rocked the 2012 Election. His novel, Deep Background, was hailed as one of the best novels of the year by the Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of the biography Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades. For 20 years, he was the Washington editor of The Nation magazine. He has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and Slate, and regularly appears on Face the Nation and provides commentary on National Public Radio. He is a Phi Beta

Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America & the Election of Donald Trump

The author of the new book Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, David Corn unveils the ins and outs of the 2016 election. An expert on the backstory of one of America’s greatest contemporary scandals, Corn gives audiences the inside scoop on what really happened. If you want to know what President Barack Obama’s reaction was to the infamous Steele dossier, or if Donald Trump was aware that his campaign was reaching out to Putin’s regime and if there was a spy in the Kremlin, then this is a must hear speech for you.

What’s the State of American Politics?

Speaker David Corn has covered politics in Washington for over 25 years. He oversees a bureau of ten reporters and editors covering Washington. He writes on political developments and policy disputes—and he broke the “47 percent” story that influenced the 2012 presidential campaign. As a frequent guest on Hardball, The Rachel Maddow Show, CNN’s Reliable Sources, NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show,” and many other talk shows, he often discusses the news of the day or week. He can readily discuss or debate the ups and downs of the Obama administration, the Republican-controlled House, and the current state of Washington.

What’s Right with the Left & What’s Wrong with the Right?

As a longtime progressive commentator who backs up his analysis with reporting, speaker David Corn can assess where both the left and the right are heading at the moment. Is the left on the rise? Is the right down and out? What’s the long-term significance of the Tea Party? Can the Republican Party mount a comeback? Have modern politics moved beyond the traditional battles? Corn can both defend liberal values and accurately assess the political temperature of the nation.

What’s the State of the American News Media?

Is the American news media too liberal or too conservative? Speaker David Corn, a longtime veteran of the media wars, offers a unique view of the media. The Washington press corps, he argues, is neither too far to the left or too far to the right: it is too biased toward official Washington. He will explain how the national media gets the story right—and how it gets it wrong. (His book, Hubris, was a behind-the-scenes account of how the Bush administration brought the country into the Iraq War—and how the media failed to cover that story.) He can also discuss how the news media are changing—or failing to change—in these days of economic downturn and Internet upheaval.

National Security in the 21st Century

As the author of a book on the CIA and the co-author of a best-selling book on the Iraq War (Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War), speaker David Corn is an expert on major national security issues. He has long debated and discussed on television, in print, and in public appearances the war on terrorism, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the use of torture, and other national security issues. He can also cover the importance of climate change to national security issues.