Hey friends,
Trying something new today.
I’m excited to launch the first in what I hope will be a long-running series of in-depth video conversations called Take the Mic.
I guess this is what young people call a “podcast.” Is anything not a podcast at this point?
This first one was recorded in what looks like a prison interrogation room but was, in fact, a private room in the Laurel, Maryland, public library.
My guest today is the one and only Salena Zito.
Salena and I go way back—roughly two decades, to my first congressional run in 2006. She’s spent her career reporting from the forgotten zip codes of American politics: Western Pennsylvania diners, factory town Elks lodges, and front porches where the national press rarely treads. A columnist and contributor for outlets like the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, New York Post, Washington Examiner, Washington Post, and The Free Press, she’s best known for understanding conservative populism not as a trend but as a lived reality.
Her latest book, Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland, isn’t just a chronicle of the day she stood four feet from Donald Trump’s near assassination. It’s about the rural people whose lives and voices shape our democracy but are often left out of America’s national story.
We talk about all of it: Trump, the chaos of that day, what ties Josh Shapiro and Donald Trump together, and the connective tissue of an America fraying at the seams but still fighting to hold together.
And as Trump says, she’s got “the best hair in journalism.” (You’ll have to judge for yourself.)
Enjoy the episode, and thanks, as always, for supporting this Substack.
Going forward, we will experiment with some paywalled content, partial previews, and other bells and whistles. But the heart of this project will stay the same: conversations that matter, with people who matter. And Salena is certainly one of them!
-- Patrick
Share this post