First Year 2017: Donald Trump and the American Dream

Event Details

PBS World Channel National Broadcast: Virginia, January 29, 2017/Nationally, February 1, 2017

Melody Barnes is a cofounder and principal of MBSquared Solutions LLC, a domestic strategy firm, and vice provost for global student leadership initiatives at New York University. From January 2009 until January 2012, she served as assistant to the president and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, a position in which she provided strategic advice to President Obama and worked closely with members of the cabinet coordinating the domestic policy agenda across the administration. Until 2008, Barnes was the executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress, and previously worked for Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Peter Wehner, former deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, is Senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Wehner served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations prior to becoming deputy director of speech writing for President George W. Bush in 2001. In 2002, he was asked to head the Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he generated provided counsel on a range of domestic and international issues. Prior to joining the Bush administration, Wehner was executive director for policy for Empower America, a conservative public-policy organization. Mr. Wehner writes widely on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues. Since leaving the White House in 2007 he has written for Commentary, The Weekly Standard, National Review, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.