Mike Lofgren on "The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government"

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Mike Lofgren about his new book, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, an insider’s account of who really runs Washington regardless of which party is in power.

Mike Lofgren spent twenty-eight years working in Congress, the last sixteen as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees, which gave him an insider’s look at the Bush tax cuts, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Hurricane Katrina disaster relief, the war on terrorism, debates on the Pentagon budget, and the various deficit-reduction commissions. Increasingly frustrated by the gridlock and partisan polarization in Congress, Lofgren left government service as the debt ceiling crisis of 2011 came to a boil.

His initial hit article as a private citizen, Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult, received over a million views on Truthout.com. Lofgren has expanded on that article in his new book, The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. Since then, he has written numerous articles published in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, and other publications.

Lofgren has a B.A. and M.A. in history and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the Universities of Berne and Basel, Switzerland. He completed the strategy and policy program of the U.S. Naval War College.