Greetings dear listeners, this is John Goldberg, this is another exciting episode of the

Revenant Podcast. This week's episode is brought to you by Donor's Trust. I got to say this is a very

heavy episode for me last week's episode or the last episode with Tom Sol, it was a big deal, I was nervous about it, I was excited about it, but this is a different kind of nervousness and excitement. I kind of feel like the dude who kept insisting that he had a super hot Canadian girlfriend and no one believed them and then she actually showed up at the prom.

Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today is none other than the fair Jessica, my wife of not quite but almost two decades now and it feels like no 18 years. Something like that, yeah 18 years.

17, 18 years? Yeah, yeah. Jessica, welcome to the Revenant. Thank you JG, it's great to be here. Yeah, so that's the first glossary thing is that Jess and I often call each other JG.

And although I usually refer to Jess as JG prime because she's usually calling the shots anyway, so I've been trying to get you on here for a very long time and you've always declined, why didn't you want to come on?

Well, I just don't think that people that tune in to listen to Tom Sol and Tyler Cowan, I don't think I have much to say these people, but maybe I'm my secret theory is that of course you've heard this, that you want me to come on.

So we can talk about you. Well, I did want to get around to you know how awesome it is to be married to me, but we can save that for later.

First let's, I mean, it's a weird thing to say, but in some ways you need no introduction because I've been writing about you and referencing you for a very long time.

But you grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska. I did, I was born in Fairbanks, Alaska and I left for college and never looked back in a serious way. It's a wonderful place, but not for everybody, right?

Right. I came to Washington the way so many Washingtonians do as an intern on the hill and thought, you know, I discovered true intellectuals.

And then I worked on the hill for a while went to grad school at Johns Hopkins. Yeah, what would you get your master's in.

It's going to be like that. Well, I'm dating myself. I was in Soviet studies, but then the Soviet Union ended after my first semester.

So I went to American foreign policy, but I still had to learn Russian, which was a real pain. But I made it through Natasha Simes was my professor, Demetri Simes.

I think now ex-wife. Oh, really? Well, I don't know. I shouldn't say that. Yeah. Anyway, really tough. And then I started working, you know, kind of more writing style. I didn't feel like I tried. I did some interviewing for foreign policy.

And I could just tell I was not cut out for that. So you're for I thought your first job job wasn't just an internship. You worked for Frank Murkowski. Was it just an internship for I was an intern for a summer.

And then I then I got a real job with him. I mean, I started out answering his phones and then eventually worked on the foreign relations committee for him.

So, and you had a bit of a run in with one senator, Al Dammada. Come on. We're flushing out. We're pulling back the curtain here a little bit.

The New York Post. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I was stupid. I migrated to Frank's press office. And he.

This is Frank Murkowski, father of Lisa Murkowski, the current senate. That's right. And it was back, you know, when the Soviet Union was breaking up.

And Dammada was organizing a trip to one of the Baltic states, the one where the Soviets were amassing their tanks around.

I can't remember which one Latvia, Lithuania, one of them. And the New York Post called our office. And I talked to the New York Post reporter and said that Frank wasn't going to go on the trip, which he had already decided.

...