David Baldacci has written more than 50 legal and suspense novels,

including bestsellers like Absolute Power and Wish You Well.

His latest is Nash Falls.

It's a story about a successful businessman who's recruited by the FBI to expose a global crime network.

But Baldacci and his wife are now tackling a major real-world

problem, how to combat toxic political discourse. Jeff Bennett sat down with them both recently.

David and Michelle Baldacci. Welcome to the News Hour. Thank you very much.

When you started thinking seriously about how you wanted to be of service in this moment,

what drew you to this idea, this civic discourse initiative?

Well, we sort of looked around, I think, at the world

and decided that this polarization trajectory just is not sustainable.

And so many people now communicate and debate via social media

where there's really very little accountability.

We thought if we could bring people face to face,

you know, who they are, get rid of this anonymity,

and people would just sit down and actually

have discussions and conversations that maybe it might work.

And people could figure out, you know,

what I, sitting across the table from you,

I think I agree with you on more things than I thought I would. And I can see who you are. You're another human being. You're not, you know, you could be a chat bot from Russia for all, you know, if you're online. We just thought we wanted to make it simple, but have these venues and platforms and opportunities for people to come together. And how do you do it? How do you get people to engage face to face?

Well, that's an ongoing project.

We're going to have to figure that out and set up the platforms and the venues and make it work

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