Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am joined today by Ryan Grimm. He is the Intercepts Washington Bureau Chief. He also

co-hosts counterpoints as the DC Bureau Chief of the Huffington Post.

He led their Pulitzer Prize winning reporting team.

He is now the author of the new book, The Squad.

Ryan Grimm, thank you so much for joining us on Curit Affairs today.

It's lovely to be here.

Now let's start with, I want to ask a very basic question, which is, is there a squad?

I assume there is because the squad is the subject of your book.

But if there is a squad, what are the boundaries of the squad?

Is it a self-defined unit?

Is it a media-defined unit?

Who and what are the squad?

There is a funny quote in the book that I'm sure you came across from Ilhan Omar

where she says, you know, there is no such thing as a squad.

Just so you know.

Because I was asking her, like, do you guys like have a weekly call or like?

Now, in the first, say, six months, six months to a year of their tenure, by there, I mean,

the four original members of what the media called the squad, that's Rashida, Ilhan,

Ayana, and AOC.

The staff would coordinate and they would circulate, like,

Dan Riffle and aid to AOC at one point makes a reference. He said, you know, we circulated as a

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