Welcome to Nobody Told Me.

I'm Laura Owens, and I'm Jan Black.

There is so much upheaval and division in the world right now,

and it's wonderful to be able to talk with two

guests who are polar opposites in terms of their political views, yet great friends who took a

20,000 mile road trip across America to learn what things can bring us together in this time of strife

and partisanship. Our guests are Jordan Blashek, a staunch Republican, and Christopher Haw, a true blue Democrat.

The result of their 44-state journey is a fabulous new book called Union, a Democrat, a Republican, and a search for common ground.

Jordan and Chris, we thank you so much for joining us.

Well, thank you for having us. And I'm so glad that was recorded. That was the

best introduction to the book I think we've heard. So now you can save it. Yeah. You're hired.

Tell us how you two met and how your friendship evolved, because on the surface, you seem like

polar opposites who might not have a lot in

common. Yeah, it's a great question. So Chris and I met in 2014, 2015, when I had just left the

Marine Corps and Chris had just left the State Department. And we met at a graduate student bar

and kind of immediately struck up this great

friendship. At the time, all that seemed to separate us were our hairstyles, where I still

shaved my head like Marine and Chris, Chris has a ponytail. And we found that we bonded over these

great long discussions about books and literature and history and what we

wanted to do with our lives. And then slowly as the 2016 election approached, we found that our

great conversations just kept getting derailed by politics. And we were sort of shouting at each other

and leaving red in the face after, after stomping away

...