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Welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy.

I'm Northern Kentucky University political scientist Michael Baranowski.

My guest today is Scott Klug, an Emmy Award-winning journalist,

former member of Congress, and currently co-chair of the Federal Public Affairs Practice at the

National Law Firm of Foleon Lardner. He's also a podcaster, the founder and host of Lost in the

Middle, America's Political Orphans. Scott Kluge, welcome to the show.

Yeah, good morning. Thank you.

You know, I thought that before we got into your most recent project, which is that

Lost in the Middle podcast, I wanted to talk a bit about your very interesting background,

starting with your times as an investigative reporter, because I think you spent,

as if I'm doing the math right around 11 years in that career, and I'm guessing that in that

...