Welcome to the New Books Network.

Welcome to Madison's Notes, the official podcast of the James Madison program,

in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

I'm your host, Ryan Schenkel.

Thank you. University. I'm your host, Ryan Schenkel. Today, as we continue season five, I have as our guest,

Mr. Chris Griswold, an alumni of Wheaton College, as well as a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned his Master of Divinity. Mr. Griswold was a legislative assistant and senior advisor to then Senator Marco Rubio,

and is currently the policy director of American Compass,

a centerite think tank that focuses on such things as domestic, labor, and technology policy,

and that is re-envisioning political economy to serve American workers and families.

Recently, Mr. Griswold came

to Princeton to speak about a book to which he contributed, the new conservatives, an anthology

edited by his American Compass colleague, Warren Cass, and full of essays by writers for Michael

Lind, current secretary of state Rubio, Yuval of Vin, Helen Andrews, and many others, that re-articulate

a conservative economic vision for the country.

I heard this book talk, and while I had the chance to ask a question, I still had many more. Thankfully, that speaker is here now to answer them and talk about the current state of America's political economy. Mr. Griswold, welcome to Madison's Notes. Thanks so much for having me. So, you were once at Princeton, now you work at a leading think tank in D.C. Tell me how you got to Princeton and then tell me how that led to D.C. There's a long and winding story full of many mistakes. I got there for my sins. I came to Princeton right after undergrad because I was interested in theology and divinity. And also more honestly, because like so many of our college grads, I had no idea what to do with my life.

We can get back to the failures of our college and university education system to prepare the workforce later.

But I genuinely had no idea what I wanted to do, and I was deeply interested in theology.

And so I came to Princeton Seminary, and it was an amazing experience, and it gave me a lifelong bias towards asking questions of

first principles in terms of how I analyze things and that's still how I approach economic policy

now. But the road from there to D.C. was a long and winding one. I spent about four years in

Johannesburg, South Africa, after seminary, helping stand up what is now still a nationwide

youth development nonprofit. And that was an unbelievable experience, transformative experience.

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