There's a whole lot that we could discuss here, but I did want to begin in a really basic way just by asking about the genesis of the project and, you know, how your partnership came about to work on it and how meltdown was born.

Let me start with that. And if David, you'll correct me if I get it wrong.

But I mean, David and I have known each other for some years and always wanted to do a project together.

And we'd come close to doing various things.

And David had been involved on and off with some things that we had done.

But he, you know, David had this idea about this podcast and we were just getting into the podcast territory and really like the form because it seemed, you know, very much akin to some of the

nonfiction docs that we were doing, very sort of narrative-based, but digging deep on themes,

but in ways that we're very human.

So when David mentioned this to me, I thought, wow, that's great,

because this is the one thing that nobody's done.

People have done a lot about the run-up to the financial crisis,

but not very much at all about what happened the day after.

And also the thesis was so simple and pure, the idea that the failure to take care, to properly

take care of the problems after the meltdown, well, after the financial crash, you know,

really is what gave us Trump. And, and, and, and, and, and with that thesis in mind, we, you know,

I thought, well, let's fake this on.

And we put together a team, this wonderful group from transmitter.

And we were off and running.

And the only thing I would add to that is that, again, I just want to underscore that there has been a lot of reporting on what happened before the financial

crash, what happened in the financial crash, but there has not been as much attention paid

to the political ramifications and the ramifications for democracy that the financial

crisis really created and the democratic response or lack

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