Welcome to Words Matter with Katie Barlow.

Welcome to Words Matter, I'm Katie Barlow.

Our goal is to promote objective reality.

As a wise man once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not their own facts.

Words have power and words have consequences.

Our guest today is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author.

William D. Cohen is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair and through his work there and other writings,

Bill has proven himself to be one of the most meticulous and intrepid journalists working today.

He is truly a great reporter covering the important intersection between Wall Street and Washington.

He's the author of six books among them, The Last Tycoons, A Secret History of Lazard,

Money in Power, How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World, The Price of Silence, The Duke Lacrosse scandal,

Why Wall Street Matters, And Four Friends, Promising Lives Cut Short.

Bill Cohen, Welcome back to Words Matter.

Thank you, Adam. It's great to be back with you again.

Well, since we're at that point in the year where we all reflect on what's happened and start thinking about the future,

I wanted to have you on today because in a historic year in both terms of economics and politics,

there's nobody who I know and respect who has a better sense of really what's happening in that critical intersection,

as I mentioned in the intro between Washington and Wall Street.

And so before we begin our 2020, what the fuck was that discussion?

I wanted to talk for a minute about you, even on our show a couple of times.

And we've talked a lot about your, for example, when we talked about your book for friends,

we talked about your boarding school experience and those relationships.

...