Every few months, I grab my kids and I prop them against a wall, mark out how tall they've

gotten. You probably do this too. It's the only way I can really see how much they've grown.

Some months, it's like they have not budged an inch.

The end of the year feels like the time I do this for the rest of my life.

And here on the show, which is a big part of that life, if I'm being honest, I wanted a simple measurement of how far our stories have gone or how far they've got to go, a way to freeze

time.

Today, it's our attempt to do just that.

I'm going to take you back, revisit three guests I couldn't stop thinking about long after we spoke.

A journalist who was caught in the middle of a revolution.

A mayor who was picking a fight with the Trump administration,

and a scholar, who, after we spoke,

ended up in the center of the impeachment debate.

Together, these stories are a kind of yardstick on 2019.

So let's start.

Almost a year ago, exactly.

We'd only been producing this show for a month when the opposition leader in Venezuela, Juan Guaido, swore himself in as president on the streets of Caracas.

Back then, I spoke with Anna Vanessa Herrero, a journalist at the New York Times, about what was happening in her country. She covered this attempted takeover as street protests became violent,

and as Venezuela's actual president, Nicolas Maduro,

fought back against not just Guaido, but attempts the U.S. made to help him.

I called on again earlier this month.

Well, the last time we talked to you was February?

I think so, yeah, that's correct.

...