In Conversation: On Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could

Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award-winning actor Bryan Cranston is a director, producer, and screenwriter best known for his long-running roles as Hal in the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle and as Walter White in the AMC drama Breaking Bad. He has also acted on Broadway, most notably as President Lyndon B. Johnson in All the Way – for which he won his first of two Tony awards – and is the author of the critically lauded memoir A Life in Parts, described by Tom Hanks as “a cinematic record of how an actor shapes a career and an identity and a legacy all at the same time.” Cranston has also appeared in acclaimed films, including Saving Private Ryan, Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, and The Upside.

Congressman Adam Schiff represents California’s 28th Congressional District. In his 11th term in the House of Representatives, he currently serves as the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – which oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies – and he is an ex officio member of the House Appropriations Committee. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Schiff moved to Los Angeles to serve as a law clerk for Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office in LA as a federal prosecutor. There he served for almost six years, most notably prosecuting Richard Miller, the first FBI agent ever to be indicted for spying for Russia. He was elected to the California State Senate in 1996 at the age of 36, the youngest member at the time, and authored dozens of bills that were enacted into law, from guaranteeing up-to-date textbooks in classrooms, overhauling state child support laws, passing a patient’s bill of rights, and guaranteeing cost-of-living increases for teacher pensions. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2000. In 2019, He led the House impeachment inquiry and served as the lead impeachment manager during the Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump. In Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, Schiff posits that the Trump presidency has so weakened our institutions and compromised the Republican Party that the peril will last for years, requiring unprecedented vigilance against the growing and dangerous appeal of authoritarianism.