Mike Wiser (PART 1)

This week, Tammy sits down with acclaimed PBS TV producer Mike Wiser for the first part of a two-part interview. From PBS.org: Mike Wiser is an award-winning writer, producer, and interviewer who has worked on more than 70 FRONTLINE films over more than two decades. His reporting spans American politics, national security, foreign affairs, sports, criminal justice, and financial crises. His work has earned 10 Emmy Awards, four Peabody Awards, two duPont-Columbia Awards, two George Polk Awards, and seven Writers Guild of America Awards. He has interviewed dozens of leading figures in government and politics, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and conducted Judge J. Michael Luttig’s first television interview. Much of Mike’s work has focused on American politics, including the films The Rise of RFK Jr., The Choice 2024: Harris v. Trump, Democracy on Trial, Pelosi’s Power, McConnell, the GOP, and the Court, Lies, Politics and Democracy. The 2023 film Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court won a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. In foreign affairs, Mike has covered the rise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s war against Ukraine in films including Putin’s Revenge, Putin’s Road to War, and Putin and the Presidents. Netanyahu at War examined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s life, political rise, and conflicts with American presidents. The War Cabinet investigated President Trump’s top foreign-policy advisers and traced the administration’s increasingly aggressive use of military force in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and Iran during his second term. Mike helped produce and write numerous other films examining Donald Trump and his presidency, including Trump’s Power and the Rule of Law, Trump’s American Carnage, Zero Tolerance, Trump’s Showdown, Trump’s Takeover, President Trump, Trump’s Road to the White House, Bannon’s War, and The Choice 2016. His work on United States of Secrets, which examined National Security Agency surveillance, earned a Peabody Award, a duPont-Columbia Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and two Emmy Awards—including one for Best Documentary. He also served as a producer and co-writer on League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis, a film that received a Peabody Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and a George Polk Award. Mike received an Emmy Award for FRONTLINE’s investigation Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA. He also worked on numerous films about Wall Street and financial regulation, including the Emmy Award-winning film The Warning and the miniseries Money, Power and Wall Street, which earned an Emmy Award and a George Polk Award. In addition, Mike helped produce nearly a dozen films about the government’s response to September 11 and the American occupation of Iraq, including America After 9/11, The Torture Question (Emmy Award), The Lost Year in Iraq (Emmy Award), The Dark Side, Cheney’s Law (Peabody Award), Bush’s War (Emmy Award), and Losing Iraq. Mike graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College, attended the London School of Economics as a General Course student, and received a Juris Doctor degree cum laude from Harvard Law School. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.