The Zero Hour Creators & Guests

Sam Seder is a comedian, writer, actor, film director, television producer and progressive talk radio host.

David J. Sirota (born November 2, 1975) is an American journalist, columnist at the Guardian, and editor for Jacobin Magazine; he is also a political commentator and radio host based in Denver. He is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, political spokesperson, and blogger.In March 2019, he began working as the senior advisor and speechwriter on the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign.

David Rolfe Graeber was an economic anthropologist and anarchist activist. He is best known for books "Debt: The First 5,000 Years," published in 2011, and "Bullshit Jobs," which was published in 2018, and his leading role in the Occupy movement.Graeber was an Assistant Professor at Yale University from 1998 to 2005. He then moved to England and became a lecturer and reader at Goldsmiths' College from 2008 to 2013, and a professor at the London School of Economics from 2013.Graeber died in September 2020.

Rebecca Cokley is a disability rights activist and public speaker.

President of Social Security Works

Keri Leigh Merritt is a historian, writer, and author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South.

Eric Schwitzgebel is a philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He uses empirical psychology to study the philosophy of mind and the nature of belief.Schwitzgebel studies whether ethicists behave more ethically than others. He is known for having found that more ethics books were missing from academic libraries than other philosophy books.Schwitzgebel received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ryan W. Grim is an American author and journalist. Former Washington, D.C. bureau chief for HuffPost and The Intercept, in July 2024, Grim left The Intercept to co-found Drop Site News. He is author of the book, The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution (2023), among others.

Tim Schwab is a freelance journalist. He is known for his investigation into the Gates Foundation.Schwab has reported on the weak public debate surrounding the Gates foundation, the colonial blindspots in Gates's giving, and the dearth of government regulations and oversight over the foundation. His work has appeared in The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review and the British Medical Journal, and represents some of the only investigative journalism ever published on Gates.Schwab received his M.A. in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Suzanne Schneider is the Deputy Director and Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute.

Marianne Williamson is an American author, lecturer, and activist. She has written 13 books, including four New York Times number one bestsellers within the 'Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous' category.

Annelle Sheline is a Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute.

Akela Lacy is a Senior Politics Reporter at The Intercept. She has also worked at Politico, covering breaking news and immigration. She produced Politico’s flagship newsletter, Playbook.

Amy Julia Harris is an investigative reporter on the Metro desk. She previously worked at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, where her team project on abusive drug rehab programs that require patients to work for free was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2018.

Daniel Ellsberg is an American writer, activist, and former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S.

Jessica Mason Pieklo is the Senior Vice President and Executive Editor of Rewire News Group. She is also the co-host of the Rewire News Group podcast Boom! Lawyered.Jessica has over a decade of experience as a former litigator, and taught law for four years before transitioning to journalism. She was part of the SCOTUSblog symposium on abortion rights following Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt and won the Excellence in Online Journalism award in 2018 from the Association of LGBTQ Journalists. She has participated in numerous panels including at NYU Law School; University of Arkansas; University of Colorado; University of Utah, among others. Boom! Lawyered won Podcast of the Year in 2017 from the Population Institute.

Sarah Miller is an economic researcher and advocate. Currently, she is the Executive Director and Founder of the American Economic Liberties Project, where she works to highlight antitrust issues and monopolies.Miller's work has appeared in Democracy Journal, Buzzfeed, and The Guardian.Miller served on President Biden’s transition team and, prior to launching Economic Liberties, as the Deputy Director of the Open Markets Institute. During the Obama administration, she worked as an advisor to the leadership of the Treasury Department and the Center for American Progress, and helped launch and lead the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.Sarah received her degree from the University of Chicago.

Lisa Graves is an activist. Currently, she is the director of True North Research and president of the board of the Center for Media and Democracy. She was executive director for CMD from 2009 to 2017, when she left to co-found Documented.net.Previously, Graves served as the Chief Counsel for Nominations on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice during the Clinton Administration. She has also worked as the Senior Legislative Strategist on national security issues for the American Civil Liberties Union, and as an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University Law School.

Shoshana Walter is a journalist. Currently, she is a senior reporter at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, where she reports on labor, public health and criminal justice.Walter began her career as a police reporter for The Ledger in Lakeland FL, and has also covered violent crime and the politics of policing in Oakland CA for The Bay Citizen.Walter's work has appeared on NPR, CNN, and in The New York Times and other newspapers.Walter received her degree from Mount Holyoke College.