Zerlina chats with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ahead of Juneteenth, then National Security Analyst Joe Cirincione about the latest in Gaza, and later with esteemed UCLA Professor of Sociology & African-American Studies Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter about Equity Weekend!

Guests

Karine Jean-Pierre

Karine Jean-Pierre is Press Secretary and Assistant to the President of the United States. She previously served in senior communication and political roles in the Biden Administration, the Biden campaign, and to then-Vice President Biden in the Obama Administration.

Prior to her role on the campaign, she served as Chief Public Affairs Officer for MoveOn.org and an NBC and MSNBC Political Analyst. Jean-Pierre served as Regional Political Director for the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Obama-Biden administration and as Deputy Battleground States Director for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. She served as Southeast Regional Political Director for President Obama’s 2008 campaign, Campaign Manager for the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Initiative, and Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Legislative and Budget Affairs for two members in the New York City Council.

Born in Martinique and raised in New York, Jean-Pierre is a graduate of Columbia University.

Joe Cirincione

Joseph Cirincione is a national security analyst and author with 40 years of experience in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Council for Foreign Relations and is the author or editor of seven books, including Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late andBomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons. He served on the International Security Advisory Board for Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. He has been an advisor for three presidential campaigns, those of Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. He served previously as president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation, as vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress, director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, among other positions. He worked for over nine years on the professional staff of the Armed Services Committee and the Government Operations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He taught at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service for twelve years. He appears frequently on television, radio and in the media and is the author of over eight hundred articles and reports on defense and national security.

Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter

Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter is the Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences Division, Professor of Sociology & African American Studies at UCLA. Coiner of #BlackLivesMatter, he is the author & editor of five books, including Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation (HarperCollins/Amistad, 2024). Professor Hunter served as the Inaugural Chair of UCLA’s African American Studies Department and President of the Association of Black Sociologists. The National Science Foundation and Social Science Research Council have also supported his research. In addition, Hunter drafted and advised Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s historic Bill to establish the first-ever US Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation Commission. He has appeared on C-SPAN’s BookTV, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, the Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Sentinel, USA Today, the Daily Beast, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.