"Vinnie From Queens"

Vinnie From Queens

Catherine Herridge

Catherine Herridge Bio

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

 

A lead correspondent for the network’s coverage of the 9/11 Benghazi terrorist attack, Catherine was first to report on September 12th, based on an interview with the chairman of House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Mike Rogers that “It was a coordinated, military-style, commando-type raid."  On September 17th, one day after Ambassador’s Rice’s controversial claims on the Sunday talk shows, Catherine was first to report there was no demonstration at the consulate when the attack unfolded. 

 

Herridge has also reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar, Israel and Guantánamo Bay. She has covered stories including the ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the Northern Ireland peace agreement, the investigation into Princess Diana’s death and 9/11 in New York City. She is one of the few reporters to sit in the same military courtroom as the self-described architect of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his four alleged co-conspirators. Herridge and the network’s team of investigative journalists traveled across the United States and to Yemen to complete an eighteen-month investigation into al-Awlaki, who was linked to three of the 9/11 hijackers, the Fort Hood attack, the attempted bombing on Christmas Day 2009, the failed attack on Times Square in May 2010, and the cargo printer bomb plot in October 2010. “The Washington Post” described the resulting documentary as “an explosive hour.”

 

Among her exclusives: a classified State Department cable sent in August 2012 by Ambassador Chris Stevens warning Secretary Clinton’s office that the consulate could not withstand a coordinated assault. Secretary Clinton, Secretary Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey were all pressed during House and Senate hearings on Benghazi about the cable’s warning, and whether they acted upon it. The classified cable foreshadowed how Ambassador Chris and three other Americans would die on 9/11.

 

Additionally, Herridge covered Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate campaign in 2000. She was also a New York-based correspondent for the Fox Broadcasting Network newsmagazine “Fox Files” where she led investigations into Medicare fraud, prescription drug abuse and child prostitution. Her work on Fox Files was recognized with the Bronze World Medal from the New York Festivals, honoring excellence in communications media.

 

Herridge’s recent book published by Crown, “The Next Wave: On the Hunt for al Qaeda’s American Recruits,” exposes the new face of terrorism and predicts the source of future threats in the Middle East and North Africa.

 

Herridge comes from a military family, so her national security reporting is deeply personal. In 2005, her family made national headlines when Catherine donated part of her liver to their younger son of two children, Peter, for a lifesaving transplant. She is now an outspoken advocate for organ donation.

 

A graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia School of Journalism, Herridge began her career as a London-based correspondent for ABC News.

Joe Tacopina

Joseph Tacopina founded the Law Offices of Tacopina & Seigel in 1994. After serving as a prosecutor, Mr. Tacopina chose to bring his talents to the criminal defense bar. Having tried more than 80 cases at the age of 42, Mr. Tacopina has earned the media’s praise as the “hottest young criminal defense lawyer” in New York.

Because of his extensive litigation experience in both federal and state court and his successes in some very high profile cases, Mr. Tacopina frequently appears as an expert legal analyst on various media outlets nationwide. He can regularly be seen on MSNBC, CNBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, CNN, and Court TV, and even occasionally has taken his licks on “Imus in the Morning.”

Mr. Tacopina is a member of the Federal Bar Council, the New York Counsel of Defense Lawyers, and the Judicial Committee for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He also serves on the Legislative Committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Additionally, Mr. Tacopina volunteers his time as an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and lectures nationwide on a variety of legal issues. He was also recently honored by the National Italian American Bar Association and is the basis for the fictional attorney on the CBS show The Guardian – Read Article. Mr. Tacopina was recently recognized for the second year in a row by Super Lawyers, an honor given to attorneys who exhibit excellence in practice.

Bernard Goldberg

Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news, is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism.  He has covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 12 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism.  He won six Emmys at CBS, and six more at HBO, where he now reports for the widely acclaimed broadcast Real Sports.

In addition to his ground-breaking book Bias, Goldberg has written four other books on the media and American culture — Arrogance, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America: (And Al Franken is #37), Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right, and A Slobbering Love Affair, about the news media’s romance with Barack Obama.  All  have all been New York Times bestsellers.

In 2006 Bernie won the most prestigious of all broadcast journalism awards, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award (considered the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), for an HBO story about young, poor boys  who were sold or kidnapped into slavery and were forced to risk their lives as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates, one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

In 2012, Bernie was honored again with another duPont, this time for a groundbreaking body of work on the effects of head trauma on athletes.

Bernie has reported extensively, both at HBO and at CBS News, on the transformation of the American culture.  At HBO, in the fall of 2000, he wrote the Emmy award winning documentary Do You Believe In Miracles, the dramatic story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team and the most famous hockey game ever — the game between the United States and the Soviet Union that revitalized the American spirit and helped bring America out of the malaise it had suffered though much of the 1970s.

At CBS, he anchored two prime-time documentaries about how the American landscape was changing.  Don’t Blame Me showed how the United States was becoming a nation of finger-pointers whose citizens more and more were refusing to accept responsibility for their actions.   In Your Face, America was an hour-long report about the coarsening of America, about how vulgar and uncivil our popular culture was becoming.

Bernie has written op-ed pieces that appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, manners, and journalism.

He is also a news and media analyst for Fox News where he comments regularly on the state of the press and television news as well as on politics and culture for the network’s top rated program, The O’Reilly Factor.

He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni

Dr. Walid Phares

Dr. Walid Phares joined Fox News in January 2007 and serves as National Security and Foreign Affairs expert as of 2017. Previously he has been Fox News' Terrorism and Middle East analyst.

Professor Phares served as President Donald Trump's Foreign Policy adviser during the 2016 campaign and as Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's senior National Security adviser during the 2011-2012 campaign

He has served as an adviser to the Anti-Terrorism Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007-2013 and has been a co-secretary general of the Transatlantic Legislative Group on Counter Terrorism, a Euro-American Caucus, since 2009. He briefs and testifies to the U.S. Congress, the European Parliament and the United Nations Security Council on matters related to international security and Middle East conflict. He has served on the Advisory Board of the Task Force on Future Terrorism of the Department of Homeland Security in 2006-2007 as well as on the Advisory Task force on Nuclear Terrorism in 2007. He lectures at defense and national security institutions and serves as a consultant on international affairs in the private sector.

Professor Phares served as a Provost to BAUI University from 2013 to 2017 and has taught global strategies at National Defense University in Washington, D.C. 2006-2012. Previously he was a professor of Middle East studies and comparative politics at Florida Atlantic University, 1993-2004.

He has published 12 books in English, Arabic and French on the Middle East and international terrorism, including the latest post 9/11 volumes: "Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against the West" 2005; "The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy" 2007, "The Confrontation: Winning the War Against Future Jihad" 2008. And "The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East" 2010 which projected the uprisings in the region before they occurred later in 2011. Phares' latest book is "The Lost Spring: US Foreign Policy and the Catastrophes to Avoid," which predicted the rise of an ISIS and the Iran deal strategies

Phares was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon and emigrated to the U.S. in 1990. He has degrees in law and political sciences from St. Joseph University in Beirut, a masters degree in international public law from the Universite de Lyons in France and a Ph.D in international and strategic studies from the University in Miami, Florida. He speaks Arabic, French and English fluently, writes columns weekly and is frequently interviewed in international, European, Asian, Latin American, Russian and Arab media.