Our discussion will focus on how authoritarian regimes are weaponizing social media to harm democracies. Utilizing false content and personas, these bad actors are sowing discord and polarizing Americans on issues from race relations to gun violence to the Venezuela crisis.

The discussion will be moderated by WBHM’s Andrew Yeager.

As their bios show, Laura and Zack are a truly bipartisan duo, having served at some of the highest levels of government in both the Obama and the Bush White House.

Laura Rosenberger is the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Before she joined GMF, she was foreign policy advisor for Hillary for America, where she coordinated development of the campaign’s national security policies, messaging, and strategy. Prior to that, she served in a range of positions at the State Department and the White House’s National Security Council (NSC). As chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and as later, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Blinken’s senior advisor, she counseled on the full range of national security policy. In her role at the NSC, she also managed the interagency Deputies Committee, the U.S. government’s senior-level interagency decision-making forum on our country’s most pressing national security issues. Laura also has extensive background in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Northeast Asia. She served as NSC director for China and Korea, managing and coordinating U.S. policy on China and the Korean Peninsula, and in a variety of positions focused on the Asia-Pacific region at the Department of State, including managing U.S.–China relations and addressing North Korea’s nuclear programs. She also served as special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, advising him on Asia-Pacific affairs and on nonproliferation and arms control issues. Laura first joined the State Department as a presidential management fellow.

Zack Cooper is co-director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). He also serves as a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies U.S. defense strategy and alliances in Asia. In addition, Zack is an adjunct assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, an associate at Armitage International, and a member of the board of advisors of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Zack served in the Pentagon and White House under the George W. Bush administration, first as special assistant to the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy for policy and then as assistant to the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism at the National Security Council. He has also been the senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Dr. Cooper received his Ph.D., M.A., and M.P.A. from Princeton University and B.A. from Stanford University.