Looking forward to NPR @hereandnow today for a Lisa Mullins interview with @CFKAfrica Head of Girls Empowerment Siama Yusuf and my daughter, Charlotte Barcott. Together, they co-edited the new book Still, I Rise: Stories of Resilience from Teenage Mothers in Kenya’s Slums. You can tune into the livestream at this link at 1:20 PM ET today, Thursday: wbur.org/radio

Thanks, @NDI President @WittesNDI and @IRIglobal President @DCTwining, who traveled with With Honor’s cross-party delegation last month to Kyiv and Kharkiv. A great morning with your talented and dedicated teams helping democracies around the world.

Will be a lively one post Election Day across the pond with our allies! Appreciate Anthony blurbing the UK edition of my book, and Royal Marine Al Carns for building a cross-party coalition of veterans in the Parliament as covered in Magnus Linklater’s superb column in the Times here: thetimes.com/uk/scotland/art…

Spent this morning with @IRIglobal President @DCTwining, @NDI President @WittesNDI, and their teams joining from posts around the world. Born in the Reagan era and bipartisan from the start, these two organizations do the quiet, unglamorous work of defending democracy abroad. They do it by empowering local leaders, not by imposing solutions from the top down. That is the lesson at the heart of our work at @cfkafrica and my first book, It Happened on the Way to War. It is also how I first met Madeleine Albright, NDI's longtime chair, who chaired CFK and supported @WithHonorAction in our early years alongside her friend Secretary George Shultz, a Marine veteran of World War II who helped Reagan establish both institutes. We talked about @SenToddYoung, who is in Courage Can Save US and sits on the @NEDemocracy board, and the courage it takes to stand with our allies across party lines. We also discussed John McCain, who chaired the IRI board for 25 years. This exchange reveals something about how McCain appears in the book. His memory echoes.

What does courage mean to Brits? Last week in London for the UK launch of Courage Can Save US at the Tower of London, With Honor put that question to former Financial Times Editor @lionelbarber, a member of @CityYearUK, and a Yeoman Warder at the Tower. Each had a different answer. Standing up for what you believe in. Speaking truth to power. Service. Different answers, one thread: a choice to serve something larger than yourself.

Few writers have chronicled Scotland, and Britain, with the depth and grace of Magnus Linklater. From Lockerbie to the Falklands, from editing @TheScotsman to decades at @thetimes, his reporting has set a standard for honest, humane journalism. It was an honor to sit with him at the Reform Club on Pall Mall, the grand street near Buckingham Palace that has been home to London’s private clubs for two centuries. Founded in 1836 out of a fight to expand the vote, the club was the first of London’s traditional clubs to admit women on equal terms, in 1981, and is where the French novelist Jules Verne set the wager in Around the World in Eighty Days. A fitting place to talk about courage. Magnus’s piece in The Sunday Times is about my friend @AlistairCarns for Birmingham Selly Oak. Al is one of only two sitting Members of Parliament to hold the Military Cross, his for actions leading Royal Marines in Afghanistan, which he steadfastly refuses to discuss. What he does reflect on is courage itself: what it demanded in uniform, and what it demands now in the political arena. Magnus recalls the murders of Jo Cox, a Labour MP, and Sir David Amess, a Conservative—a sobering reminder that political violence respects no party line, and that it is on the rise across our democracies. Two Scots—one born in Orkney, the other in Aberdeen—on what it means to serve. Magnus ends on service itself, and on the cross-party effort to give more young Britons a way into it. Great piece, grateful to both. 📸 Andrew Parsons thetimes.com/.../07b14df1-f9…...

When I started Courage Can Save US, I didn't expect one of its most important chapters to be about an FBI agent and the man he arrested. Then I met Brian McLaughlin — out of prison, now training electricians, and calling the agent who put him away one of the best things that happened to him. Thanks @RepBrianFitz and @JenGriffinFNC for this moment at our book launch event in the @librarycongress. The soundtrack is perfect.

Service is an opportunity, not an obligation. Courage Can Save Us profiles American leaders who served in uniform and then ran for office. Two of them went to university in the UK: Maryland @GovWesMoore, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and Indiana @SenToddYoung, who studied at the University of London and was a student representative to Margaret Thatcher. I wrote this book for students on both sides of the Atlantic. 🇺🇸🇬🇧 couragecansaveus.com/uk/

Try the pork scratchings, they said…

Day two in London ✅ ☕ Sunrise on the @SkyNews sofa with @SophyRidgeSky & @WilfredFrost 📰 Talking courage with @AlistairCarns and Magnus Linklater for @thetimes 🏛️ College Green, Parliament behind us, @GBNEWS and @otrapnellmedia in front 🏰 And tonight we launched Courage Can Save Us at the Tower of London Thank you @TomTugendhat, @lionelbarber, Al Carns, General Gordon Messenger, and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin for hosting, and every cadet and student who joined us and asked questions tonight. You are why this book exists. And a final thank you to everyone who came.

A @TheTimes of London interview on Courage Can Save Us with Royal Marine @AlistairCarns MP, conducted by Magnus Linklater, a superb writer and reporter. We spoke about physical courage in uniform and moral courage in politics. Al's definition: politics is leadership. I agree, and that's why it so often fails us. The 10 I profile don't always succeed, but they always strive to lead with service before self. We also talked about Magnus's father, Eric Linklater, whose tin helmet saved him from an enemy bullet as a private in the British Black Watch at Flanders, WWI. Eric Linklater's novel Private Angelo examines how courage can be held, lost, and regained.

It might not be a great hair day. But damn the torpedoes. Today is the day: Courage Can Save Us is now out in the UK. OohRah 🇬🇧🇺🇸

Great to join @SophyRidgeSky and @WilfredFrost on @SkyNews this morning. Sophy wrote a superb book on British women breaking into politics across party lines, The Women Who Shaped Politics. Before going on air we talked about Mikie Sherrill, the first woman veteran ever elected governor in the United States and one of the ten leaders profiled in Courage Can Save Us. Wilf's father, David Frost, famously conducted the Frost/Nixon interviews that drew the former president's first public admission of regret. Courage Can Save Us launches tonight at the Tower of London.

Wrapped day one in London on @TalkTV with @petercardwell, who asked why military service matters and what it gives you. My answer is common ground. Service gives you that no matter who your parents were, what your faith is or, for God's sake, what party you're in. That's why we're calling for more courage in public life. Courage Can Save Us launches today in the UK 🇬🇧🇺🇸

A "greasy spoon" chat with Royal Artillery officer and former Foreign Secretary @JamesCleverly the day before the UK launch of CourageCanSaveUS.com. Thank you, Gunner — and best wishes in your run for Mayor of London. Would be glad to help with your vision of more opportunities for young adults to serve, in and out of uniform.

First day in London done. 🇺🇸🇬🇧 Started by taking questions at the Foreign Press Association and stopped by one of London's iconic greasy spoon cafes for a mug of tea with @JamesCleverly. Army officer, former Foreign and Home Secretary, and now running for Mayor of London. We talked about working across party lines and his plans to expand service opportunities for young people. I also asked him how a Yank makes friends in London... stay tuned for his answer in a video. Tomorrow, October 13, we officially launch Courage Can Save Us in the UK at the Tower of London with @AlistairCarns, @TomTugendhat, @lionelbarber, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin and Gillian Tett. Should be a heck of a night.

A post-red-eye thrill this morning: a press briefing with the @FPALondon at the Royal Over-Seas League ahead of the UK launch of Courage Can Save US. Reporters from Australia, Japan, Finland, Italy and other allies joined us and asked great questions for a full hour. Courage connects us to the allies who have stood with us through history's hardest moments — especially the UK. I proudly stood shoulder to shoulder with British soldiers in Bosnia, the Horn of Africa and Iraq, and I witnessed their physical courage firsthand. A fantastic morning to start my trip in London.