The Zach Show

On this episode of Zach Chats, Zach dives into seeing the Odyssey in IMAX, how Odysseus' men did the Cyclops wrong, Matt Damon getting yoked AF, how 600 soldiers manage to each get some "me" time, the woke outrage surrounding the release of the film, and why it's important to make space to digest art. Zach Chats is a series where Zach joins you solo for a more casual episode to recap what's been g...

At the start of this year, watching a five-hour YouTube breakdown of a mentalist was nowhere on my to-do list. Then I found Stevie Baskin’s Metadeception: The Truth About Oz Pearlman and watched the entire thing. Oz Pearlman is the world’s most famous mentalist. In his viral TED Talk, he says, “I don’t read minds, I read people.” The idea is that he can extract information by studying body languag...

Are you sure this life is real? How do we know this life is real? What does being “real” even mean? According to Blaise Pascal, everything we know, everything we think we know is real, is a matter of feeling. It’s not a matter of reasoning, ultimately, at the foundation. This concept anchors my conversation today with Yuval Avnur, a Professor of Philosophy at Scripps College and author of Why Read...

Prediction markets are everywhere, but a recent Wall Street Journal investigation raises serious questions about how some platforms are marketed. Zach breaks down the report on Polymarket’s use of paid creators, simulated betting videos, and influencer campaigns, then explores the ethics of financial advertising, celebrity endorsements like Rick Rubin’s, regulatory gray areas, and whether predicti...

AI was supposed to cure disease, solve climate change, and usher humanity into a futuristic utopia. Instead, some people are now asking ChatGPT if they should cheat on their spouse with their Pilates instructor. In this episode, I dive into Alessandra Ram’s incredible Wired article, “Meet The Sad Wives of AI,” and explore the strange psychological fallout of the AI boom: founders treating chatbots...

After 27 years inside the French Air Force working on the ethics of drone and autonomous weapons warfare, Dr. Emmanuel Goffi witnessed the shift from battlefield decision-making to remote killing, and now to a world where artificial intelligence may shape reality itself. In this episode, he explains what lethal drone strikes actually look like behind the scenes, how responsibility quietly moves aw...

Casinos don’t just rely on luck, they rely on psychology, design, and timing, and in this episode Dr. Sally Gainsbury explains exactly how. Dr. Gainsbury, an internationally recognized gambling-harm researcher, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, and Director of Australia’s only university-based Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic, walks through how early wins can reshape expec...

Most people think the OceanGate Titan disaster was a tragic accident. It wasn’t. It was the predictable outcome of an egomaniacal mindset. In this episode, Zach and his brother Dave break down the OceanGate disaster through the lens of the Netflix documentary 'Titan: The OceanGate Disaster,' unpacking how Stockton Rush’s obsession with proving carbon fiber could work at Titanic depth slowl...

In this conversation, Zach sits down with acclaimed author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, the writer behind Chain-Gang All-Stars and Friday Black, to explore the uneasy relationship between violence, justice, and entertainment in modern culture. They discuss how violent spectacle, from gladiators to modern media, captures our attention and forces us to confront our own role as spectators. Nana explains...

On this episode of The Zach Show, Andrew Iliadis explains how companies like Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX are reshaping warfare, surveillance, and state power by building autonomous defense technologies faster than governments can regulate them. He traces the roots of this shift to post-9/11 defense expansion, cloud computing, and Silicon Valley’s deep ties to military funding. By analyzing Palan...

For years, the Epstein story sat half-exposed and half-buried—until the DOJ quietly released over 40,000 files. In this episode, investigative biographer Andrew Lownie breaks down what actually matters: missing evidence, sanitized redactions, and an investigation that admits to 10 co-conspirators yet charged only one person. From Clinton and Trump to Prince Andrew, the files suggest not incompeten...

Investigative biographer Andrew Lownie joins the show to unpack the rise and fall of Prince Andrew, from his troubled childhood and war-hero image to financial corruption, Epstein, and royal protection at the highest levels. We explore Andrew’s marriage to Sarah Ferguson, the Trade Envoy scandals, intelligence entanglements, the Virginia Giuffre case, the infamous Newsnight interview, Andrew's and...

In this episode of The Zach Show, we break down the most explosive new Jeffrey Epstein revelations following the release of 20,000+ estate documents and Trump’s order to disclose government files. We cover claims that Trump “knew about the girls,” secret emails showing journalist Michael Wolff advising Epstein on Trump strategy, and FBI footage that undermines the official jailhouse timeline. We r...

Investigative journalist ‪Scott Carney‬ joins Zach to trace his wild path from exposing India’s organ and human-remains trade to uncovering the dark psychology behind modern wellness gurus. Carney recounts the tragic death of a student who believed she’d achieved enlightenment, revealing how spiritual seeking can slide into psychosis. He explains how fame and money transformed figures like Wim Hof...

From ancient Mesopotamia to Twilight, the werewolf has evolved from cursed lovers and cannibals to tragic heroes and pop icons. In this Halloween deep dive, Zach and Dr. Julie Labau trace 4,000 years of transformation, from gods punishing desire to colonizers weaponizing myths. The werewolf isn’t just a monster, it’s a mirror reflecting what every generation fears losing control over: sex, sanity,...

Todd Purdum joins Zach to unpack Desi Arnaz’s wild arc: raised like a prince in Cuba, exiled at 16 by revolution, hustling in Miami, inventing the conga craze, then conquering Broadway and Hollywood with Lucille Ball. We dig into trauma that fueled his genius, the invention of the three-camera sitcom, catching "Lightning In A Bottle" with I Love Lucy, womanizing, marriage cracks and goodbyes, and...

On this episode of The Zach Show, Mick West joins Zach to trace how modern conspiracies form from the Charlie Kirk assassination to UFO lore. They examine social media speed, projection of political fears, and AI’s role in amplifying falsehoods such as Grok inventing quotes about the Kirk assassination. Mick shows why high-resolution footage often fails to stop speculation, how theories evolve lik...

Leaked audio from Israel’s former chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, reveals him saying “50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary” and that Palestinians “need a Nakba” to learn the cost of resistance. In this conversation, genocide scholar Omer Bartov unpacks the implications: the blurred line between war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide; the whataboutisms comparing Gaza to WWI...

Genocide scholar Omer Bartov joins The Zach Show for part 1 of this conversation to explain why, by May 2024, it was “no longer possible to deny” Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza. We dig into the Rafah operation, the systematic destruction of homes, hospitals, and schools, bulldozers flattening entire neighborhoods, mass starvation, and leaders invoking biblical calls to wipe out Amalek. Bartov l...

In this episode of The Zach Show, award-winning journalist Philip Shenon, author of Jesus Wept, takes us inside the Vatican’s most turbulent century. From Pope Pius XII’s meeting with Hitler and his controversial silence during the Holocaust, to Pope John XXIII’s revolutionary Vatican II reforms, we trace the Church’s battles over power, mercy, and truth. Shenon unpacks Hans Küng’s assault on papa...

What does it really take to disappear in 2025? In this episode, we dive into the surreal world of extreme-privacy consultants, people who charge tens of thousands to make you untraceable. From 191 virtual debit cards to fake dogs and burner phones in Faraday bags, these modern-day Disappearers help CEOs, crypto millionaires, and paranoid civilians vanish from the grid. But in a world where your fa...

As the DOJ now claims no Epstein client list exists and Epstein-related files remain sealed, we’re re-releasing one of the most explosive interviews we’ve ever done. This is Part 2 of our deep dive with investigative journalist Nick Bryant, originally recorded in October 2024. Nick connects Epstein’s rise, from college dropout to Mossad-linked blackmailer, to the Franklin Scandal he spent years un...

Professor Sander van der Linden’s fascination with misinformation traces back to his own family’s scars under Nazism, a regime that perfected propaganda so insidious it seeped invisibly into everyday life. In his award-winning book Foolproof, van der Linden argues that misinformation is a psychological virus, spreading through minds the way a biological virus hijacks cells. From Third Reich leafle...

Otis Brown III didn’t just grow up around music, he was shaped by it. With a father who drummed for legends like James Brown and Al Green, and a mother who was a classically trained pianist and choir director, Otis was raised in a home where rhythm and soul were a way of life. In this episode, we trace Otis’s journey from early church gigs to Donald Byrd’s midnight mentorship and on to stages with...

What does it take to bring down the most powerful drug lord in modern history? In this gripping episode, DEA Special Agent Steve Murphy, one of the agents who helped take down Pablo Escobar, joins me to unpack the truth behind the manhunt that inspired Netflix’s Narcos. From gunfights in Miami and undercover stings gone sideways, to the 18-month chase through Colombia with a $300,000 bounty on his...