American Thought Leaders

For decades, public health officials have promoted industrial seed oils—corn, canola, soybean, and sunflower, to name a few—as healthy replacements for traditional animal fats. Dr. Cate Shanahan, a family physician and author of “Dark Calories” and “Deep Nutrition,” believes the opposite. Dr. Shanahan argues that these oils are uniquely toxic and the primary drivers of modern metabolic and neurolo...

In this episode, actor Jim Caviezel reflects on his 35 years in filmmaking and takes us behind the scenes of his latest film, “Ghost Soldier.” Known for his roles in “The Passion of the Christ,” “Deja Vu,” and “Person of Interest,” Caviezel stars in “Ghost Soldier” as a Green Beret defending his neighbor’s land against a corrupt corporation. “The narrative,” Caviezel says, is about “good versus ev...

With Democrats sweeping the House and Senate in the midterms last night, I’m sitting down with classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson to get his take on the results and what they mean for the Trump administration, the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, and the 2028 elections. Hanson is the author of multiple bestselling books, including most recently, “The Counterrevolution:...

Is Beijing trying to meddle in the 2026 midterm elections in America? How has Beijing’s strategy against America changed in recent months? How have China’s economic woes and military purges altered the political landscape in Beijing? And will these change Xi Jinping’s calculus around Taiwan? In this episode, I sit down again with China analyst Gordon Chang, author of “Plan Red” and “The Coming Col...

At FreedomFest, I spoke with actor Kelsey Grammer about why he believes the American founding remains a living source of wisdom. With the nation celebrating its 250th anniversary, he has been building The American Revelation, a project aimed at making American history more accessible, personal, and compelling. What happens when a society teaches its children primarily to see their country through...

There have been eight deaths—six killings and at least two suicides—linked to a radical group known as the Zizians. Investigative journalist Andy Ngo, who has been at the forefront of studying far-left violence, reveals how an extreme version of Silicon Valley rationalist philosophy and effective altruism gave rise to a death cult. His latest book is titled “The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult....

“When you see the recent riots, destruction of stores, looting, burning [of] historic buildings, including churches ... you have to realize these things do not happen spontaneously,” says investigative journalist and bestselling author Richard Miniter. What is the link between what’s unfolding on the streets of France and the Iranian regime? Why might Iran be interested in influencing events in Eu...

115 Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained have been brought home in the last 20 months—with zero ransoms paid—said Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. In this episode, Gorka takes us inside high-stakes hostage rescues, negotiation efforts, and the Trump administration’s strategy to go after r...

Modern industrial agriculture relies on heavy chemical inputs and is built around corporate monopolies, leaving many Americans searching for healthier alternatives, say Drs. Robert and Jill Malone. They’re co-authors of the new book, “Homesteading for Health: One Farm Family’s Guide to Food, Land, and Self-Sufficiency.” They argue that true food security and health may begin in our own backyards....

In 2022, New York fined three private Amish schoolhouses $118,000 in combined fines for allowing unvaccinated children to attend. This came after New York repealed its longstanding religious exemptions for school vaccination requirements in 2019. New York law allows the state to fine a school up to $2,000 per student per day for noncompliance, which could add up to multi-million-dollar fines for a...

From security dossiers and advanced aerospace stealth designs to the mundane technology in your living room, virtually no sector of the American economy has remained untouched by the Chinese Communist Party’s intellectual property theft campaign. In this interview, The Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek sits down with David Shedd, former acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and c...

What does the U.S. government actually know about UFOs or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), and what aren’t they telling us? Have non-human intelligences visited Earth already? And what do we know about them? There are few people who have interrogated the facts around UAPs as carefully as Dr. Phil. He and his team were given exclusive, early access by President Donald Trump to confidential...

In this episode, I sit down with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He’s the longest-serving sitting governor, having spent 11 years in office, and is running for reelection this November. Abbott has made some major policy bets in America’s second-most-populous state. Last year, he signed a large-scale $1 billion school voucher program after years of effort pushing it through the legislature. Now he wants to...

A 2008 update to the landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is increasingly being used to target religious communities, says attorney John Lauro, and raising red flags for experts in constitutional law. The definition of the term “serious harm” in the statute was altered to include psychological and other non-physical harms. And in recent years, “that provision has been weaponized by p...

Nate Soares is the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and co-author of “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All.” “One of the critical thresholds here is this point where the AIs exceed the humans at fully automated AI research—or at closed-loop AI research—because that’s where you could start having a machine intelligence that makes a smarter...

Six years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are still uncovering what was really happening behind closed doors. “What [Dr. Anthony Fauci] says many times privately in his diary is so at odds with both his public behavior and public statements,” says Peter Navarro, a senior White House adviser and author of the new book “Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison.” What do Fauci’s private notes reveal...

In this episode, I sit down with U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche to discuss the Department of Justice’s latest work to combat voting and registration fraud, Chinese espionage, weaponization of the justice system, and scam centers across southeast Asia. With the Supreme Court rejecting the administration’s executive order on birthright citizenship and its emergency request related to mail-in bal...

It’s been over five years since a California law came into effect that allows biological males to be sent to women’s prisons if they identify as transgender. The law has no requirement for diagnosis, hormones, or surgery. Called the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, the law is being exploited by male predators and sex offenders, alleges Amie Ichikawa, an advocate for female inmates. “T...

Modern biology often presents Darwinian evolution as a settled explanation for the origin and diversity of life. Douglas Axe is chair of molecular biology at Biola University and author of “Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.” In this episode, he argues that when you look at the mathematical probabilities that undergird molecular genetics, there are hard limits th...

Modern culture often treats popular consensus and media narratives as settled truth. Warren Smith, author of the new book “A Mind of Your Own: Independent Thinking in the Age of Misinformation,” argues that our society is increasingly convinced by misleading narratives rather than objective reality. He is the creator of the Secret Scholars Society channel on YouTube, and he’s become known for usin...

In this episode, I’m sitting down with Tom Homan. A career law enforcement officer, he’s served as a cop, border patrol agent, federal investigator, and acting ICE chief, and worked under six presidents from both sides of the aisle. Now as the White House border czar, he’s facilitating the most aggressive transformation of immigration enforcement that America has ever seen. Monthly deportations ha...

What happens when AI agents stop acting like isolated tools and begin collaborating to trick the very systems that evaluate them? Daniel Kokotajlo, executive director of the AI Futures Project and a former OpenAI researcher, describes a recent incident involving AI agents that discovered a way to communicate with one another, share strategies to cheat on their assigned tasks, and organize into a c...

Ahead of the Trump–Xi summit in Washington this week, I’m sitting down with retired U.S. Marine Colonel Grant Newsham to understand what’s really at stake here, and what each side stands to win—or lose. “When the Chinese come here, they are very much testing [our] will … to defend ourselves, to defend our principles, to defend our friends,” Newsham says. Newsham is the former reserve head of intel...

I recently traveled to the Pacific island nation of Palau, home to one of the deadliest battlefields of World War II. And geography still matters: Today, it’s a security flashpoint for the United States and its closest Pacific allies. Palau is one of 12 countries in the world that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Because of this and its strategic position, Palau faces continual an...

Centralized agriculture insists that strict federal oversight is essential for food safety and market stability. Joel Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms, argues that a close look at soaring beef prices, local meat production, and farm economics reveals regulatory hurdles that destroy small slaughterhouses and distort true free-market prices. Salatin addresses why high beef prices persist, noting...