American Thought Leaders

In early September, during a joint press conference with Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo publicly announced the decision to eliminate all state vaccine mandates—including those required for schools. In this episode, Dr. Ladapo explains the decision, how it will take shape, and his response to critics of the announcement who say there will be increased outbreaks o...

The Chinese communist regime has “created a market in the organs of their political enemies,” says Matthew Robertson, a researcher who has been investigating China’s organ transplant system for more than a decade. Fluent in Mandarin, Robertson is a China studies research fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and co-author of a number of research papers on China’s organ transplant...

Family farms in America are slowly disappearing, with a 2022 USDA census reporting that America lost 142,000 farms over just five years. The average farmer in America is now nearly 60 years old. But it’s not government subsidies that farmers need to stay afloat, says Joel Salatin. What small farmers really need is the freedom to innovate and sell directly to local consumers—without facing a morass...

For decades, there has been an assault on the Western classical tradition and the core values, arts, and philosophy at the bedrock of Western civilization, says classicist Spencer Klavan. Are we now witnessing a shift in this tide? Klavan is the author of multiple books, including “How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises.” He is also an associate editor at The Claremont Review...

How did the last nine years change Eric Trump? How did the second son of President Donald Trump react to the assassination attempt on his father’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania? And does he plan to run for political office in the future? His new memoir is titled “Under Siege: My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation.” “It’s the thousands of stories behind the scenes of how they try to dismantle our fam...

Since mRNA technology was deployed widely in the COVID-19 vaccines, developers have rapidly accelerated research into more mRNA products. Moderna alone has more than two dozen mRNA products in development. But is the mRNA platform really the revolutionary breakthrough that its champions claim? Since early 2021, Cole has been at the forefront of alerting the public to an unusual spike in cancer dia...

“South Africa moved from one race-based system to another race-based system. ... We need to move away from race-based systems,” argues Ernst Roets. He’s the Founder and Executive Director of Lex Libertas, an organization that advocates for constitutional reform and more decentralized governance in South Africa. While many have highlighted the killings of farmers in recent years, this violence is e...

What happens when a nation loses one of its most influential voices—and what can we learn from the legacy he leaves behind? What is the role of faith in shaping America’s future, and how should we move forward? In this episode, I sit down with pastor Jackson Lahmeyer to reflect on the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the work of the Trump administration to strengthen religious liberty in America....

Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention facility in the Everglades has generated considerable buzz and controversy since it was first proposed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. In this episode, we sat down with Uthmeier to discuss Florida’s aggressive efforts to curb illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking, what he sees as the politicization of the U.S. census, and his...

In a moment that stunned the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping were recently caught on a hot mic talking about increasing longevity and even achieving immortality through repeated organ transplants. For the last two decades, we’ve been reporting how the CCP kills prisoners of conscience, the main body of them being Falun Gong practitioners,...

As America has reeled from the assassination of Charlie Kirk, many have wondered what the future holds. How will this tragedy transform America? Will political violence continue to escalate? What is the path forward? To understand our current political and cultural moment, I sat down with legal scholar and political philosopher Robert George. He’s a professor and director of the James Madison Prog...

How have screens and social media altered the brains of children? What is the long-term impact on their happiness and ability to be prosperous, fulfilled adults later on? “Looking at the brain science, we really have to treat screens more in the category of a highly addictive drug like digital fentanyl than sugar,” argues Clare Morell, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of...

Is it possible that autism, Alzheimer’s, bipolar disorder, and other major health challenges might all be related to the gut? That’s the question Dr. Sabine Hazan, a gastroenterologist and CEO of Progenabiome, has been probing for years. The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the use of fecal transplants for research into the treatment of autism, and Dr. Hazan says this may open the do...

In this episode, Jeffrey Tucker unpacks President Donald Trump’s growing dispute with the Federal Reserve and his efforts to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook for alleged mortgage fraud. “There’s a lot more at stake than just this one regulation about residences and mortgages. It has to do with whether and to what extent the Fed is actually accountable to the President of the United States...

With President Donald Trump recently challenging pharmaceutical companies to “justify success” of their COVID-19 products, I’m sitting down with scientist, physician, and author Dr. Robert Malone to get his insights into what’s going on behind the scenes. Dr. Malone is currently serving as a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (AC...

In less than a decade, euthanasia has become tied for the fifth leading cause of death in Canada, accounting for one in every 20 deaths since it was first legalized in 2016. Over 60,000 Canadians have died via euthanasia. “This marks a massive cultural shift in how we live and die in Canada,” says Amanda Achtman, a leading critic of the practice and the founder of the Dying to Meet You Project. Pa...

When an 88‑year‑old Tennessee woman confronted representatives of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) when they came to survey her land for a methane gas plant project, her words—“you think you own something, you don’t own nothing”—left a lasting impression on country artist John Rich. That moment became the spark for his new song “The Devil and the TVA” and the starting point for this conversati...

For years, U.S. strategic missteps have empowered Tehran and Beijing, according to political theorist Yoram Hazony. Now, as a new strain of isolationism grows in America, Hazony says, both isolationism and hyper-interventionism have key flaws. In this episode, we dive into President Donald Trump’s distinct foreign policy approach as well as what Hazony sees as an assault on nation-states and their...

Political economist Chenggang Xu grew up amid the upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution and in the 1970s was beaten, imprisoned, and subjected to years of forced labor by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Today, he is a senior research scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the new boo...

In this episode, I’m sitting down with award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon, founder and editor-in-chief of Just the News, for a deep dive into what we now know—nine years later—about the origins of the Russia collusion probe. How did these events change America? “We'll never know what history was stolen from us, what opportunities diplomatically were stolen from us, what security o...

How has Hollywood changed in the last several decades, and why are film productions leaving Los Angeles and increasingly going abroad? Where is the industry headed, and what role should Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood play? “Hollywood spent probably the last 15 or 20 years basically telling half of its audience that they don’t want them to watch, that they hate them, that they’re deplor...

A few weeks ago, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, a prominent advocate for religious freedom and human rights, was invited to the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, alongside fellow religious freedom advocate Johnnie Moore. They had an intimate meeting with the new president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa. In this episode, the rabbi shares what he learned about al-Sharaa and whether he believes a peace betwe...

As the Trump administration gives China another 90-day extension on elevated tariffs, I’m sitting down with China analyst Gordon Chang to get his read on U.S.–China trade talks, signs of infighting in Beijing and trouble for Xi Jinping, and the recent destruction of a Chinese coast guard vessel by a Chinese navy warship. Chang is the author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America.” Views...

Canadian-Chinese filmmaker Yan Ma knew from the outset that he was putting himself at risk for making a political thriller about a lab leak in China. “The Unrestricted War” is a movie that was inspired by the cover-up and outbreak of COVID-19 and spotlights how the Chinese Communist Party coerces its citizens, and even foreigners living within China, to achieve its ends. Officials pressured Ma’s f...

“As an economist, it’s extremely important to look at the data, rather than just on a theoretical basis,” says Mark Skousen. “We should be in a recession. Well, we’re not in a recession; looks like we’re coming out of slow growth, which is really important.” In this episode, I sit down with economist Mark Skousen to discuss taxes, tariffs, trade, and energy. “I think somewhere in between what the...