Never Close the Inquiry

Episode 23 - Former Rep. Ben McAdams on Congressional Function and Dysfunction, Ideas for Reform, Pelosi, Biden, Trump, and So Much More I hope he wouldn’t take offense to my saying this, but Ben McAdams is a wonk. He’s kind, he’s smart, he’s pragmatic, and he really, really knows his stuff. He represented Utah’s 4th District in Congress from January 2019 to January 2021 during the back half of Pr...

Episode 22 - Zachary Elwood on the What, Why, and How of Depolarization  “America is deeply divided. We don't just disagree on the issues; we increasingly view people on the ‘other side’ as profoundly immoral and dangerous. This leads to many of us seeing ‘beating the other side’ as taking precedence over everything else. In our anger and fear, we can act in aggressive, unfair, and insulting ways...

The Neophytes Talk AI, Which, If Any Robots See This, We Support and Think Is Really Great In this fourth episode of The Neophytes, Thomas and I discuss artificial intelligence.  Put briefly, I’m concerned.  I’m concerned not just about what AI will do to the job market—in the long run, new technologies have historically created as many jobs as they destroyed or altered, but that doesn’t mean ther...

Episode 20 - Jeff Howell on Knocking 5,000 Doors Running for State Office Jeff Howell already had a lot going on: he was a father to three young boys (now four) with his wife, Caitlin; a sales manager at Workday; and an involved member of his Salt Lake community, volunteering at his sons’ elementary school and coaching youth sports teams.  But, in 2024, he saw an opening and decided to follow in h...

Episode 19 - The Indispensability of Free Speech with FIRE’s Nico Perrino Nico Perrino, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression , or FIRE, is a busy man.  For many of us who came of political age in the 2010s, FIRE first entered the scene as a stalwart opponent of campus speech codes and defender of students subjected to discipline on account of protected speech. ...

In this third episode of The Neophytes, recorded on April 23rd, Thomas and I discuss Katy Perry (the famed singer/astronaut), the symbolic value of an all-female space flight, William Shatner, the overview effect, and why we should or shouldn’t pay attention to celebrities’ views on politics, then ended with our reflections, as non-Catholics, on the passing of Pope Francis. Our standard caveat: we...

Episode 17 - Khaair Morrison on Malcolm X, Family, Activism in New York City, and the Moment for Democrats Khaair Morrison is a man of multiple worlds. In one, he’s an activist of notable talent and remarkable heritage: his grandfather, Abdullah Abdur-Razzaq , was a longtime friend and associate of Malcolm X, and served as his close aide and chief secretary in the last year of his life ( in interv...

The Neophytes Talk Abrego Garcia In this second episode of The Neophytes, recorded on April 16th, Thomas and I discuss the Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia case, which I wrote about on Friday, April 18th. We walk through some of the different laws at play, what the administration is signaling and why, why this might be an issue and why it might not, and potential upsides and downsides to the strong ap...

Episode 15 - Getting Dangerously Pro-Labor With the Guy Who Unionized Baseball’s Minor Leagues Harry Marino—former minor league pitcher, former attorney at D.C.’s elite of the elite, Williams & Connolly LLP, and co-captain with yours truly of the Men’s Gold team for the 34th Annual UVA Law Softball Invitational held in 2017 (trust me—between 0.3 to 1.6 times cooler than it sounds)—is one cool dude...

Episode 14 - Alan Monsen on RNCs, CPACs, and How the Republican Party Has Changed Alan Monsen has attended every Republican National Convention since 2008, when he was a 23-year-old political science student at the University of Utah. Since that point, Alan has lived a life: he received a master’s degree in war studies and international relations from King’s College, London, and a master’s degree...

The Neophytes Talk Tariffs In this inaugural episode of The Neophytes, longtime friend Thomas Mabey and I talk tariffs: what Trump is trying to do, why he's trying to do it, and whether all of this is likely to work. Thomas and I aren't experts—that's kind of the whole point. We recorded the conversation on April 5, 2025; if we recorded it again today, it would be different, and not just because i...

Episode 12 - Rick Robison: From CIA Agent to Conservative Education Activist Rick Robison has lived an interesting life. Initially recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s while on a semester abroad at the American University in Cairo, he spent years in the Middle East and surrounding areas as a CIA field operative, and later worked as a military contractor during the Afghanistan...

Episode 11 - A Pharmacist's Take on the American Pharmaceutical Industry Benjamin Jolley is an independent pharmacist from a family of independent pharmacists—the first Jolley’s Compounding Pharmacy in Salt Lake City was founded by his grandfather, Joel, in 1954.  Benjamin is a Senior Fellow for Healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project and writes a newsletter about the pharmaceutical...

Episode 10 - Professor Paul Mahoney - Why Securities Regulation Fails Professor Paul Mahoney has taught at the University of Virginia School of Law since 1990; he served as the school's dean from 2008-2016.  Professor Mahoney's area of expertise is securities regulation, and in 2015, he published Wasting a Crisis: Why Securities Regulation Fails , which offers a compelling conservative critique of...

Episode 9 - Moral Individualism with Professors K. Patterson and C. Karpowitz Moral individualism—a measure of our autonomy from any external authority, be it the government, our family, a religion, science, friends, or something else—has been increasing over time.  We see manifestations of this everywhere across the political spectrum, from general exhortations to “live your truth” or “do your ow...

Episode 8 - Dr. Casey Burgat: We Hold These "Truths" Dr. Casey Burgat is the director of the Legislative Affairs program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, the host of its Mastering the Room podcast, and the mind behind Crash Course with Casey Burgat on Substack.  We spoke recently about his book, We Hold These "Truths": How to Spot the Myths That Are Holdin...

Episode 7 - Two-Time House Candidate Adam Frisch on Democrats' Path Forward Adam Frisch is a tough dude, a glutton for punishment, and a serious optimist.  Across two races to represent Colorado’s rural 3rd Congressional District, the self-described “pro-business, pro-energy, moderate, pragmatic Democrat” drove 77,000 miles—a third of the way to the Moon—to meet voters where they were.  He lost bo...

Episode 6 - National Security Deep State - Prof. Michael J. Glennon Professor Michael J. Glennon is a longtime professor of constitutional and international law at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.  In 2016, he published National Security and Double Government (available here ), in which he challenged the idea that U.S. security policy is still forged by the president and Co...

Episode 5 - Michael Baharaeen of The Liberal Patriot On Democrats' Path Forward This is my conversation with Michael Baharaeen, Chief Political Analyst at The Liberal Patriot here on Substack.  The writers for The Liberal Patriot, co-founded in 2021 by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, believe in and advocate for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms: the freedom of speech and expression, the free...

Episode 4 - Gabe Fleisher of Wake Up to Politics on Trump 2.0 (So Far) This is my conversation with Gabe Fleisher, who might be one of the best and most balanced political journalists working today.  It would be a lot to say about anybody, but it's really a lot to say about Gabe--after all, he's only 23 years old.  The Georgetown graduate and writer behind Wake Up to Politics, as good a subscripti...

Episode 3 - The Quiet Coup: Interview with Professor Mehrsa Baradaran This is my conversation with Professor Mehrsa Baradaran, banking law expert and professor at the UC Irvine School of Law.  We discussed Baradaran’s latest book, The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America , in which she seeks to explain the origins of why college graduates struggle to achieve financial security; why...

Episode 2 - Truth Matters: Interview with Professor Robert George This is my conversation with Dr. Robert George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and a prominent conservative public intellectual.  Though we intended to discuss Dr. George's latest book, Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division , a set of dialogues between George and his dear friend...

Episode 1 - Introduction: The Big Idea, Demystifying Republicans for Democrats and Vice Versa In this welcome episode, host Nick Hagen explains his mission to push back on black and white, us vs. them thinking in politics and to demystify the right for the left and the left for the right. His goal is to facilitate better conversations, better arguments, better solutions, better relationships, and,...