Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

Venezuela is spinning out of control: starvation, desperation, chaos, fear. Hannah Dreier, the Associated Press correspondent in Caracas, is in the midst of it. In a briefing with Jay, she gives us the latest. What does the latest include? The slums – the ruling party’s strongholds – turning against the party. The supreme court nullifying the congress. And then reversing itself. Source Get full ac...

With his old friend Mark Farrell, the golf pro, Jay talks Masters 2017 – the shoot-out between Sergio Garcia of Spain and Justin Rose of Britain. Also, should golf be an Olympic sport? (Rose is the reigning gold medalist – the only one there has been, in the modern era.) Also, whatsamatter with Tiger? And so on. Mark Farrell is a guru and a treat. Even the un-golf-minded might well enjoy. Source G...

With Norman Podhoretz, you can talk about practically anything – so Jay does. They talk about writing, of course. Few do it as well as NPod. They talk about his friend Shakespeare, and his friend Yeats. They talk about novels. (Podhoretz rates “Anna Karenina” number one.) They talk about music and ballet. Even math and science. And also politics, including Trump. And Europe – its fate. Source Get...

For ten years – 2006 to 2016 – Toomas Hendrik Ilves was president of Estonia. He grew up in New Jersey. His parents, like many Estonian parents – if they were lucky – took refuge abroad. With Jay, he talks a little about his life, and the great challenges facing his country, and liberal democracy in general. A name for those challenges would be Vladimir Putin. At the end of the podcast... Source G...

Eliot Cohen is a leading national-security scholar and an adviser to presidents, would-be presidents, and others. His latest book is The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power & the Necessity of Military Force. Jay asks him to take a tour around the world, and he does: beginning with Mexico, moving to Europe, moving to the Far East, and the Mideast, and elsewhere. They wind up talking about the T...

A friend of Jay’s – a journalist in Washington – described Arthur Brooks as “the most interesting man in Washington, D.C.” Brooks is the president of the American Enterprise Institute. Earlier in his life, he was a professional French-horn player. Jay talks to him about music – and about enterprise, the poor, nationalism, Americanism, and much else. Jay found this podcast exceptionally refreshing....

Daniel Hannan, the British writer and politician, was honored at the recent “ideas summit” of the National Review Institute. Jay sat down with him there, to talk about Britain, Europe, nationalism, patriotism, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, and more. Burning issues addressed by a learned, experienced, and thoughtful man. Source Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinge...

Robert P. George is a famed professor, working at Princeton University. He began modestly, in the hills of West Virginia. He went on to Swarthmore, Harvard, and Oxford. With Jay, he talks about a slew of issues, including abortion, gay marriage, nationalism, refugees, and lawyers. He also talks about the fate of our civilization. If it dies, he says, it will not be from evil but from cowardice......

Stuart Taylor is possibly the outstanding legal journalist of our time. His most recent book — co-authored with KC Johnson — is “ The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities.” Naturally, he and Jay talk about this issue. A very important issue, legally, culturally, and otherwise. They also talk about recent Supreme Court nominees: Merrick Garland, who didn’t make it...

Herbert Blomstedt is one of the leading conductors in the world. He was born in America, in 1927. But his family was Swedish, and they moved back to Sweden when Herbert was a child. He has since conducted in Dresden, San Francisco, and many other places. He is in New York this week, guesting with the New York Philharmonic. Jay sat down with him in his dressing room, for a leisurely, rich “Q&A....

James Kirchick is the author of an important new book: “The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age.” He and Jay talk it over: the nationalist-authoritarians and their “pope,” Vladimir Putin; Madame Le Pen in France; the role of Germany; the importance of Ukraine. Is Greece a goner? Is the EU anything but a menace? What about the Americans? Toward the end of the podcast... So...

Ben Shapiro is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire. He is one of the most prominent conservative journalists in America. The 2016 cycle was a wild ride for him, as for many. He has the distinction – is that the word? – of being the No. 1 target for anti-Semitic hate in his field. And, as Jay notes, the guy has a spine of steel. (Also a stomach of iron.) With Jay, Shapiro talks about politics......

Michael McFaul is one of the outstanding Russianists in America. A boy from Montana, he made Russia his life’s occupation, and preoccupation. He is a professor at Stanford. And he was U.S. ambassador to Russia. With Jay, he talks about being a student in the Soviet Union. And developments thereafter (personal, national, and international). He talks about Putin and his rule. About NATO and the West...

Years ago, Radek Sikorski was the chief foreign correspondent of National Review. Later, he was a major politician and statesman in Poland: first the defense minister, then the foreign minister. With Jay, he talks about some of the most important issues facing Europe and the world: NATO, the EU, the Kremlin, the United States, and so on. He is a man of immense learning and experience... Source Get...

Alexandra DeSanctis is a colleague of Jay’s at National Review. A recent graduate of Notre Dame, she is a William F. Buckley fellow at NRI (the National Review Institute). She is especially knowledgeable about the “life” issues. About abortion in particular. Also, she has been on the beat of Planned Parenthood, doggedly. She and Jay talk about that organization, and about abortion, etc. Source Get...

Ildar Dadin is a political prisoner in Russia. He has the unwelcome distinction of being the first person imprisoned under an onerous new law: a law that effectively bans protests of the government without permission from that same government. Dadin has been tortured. He feared that he would be killed. Just recently, he was transferred from one prison, in Karelia, near Finland, to another... Sourc...

Piotr Anderszewski is one of the leading pianists in the world. He paid a visit to New York, where Jay caught up with him in the offices of the Steinway company (in the Lady Gaga conference room, specifically). (Really.) Anderszewski has recently returned to concert life from a short sabbatical. During this sabbatical, he made a film about Warsaw. He and Jay talk about this and many other issues.....

The Venezuelan situation is hard to believe: hunger, violence, a reversion to the primitive. Yet there is beauty there too, and human goodness. Hannah Dreier is on the scene for the Associated Press. And, once again, she is Jay’s guest on “Q&A.” They talk about parents who give their children away, or even kill them. And people who rob and murder with impunity. You need to have “bricks of cash...

Kimberley Motley is an American attorney and human-rights activist. She has been working in Afghanistan. She has been of particular help to girls and women. Last week, she traveled to Cuba, where she hoped to represent Danilo Maldonado. Maldonado is a dissident and street artist nicknamed “El Sexto” (which means, “The Sixth”). Jay wrote about him here. He has been in and out of prison: and he is.....

Jay calls Larry Diamond “Mr. Democracy.” Professor Diamond has devoted his career to the study and advocacy of democracy — a very important thing to study and advocate. “The worst system of government except for all others.” In this “Q&A,” Jay covers some basic questions with his guest: Why is democracy so important? The United States is a republic, not a democracy, right? They also talk about...

As regular listeners may know, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the veteran congresswoman from Miami, is one of Jay’s favorite politicians: favorite politicians, favorite Americans, favorite people. She is a champion of freedom the world over, not just in her native Cuba. But it is about Cuba that Jay talks with her in this “Q&A.” Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen fled with her family when she was eight. Source...

Fazil Say is a famous pianist, and a composer as well. He is particularly associated with the music of Mozart. Years ago, he took Mozart’s Rondo alla turca and made a jazzy arrangement of it – an arrangement that has gone all around the world, prized by concert pianists and amateurs alike. Say himself is a Turk. He is the most famous Turkish musician, certainly in the classical world. Source Get f...

Jay wanted to turn to Lincoln Diaz-Balart, to get his thoughts on the death of Fidel Castro. Diaz-Balart is a veteran Miami lawyer and politician. He served in Congress for nearly 20 years. His family has been prominent in politics, both in pre-Castro Cuba and in the United States. His father, Rafael, was a friend of Castro’s; his aunt, Rafael’s sister, married Castro. But soon... Source Get full...

Jay ditches a traditional “Q&A” – a proper “Q&A” – to do a music program: a program of music related to Thanksgiving, or at least to thanksgiving: expressions of gratitude. You have some Baroque, including Bach, and some Beethoven, and some Strauss (Richard Strauss), and some Barber, and, finally, a cherished familiar hymn. Happy, happy Thanksgiving. Source Get full access to Onward and Up...

David Clarke is one of the most famous lawmen in America. He is the sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. He is a commanding personality who has much experience and much to say. And he says it very well. Sheriff Clarke is a guest on National Review’s current cruise. Jay sat down with him for a “Q&A” in front of an audience. They talk about his upbringing: Sheriff Clarke’s father was a milita...