The American Compass Podcast

Over the last two weeks, an online battle has broken out among the New Right over the Israel-Iran conflict and the Trump administration's bombing of an Iranian nuclear facility. Regardless of whether the recent ceasefire between Iran and Israel holds, the events so far have drawn clear dividing lines within the coalition. What does "America First" mean for Middle Eastern policy? Jos...

Economists have claimed for years that Americans are prospering more than ever before. So why do so few people feel that way? Philip Pilkington, author of the forthcoming The Collapse of Global Liberalism , joins Oren to discuss how these economic metrics are obscuring real problems. The two challenge the assumption that consumption is an unalloyed good and discuss the need to think about our nati...

When news broke that the local paper mill in Chillicothe, OH, was closing its doors and laying off 780 employees, one Ohio senator made it his mission to fight for those workers. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) joins Oren to talk about his efforts to put American workers and their families first. The freshman senator explains how his background led him to Congress and breaks down the forces driving the...

Today’s Republican Party has come a long way from the days of William F. Buckley, Jr., but his legacy continues to be felt across the conservative movement. Sam Tanenhaus , former editor of the New York Times Book Review and author of the newly released Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America , joins Oren to discuss the conservative statesman’s life and work. The two discuss how...

Vice President JD Vance joined Oren Cass at American Compass’s five-year anniversary celebration for a wide-ranging discussion of the ongoing political realignment, the importance of conservative economics, and where the movement goes from here. During their conversation at the New World Gala, Vance and Cass discuss the rapid shift in conservative thinking on issues like trade, industrial policy,...

American conservatism has never been static. Changes in our national political environment have previously shifted what the Republican Party stands for. But how does today’s New Right compare to earlier realignments driven by President Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley Jr.? Before the June 3rd release of The New Conservatives , Matthew Continetti , director of domestic policy studies at the Amer...

Globalization and deindustrialization have brought with them a sense among American workers that the good jobs they could once count on have disappeared. As family-supporting careers evaporate, service jobs with lower pay and unpredictable hours take their place in many communities across the country. Zeynep Ton, professor of practice at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, joins Oren to discuss what...

The Trump administration’s new trade policy toward China has revealed just how deeply enmeshed major American corporations are with our chief geopolitical rival. Apple’s story is perhaps the most dramatic. Patrick McGee , author of Apple in China and San Francisco correspondent for the Financial Times , joins Oren to discuss how Apple, like so many other nominally American companies, is constraine...

The second Trump administration has spurred a wave of domestic industrial investment and a recognition that making things in America matters. But what does that look like from the factory floor? Chris Power , founder and CEO of Hadrian, joins Oren to discuss how his company is helping lead reindustrialization efforts here in the United States. He explains the revolutionary technologies Hadrian use...

What should conservatives make of the first 100 days of Trump’s second term? Rachel Bovard , vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute, joins Oren to discuss how to measure an unconventional administration’s early successes, what to make of DOGE, and where the administration should direct its efforts to capitalize on its public mandate. Plus, they discuss one major chang...

How has the American media gone from the days of Walter Cronkite to open hostility toward the president and his party? Mark Halperin , editor-in-chief of 2Way and host of the new program " Next Up " on the Megyn Kelly network, joins guest host and managing editor Drew Holden for a conversation about the state of the U.S. media. They discuss why the media so often gets the story wrong abo...

If you’ve spent time on social media or watched cable news recently, you’ve almost certainly encountered some of globalization’s staunchest defenders, trotting out their favorite arguments against tariffs. On today’s episode, Mark DiPlacido , American Compass policy advisor, joins Oren to break down the worst of these arguments and share some handy responses for your next important meeting, debate...

The congressman who introduced the bill to implement President Trump’s 10% global tariff wasn’t a member of his own party, but a conservative Democrat from a Trump-won district in Maine. Congressman Jared Golden (D-ME), the sponsor of the BUILT USA Act , which would set the 10% global rate, joined Oren to talk about why Congress needs to permanently codify the new trade policy. To spur long-term i...

For decades, American men have been in crisis. Globalization has caused millions of jobs to disappear, divorce rates have increased, life expectancy has decreased, and deaths of despair have skyrocketed in many working-class communities. Amber Lapp , research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and stay-at-home mom, began talking to her neighbors in her working-class community in southweste...

The “China Shock”—triggered by the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization—devastated America’s heartland, causing a sudden exodus of manufacturing jobs and disrupting the communities that depended on them. Promoters of globalization promised “better” jobs would take their place. Nearly 25 years later, has that happened? David Autor , professor of economics at MIT and co-author of the fa...

The “abundance agenda” has taken the policy world by storm recently, led by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, who advocate for prioritizing the supply side and removing barriers to building our productive capacity. This week, Ezra joins Oren to make the case for how the theory could be put into practice. In this wide-ranging conversation, the two explore the sclerosis that has held back blue cities l...

As outside groups continuously file lawsuits to slow down the Trump administration’s agenda, many Americans are wondering: how much power does the president rightfully have? Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law professor and co-author of the Executive Functions Substack, joins Oren to break down the judicial landscape less than two months into the second Trump administration. They discuss the modern presid...

America isn’t the only place where the political Right is beginning to move in a new direction. On this episode, Michael Gove , the legendary former Conservative UK MP and cabinet secretary and current editor of the Spectator , joined for a discussion of trade, tariffs, and where conservatism is headed across the Atlantic. They talked through the challenges faced by the British Right to combat the...

Every app on your phone brags about being “AI-powered.” Policymakers and pundits predict that the technology will soon dominate every aspect of life. But what’s actually happening with AI, and what can America do to “win” the global race to activate the tech’s promise? On this episode, Colin Kahl , Biden’s former undersecretary of defense for policy and now co-director of Stanford’s Center for Int...

Remember when the student loan market melted down during the George W. Bush administration? No? That’s because Karl Zinsmeister , Bush’s chief domestic policy advisor, kept it from happening. Every administration encounters this kind of near-calamity and relies on the steady hands of staff to address them. On this episode, Zinsmeister joins to tell that story for the first time, and explains how t...

On a special, tax-focused episode of the Talkin’ (Policy) Shop, chief economist Oren Cass and policy director Chris Griswold join guest host Drew Holden to talk about the brewing fight on Capitol Hill about taxes. The group makes sense of what we learned from the soon-expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act , the malign legacy of the anti-tax fundamentalism that has animated the Republican Party for decade...

Just in time for the Super Bowl, Jude Russo , managing editor at the American Conservative joins Oren to discuss the proliferation of online sports betting and the harm done by the technology. The two discuss the damaging consequences—from increased bankruptcies to upticks in domestic violence and beyond—we've seen in states that have allowed the practice and why it shouldn't be treated...

On this episode, Leah Sargeant , author of Other Feminisms , joins to debunk claims blaming pro-life state laws for the death of expecting mothers in the wake of the Dobbs decision. She and Oren Cass discuss the misleading reporting that ignited these false allegations and diagnose the real problem: the often tragically poor quality of maternal health care. The two unpack why the allegations not o...

On this episode, Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Patrick T. Brown joins guest host and American Compass managing editor Drew Holden to discuss how COVID's remote-work baptism-by-fire led to a surprising boom in babies born during the pandemic. The two talk through the lessons that companies should take away from the experience in order to support working parents as well as why these co...

Why would any sane parent subject themselves to the high costs and grueling hours of travel sports teams for their kids? In this episode, Michael Brendan Dougherty , senior writer at National Review , joins to discuss his feature essay on the subject for our just-launched magazine, Commonplace . As a dance and travel baseball dad himself, he explains that these teams are often the only ways kids a...