The Lunch Hour with Washington Signal

Can New York reclaim its position as the world's premier center of opportunity and economic growth? On this episode of the Washington Signal Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Caroline Shinkle , Republican candidate for New York's 12th Congressional District. A graduate of MIT and Harvard Law School , Shinkle previously worked at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and th...

What happens when political movements abandon the principles that made them successful? On this episode of the Washington Signal Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Grover Norquist , founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) , for a wide-ranging conversation on free markets, limited government, federalism, taxation, trade, labor policy, and the future of the conser...

How does a tariff on steel end up affecting the price of canned food at the grocery store? On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Scott Breen , President of the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) , to discuss the intersection of trade policy, food security, manufacturing, and consumer prices. Breen explains how steel tariffs are impacting the...

How can a recycled soda can become a national security issue? On this episode of the Washington Signal's Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer is joined by Anthony Musto , North American Strategy & Growth Lead at Constellium, and Ben Carlson , Director of the Center for Strategic Industrial Materials at SAFE, for a discussion on aluminum manufacturing, recycling, supply chains, and the...

What happens when parents finally get a firsthand look at what their children are being taught in school? On this episode of the Washington Signal Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Nicole Neily , President and Founder of Defending Education , a national organization focused on parental rights, academic transparency, and accountability in K-12 and higher education. Prior to fou...

How can America reduce waste, strengthen domestic manufacturing, and rebuild its recycling infrastructure at the same time? On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Heidi Sanborn , founding director and CEO of the National Stewardship Action Council (NSAC) and the National Stewardship Action Foundation. Sanborn discusses the growing crisis faci...

Why does religion remain at the center of so many global conflicts — and why do policymakers often ignore it? On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer is joined by Sarah Makin , religious freedom advocate and producer of Faith Under Siege , to explore the role of faith in global conflict, diplomacy, and human rights. Drawing on her experience in government an...

As artificial intelligence rapidly evolves, so does the debate over how — and whether — it should be regulated. On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer is joined by Zach Lilly , Director of Government Affairs at NetChoice, to break down the growing policy battle over AI, free markets, and government oversight. Lilly explains why public fear around AI has sur...

Naval power has shaped global dominance for centuries — and today, it may determine the outcome of America’s strategic competition with China. On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Brent Sadler , Senior Research Fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology at The Heritage Foundation, to examine how maritime strategy, industrial capacity,...

Why does healthcare keep getting more expensive — and are policymakers making the problem worse? On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Isabelle Marchese , Director of Health Policy at Americans for Tax Reform, to break down the real drivers behind rising healthcare costs and the policy decisions shaping the system. Marchese explains how gove...

Prescription drug prices dominate the headlines — but most Americans rely on medicines that rarely get discussed. On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with John Murphy , President and CEO of the Association for Accessible Medicines, to unpack the critical — and often overlooked — role that generic drugs and biosimilars play in the U.S. healthcar...

In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer speaks with Kevin Kong , founder and CEO of Everstar , about why America’s energy future depends on nuclear power — and why the time to move is now. Kong explains Everstar’s mission to use AI to accelerate nuclear deployment by tackling one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks: the permitting, compliance, and regulato...

Regulation shapes nearly every part of the U.S. economy — but what happens when decades of rules pile up without being revisited? On this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer sits down with Patrick McLaughlin , Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, to examine how regulation, deregulation, and emerging technologies like AI are reshaping the relationship betwe...

Andrew Langer interviews Dr. Brian Blase, President and Founder of Paragon Health Institute, a leading conservative healthcare think tank focused on market-based reforms.  They dive into America’s healthcare crisis: massive fraud in Medicaid ($200B+ annual waste via provider taxes and accounting gimmicks) and Obamacare subsidies ($30B+ in improper payments from zero-premium plans, ghost enrollees,...

What led to the latest military operations involving Iran — and what could happen next? In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Andrew Langer speaks with Paul Teller , President of Taylor Strategies , about the escalating tensions in the Middle East and the broader geopolitical implications of U.S. policy toward Iran. Paul Teller breaks down the strategic developments sur...

What is the war in Ukraine really like on the ground—and how much of what Americans hear is shaped by misinformation? In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour podcast , Andrew Langer speaks with Steven Moore , founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project , who has been working inside Ukraine since just days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Moore shares firsthand...

In this episode, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Pavlo Unguryan joins Andrew Langer from inside Ukraine—where repeated drone and missile attacks have disrupted power, heat, water, and internet access—to describe what daily life looks like nearly four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion. Unguryan explains how strikes on energy infrastructure create cascading challenges for entire cities, and w...

What does Section 230 really do — and why does it still shape the future of the internet? In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour podcast, host Andrew Langer sits down with Jennifer Huddleston, Senior Fellow in Technology Policy at the Cato Institute, to break down the 30-year legacy of Section 230 and its impact on online speech, platform moderation, and innovation. The conversation ex...

As the 30th anniversary of Section 230 approaches, Andrew Langer sits down with NetChoice Policy Director Patrick Hedger to break down the law that shaped the modern internet. They discuss free enterprise, innovation, online speech, tort reform, AI training, and the policy battles shaping today’s tech landscape — including debates over platform liability, content moderation, and emerging legislati...

Is the Endangered Species Act protecting wildlife — or expanding federal control over private land? In this special episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour Podcast , host Brad Swail speaks with Margaret Byfield , Executive Director of American Stewards of Liberty , about the real-world consequences of federal conservation policy. They discuss: - The reintroduction of gray wolves in Colorado - T...

Senior foreign policy strategist Daniel Runde joins Andrew Langer on the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour to break down America’s global strategy in an era of rising Chinese influence. Drawing from his book The American Imperative , Runde explains how soft power, development policy, defense burden-sharing, and economic statecraft shape U.S. competition with China across the developing world. The conver...

In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour , host Andrew Langer is joined by economist Jeremy Nighohossian of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to break down President Trump’s latest healthcare proposal—and the deeper structural problems driving America’s healthcare crisis. They examine why U.S. healthcare is fundamentally a resource economics problem disguised as an insurance debate, h...

In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour , host Andrew Langer sits down with Anne Cassity, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at the National Community Pharmacists Association, to break down how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have reshaped — and distorted — the U.S. prescription drug system. Cassity explains how PBMs evolved from simple claims processors into vertically integr...

In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour , host Andrew Langer sits down with Robin Anderson , MD, President of the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians, for a candid conversation about the future of American health care. Dr. Anderson explains why long-term relationships between patients and family physicians remain the backbone of effective care, even as telemedicine, AI, and on-demand...

In this episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour , host Andrew Langer is joined by Brian Darling, founder of Liberty Public Affairs and former congressional staffer, to examine the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The conversation explores presidential war powers, congressional authorization, historical parallels to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Panama, and...