The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Saddened by hate mail and addled by a dingo-related health scare, Jonah’s in an exceptionally frazzled state of mind on today’s predictably excessive Ruminant. He begins his ramblings by addressing a crude spat between Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green in the middle of the House floor before pivoting to some recent Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Then, it’s nerdery all the way down as he rev...

WARNING: The following episode contains multiple references to a certain American president who shall not be named. Due to the high volume of mentions, The Dispatch production team used discretion in playing the musical cue which normally follows all such mentions. We apologize in advance. On today’s Remnant, Jonah is joined by Robert Kagan—leading scholar of foreign policy and senior fellow at th...

Patrick Deneen has released a new book, and predictably, Jonah has some pointed opinions on it. To critique Deneen’s post-liberal vision for American society and the political right, Jonah is joined by a returning Stephanie Slade, senior editor at Reason and noted liberty-lover. With furious agreement and ornery hand-wringing, they take a deep dive into the strange world of the new right, analyzin...

Despite the desperate pleas of his wife, his RA, and his psychiatrist, Jonah insists on continuing to record the Ruminant, and his sanity may be steadily slipping away with each mumbled syllable. Today, he largely resists the temptation to discuss the Trump indictment, instead digging into Johns Hopkins’ baffling new classification of lesbians, California’s push to punish “non-affirming parents”,...

In what may be the most focused conversation in the history of this podcast, Jonah is joined by Rick Hess—AEI senior fellow and esteemed education policy wonk—to discuss his new book, The Great School Rethink. During COVID, it became clear that American schools could use an overhaul. But what should reform look like in practice? Rick has answers, and he also has thoughts on hot-button subjects ran...

Live from the uncomfortably moist surroundings of Houston, Texas, Jonah’s joined by Jonathan Adler—Case Western University professor and trusted law-talking guy—for some scatterbrained political, legal, and economic geekery. Today’s topics include the Trump indictment, the full-spectrum crankery of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the slow decline of common good constitutionalism, and how free markets can h...

Tired, disorganized, and intent on burdening listeners with his personal problems, Jonah nonetheless approaches today’s eclectic Ruminant with aplomb. Granted, it helps that the details of the most pressing item on the docket—namely, the indictment of one Donald J. Trump—aren’t particularly clear yet, which allows Jonah to rant without sliding into too deep of a depression. Afterward, he touches o...

Klon Kitchen—former Dispatch national security extraordinaire turned private sector sellout—is back on the Remnant to take a deep dive into the exciting (read: terrifying) realm of artificial intelligence. With ChatGPT becoming ubiquitous, debate is raging over whether advancements in AI will bring forth an apocalyptic future or a brave new world. Klon’s prediction is that we’ll end up somewhere i...

Armed with a provocative assortment of inappropriate puns, Jonah invites AEI Senior Fellow Philip Wallach onto the Remnant for the first time to discuss the importance of Congress and what we can do to fix the legislative branch. As holders of the Remnant bingo card are well aware, reforming Congress by expanding its size and discouraging performative behavior within its ranks has been one of Jona...

Today’s predictably overlong Ruminant finds Jonah haunted by foreign language commercials, which seem to be infiltrating all of his favorite podcasts and TV shows. Fortunately, his terror provides a useful launching pad for a rant on the nature of language and its role in shaping (or, in most cases, degrading) public thought on nuanced political issues. Tune in also for some obscenely rank punditr...

After a spate of episodes crammed with mercilessly rank punditry and self-indulgent eggheadery, it’s time for the Remnant to get wonky once again. Jonah’s guest today is AEI’s Hal Brands, who’s back to discuss all things foreign policy. With the Ukraine conflict raging, tensions continuing to mount between the U.S. and China, and debates about America’s role in the world consuming the right, there...

David Bahnsen, Jonah’s trusted economics guru, is back on the Remnant to provide some raw, unfiltered wonkery on the latest in financial disasters. From the debt ceiling deal to the persistence of inflation, no policy matter, however terrifying, can escape his wonky gaze. Tune in also for a few musings on the Japanification of America, the appeal of conspiracy theories, and the nuttiness of the ne...

On the verge of a full recovery from his schnozzle surgery (more ominously referred to as “the operation”), Jonah’s prepared to indulge in another needlessly long Ruminant that blends a generous helping of conservative dorkery with a smidgen of rank punditry. He gets things started with a few thoughts on Ron DeSantis’ glitch-ridden campaign announcement, but afterward, it’s time for a highfalutin...

On today’s Remnant, Jonah’s brain is uniquely scrambled. He’s still disoriented after slipping into a near comatose state last week, and his nose hasn’t quite readjusted to the feeling of fresh air. Rather than forcing a guest to deal with his mental malaise, he brings Guy, his immigrant manservant, back onto the program to field another round of carefully cultivated listener questions. The result...

While Jonah struggles with a nasal incident, Chris Stirewalt—more commonly recognized as Pooh Richardson’s number one fan—returns to the Remnant command chair. He’s joined by Dispatch Politics mastermind David Drucker to discuss a horrifying subject that’s inescapably consuming everything: the 2024 election. The punditry is uncut, the pop culture references are punchy, and the nudity is tasteful a...

It’s that time again: Chris “Lil’ Enos” Stirewalt is back on the Remnant to provide his signature blend of square-eyed pop culture nerdery and fiendishly rank punditry. What do the size of Congress, James Comey’s ego, and The Dispatch’s profit margin have to do with one another? Was the Durham report an explosive game-changer or a damp squib? How’s the Republican primary shaping up? And are we rea...

Last year, Remnant regular and AEI scholar Matt Continetti published The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism, a tome so nerdy that he and Jonah needed two full podcast episodes just to discuss the first half of it. Today, Matt returns to the program to continue working through the history of the right from the ‘80s to the present. Or, at least, that was the plan. Instead, the con...

In what may be the most indulgent Ruminant ever recorded (which is really saying a lot), Jonah delivers a supremely curmudgeonly rant that encompasses everything from the formative years of Western civilization to the 2024 presidential election. After providing a pointless overview of his taste in political podcasts, he dives into the importance of taboos in society, and why throwing away centurie...

In a twist on the standard Remnant formula that nobody asked for, Jonah is joined by noted chicken wing connoisseur Steve Hayes to co-host today’s episode. Their guest is Ben Smith, founder of Semafor, former editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and author of the new book, Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral. The book takes us back to the early days of the in...

It’s been a while since the Remnant featured some pro-natal wonkery. To fill that void, Jonah’s joined today by Elizabeth Nolan Brown, a senior editor at Reason, to discuss her cover story for the latest issue of the magazine, “Storks Don't Take Orders From the State.” Together, they discuss the many burning questions surrounding baby-making in modern America: Why are fertility rates falling (spoi...

Jonah finds himself alone with the quadrupeds on today’s Ruminant as the Fair Jessica embarks on a grand European adventure. Isolated and caffeine-deprived, he’s in especially indulgent form as he rambles through a handful of interrelated topics. First up on the docket is a Supreme Court case that could scale back American bureaucracy, which prompts an extended discussion of how most of the proble...

On today’s very special Remnant, recorded before a live audience of Dispatch devotees in the hallowed halls of the American Enterprise Institute, Jonah is joined by Steve Hayes and Chris Stirewalt for an in-depth discussion of their time at Fox News. For the first time, they explore what it was like to work at Fox before 2015, how things changed when the Trump era began, and why they resonated wit...

If you feel like making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got, then take a break from all your worries with today’s Remnant, which features the overdue return of esteemed screenwriter and satirist Rob Long. Unrestrained by the ramblings of John Podhoretz, Rob and Jonah discuss the Hollywood writers’ strike, and what it means for the future of TV. They also touch on how AI could c...

A week filled with enough stunningly incorrect predictions to conclusively prove he isn’t psychic has left Jonah in an especially pensive mood. Consequently, today’s Ruminant quickly transforms into a rundown of the greatest hits from a string of misses. Jonah kicks things off with a discussion of Tucker’s firing—has Fox really changed?—before moving into a mea culpa surrounding the debt ceiling b...

Braving the sweltering heat and practical limitations of the AEI podcasting studio, Jack Butler, the original Smithers to Jonah’s Monty Burns, makes his return to the Remnant to discuss the state of conservatism among young people. He and Jonah journey deep into the psyche of the hyper-online right, answering just about every question you could possibly have about the alt-right’s favorite thinkers...