The Ricochet Podcast

Sometimes you've just had enough. Bill Barr, two-time Attorney General and author of  One Damn Thing After Another , knows the feeling. He joins James, Steve, and Charles today to discuss the legal grounds for the extraordinary rendition of Nicolás Maduro and the options available to federal law enforcement as the Twin Cities tiptoe around an insurrection.  The trio speculates on whether the US is...

James, Steve, and Charles are back for a new year that seems determined to outdo its predecessor. Lileks reports from the Twin Cities, a site dead set on being the epicenter of American chaos. Then the fellas step out of the Minnesota cold to warm their bones by the fire of collectivism. And they round it all out with a chat about the ever-surprising Don Doctrine, which put an end to one tyrant la...

We have a special Christmas season episode to tide everyone over through the holidays. Steve Hayward sits down with Rob Long, who's just wrapped his first year at Princeton's Theological Seminary. They discuss dramatic career changes, the storyteller's take on the link between show business and the saving souls business, and the modern cultural discomfort with the faith of our fathers. Become a su...

If you have access to the internet, you've likely seen a clip of Scott Jennings acting as a lone voice of reason on a noisy CNN panel. This week, he joins Steve and Charles to discuss his new book, A Revolution of Common Sense , an account of President Trump's fight against a whole lot of kinds of crazy. Plus, Cooke and Hayward consider Australia's latest bid against gun ownership, suss out Susie...

America has a big anniversary coming up. And you know it's set to be grand when people give it a name like "semiquincentenial." To help us prepare for the big 250th, Matthew Spalding, Dean of Hillsdale College's School of Government in DC, joins to discuss his just-published book: The Making of the American Mind . He and the gang get into the story of how a group of iron men came to declare war wi...

Two thirds of the earth is covered by water and the other third is covered by our intrepid trio of Steve Hayward, Charles C.W. Cooke and James Lileks. We start the week in Minnesota where federal officials believe over $1B of taxpayer money was lost in multiple instances of fraud. Then we run the gamut of the J6 Bomber arrest, the Pentagon's actions in the Caribbean, Texas redistricting and the ey...

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was founded in 1957 to ensure fairness in a union struggling to become more perfect. Yet somewhere along the way, bad actors saw an opportunity to play with the scales while Justice donned her blindfold. Our new Assistant Attorney General of the division is Ricochet's dear friend Harmeet Dhillon — and she's back to remind Americans that Justic...

Rob Long and John Yoo are reunited with James to serve up some laughs as they sift through some unpleasant truths that many of us would prefer to ignore. The trio yawns at the conclusion of the record-long government shutdown but sees plenty to worry about in its resuming business as usual; considers some elementary underpinnings of the affordability problem; John Yoo takes a barrage of questions...

The American right has a decision before it. There are a few elements in the coalition that threaten the stability of the whole. The boys of the Ricochet Podcast propose the following: Sweeny in, Fuentes out. After settling on that, Steve, Charles, and James get to Tuesday's rout; Mayor Mamdani and the limits to NYC's invincibility; Trump's bad day at SCOTUS; all Canadian land acknowledgements tak...

James, Steve, and Charles are back for a Halloween treat: H.R. McMaster joins at the top for a chat about military matters: the Maduro regime and boat strikes; UAVs and the fight in Eastern Europe; the Department of War and our readiness.  Plus, the fellas defend cultural confidence, brave the Great Feminization, and name the most horrifying flick they've seen. - Sound from this week's open: Senat...

Charles Murray's inquiries into social science have resulted in the publication of a number of the most important (and controversial) academic books of the past half-century. It's safe to say he enjoys complexity and taking a stand — and yet there's one big question that Mr. Murray spent half his life dismissing, and the second half marveling at without quite settling. Today, he sits down with Ste...

The government shutdown drags on, but the president's pulled off his biggest deal yet. Noah Rothman joins Charlie and Steve to discuss the monumental advancement toward regional stability and the unique talents for these wins by American and Israeli leaders — talents for which they are unlikely to receive due honors. Plus, Hayward and Cooke consider shutdown messaging strategy, mock the MacArthur...

We're a few days into a government shutdown, but James, Steve, and Charles are managing to get by. So it's business as usual as the trio pick apart the oddities of the week: Democrats attempt to dodge responsibility for their own filibuster; OMB's Russ Vought gets to work on his master plan; the Secretary of War stands accused of fat-shaming his generals; a man named Jihad does the unthinkable in...

The executive branch's ambitious prosecutors have made first strikes against familiar, yet evasive, foes. That means it's time to bring back John Yoo — legal scholar, gastronome, Eagles fan — to parse through the Comey indictment, jurisprudence regarding domestic terror, and the legitimation of using military force against Venezuelan drug runners.  Plus, Steve, Charlie, and James nod along to Trum...

Steve Hayward is back with James and Charles after a few weeks away, and the trio sits down with Josh Hammer, senior editor-at-large of Newsweek, to talk about his murdered friend, Charlie Kirk. The gang discusses the Turning Point enterprise, the mission of its founder, and the ugly attempts by clickbait peddlers to contort the late-Kirk's message. Plus, the hosts break down everything right and...

James and Charles discuss the political assassination of Charlie Kirk and the disturbing implications it has for a country founded on certain inalienable rights. Sound from this week's audio: Utah Governor Stephen Cox announces the capture of the shooter. Photo: Dennis MacDonald /  Shutterstock.com Please visit today's sponsor, Cozy Earth:  CozyEarth.com and use code RICOCHET at checkout for up to...

Steve Hayward is traveling abroad, so Ricochet co-founder Rob Long takes a break from his seminary studies to join James and Charlie in a discussion of worldly ways this week. The trio discusses property taxes, crazies with guns, and Bari Weiss's making a big deal over The Free Press. Plus, there's a comedian on trial in the UK, sustained outrage over Trump's law-and-order blitz, and disappointmen...

This week's podcast starts out on a somber note, as this week's tragic news of the attack on Annunciation Catholic school hits unsettlingly close to home for one of our hosts. James, Charles, and Steve then chat with Will Chamberlain about next week's NatCon conference taking place in Washington, DC. The trio also weighs in on flag-burning. - Sound from this week's open: Jesse Merkel, who lost his...

Democrats have been worked up this week over congressional redistricting in Texas. But, hypocrisy aside, could this be a low priority for a party well into the double-digits in favorability? To get a sense of what the left ought to be doing instead, we welcome Ruy Teixiera back to the podcast to discuss the now-endangered liberal patriot. ( Be sure to subscribe to his Substack of the same name! ) ...

Noah Rothman returns ahead of Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin to give a foreign policy progress report of the president's second term. He gets into the fraught history of US-Russia negotiations, applauds the latest maneuvers in the Middle East, and applies a big-picture framing of the geopolitical status quo in response to the charge that collapse is imminent.  Plus, Charlie, Steve, and James...

In less than eighty years, the US has slipped from its baby boom heyday to a baby bust. Timothy Carney, author of Alientated America and Family Unfriendly , joins the Ricochet Podcast to discuss the implications and potential consequences of the nation's waning will to procreate.    Steve, Charles, and James gab about the fuss over gerrymandering, appraise Trump's warning to DC leadership, and con...

Another workweek, another outrage, another Casual Friday. Lileks, Hayward, and Cooke remain (reasonably) laid back in the face of madman theory in action, tariff tranches, deadly predators, and pun-heavy advertisements. - Sound from this week's open: Sydney Sweeny promoting American Apparel jeans and Donald Trump explains how to escape from alligators.   Become a supporter of this podcast: https:/...

At 750 episodes, the Ricochet Podcast is ready to accept the responsibilities that come with joining the ranks of august institutions and fellow pillars of Western Civilization. To that end, our princely hosts, James, Charles, and Steven, convene with Ellen Fantini of The European Conservative for a digital roundtable on her magazine's unique efforts to restore the rites of the proud cultures on t...

Hardly a week passes without an event happening that compels one to wonder what it means for the contemporary right. It just so happens that this week, Matt Continetti, author of the indispensable book about the right , is able to join us to discuss the latest intraparty quarrels over Jeffrey Epstein, the One Big Beautiful Bill, foreign wars, and the domestic cultural kind.  Plus, John Yoo joins J...

James, Steve, and Charles reconvene after an Independence Day break to catch up over some thoughts on the One Big, Beautiful Bill, Ketanji Brown Jackson's professional disorientation, and the latest dead end on getting to the truth about the twisted villain Jeffrey Epstein. The trio also discusses the newest superhero would-be-blockbuster that's betting on subverting viewer expectations, and James...