The John Batchelor Show

Liz Peek, columnist for The Hill and Fox News, discusses the surprising resilience of the American economy, noting that small businesses are reporting strong hiring and profitability growth based on broad National Federation of Independent Business and Bank of America data. While consumer spending remains robust, recent data reveals a K-shaped economy, where higher-income homeowners spend extensiv...

CONTENTS THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, 8-24-2026.OTTAWAConrad Black and co-host Edmund Fitton-Brown discuss the collapse of trade negotiations and subsequent US tariff threats that have sparked a major political crisis in Canada, leading to opposition calls to immediately reconvene Parliament. Black describes a stark contrast in national attitudes, noting that President Trump's rhetoric effectively den...

John Hardie and Edmund Fitton-Brown outline Russia's military assistance to Iran via the Caspian Sea, a highly secure transit route. This collaboration benefits Moscow by raising energy prices and draining US munition stockpiles like Patriot interceptors, giving Russia a freer hand in Ukraine. Russia provides Iran with tactical intelligence, drone components to resist satellite jamming, and has ag...

Michael Sobolik and  Gordon Chang examine how Chinese AI company Moonshot bypassed US export controls by "distilling" technology from Anthropic's Claude Opus model to train its own system, Kimi K3. This intellectual property theft threatens American market dominance and national security. Sobolik recommends three policy actions: imposing crushing financial sanctions on violating Chinese firms, clo...

Samuel Ben-Ur and Edmund Fitton-Brown discuss how, following a temporary lull, Hamas has intensified attacks in Gaza, emboldened by disarmament frameworks proposed by Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediators. Ben-Ur notes Hamas only accepted the deal under the pretense of disarming while intending to survive intact. However, following Jared Kushner's visit, the US aligned with Israel's stance, dema...

Edmund Fitton-Brown critiques the term "economic D-Day," explaining that Pakistan's mediation in Iran is self-interested, driven by fears of secondary US sanctions. These sanctions have suffocated Iran's economy, reducing oil exports and sparking hyperinflation. Iraq also struggles with contradictory policies, balancing its US alliance with pro-Iranian gestures, such as securing tanker passage thr...

Ivana Stradner analyzes Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's visit to Belgrade, which does not signal a split between Serbia and Russia. President Vučić's weapons sales to Ukraine are merely lucrative business deals. Serbia remains highly dependent on Russia, sharing deep intelligence ties and cooperating with the FSB to test crowd-control equipment. Vučić balances these relationships to survive domest...

David Daoud and Edmund Fitton-Brown examine UNIFIL's mandate, which restricts it to acting as an auxiliary to the Lebanese Armed Forces, preventing independent disarmament of Hezbollah. Consequently, Hezbollah operates freely near UN watchtowers and tunnel networks. Daoud argues that while new US Treasury sanctions expanding target parameters to include Iranian violations are positive, they fail t...

Malcolm Hoenlein and Edmund Fitton-Brown discuss rising security concerns in Israel after incendiary balloons from Gaza were discovered, potentially testing Israel's border preparedness. Concurrently, Turkey is expanding its regional footprint, occupying 5% of Syria and attempting to establish military bases, which Israel countered with airstrikes. In Gaza, Jared Kushner met with Hamas in Cairo, a...

Ernesto Araújo and Alejandro Peña Esclusa, with Edmund Fitton-Brown: In Brazil, falling poll numbers have panicked President Lula, prompting him to call Donald Trump despite years of anti-American rhetoric. Araújo explains this reflects the US's central role in combating South American "narcosocialist" regimes. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Delcyand Jorge Rodríguez are simulating cooperation with the U...

Janatyn Sayeh and Edmund Fitton-Brown examine Iranian official Ghalibaf's public appearance in Iraq, signaling defiance to the US and Israel before secondary sanctions are revealed. Sayeh explains that Iran views Iraq as its backyard, using it to evade sanctions by blending Iranian oil with Iraqi exports. Under President Trump, US economic scrutiny on Iraq has increased to block this smuggling. Wh...

Conrad Black and co-host Edmund Fitton-Brown discuss the collapse of trade negotiations and subsequent US tariff threats that have sparked a major political crisis in Canada, leading to opposition calls to immediately reconvene Parliament. Black describes a stark contrast in national attitudes, noting that President Trump's rhetoric effectively denies Canada's sovereignty. This perceived affront h...

Gaius and Germanicus: The hosts close on the president's health and psyche, referencing the new book by senior New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman and her colleague, which finds the eighty-year-old relatively healthy—minor hand bruising, blood-thinning aspirin—and fundamentally the same man, simply older, slower, and less articulate, aging traits Gaius admits sharing at seventy-eight. Wit...

Gaius and Germanicus: Germanicus attributes these failures to a psychological myth of omnipotence that has "suckled" every post-Cold War president: George H.W. Bush dipping a toe into Somalia, Bill Clinton's cruise missile war on Serbia, Barack Obama's targeted killings, Donald Trump mesmerized by unlimited power despite "mature" advisers, and Joe Biden's "feckless adventure" in Ukraine, sputterin...

Gaius and Germanicus: On a rainy late summer night in 92 AD Londinium, the hosts convene in their newly expanded wine bar by the River Thames, built so retired centurions of the eighth legion—such as Strabo, who served twenty-seven years—can rest and put their feet up. Gaius apologizes for his tardiness, delayed by a commercial dispute with a Gaulishmerchant demanding extra money for a shipment of...

Jeff Bliss, Wildfire Report #2: The wildfire threatening Reno, Nevada—a city near the California border heavily reliant on tourism and healthcare—has exploded to nearly 100,000 acres after strong afternoon winds breached a 97% containment line. Sparked initially by a motorcycle, the blaze has forced the mandatory evacuation of approximately 42,000 residents, with official estimates warning that up...

Toby Wilkinson, Part Two: The Ptolemaic family's decline is driven by internal civil wars, incestuous marriages, and rising Roman influence. Highly ambitious queens like Cleopatra I and Cleopatra III emerge as central political forces. The narrative culminates with Cleopatra VII, who strategically allies with Julius Caesar, whose military forces accidentally burn down Alexandria's great library. F...

Toby Wilkinson, author of The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, Part One: The narrative begins with Alexander the Great's conquest of Gaza and his subsequent journey to the Siwa Oasis, where the oracle of Zeus Ammon declared him a god. After Alexander's death, his general Ptolemy I established the Ptolemaicdynasty, wisely integrating Greek and native Egyptian tradi...

Josh Ireland, author of The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy, Part One: The narrative opens with the 1936 executions of original Bolsheviks Zinoviev and Kamenev under Stalin's orders. Ireland explores the contrasting lives and decades-long rivalry of Leon Trotsky (born Lev Bronstein) and Joseph Stalin (born Ioseb Jughashvili). While Trotsky was a brillia...

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Part Two: The suspension of exchanges leads to massive prisoner concentrations. This is illustrated by a grueling transport to Andersonville, a Georgia camp built to relieve Richmond's strained supplies, and the Union's equally harsh sand spit camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. Conditions at Andersonville deteriorated catastrophically, with over 100 prisoners dying daily due to...

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, author of A Fate Worse Than Hell: American Prisoners of the Civil War, Part One: The narrative begins with the January 1863 capture of the Union gunboat Isaac Smith and three Black sailors. The Confederacy's refusal to exchange these Black captives, coupled with the Lincoln administration's retaliation, triggered the collapse of the systematic prisoner exchange system under t...

Jeremy Zakis, Part Two: Zakis reports on springtime in New South Wales, beginning with magpie breeding and swooping season—the start of nesting and defensive "dive-bombing" behavior, contrasted with the birds' remarkable memory and facial recognition that allow them to remember friendly locals. He notes the arrival of docile currawongs peacefully sharing garden space and pet biscuits with local ma...

Jeremy Zakis, Part One: Zakis discusses the unprecedented 4°C Pacific anomaly—ocean warming not seen in 150 years—its disruption of global trade at the Panama Canal, and the unseasonal heavy rains hitting Sydney rather than a baking heat dome. He explains the science of a wet El Niño: how moisture from the Indian Ocean dipole is driving these downpours, and the meteorological trend showing Austral...

David K. Randall, author of The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World, recounts the historic discovery of the Tyrannosaurus rex by pioneering paleontologist Barnum Brown. The narrative traces Brown's journey from a Kansas farm to his recruitment by Henry Fairfield Osborn for the American Museum of Natural History. Driven by Gilded Age competition funded by wealthy ind...