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American Thought Leaders

The Epoch Timeswww.theepochtimes.com
At a time when our nation is portrayed as increasingly polarized, media often ignore viewpoints and stories that are worthy of attention. American Thought Leaders, hosted by The Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek, features in-depth discussions with some of America’s most influential thought leaders on pertinent issues facing our nation today.
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Episodes

The First Legislation in America Banning Medical Mandates: Leslie Manookian

“What happened during COVID is exactly a perfect illustration of the harms of sacrificing some for the many,” says Leslie Manookian, founder and president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund. She played a pivotal role in getting her state of Idaho to pass the first legislation in the United States banning most medical mandates, including vaccines and masks. “One of my missions at Health Freedom Defense Fund, in founding this organization, was to educate the public and raise awareness about the im...

Apr 30, 202531 min

Leaked Directive Reveals the CCP’s Desperate Strategy to Survive the Trade War: Heng He

A recently leaked directive details the Chinese Communist Party’s strategy to respond to Trump’s tariffs. How is the CCP trying to leverage this moment? Will this be the end of China as the “factory of the world?” And what’s behind the purges in the military, the apparent removal of two Xi Jinping loyalists, and recent changes in top CCP leadership? Why did two top CCP officials recently swap positions? Joining us today is longtime China analyst and commentator Heng He. Views expressed in this v...

Apr 27, 20251 hr

How America Betrayed Its Children During the Pandemic: David Zweig

David Zweig is a journalist and author of “An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions.” His book is a searing criticism of the policy to close schools across America during the COVID-19 pandemic. The result: Major lags in education achievement, a mental health disaster, and so much more that simply cannot be easily quantified. “How do we track what happened to that kid who could have gotten into college and instead is doing something else now? We don’t kno...

Apr 25, 202558 min

How Therapists Are Failing Our Children: Pamela Garfield-Jaeger

“I felt like I was a Rip Van Winkle therapist. I left my profession due to a health condition in 2017 ... In 2021, I came back, and it was radically different,” says licensed clinical social worker Pamela Garfield-Jaeger. “All the teens that I had worked with before had never talked about being trans, and then the new program I was working at, half the girls were identifying as trans.” Known as “The Truthful Therapist,” she is the author of “A Practical Response to Gender Distress” and is featur...

Apr 23, 202553 min

Mikki Willis: How Our Modern Age Is Severing the Human Connection to the Divine

In this episode, I sit down with Mikki Willis, an award-winning filmmaker and producer of the Plandemic Series. His new film, “Follow the Silenced,” tells the stories, over the course of three years, of individuals injured by the COVID-19 genetic vaccine. “We followed the science, we got harmed, and now Facebook won’t even let us have a group where we can talk to each other? What is happening here in this country? And so, we have made this film to give them a voice, and to make sure that their s...

Apr 20, 202546 min

How Bad Scientific Research Gets Through Peer Review: Dr. Joseph Varon

Dr. Joseph Varon is a critical care physician, medical professor, and president of the Independent Medical Alliance (IMA), formerly the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). Their mission is to provide and advocate for patient rights, informed consent, and medical transparency, and they’ve played a major role supporting Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Hopefully, now with the new NIH director, we'll be able to fund some of these studies for these repurpose...

Apr 18, 202535 min

Gordon Chang on Trump’s Tariffs: Is China in Trouble?

As the U.S.-China trade war continues to escalate, I’m sitting down with China analyst Gordon Chang. “Jamie Dimon said this: ‘Why don’t you just pick up the phone?’ Well, the reason is we’ve had that attitude for five decades … and look where it’s gotten us. So, if the Chinese want to do something about our tariffs, it’s up to them to pick up the phone,” says Chang. What is the current state of play when it comes to Trump’s tariff strategy? Is it working in America’s favor? “The only way China w...

Apr 17, 202530 min

The Cost of a Nuclear Iran and How Decades of American Diplomacy Backfired: Yoram Ettinger

“More and more Iranian-supported, anti-American, Islamic terrorist cells are established on U.S. soil with the aim of eliminating key American personnel, and eliminating key American institutions and installations. This has been the ayatollah’s vision from day one,” says former Ambassador Yoram Ettinger. In the 1980s and 1990s, Ettinger held a number of high-profile positions within Israel’s government, from minister of congressional affairs in D.C. to director of its press office. A now retired...

Apr 16, 20251 hr 14 min

Inside RFK Jr.’s Unprecedented Reset of HHS: David Mansdoerfer

David Mansdoerfer served as deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the first Trump administration. Now, he’s chief strategist at the Independent Medical Alliance and describes himself as the MAGA-MAHA Connector. “We have seen a complete reset of a federal agency within 60 days of Secretary Kennedy getting there. To me, that is unprecedented, and it is going to be one of the most impactful approaches to public health and the health economy in the U...

Apr 13, 202558 min

Inside China’s Stranglehold on the Global Medicine Supply Chain: Rosemary Gibson

Find showtimes for Shen Yun at https://www.shenyun.com/tickets Use the code JAN25 to get ticketing fees waived. “The United States depends on China for 95 percent of the key components that are necessary to make our generic drugs, and if China shut the door on exports, within months, our health care system would begin to collapse.” Rosemary Gibson is a national authority on health care policy and patient safety, and the author of “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for...

Apr 11, 202557 min

How Trump’s 125 Percent Tariffs Are Dismantling China’s Unfair Trade Regime: Christopher Balding

After Beijing retaliated to U.S. tariffs, President Donald Trump has now announced a tariff hike to 125 percent on Chinese products—and a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on other countries. To understand what’s really going on, we’re speaking with one of the world’s leading experts on the Chinese economy. Christopher Balding was a professor at Peking University’s HSBC School of Business until 2018 when he was fired for pushing back against censorship. Now, he is a senior fellow at the Henry J...

Apr 10, 20251 hr 8 min

No Chemicals, No Vaccines, No Subsidies: Inside Joel Salatin’s Farming Revolution

Find showtimes for Shen Yun at https://www.shenyun.com/tickets Use the code JAN25 to get ticketing fees waived. Joel Salatin is one of America’s most revered regenerative farmers. At Polyface Farms, he avoids synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and vaccines. He doesn’t take any government subsidies. And he’s been a major source of inspiration for many seeking to build farms of their own with symbiotic, sustainable ecosystems—ones that enrich rather than deplete the soil. For decades, ...

Apr 09, 20251 hr 11 min

How I Almost Ended Up in Jail for Exposing a Secret Gender Transition Program: Eithan Haim

Find showtimes for Shen Yun at https://www.shenyun.com/tickets Use the code JAN25 to get ticketing fees waived. Dr. Eithan Haim said he was working as a resident surgeon at the Texas Children’s Hospital when he discovered that doctors were secretly continuing and expanding their program of transgender medical procedures for minors—after publicly shutting it down. He blew the whistle, and ended up under federal investigation. After three indictments and 148 legal files, his case has now been dism...

Apr 06, 202538 min

The Biggest Financial Scandal in History—And You May Be Part of It: Roger Robinson

Find showtimes for Shen Yun at https://www.shenyun.com/tickets Use the code JAN25 to get ticketing fees waived. Tens of millions of Americans are unwittingly investing in Chinese companies involved in military weapon production, surveillance technologies, and egregious human rights abuses, says former Reagan adviser Roger Robinson. Through a complex web of investment vehicles and regulatory loopholes, Americans are pouring trillions of dollars into companies that directly threaten American natio...

Apr 04, 20251 hr 28 min

Whistleblower Reveals Shocking UN Corruption: Emma Reilly

Emma Reilly worked as a human rights lawyer at the United Nations. She discovered that for years, the Human Rights Council had been handing over the names of Chinese dissidents slated to attend the U.N. to the Chinese regime. Included were the names of U.S., Canadian, and European citizens. “The CCP demands get listened to because the U.N. takes them seriously, whereas they believe that the money from the U.S. will always flow, no matter what the law says in Congress, and that’s a problem,” Reil...

Apr 02, 202545 min

How to End the War in Gaza: Netanyahu Adviser Caroline Glick

Caroline Glick is a journalist, author, and recently, adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The discussion that we’ve had about the war itself is just sort of blind to the basic realities of the situation. And that, to me, is the ground zero of all of the problems,” she says. “The stronger Israel is, the more secure the United States is. I think that the more Israel is able to project its power in the region, the more stable the region is, because Israel is a fundamentally peace...

Mar 30, 202559 min

Hoping DOGE’s Scalpel ‘Doesn’t Hit an Artery’: Cleo Paskal Warns About Dangers of Potential Cuts in the Pacific

From cutting programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development to putting Voice of America employees on paid administrative leave, the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been aggressively seeking to reduce government spending on international initiatives. But some such spending may be worth keeping. Cleo Paskal, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, breaks down how certain U.S. measures in the Pacific are vital to deter i...

Mar 28, 202556 min

Antidepressants Are Having Horrific Effects on Sexual Function: Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring

“Fifteen or 16 percent of the population [is] now taking antidepressants … When they’ve gone out and asked people who actually use these medications whether they’re experiencing sexual dysfunction, approximately 60 percent of people will [affirm] it.” Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring is a board certified psychiatrist, former FDA medical officer, and director of the Taper Clinic. He treats patients suffering from post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD), and protracted withdrawal—two conditions becoming more c...

Mar 26, 202554 min

How the CCP Infiltrated America’s Critical Infrastructure: Michael Lucci

Michael Lucci is the founder, CEO, and chairman of State Armor. He helps states enact policies and solutions that protect their assets from foreign adversaries like communist China. “They’re trying to invade our homeland, and they likely have developed the capacity to make life very difficult, to create crises within the United States—whether it’s power, whether it’s wastewater treatment, whether it’s telecommunications,” he says. “They have laws that require those companies to engage in espiona...

Mar 23, 202539 min

I Saw a Culture of Conformity in Universities. So I Started My Own: Pano Kanelos

Over the years, Pano Kanelos, the founding president of the University of Austin, observed a growing “homogenization” and “bureaucratization” of higher education. He saw school programs becoming more and more similar, administrators outnumbering students and young adults being taught that the pathway to success is dependent on censorship and adherence to the status quo. “We’ve created a culture of conformity at universities—a culture of conformity in higher education,” he says. “This just flatte...

Mar 21, 202543 min

Rep. Rich McCormick Calls for Tougher Measures to Combat CCP Hacking and Espionage

In this episode, we sit down with Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), a decorated veteran who served over 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy as a helicopter pilot and a medical corps officer. As a lawmaker, he has co-sponsored legislation to challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rampant economic espionage and tech influence campaigns, and a resolution supporting formal recognition of Taiwan. “We now are in a new evolution of warfare where we’re heavily reliant on technologies. This...

Mar 19, 202535 min

Peter St Onge: Will Trump and DOGE Succeed in Gutting the Regulatory State?

In this episode, we dive into President Donald Trump’s multi-pronged strategy to revitalize America’s economy, from aggressive reciprocal tariffs to massive DOGE cuts, and a large-scale deregulation effort to promote business growth. The Code of Federal Regulations is now over 190,000 pages long. A 2017 Auburn University study found that each federal regulator effectively “costs the U.S. economy the equivalent of 138 private sector jobs per year.” The researchers said that equated to a $11 milli...

Mar 16, 20251 hr 9 min

Alina Habba Reveals New Executive Orders Are Coming to Counter Human Trafficking

Half a million unaccompanied minors entered the United States between 2019 and 2023, and experts fear many of them have been trafficked. And that does not include the children who crossed the border with individuals falsely claiming to be their family members. So where are all these children now? Alina Habba, who is currently serving as counselor to the president, says she’s working with the different agencies involved to identify and rescue trafficking victims and prosecute the perpetrators. “I...

Mar 14, 202521 min

Inside Communist China’s War on Religion: Marco Respinti

There are few people who have played a more important role in broadly supporting the rights of religious believers in China than Marco Respinti, director-in-charge of the Bitter Winter magazine. “In the first six to eight months of our existence online as a magazine, some 40 people who were connected to us on the ground were arrested in China. … Half of them simply disappeared,” Respinti says. During the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, I had the great pleasure of finally si...

Mar 12, 202538 min

Mike Rowe: Why Are 7.2 Million Able-Bodied Men Not Looking for Work?

President Donald Trump has promised that he will bring back American manufacturing during his presidency. What if there aren’t enough Americans who want to work those jobs? “Every year for the last decade or so, for every five tradesmen who retire, two replace them,” says Mike Rowe, Emmy Award-winning TV host of the Dirty Jobs series. “If we don’t have a workforce who is disabused of the stigmas and the stereotypes and the myths and the misperceptions that have kept millions of kids from giving ...

Mar 09, 202532 min

Trump’s Transactional Diplomacy: Is It Really a Bad Thing? | Col. Grant Newsham

President Donald Trump has been widely criticized for his “transactional” approach to diplomacy. But is that really such a bad thing? In this episode, I sit down with China expert and retired U.S. Marine Col. Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow with the Center for Security Policy, to discuss Trump’s approach to diplomacy and negotiations and how America can leverage what he describes as the “kryptonite” of the Chinese regime. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the gue...

Mar 07, 202542 min

Why Paraguay Can Lead the Way in Latin America: Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the President Santiago Peña of Paraguay. He shared why Paraguay is one of only 12 countries in the world that recognizes Taiwan instead of communist China and one of only six countries that have moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Now I’m sitting down with his foreign minister, Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, to learn more about Paraguay, the region, and Lezcano’s candidacy for secretary general of the Organization of American States ...

Mar 05, 202529 min

I Was Injured in the COVID Vaccine Trials and Still Struggle Every Day: Brianne Dressen

“When I got my COVID vaccine, my reaction started within an hour, and it started with tingling down the same arm as my injection. It moved to my other arm, then it moved to my legs, and then it moved to my head, into my brain, and I had this horrific electrical, pulsating sensation through my body 24/7.” Brianne Dressen was left severely injured after participating in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trials. She’s the co-founder of the nonprofit React19, which helps people impacted by COVID-19 v...

Mar 02, 202557 min

Gov. Jeff Landry: DOGE-Like Reforms Coming to Louisiana

Joining me today is Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana. Since he took office last year, he’s implemented sweeping changes in public safety, tax policy, and education. We discuss gains made in the state’s educational rankings, as well as his plans for boosting election integrity, increasing manufacturing, and ensuring fiscal responsibility. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Feb 28, 202521 min

China’s ‘Three Warfares’ Strategy and Panda Diplomacy Explained: Piero Tozzi

In this episode, we dive into China’s influence and the communist regime’s propaganda efforts worldwide. Joining us is Piero Tozzi, a longtime China expert and staff director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. What are some key misconceptions we have about China and the Chinese regime? And are we finally seeing a real “pivot to Asia” as the Trump administration signals a dramatic reduction in U.S. military presence in Europe and demands that NATO allies pitch in more for Europe’...

Feb 26, 20251 hr 8 min
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