Russia’s war against Ukraine has been raging on for almost two weeks now and Ukraine is in crisis. President Zelensky has been begging the United States, together with their allies, to enforce a “no fly zone,” to save innocent lives and help Ukraine win a war they seem likely to lose otherwise. The U.S. has refused. So has NATO. Why? On today’s episode, Eli Lake and Damir Marusic explain the benefits and risks of imposing a no fly zone over Ukraine, and what’s at stake—for Ukraine, for the U.S.,...
Mar 10, 2022•48 min
Lia Thomas is a transgender woman who has, in one year, become the star athlete of the women’s swim team at The University of Pennsylvania. When she competed on the men’s team, she was seeded no. 462 in the NCAA. Now, she’s seeded No. 1 and expected to beat Olympic gold medalist Katy Ledecky, widely considered one of the greatest female swimmers of all time, later this month at the NCAA championship. Thomas won’t stop there. She recently told Sports Illustrated that she has her sights set on the...
Mar 06, 2022•27 min
Air raid sirens have been ringing out over the capital of Ukraine for the past week. Russian troops have laid siege to Kharkiv, the second biggest city in the country, and the city of Kherson in the south has already fallen. More than a half of a million Ukranians have fled their homes, with little more than a suitcase or two. Hundreds have been confirmed dead, and surely that number is just the beginning. Why did Putin invade Ukraine at this moment? What is his endgame—and what is the West’s? D...
Mar 03, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Zoe Strimpel on the collapse of Western authority, self and geopolitical understanding— and the predictably catastrophic results of our politics of retrenchment, appeasement and pacifism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 25, 2022•24 min
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is one of those pioneering American leaders whose story is for the history books. Born in the segregated south in the 1950s, Rice couldn’t step foot in certain movie theaters and restaurants when she was a little girl. By the time she stepped foot in the White House as a National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State, she was one of the most powerful people in the world—and the highest ranking black woman in the history of the United States. On t...
Feb 22, 2022•59 min
Right now, the Winter Olympics are underway in Beijing. But for the Chinese Communist Party, the 2022 Games are an opportunity not simply for athleticism, but for authoritarianism. Athletes at the Games are subject not just to official Olympics rules, but also the heavy hand of the CCP. They are being spied on—and they have been warned, including by Nancy Pelosi, not to criticize the injustices China is committing in plain sight. Why is America participating in an Olympics in a country committin...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Eric Scmidt has been a pioneer at every chapter of the tech revolution… from the very beginnings of the internet to helming Google for more than a decade. Now, he’s focused on the next iteration of our digital world: artificial intelligence. His most recent book, written with Henry Kissinger and Daniel Huttenlocker, is called “The Age of AI: And our Human Future.” It investigates how AI is transforming the very foundations of what it means to be human. Today, our quick question to Google’s forme...
Feb 11, 2022•59 min
Ever since the end of World War II, America has been the dominant world superpower. We have been ready to use that power to defend our national interest. Or to defend a certain set of values. Or both. But there has always been a tension in this country between isolationism and interventionism. Between those among us who think we should maintain an active role in world affairs—and those who want to pull back and focus on our myriad problems here at home. That long standing debate is being reignit...
Feb 09, 2022•1 hr 29 min
The Covid vaccines are medical miracles. During the pandemic they have been literal life-savers; I’ll never forget the relief I felt after getting that first shot. Despite the conspiracy theories in some corners of the web or on Fox News, there is simply zero evidence that they are killing people; that they are harming people in large numbers; or that this is all some malicious plot by Big Pharma. There is overwhelming proof that these vaccines prevent serious illness. Like all medical intervent...
Feb 04, 2022•28 min
It’s hard to think of an institution in American life that’s more broken than higher education. As universities have abandoned core liberal principles like free speech, bending to students’ demands for censorship, perhaps the most striking feature of all has been the cowardice and silence of tenured professors. Yale Law professor Amy Chua is not one of them. Since Chua wrote her bestselling parenting memoir Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother in 2011, she has been no stranger to controversy. She wro...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 19 min
As a boy growing up in Turkey, Abdullah Antepli thought hating Jews was normal. He read Mein Kampf before he was 15. His parents gave him a children's version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He burned Israeli flags. Today, he is an imam, a professor at Duke University, and, as he puts it, a recovering antisemite. Imam Adbullah has been fearless about blowing the whistle about rising antisemitism in the Muslim community. In the wake of the recent hostage-taking at the synagogue in Colleyv...
Jan 27, 2022•1 hr 21 min
At this point in the pandemic, one group of Americans generally gets to show their faces. The other still does not. One group orders groceries from Amazon, while the other packages it. One group enjoys take-out. And the other delivers it in the rain. Today, in part two of my conversation with ProPublica journalist Alec MacGillis, we unpack the ways the pandemic has exacerbated the already enormous divide between the haves and the have nots. MacGillis discusses his recent book, Fulfillment: Winni...
Jan 21, 2022•35 min
As we approach the third year of this pandemic, it’s become painfully clear that the stringent measures we took to mitigate against the virus had all kinds of unintended consequences. For mental health. For the economy. For our cities. And, especially, for our kids. Today, award-winning investigative journalist Alec MacGillis helps us understand the morally urgent costs of school shutdowns on our youngest generations, and how pandemic policies contributed to the crime surge plaguing so many Amer...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Have you hit a wall with Covid? We have. The irrationality of the current policies and conversations surrounding Covid—guidelines that are coming from our public health authorities; rules coming from our schools and our workplaces; and information coming from our media—is making skeptics out of even the most compliant. What gives? Why do things seem so nonsensical? Who should we trust? How can we get back to normal—or at least some semblance of normal? And how can we do it responsibly and safely...
Jan 14, 2022•1 hr 31 min
We are living in an era in which Americans–especially younger ones–say they are increasingly traumatized. In one recent study, 82% of Gen Z respondents said they regularly felt so sad that nothing could cheer them up. And that was before the pandemic. What is happening? Are things really worse now than they were for the generation that lived through the world wars? Or the Great Depression? And why does it feel–at least in some parts of the culture–that victimhood grants us status? George Bonanno...
Jan 12, 2022•1 hr 5 min
A year ago today, something big happened in Washington. Was it a coup? Was it an insurrection? Was it “the worst attack on our democracy since the civil war,” as Joe Biden said? Who is responsible? Should the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, face criminal charges? Few Republican leaders have been clearer in their answers to those questions–and none have paid a higher price–than Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney. Because of her decision to impeach the president, Rep. Cheney wen...
Jan 06, 2022•1 hr 13 min
As the year ends, we want to share where this podcast began and replay our first episode. What does the public shaming of Palestinian immigrant Majdi Wadi — and the boycott of his Minneapolis business — say about who we are becoming? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 30, 2021•30 min
The abortion debate is top of mind as we enter 2022, with a pending supreme court decision that could radically change the legality and availability of abortion in this country. So, we thought we’d revisit my conversation with writer Caitlin Flanagan. The most honest thing I’ve ever read about abortion is by Caitlin Flanagan. It’s called “The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate: Why We Need to Face the Best Argument From the Other Side.” You can read it here. Read all of Caitlin’s work for the Atl...
Dec 28, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Over the next few days we are going to be replaying some listener favorites from the last year, starting with what was without a doubt our most provocative and popular episode: a re-examination of the Central Park Karen. Amy Cooper was not the internet’s first “Karen” — the pejorative used for a demanding, entitled white woman. But as the Central Park dog walker who went viral for calling the police on a black birdwatcher last year, she quickly became the paragon of the archetype. Within 24 hour...
Dec 23, 2021•1 hr 24 min
Abigail Shrier, the author of the bestselling book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” was recently invited to speak at Princeton. But this being a college campus in 2021, you can imagine what happened next. The event was moved off campus. It was limited to 35 people. And the police had to be called in because of threats. But despite the limited audience, Shrier’s message that night was loud and clear: don’t buckle in the face of the mobs. Don’t become a sock pup...
Dec 21, 2021•27 min
Just when we think we have Kim Kardashian pinned she adds another hyphen. She’s a reality star, until she owns Instagram. She’s an influencer, until she becomes a business mogul. She’s the sexual icon of a generation, but also a mother of four. And now, this week, she’s one step closer to being a lawyer. Somewhere between 2007, when “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” first premiered and now, she mastered media in a way that has transformed it forever. She was in digital while we were still in ana...
Dec 16, 2021•55 min
In 2019, Jussie Smollett’s hate crime allegations captured the nation. The actor and singer claimed that two men beat him, poured bleach over his head, and tied a noose around his neck—all while shouting homophobic and racial slurs. Many pointed to his story as proof that our country, even in liberal cities like Chicago, is still plagued by the most evil forms of racism. But a few weeks later, we got news that his story was a complete lie. And today, a jury found him guilty of just that. Why did...
Dec 10, 2021•1 hr 15 min
Eccentric economist and brilliant thinker Tyler Cowen answers our questions about the confusing state of the economy. We talk about: inflation, the stock market, “The Great Resignation”, billionaires, income inequality, crypto, Texas vs San Francisco, the metaverse, good food, working remotely, what states like Virginia swinging back toward the right might mean for national politics and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 03, 2021•46 min
Desmond Shum knows well the cost of doing business in China. Born to a humble family that was marginalized during the Cultural Revolution, he became a wildly successful entrepreneur, along with his ex-wife Whitney, to the tune of billions of dollars. But just as quickly as the Chinese Communist Party elite helped enrich the couple, it tore them down. In 2017, Whitney disappeared, not to be seen or heard from for four years. She reemerged only on the eve of Desmond’s new book, Red Roulette. If th...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 12 min
If your family is anything like mine, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to take a break from work, to bask in one others’ presence, and to fight savagely over the hottest political issues of the day. And nothing is more contentious than Covid: mask policies; vaccine mandates; whether kids should be confined to the backyard; and, most urgently, whether we can safely--and finally--call time on the pandemic. To answer those questions and more, I called up Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins Sch...
Nov 23, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Here is what I thought was true about Kyle Rittenhouse in the last days of August 2020: The 17-year-old was a racist vigilante. I thought he drove across state lines, to Kenosha, Wisc., with an illegally acquired semi-automatic rifle to a town to which he had no connection. I thought he went there because he knew there were Black Lives Matter protests and he wanted to start a fight. And I thought that by the end of the evening of August 25, 2020 he had done just that: killing two peaceful protes...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr
First, Andrew Yang ran for President, and he could barely get mainstream media’s attention. Then, he ran for Mayor of New York City, and suddenly, his every move was being scrutinized. Following those two failed campaigns Andrew announced that he was leaving the Democratic Party altogether and announced the formation of a new third party, Forward, this past October. Today, a conversation on how, and why, Yang plans to take on the two-party system, and what last week’s elections tell us about the...
Nov 10, 2021•1 hr 20 min
It’s been three years since the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, the most lethal attack on Jews on U.S. soil. That day was, for me, as it was for so many others, a watershed event. The country I knew was changing. While anti-semitic incidents in America had been climbing for a few years, this was different. Jews were afraid, and no longer felt safe. After Pittsburgh, there were countless other disturbing incidents: from a shooter at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey to a man with a machete at a...
Nov 07, 2021•55 min
"Defund the police" or "healthy at every size" or "marriage is just an oppressive institution of the patriarchy" - these are just a few of the ideas that are becoming common doctrine among American elites. And Rob Henderson has described these new orthodoxies as “Luxury Beliefs.” He says, much like second homes on the beach or Bentleys, luxury beliefs are thoughts that can only be afforded by people whose wealth shields them from the very harm those beliefs can cause to the rest of us. Henderson...
Nov 04, 2021•1 hr
If you’ve just heard of the word “TERF” (it stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) it was probably because of Dave Chapelle’s new Netflix special, “The Closer.” The comedian declared himself “Team TERF.” But what does that really mean? Julie Bindel would know. She has been physically attacked; her work has been banned; and she’s been disinvited from lectures all because of the accusation that she is a TERF. Bindel isn’t new to the culture wars. The self-proclaimed radical feminist has b...
Oct 28, 2021•1 hr 30 min
