Happy Fourth of July! I’m attending a wedding today, so this episode is from the vault, in a way, although it’s its first time on Statecraft. I originally published this essay in January of 2022 on Mirror , shortly after my wife had joined the core team of a DAO that was attempting to acquire a first-edition copy of the US Constitution. I had been reading a history of the constitutional convention, and it seemed fitting to write about it on a thematic site. Yes, July 4th is about the Declaration...
Jul 04, 2025•14 min
The decisions that humans make can be extraordinarily costly. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were multi-trillion-dollar decisions. If you can improve the accuracy of forecasting individual strategies by just a percentage point, that would be worth tens of billions of dollars. Yet society does not invest tens of billions of dollars in figuring out how to improve the accuracy of human judgment. That seems really odd. That’s a quote from today’s interviewee, who has made his career helping the in...
Jun 25, 2025•1 hr 24 min
There are many forces in policymaking (and in our lives generally) that push us towards the short term. Many of the most important measurements in political life are on extremely tight timelines: election cycles, monthly unemployment reports, even the President's daily intelligence briefing. The pressure to get results — and to show results — on a tight turnaround is incredible. One of my questions on Statecraft for a while has been: How do you build a machine to get long-term results? Whether i...
Jun 19, 2025•49 min
What can we learn from Estonia? It’s not a question you hear often — the nation of under two million residents doesn’t mean much to many. But for good governance advocates, it’s long been a touchpoint for its “e-government” model. The New Yorker wrote in 2017 that, “apart from transfers of physical property, such as buying a house, all bureaucratic processes can be done online.” Wired called Estonia “the world's most digitally advanced society.” On its “e-Estonia” site , the country itself brags...
Jun 12, 2025•46 min
Today we talked to Randy Clarke , the head of DC’s Metro system, WMATA. If you’re a transit nerd, you probably know about Clarke — he’s become something of a celebrity for his public presence and disciplined improvement of a transit system that was facing disaster in the aftermath of COVID (and the decision to allow large swathes of federal employees to work from home). I’ve been a regular WMATA rider for long periods of my life, and what Clarke has done over the last three years has been pretty...
Jun 05, 2025•33 min
Santi: Hi, this is a special episode of Statecraft . I've got a wonderful guest host with me today. Kyla Scanlon: Hey, I’m Kyla Scanlon ! I'm the author of a book called In This Economy and an economic commentator. Santi: Kyla has joined me today for a couple reasons. One, I'm a big fan of her newsletter : it's about economics, among many other things. She had a great piece recently on what we can learn from C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters , which is a favorite book of mine. Kyla’s also on to...
May 29, 2025•51 min
Today, we’re taking a look at a predecessor to DOGE: The Reinventing Government project (officially known as the NPR, for National Partnership for Reinventing Government ). The NPR ran for almost the full duration of President Bill Clinton’s two terms, and led to the elimination of over 100 programs and over 250,000 federal jobs. Both NPR and DOGE are case studies in a long history of government reform efforts — some more successful than others. Our guest is John Kamensky , who served as Vice Pr...
May 23, 2025•59 min
Last week, we talked to Stephanie Pollack about salvaging a transit project in danger of failure — it was the first in a set of interviews we’re running on transit. Today, we’re zooming out further, and looking at how the federal government funds local transit. Peter Rogoff spent 22 years as a staffer on the most powerful Senate committee, the Appropriations Committee (on the Democratic side). “Approps” determines discretionary spending for agencies, and for most of his time there, Rogoff was th...
May 14, 2025•1 hr 20 min
This conversation, with transit guru Stephanie Pollack, is one of my favorite conversations we’ve recorded on here. For one, I had a blast recording — Stephanie’s funny, and she’s got a killer Boston accent. For another, she explains some of the ideas I care about incredibly well — how well-intentioned regulations turn bad, how political pressures make simple things hard to pull off, why building in the real world is so hard. She taught me a huge amount about building transit. And she’s a great ...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 7 min
At the end of January, the Trump administration pushed out a top Treasury department official after he refused to give DOGE access to the government's vast payment system. We're talking to him today. It's one of his first public interviews since leaving the civil service. David Lebryk was the highest ranking civil servant in the Treasury Department, and one of the most senior civil servants in the federal government. He was responsible for overseeing the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which. Puts...
Apr 23, 2025•52 min
Today we talked to Alex Jutca; he leads analytics and technology at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, where his team’s mission is to build the country’s leading R&D lab for local government. Allegheny County is known for having the best integrated data of any state and local system in the country, and they’ve applied it effectively, like using predictive algorithms in child welfare . We discussed: * What issues are consistent across Pittsburgh, Philly, and Baltimore? * How d...
Apr 17, 2025•59 min
Today’s guest is Narayan Subramanian . Under the Biden administration, he was a legal advisor, and then an advisor to the Secretary at the Department of Energy (DOE). Later, he was the Director for Energy Transition at the White House National Security Council. We’ve talked to previous guests about how to ensure government money flows fast and effectively. At the DOE, Subramanian helped ensure that a big influx of money could best be used to support innovative energy projects. If you’ve followed...
Apr 10, 2025•1 hr
Today’s guest is Peter Moskos , a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice . He spent two years as a police officer in Baltimore. I asked him to come on and talk about his new book, Back from the Brink, Inside the NYPD and New York City's Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop . It’s one of my favorite books I’ve read this year (and it was one of my three book recommendations on Ezra Klein’s show last week). Peter spoke with hundreds of police officers and NYC officials to understand and descri...
Apr 03, 2025•57 min
DOGE is the most interesting story in state capacity right now. Yet although we’ve talked around it on Statecraft , I haven’t covered it directly since the beginning of the administration. In part, that’s because of the whirlwind pace of news, but also because of the sense I get in talking to other DOGE watchers, that we’re like blind men feeling different parts of the elephant. And, frankly, because it’s the most polarizing issue in public discourse right now. But we’re far enough into the admi...
Mar 06, 2025•27 min
Today’s guest is John Lechner , a writer and researcher. He's here today to talk about his new book about the Wagner Group, a Russian state-funded private military group, or PMC. The book is called Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare , and is out March 4th (you can preorder it here ). It’s a crazy read, and draws on multiple trips John took to frontlines in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali. As a mutual friend told me, “John k...
Feb 28, 2025•53 min
Friend-of-the-pod Nick Bagley joined us to explain judicial review: why it's not as confusing as it sounds, and why it's at the center of a political firestorm. Bagley is an expert in administrative law who served as special counsel and chief legal counsel to Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. We've had him on a couple times for conversations on how bureaucracy is breaking government and whether the courts broke environmental review with a recent decision. You can read the full trans...
Feb 19, 2025•33 min
What happened in LA last month? On that, basically everyone agrees: devastating wildfires that killed at least 29 people and cost at least $100 billion. But why did those fires burn so intensely for so long? I had my own view, but I don’t follow fires closely. So I talked to Matt Weiner, CEO and founder of Megafire Action. We discuss: * California knows it has a fire problem. Why can’t it control it? * Where does mechanical thinning work, and where doesn’t it? * What tools from the Department of...
Feb 07, 2025•58 min
Today I'm talking with Jo Freeman: a founding member of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s, a civil rights campaigner, an attendee to every Democratic party convention since 1964, and a political scientist. She’s not the most typical Statecraft guest. But her work on how the two parties work - not just what they believe, but how they operate organizationally - is incredibly insightful. In this conversation, we dig into: * Why do the two parties fight so differently? * What makes someon...
Jan 29, 2025•29 min
This is the second in a two-part series with my dad, Diego Ruiz . In the first episode , we discussed his time helping run a political campaign in Nicaragua, and later his time staffing California Representative Chris Cox. Today, we jump ahead to his time as executive director of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during the 2008 financial crisis. In this episode, we discuss: * Why the SEC can’t fund itself * What not to say to congressional appropriators * How the SEC missed the Berni...
Jan 23, 2025•40 min
Today's guest is near and dear to my heart. It's my dad, Diego Ruiz . We recorded this in person, and we both had the same cold, which you may be able to hear. At some point, you may also hear my son in the background, which makes three generations of Ruizes on the podcast. Diego has helped win elections in the US and Central America, served as Executive Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), was a senior advisor in the House of Representatives, and was Deputy Chief for Strate...
Jan 16, 2025•44 min
Happy New Year! I went on the American Compass podcast last month to talk to American Compass chief economist Oren Cass about government efficiency, state capacity, and what Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is likely to tackle. We discuss: * Why is it so hard to fire federal employees? * Off-the-wall ways to save government money * The West Coast meets East Coast dynamic in DOGE * The secret to a successful blue ribbon commission Notes: This interview was originally published h...
Jan 08, 2025•37 min
Today, we talk to Jennifer Pahlka and Andrew Greenway about their new paper on state capacity. It’s called “ The How We Need Now: A Capacity Agenda for 2025 and Beyond .” We discuss: What is “state capacity?” Why is there fresh interest in the topic in the UK? How did the model of a “government digital service” spread to the US? How do you fix unemployment insurance? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stat...
Dec 20, 2024•51 min
Today, we’re diving into everyone’s favorite Statecraft topic: administrative law! The two court cases we’re discussing could have huge ramifications for how we build things in America. We brought three of our favorite administrative law professors together: James Coleman is a professor at the University of Minnesota, Adam White is the Executive Director of the Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University, and Nicholas Bagley is a professor at the University o...
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr
Today's interviewee has been my white whale for a while. Edward Luttwak was born in 1942, and since then he's lived a wilder life than anyone I know. From Chairman Mao's funeral to late nights drinking with Putin, Luttwak's seen it all. Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (1:30) How to stage a coup in the 21st century (8:21) Why Luttwak is responsible for a global decline in coups (16:57) Iran’s real goals in the Middle East (27:30) Why the CIA can’t go undercover or recruit talent (41:11) Staffing...
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Brief intros: Nicholas Bagley was General Counsel to Governor Gretchen Whitmer . Kathy Stack served almost three decades at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Jenny Mattingley also served at the OMB, focusing on hiring reform and workforce efforts. Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (04:42) “I think all three of you have something to say about the Paperwork Reduction Act.” (12:38) A one-way ratchet (22:16) How to get a new form approved (32:04) Why is there no natural constituency to impro...
Dec 04, 2024•57 min
I’ve been trying to get a conversation with today’s interviewee, Eric Van Gieson, PhD , since March. Van Gieson is a remarkable character, with a crazy CV: more than 25 years of experience in developing medical technology, and stints at multiple federal agencies including DARPA. A lot of people have spilled a lot of ink discussing what went wrong during COVID, but I think what Van Gieson lays out here is close to a comprehensive account of the reasons we blew it, and how not to blow it in the fu...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Today’s interviewee is Chris Anderson . Anderson’s a former DoD program manager who served in a unique organization called the US Army Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG). Anderson is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Troika Solutions, a defense consulting firm based in Virginia. We discussed: The birth of the Asymmetric Warfare Group Why American troops in Afghanistan couldn’t strike Taliban operatives Why the military avoids risky technology, even when it would save lives What we’ve learned ...
Nov 21, 2024•45 min
I had the distinct pleasure of hosting Trae Stephens and Michael Kratsios on a panel in San Francisco in September on the topic of “Rebuilding the arsenal of democracy.” Trae Stephens is a general partner at Founders Fund and a Co-Founder of Anduril, a defense tech company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems. Michael Kratsios served as Chief Technology Officer of the United States in the Trump White House. He also served as acting undersecretary of defense, where he was responsible f...
Nov 06, 2024•38 min
Today’s episode is an interview with a colleague of mine at the Institute for Progress. Ben Jones is an economist who focuses on the sources of economic growth in advanced economies, and he’s a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at IFP. We recorded this conversation at the second #EconTwitterIRL Conference last month in Lancaster, PA, which IFP hosted alongside the Economic Innovation Group ). The other interview at that conference was excellent too: Cardiff Garcia interviewing Paul Krugman . Jones has ...
Oct 30, 2024•52 min
Today, we spoke to Dr. Jeffrey Freeman, who directs the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health (NCDMPH). Dr. Freeman leads a team that Congress has tasked with studying something called the National Disaster Medical System , which would coordinate how we treat casualties in the event of a hot war with a peer. Freeman worries that our on-paper system for distributing patients is likely to collapse once the shooting starts, if we don’t make serious reforms. Timestamps: * (00:00) I...
Oct 17, 2024•49 min
