Dr. Scott Atlas is a world-renowned expert in health care policy and frequent policy advisor to policymakers and government officials. He investigates the role of government and the private sector in health care quality and access, global trends in health care innovation, and the key economic and civil liberty issues related to health policy. Sponsored by the Independent Institute, the show features Dr. Atlas in conversation with high profile, news-making guests around public health policy, science, civil liberties, censorship and free speech, higher education, the media, and more.
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In this episode of The Independent with Scott Atlas , Scott speaks with bestselling author and Senior Editor at The Federalist, Mollie Hemingway , about the lasting influence of Samuel Alito on the modern Supreme Court. The conversation explores Alito’s practical originalism, his commitment to constitutional limits, and how his background shaped his judicial philosophy. Hemingway explains why Alito has become one of the Court’s most consequential voices, the intense political pressure surroundin...
Scott welcomes Iranian-American historian, educator, and author Abbas Milani, who was imprisoned by the Shah of Iran in 1975. He is now a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution and the Hamid and Christina Madam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University. He was born in Iran, came to California when he was 16 years old, and was educated at UC Berkeley and got a PhD from University of Hawaii. He's published many books including The Myth of t...
Scott welcomes Donald Boudreaux, Senior Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. They have a conversation about free market economics, especially relating Hayek's fundamental points from almost a hundred years ago to what we see in America today and its relevance to the most important point of economic freedom - that it's the basis for all freedoms in America today.
Scott welcomes Chad Wolf, Executive Vice-President and Chair of Homeland Security and Immigration at the America First Policy Institute. He previously served as acting Secretary of Homeland Security during President Trump's first term. He has received numerous awards and accolades for his service to the nation, including the US Secretary of Transportation 911 Medal, the US Secretary of Homeland Security Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal. They ...
Scott welcomes renowned author and scholar Shelby Steele. Steele is an expert on race relations and race-based civil rights policies in America He's formerly the Robert and Marianne Oster Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He's received numerous honors and awards for his work, including the Bradley Prize, the National Humanities Medal, an Emmy Award, and the National Book Critic Circle Award in 1990. Perhaps he's best known for his 2006 book, White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Toget...
Scott Atlas joins Ben Domenech, Mollie Hemmingway, and Chanel Rion for an in-depth discussion of the state of the American news media. America’s media is rapidly being transformed, and that transformation is accelerating. Beyond technology, the shift to social media was driven by a plummeting of trust in national news outlets, whose reporting was often overtly biased and false. Ironically, after social media platforms emerged as the new town square, they rapidly became tools for censorship, at t...
Scott welcomes back Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. Prior to that she founded the Dhillon Law Group as well as the Center for American Liberty, a nonprofit dedicated to pursuing civil liberties legal claims. Her private law practice career is focused on free speech, civil rights, and campaign and election law issues. They discuss the important work being done in the Trump administration regarding civil rights and freedom in ...
Scott welcomes back Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. Prior to that she founded the Dhillon Law Group as well as the Center for American Liberty, a nonprofit dedicated to pursuing civil liberties legal claims. Her private law practice career is focused on free speech, civil rights, and campaign and election law issues. They discuss the important work being done in the Trump administration regarding civil rights and freedom in ...
Scott Atlas and Victor Davis Hanson discuss progressive policies that increase crime and disproportionately harm minorities, fueled by an affluent liberal disregard for consequences. They examine New York's socialist electoral shifts, attributing them to demographic changes and a pervasive sense of entitlement among young professionals. The conversation concludes with an analysis of Trump's authentic, counter-revolutionary style, which provokes intense leftist vitriol, and speculates on the future political landscape post-Trump.
Scott welcomes back acclaimed author and historian Victor Davis Hanson. They discuss the legacy of Charlie Kirk, and how lenient policies on crime and extreme media hyperbole against conservatives normalizes and even encourages political violence.
Part 4/4 of the Event "Free Speech Today in Free Societies," held September 5–6, 2025 at the Widder Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland. Sponsored by the Global Liberty Institute. Andrew Tettenborn is a Professor and Chair in Law, Swansea University, and writer, United Kingdom. John Yoo is an Emmanuel Heller Prof. of Law, Univ of California-Berkeley; Distinguished Visiting Prof, School of Civic Leadership, University of Texas-Austin, USA. Joachim Steinhoefel is an Attorney, civil rights and media law, ...
Part 3/4 of the Event "Europe and the Trump Economic Policies," held September 5–6, 2025 at the Widder Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland. Sponsored by the Global Liberty Institute. Barbara Kolm is the President, Hayek Institute, Vienna; Founding Director, Austrian Economics Center, and former Vice-President of the Österreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank). Reiner Eichenberger is the Professor for Economic and Financial Policy, University of Fribourg, Switzerland Thomas Mayer Founding Direc...
Part 2/4 of the Event "Alliances and Freedom in the Trump Era," held September 5–6, 2025 at the Widder Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland. Sponsored by the Global Liberty Institute. Joshua Rauh is a renowned economist, He is the Ormond Family Professor of Finance at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He leads the Hoover Institution State and Local Government Initiative. He formerly served at the White House as principal chief economist on the P...
Part 1/4 of the Event "Alliances and Freedom in the Trump Era," held September 5–6, 2025 at the Widder Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland. Sponsored by the Global Liberty Institute. Chad F. Wolf is America First Policy Institute’s Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer & Chair of the Center for Homeland Security & Immigration. Previously, Wolf served as Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). At DHS, he successfully navigated numerous global and domestic c...
Scott welcomes Heather Mac Donald, one of the country's most important voices who exposes the truth and the data behind it. Heather is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor of City Journal. Her latest book is When Race Trumps Merit. In it she explains what she calls the foolish pursuit of undermining meritocracy in favor of equal outcome. They discuss critical social issues including crime, media bias, and cultural shifts, including the feminization of ...
Scott welcomes Larry Arnn, the 12th president of Hillsdale College, where he's also a professor of politics and history. He received his undergraduate education at Arkansas State University and then graduated with an MA and a PhD in government from the Claremont Graduate School. He also studied at Oxford University in the UK where he served as director of research for Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. He was then president of the Claremont Institute for the Study ...
Scott welcomes Robert (Bobby) Robbins, President Emeritus of the University of Arizona where he served as president from 2017 to 2024. Prior to University of Arizona, he served as the president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center after being chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford University. They discuss many of the issues facing college campuses today, including free speech and its limits, the impact of government and taxpayer funding, merit-based admissions, and the fric...
In the second part of this two part episode, Scott welcomes Professor Michael McConnell, Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009 he served as circuit judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He teaches courses on constitutional law the first amendment and interpretive theory. He has published widely in constitutional law, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. H...
In this episode, Scott welcomes Professor Michael McConnell, Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009 he served as circuit judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He teaches courses on constitutional law the first amendment and interpretive theory. He has published widely in constitutional law, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. He's written several books in...
In this episode Scott welcomes Gad Saad, professor of marketing at Concordia University in Montreal and visiting professor at Northwood University. Professor Saad has pioneered the use of evolutionary psychology in marketing and consumer behavior. His works include several books and published papers, many at the intersection of psychology, advertising, medicine, and economics. He's also working on a new book “Suicidal Empathy” which follows the 2020 release of his previous bestseller “The Parasi...
In this episode Scott welcomes economist John Cochrane who specializes in financial economics and macroeconomics. He's the Rosemary and Jack Anderson senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. Previously he was a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and before that at the University of Chicago Department of Economics. He also writes the very popular Grumpy Economist blog. His most recent book is The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, arguing that inflat...
In this episode, Scott welcomes Chanel Rion, former White House Chief Correspondent for One America News Network (OAN). She now hosts her own show on OAN called "Fine Point with Chanel Rion." Chanel earned her degree in international relations from Harvard, and since then she has been at the center of exposing some of the most impactful stories in recent politics and has special insight into the transformation of America's media and the news that’s emanating from the White House. They have a gre...
In the second part of this two part episode, Scott welcomes Kim Strassel, an award-winning journalist, editorial writer and author. Kim is a member of the editorial board for the Wall Street Journal and is a regular contributor to TV news and political shows including CBS's Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, NBC's Meet the Press and the Journal Editorial Report. She is the author of “The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech,” which chronicles recent attacks on conservative non...
In this episode Scott welcomes Kim Strassel, an award-winning journalist, editorial writer and author. Kim is a member of the editorial board for the Wall Street Journal and is a regular contributor to TV news and political shows including CBS's Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, NBC's Meet the Press and the Journal Editorial Report. She is the author of “The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech,” which chronicles recent attacks on conservative nonprofits, businesses and donor...
In this episode Scott welcomes Britain’s Right Honorable Suella Braverman, a conservative member of the UK Parliament elected first in 2015. She served in several high posts in the UK government, including on the education select committee, as a Brexit minister, as attorney general under Boris Johnson until 2022, and as Home Secretary. Her priorities include stopping small boat immigration across the English Channel, common sense policing and safety for the British people. Suella says “you can m...
In this episode Scott welcomes Sweden's Dr Anders Tegnell, physician and epidemiologist who was the state epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency of Sweden for a special conversation in front of a live audience in Zurich for the Global Liberty Institute's International Rising Leader Summit. They discuss Sweden's response during the COVID pandemic basing Sweden's strategy around maintaining an open society with voluntary guidelines instead of lockdowns, mandates, and school closures. Since the...
In the second part of this two part episode, Scott welcomes back Steve Hilton, author, news commentator, entrepreneur, and policy expert. He was born in London to Hungarian parents who escaped communism, graduated from Oxford University and served as the director of strategy and senior advisor to then-UK Prime Minister David Cameron. After coming to the US and writing for Fox News, he hosted his own popular show The Next Revolution until 2023 as a proponent of what he called "positive populism."...
In this episode Scott welcomes Steve Hilton, author, news commentator, entrepreneur, and policy expert. He was born in London to Hungarian parents who escaped communism, graduated from Oxford University and served as the director of strategy and senior advisor to then-UK Prime Minister David Cameron. After coming to rhe US and writing for Fox News, he hosted his own popular show The Next Revolution until 2023 as a proponent of what he called "positive populism." Since then he's increased his foc...
In the second part of this two part episode, Scott welcomes back Michael Shellenberger, bestselling author of "San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities" and "Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All". As an award-winning investigative journalist, he has broken major stories in crime and drug policy, homelessness, climate change, and most recently exposing the role of government and intelligence agencies in collusion with Big Tech censorship or Americans.
