The executive branch's ambitious prosecutors have made first strikes against familiar, yet evasive, foes. That means it's time to bring back John Yoo — legal scholar, gastronome, Eagles fan — to parse through the Comey indictment, jurisprudence regarding domestic terror, and the legitimation of using military force against Venezuelan drug runners. Plus, Steve, Charlie, and James nod along to Trump's riff at the U.N. General Assembly but remain wary of the big warning against a common pain reliev...
Sep 26, 2025•52 min•Ep. 759
Steve Hayward is back with James and Charles after a few weeks away, and the trio sits down with Josh Hammer, senior editor-at-large of Newsweek, to talk about his murdered friend, Charlie Kirk. The gang discusses the Turning Point enterprise, the mission of its founder, and the ugly attempts by clickbait peddlers to contort the late-Kirk's message. Plus, the hosts break down everything right and wrong with Jimmy Kimmel's suspension, Pam Bondi's comments, the proposed investigation into Antifa, ...
Sep 19, 2025•55 min•Ep. 758
James and Charles discuss the political assassination of Charlie Kirk and the disturbing implications it has for a country founded on certain inalienable rights. Sound from this week's audio: Utah Governor Stephen Cox announces the capture of the shooter. Photo: Dennis MacDonald / Shutterstock.com Please visit today's sponsor, Cozy Earth: CozyEarth.com and use code RICOCHET at checkout for up to 40% off...
Sep 12, 2025•50 min•Ep. 757
Steve Hayward is traveling abroad, so Ricochet co-founder Rob Long takes a break from his seminary studies to join James and Charlie in a discussion of worldly ways this week. The trio discusses property taxes, crazies with guns, and Bari Weiss's making a big deal over The Free Press. Plus, there's a comedian on trial in the UK, sustained outrage over Trump's law-and-order blitz, and disappointment among his enemies that he could be away from the cameras and alive at the same time. - Sounds from...
Sep 05, 2025•55 min•Ep. 756
This week's podcast starts out on a somber note, as this week's tragic news of the attack on Annunciation Catholic school hits unsettlingly close to home for one of our hosts. James, Charles, and Steve then chat with Will Chamberlain about next week's NatCon conference taking place in Washington, DC. The trio also weighs in on flag-burning. - Sound from this week's open: Jesse Merkel, who lost his 8-year-old son Fletcher in the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting on Wednesday speaks to the med...
Aug 29, 2025•56 min•Ep. 755
Democrats have been worked up this week over congressional redistricting in Texas. But, hypocrisy aside, could this be a low priority for a party well into the double-digits in favorability? To get a sense of what the left ought to be doing instead, we welcome Ruy Teixiera back to the podcast to discuss the now-endangered liberal patriot. ( Be sure to subscribe to his Substack of the same name! ) Plus: James, Charles and Steve suss out the raid on John Bolton's house, have their voices heard on ...
Aug 22, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 754
Noah Rothman returns ahead of Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin to give a foreign policy progress report of the president's second term. He gets into the fraught history of US-Russia negotiations, applauds the latest maneuvers in the Middle East, and applies a big-picture framing of the geopolitical status quo in response to the charge that collapse is imminent. Plus, Charlie, Steve, and James discuss the federalization of law enforcement in D.C. and the administration's announcement of potent...
Aug 15, 2025•59 min•Ep. 753
In less than eighty years, the US has slipped from its baby boom heyday to a baby bust. Timothy Carney, author of Alientated America and Family Unfriendly , joins the Ricochet Podcast to discuss the implications and potential consequences of the nation's waning will to procreate. Steve, Charles, and James gab about the fuss over gerrymandering, appraise Trump's warning to DC leadership, and consider the predicament before Israel as they plan to occupy Gaza City. - Sound from this week's opening:...
Aug 08, 2025•53 min•Ep. 752
Another workweek, another outrage, another Casual Friday. Lileks, Hayward, and Cooke remain (reasonably) laid back in the face of madman theory in action, tariff tranches, deadly predators, and pun-heavy advertisements. - Sound from this week's open: Sydney Sweeny promoting American Apparel jeans and Donald Trump explains how to escape from alligators.
Aug 01, 2025•51 min•Ep. 751
At 750 episodes, the Ricochet Podcast is ready to accept the responsibilities that come with joining the ranks of august institutions and fellow pillars of Western Civilization. To that end, our princely hosts, James, Charles, and Steven, convene with Ellen Fantini of The European Conservative for a digital roundtable on her magazine's unique efforts to restore the rites of the proud cultures on the other side of the Atlantic. Plus, the gents discuss the revisited Russiagate scandal, the Colbert...
Jul 25, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 750
Hardly a week passes without an event happening that compels one to wonder what it means for the contemporary right. It just so happens that this week, Matt Continetti, author of the indispensable book about the right , is able to join us to discuss the latest intraparty quarrels over Jeffrey Epstein, the One Big Beautiful Bill, foreign wars, and the domestic cultural kind. Plus, John Yoo joins James and Steve in the co-host panel for a chat on the defunding of NPR and PBS, McMahon v. New York ,...
Jul 18, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 749
James, Steve, and Charles reconvene after an Independence Day break to catch up over some thoughts on the One Big, Beautiful Bill, Ketanji Brown Jackson's professional disorientation, and the latest dead end on getting to the truth about the twisted villain Jeffrey Epstein. The trio also discusses the newest superhero would-be-blockbuster that's betting on subverting viewer expectations, and James tells us about his own recent crime-fighting adventure... Visit this week's sponsors: Take control ...
Jul 11, 2025•55 min•Ep. 748
Even bunker-busters dropped on a major enemy can't top the news cycle for a whole week these days, but James, Charlie and Steve get to that along with today's Supreme Court decision drop. They're joined by Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam to discuss New York City voters' decision to let Zorhan Mamdani turn America's largest city into a hipster paradise.
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 747
The Iranian regime is receiving an education of sorts this week, and while we await President Trump's decision on the extent of America's role in busting up the nuclear site at Fordow, the Free Press's Eli Lake (and host of the Breaking History podcast ) returns to educate us on why surgical involvement in Iran fits with the "America First" agenda that voters signed up for last November. Plus, the reunited James, Charles, and Steve talk Skrmetti and Mamdani. - Music from this week's open: The Is...
Jun 20, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 746
It's been an incendiary week since Charlie and Steve last spoke, but they return to chat the matters over as they wait for the smoke to clear. They share approval of Israel's strike at Iran, discuss the legal and political questions surrounding the unrest in LA with Andy McCarthy, and wish the great Brian Wilson peace in the afterlife. Sound from this week's open: Prime Minister Netanyahu announces operation Rising Lion to the media. Take control of your cellular health today. Go to qualialife.c...
Jun 13, 2025•59 min•Ep. 745
It's just Steve and Charles this week, taking in another wild one. Don and Elon are on the outs — but is it permanent? The courts are busy, and a handful of great, unanimous decisions get their due cheer; Karine Jean-Pierre goes independent; Ukraine's drones remind us that modern warfare has changed; and Sam Tanenhaus published his long-awaited Buckley bio. Tune in for Hayward's review preview. - Sound from this week's open: Elon Musk distances himself from the Trump Administration in an intervi...
Jun 06, 2025•57 min•Ep. 744
Noah Rothman returns to the Ricochet Podcast to discuss the troubles of dealing with an uncooperative world. He, Steve, and James discuss the fall of the New Puritans in the real world as they resist from their barracks on prestigious college campuses. The gang then moves from culture war to the shooting kind as they consider Putin's recalcitrance and negotiations with Iran. Plus, Hayward and Lileks unpack the Court of International Trade's tariff intervention, the Big, Beautiful Bill that's wor...
May 30, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 743
Western elites have run into a recurring predicament over the past decade: In a democracy, you can't abolish the voters. Populist coalitions are on the march in Europe, and while they've yet to take over their respective governments like their American counterparts, they aren't going away. So Henry Olsen returns to the podcast to give us the scoop on everybody from the Romanians, who just had their delayed election, to the Poles and Hungarians who have some coming up, along with Reform UK and Af...
May 23, 2025•56 min•Ep. 742
Conservatives love their histories; they lose themselves in great biographies; they have a voracious appetite for news and avidly devour op-eds. But the menu for literature on the right is, regrettably, if understandably, a bit limited. To add a bit of variety, Chris Scalia joins Peter, Steve, and Charles to discuss his soon-to-be-published book, Thirteen Novels Conservatives Will Love (But Probably Haven't Read) . The boys quiz Chris on his selections and on the broader premise that the novel d...
May 16, 2025•59 min•Ep. 741
Ben Domenech returns to the Ricochet Podcast to give a progress report on Trump's second go at running things. James, Charles and Steve glean insights about the builder from Queens as Ben divulges about his long sitdown with the president in February. Plus, the hosts rap on the pope from Chicago, Germany's lurch toward state censorship, series worth a watch, and pieces worth a read. - Sound from this week's open: a clip from Ben's interview with Trump....
May 09, 2025•59 min•Ep. 740
Within a week of Spain boasting its success at wiring up the grid with renewable energy sources, it was lights out for the whole Iberian Peninsula. Who could've predicted such an outcome? Today's guest is Robert Bryce, author of A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations and a Substack well worth a look. Robert provides a little refresher course on energy grids and explains how Green hubris threatens to overheat our whole system. Plus, James, Steve and Charlie delve into a few de...
May 02, 2025•57 min•Ep. 739
It's the Hayward and Long Hour this week, meaning it's TheoBro-PoliPhi time. Since this duo was away for our recent episode featuring questions submitted by Ricochet subscribers, we asked for a new batch of inquiries catered specifically for our blithesome professor and the jocular seminarian. As ever, Ricochet members delivered a surplus of material for us in the chatty corner of showbiz. Care to get in on the conversation? Join us at Ricochet.com!...
Apr 25, 2025•54 min•Ep. 738
With Congress missing in action, the two active branches of our federal government are at it again, and the temperature rises by the minute. Caught in the crosshairs are the increasingly exasperated American people and our numerous non-citizens, most notably Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Jason Willick joins today to argue that our partisan impulses are blinding team red and team blue to both the legal and the political stakes before us. Plus, Messrs. Lileks & Hayward talk Harvard's funding freeze an...
Apr 18, 2025•57 min•Ep. 737
It's Question Time with Lileks and Cooke. They jump into the guest chairs and let Ricochet's very own members steer the ship this week. Tune in to hear their thoughts on lots of stuff: the Pax Americana, universal suffrage, wordsmithing in the age of AI, their favorite interview subjects, and more — all with plenty of pop culture sprinkled in. - Sound from this week's open: John Cleese in the "Take Your Pick" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus . Take control of your cellular health today. Go...
Apr 11, 2025•59 min•Ep. 736
It's been said that California is to America what America is to the world. This is troubling for all parties involved given the current state of affairs in the now-inaptly named Golden State. While today's guest Steve Hilton pulls no punches in his new book, Califailure , he carries some glad tidings in the form of voter trends that magnify what look to be glimmers of hope. Our resident Californians Peter Robinson and Steve Hayward soak up the glad tidings, putting them in a good enough mood to ...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 735
It's legal funtime hour with John Yoo calling in from the always optimistic Golden State. He, James and Charlie dig into the issues at root of the deportation fights between the executive and judicial branches. Considering everything from foreign thugs to Charlie's seditious past and our missed opportunity to conquer France in the early days of the Republic, the fellas turn up what powers they can for the president's effort to toss out the bad guys. Plus, Charlie bursts John's bubble about Ezra ...
Mar 28, 2025•58 min•Ep. 734
Immediately upon the president's return to office, we discovered that stopping the flood of illegal immigrants across the border was as simple as closing the spigot. While the crisis may be over, the mission has yet to be accomplished. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies and host of the Parsing Immigration Policy podcast returns to discuss what follows the end of the beginning efforts to correct the long-neglected immigration mess. Plus, Rob, James and Steve look forward to the ...
Mar 21, 2025•58 min•Ep. 733
It's Justin Trudeau's last day. A time to rejoice for the friends of liberty to our north. But the economic spat between the US and Canada has had the unwelcome consequence of restraining the latter's Conservative Party momentum. Thankfully, Ezra Levant returns to the Ricochet Podcast with a solution, which he laid out in a recently published book with a title that shows he knows how to speak our language: Deal of the Century: The America First Plan for Canada’s Oil Sands . He explains his pitch...
Mar 14, 2025•58 min•Ep. 732
Nearly fifty topsy-turvy days into Trump 2.0, we thought it'd be a good idea to zoom out some to better distinguish the signals from the noise. To that end, the gang sits down with Wall Street Journa l Editor at Large Gerard Baker. Gerry covers everything from Trump's tariffs and geostrategic reshuffling to the media's collapsed institutional repute. Plus, Charles, Steve and James notice hints that ambitious progressives are maneuvering to sound like normal people; and they bewail the caprices o...
Mar 07, 2025•59 min•Ep. 731
Who needs guests when the news overflows? Not us! Our intrepid trio of James Lileks, Charles C.W. Cooke and Steve Hayward opine on Joy Reid's exit at MSNBC, Jake Tapper discovering Joe Biden's decline, gay horses and free speech in the UK (Not a joke!) and Gene Hackman exits the stage (Rest easy, Marine!)
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 730
