Coleman Hughes, author of The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America and writer for The Free Press, argues that recent progressive theories about antiracism have looped all the way back to racism. He joins Adaam to discuss the power of language to reveal and distort, the moral confusions of revolutionary activism, the aesthetics of social justice, and how this all relates to Israel’s war on Iran. On the agenda: -Coleman’s backstory and the march through the institutions (or at ...
Jun 25, 2025•1 hr 20 min
Is there hope for Palestinians in Gaza after the war? What will happen to Hamas? Does anyone still want a Two State Solution? And will the war with Iran change the game? Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and director of Realign for Palestine , joins Adaam James Levin-Areddy to discuss. Ahmed seeks to refocus the Palestinian mission from armed resistance against Israel to self-governance, independence, and prosperity. He and Adaam debate what this will take, and...
Jun 15, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Former ACLU President Nadine Strossen and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) President Greg Lukianoff join Adaam to discuss their upcoming book War on Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail . The three dig into what makes liberalism in general and free speech in particular so powerful, so radical, and so rare. Is too much information a danger for free speech? Why are some institutions resilient to ideological capture while others cave? Do generational tensi...
May 29, 2025•1 hr 24 min
Perspicacious podcaster Mike Pesca, host of The Gist and author of Pesca Profundities , joins Adaam to partake in principled, punny, and peppily pugnacious perorations. On the agenda: the creeping nihilism of American society (and should we be worried about it), the comedy of Signalgate, the state of the media, and the revenge of the cancelled. On the agenda: -Podcasting with Pesca [00:00] -Misinformation and media [10:52] -Objectivity [14:55] -Signalgate [27:54] -Nihilism in America [35:37] -Ja...
Mar 28, 2025•1 hr 20 min
Former Democratic organizer Brianna Wu joins Adaam James Levin-Areddy for a conversation about her journey from leftist activism to clashing with leftists about antisemitism and the recklessness of transgender politics. Wu opens up on the challenges that come with standing up to one’s own tribe, the importance of defending liberal values, and how to think responsibly—and compassionately—about sex and gender. On the Agenda: —How Gamergate changed everything—The (de)evolution of progressive politi...
Mar 10, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Religious scholar Tomer Persico, now a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, returns to help us unpack why liberalism is special — and why it’s now in crisis. Mentioned in this episode: -Our first conversation with Tomer, about the implications of seeing ourselves as made in the image of God -Yascha Mounk, who talked to us about how identity politics is straining liberalism -Tom Holland, the Liberal who lost his faith -Sarah Isgur, who survived Trump’s DOJ Find us on Apple Podcasts , ...
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr 19 min
To write The Other Significant Others, journalist Rhaina Cohen interviewed couples around the country who have committed to sharing their lives with each other — just not their beds. These pivotal yet hard-to-define relationships have existed throughout history, but we lack the vocabulary to talk about them (let alone a legal framework to protect them). Adaam and Vanessa — platonic partners themselves — talk to Rhaina about the nomenclature that helps/hinders us, the lack of templates for meanin...
Jan 17, 2025•1 hr 15 min
Podcaster/journalist Andy Mills shares the unusual trajectory of his life and career: from small town boy; to God-loving member of a close-knit group of friends; to rebellious drop-out of a Christian college; to curious outsider in Southern Sudan; to hard-working, some-time inappropriate young media professional; to a more self-aware, award-winning podcast producer; to New York Times outcast; to independent media professional (with a Substack , of course). [Break for breath.] Along the way, we d...
Nov 04, 2024•2 hr 21 min
The indispensable Eli Lake — contributing editor at Commentary Magazine and staff writer and podcaster at The Free Press — returns to the pod to mark the destruction of mass murderer and DSA heartthrob Hasan Nasrallah along with the top brass of his terror gang in Beirut this weekend. This leads to a discussion about the nature of warfare and the importance of escalation, the inanity of American media, and also what the decline of norms in the Roman Republic portends for the future of the Americ...
Sep 29, 2024•53 min
Caitlin Flanagan returns ! The unapologetic author of On Thinking for Yourself (a selection of her excellent essays for The Atlantic ) comes to talk to us about the fall of Western civilization, what happens when you let church-going go, what happened to universities, and why (though a Catholic herself) Caitlin has started wearing a Star of David. Check out (the juicier) part two of this conversation (for paid members only) here . Find us on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or wherever you get your po...
Aug 20, 2024•1 hr 26 min
Nick Gillespie — editor at large at the libertarian institution that is Reason Magazine ( and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie ) — comes on the pod for an IRL conversation about 'The Agony of Abundance,' the paradoxical state in which we’re more prosperous, yet more dissatisfied, than ever. We discuss the negative narratives peddled by the media — a misdirection that’s untethering us from reality — and debate the limitations libertarianism and liberal thinking in an ever-more tri...
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 56 min
PLEASE NOTE: We are releasing this episode in the immediate aftermath of the alleged assassination attempt on President Trump. Details and facts presented in this conversation are still being corroborated and are subject to be updated/corrected. Recurrent guest Misha Thomas (“ The Liberal Who Voted for Trump ” / “ Blackness and the Other Side of Trauma ”) was visiting family in Pittsburgh yesterday when he decided to check out his first ever Trump Rally with his partner. After waiting for hours ...
Jul 14, 2024•30 min
Nellie Bowles is back! The journalist, writer of the TGIF newsletter , and co-founder of The Free Press ( along with her wife Bari Weiss) returns to discuss her new book, Morning After the Revolution . In it, she chronicles the unfortunate series of events that led her to leave The New York Times in 2021. We get into that in this conversation, too (diving into the backlash she received for covering the more violent 2020 protests in Portland and Seattle) — as well as the stories of Progressive ab...
Jun 02, 2024•51 min
William Deresiewicz — author of (the newly updated) Excellent Sheep , The Death of the Artist, and The End of Solitude — returns to the pod! This time we dive into one of the institutions we love to hate: elite universities. We dwell on and debate the protests at Columbia (et al.), the reasons why it’s all gone so wrong, and whether or not the solution is just to raze them to the ground. Check out our ‘ Uncertainty ’ newsletter for updates and rants. To support us and gain access to exclusive co...
May 22, 2024•1 hr 31 min
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, author, and former Columbia Journalism School dean (to us!), Steve Coll, takes us deep into the conspiracy-plagued mind of Saddam Hussein, the subject of his latest book The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq . We go deep into the wonky journalism weeds — including what it took for Coll to get his hands on the Saddam tapes. And we ask our former dean the eternal question: Is J-School worth it? -What it takes...
Apr 19, 2024•1 hr 7 min
With Vanessa off for the weekend to explore the world of psychedelics, the podcast has been hijacked by a cabal of furious, loud, and lubricated Jews. Adaam, 3 martinis and a Laphroaig in, is joined by Newsweek opinion editor and author of Second Class Batya Ungar-Sargon, and Free Press reporter and host of The Re-Education podcast Eli Lake. The three have gathered to refute Jonathan Glazer’s Jewishness being worth hijacking by anyone. In proper Talmudic engagement, Batya spits fire, Eli plays d...
Mar 17, 2024•50 min
Authors and co-hosts of the Cut the Bull podcast, Charles Love ( Race Crazy ) and Wilfred Reilly ( Taboo , Hate Crime Hoax ) join us for a lively conversation/debate about race, history, and K-12 education — and Vanessa gets put in the hot seat. Questions covered include: Should Black history be separate from American history? Are we over-indexing on sex and gender in the classroom? Is social media an “environmental toxin” — or just another misdirection from the left? And, of course, what are th...
Feb 19, 2024•1 hr 19 min
Dr. Einat Wilf is an Israeli writer, speaker, former (and future?) politician, podcaster ( We Should All be Zionisists ), and co-author of The War of Return . In this episode, we dive into some historical context for the Israel-Palestine conflict, with Vanessa asking all the ignorant questions you were too afraid to ask: What/who was there in Israel before 1948? Was displacement a part of the Zionist vision? Why did displacement happen? Then we pivot to the subject of Dr. Wilf’s book: The right ...
Dec 19, 2023•1 hr 40 min
Iranian historian and writer Arash Azizi comes on the pod to share his perspective on the Israel-Hamas conflict today — and why he believes ceasefire is the only viable path forward for Israel’s war with Hamas. Along the way, Azizi gives us on an overview of Iran’s politics since the Revolution of 1979 (i.e. how Soleimani became The Shadow Commander ) and explains the country’s current stance toward Israel (which stands in contrast to the position of many Iranians). His second book about the cou...
Dec 02, 2023•1 hr 17 min
John Aziz is a British Palestinian musician who has come into the public spotlight since October 7th for tweeting out for peace and against Hamas. In this conversation, we unpack why it’s so controversial for a Palestinian like John to be pro-peace, the trauma both sides aren’t acknowledging or addressing, and the overly-simplified, ironic, Star Wars narratives of the Western Left. Follow him on X and read John’s article in The Atlantic here . On the agenda: - John’s Background [0:00-08:37] -The...
Nov 12, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Friend of the pod Batya Ungar-Sargon , deputy opinion editor for Newsweek and author of Bad News , returns for a deep, contentious conversation about the responsibility of journalists covering the Israel-Hamas war, the people worth expending energy on (versus relegating as enemies), and the uncomfortable embrace of moral certainty. While much vitriol is expended on the “journalists” bringing shame to the (let’s face it, already pretty scumbag) profession, we also shout out the reporters doing go...
Oct 30, 2023•1 hr 13 min
Note: This episode is far more explicit — and way more rage-ful — than your average. As you have likely read by now in the news, last Saturday, a group of Hamas combatants infiltrated Israel and massacred about 1300 people, mostly civilians. Usually, Uncertain Things is all about embracing epistemological uncertainty. This conversation is not about that. To help Adaam process his rage and achieve some much-needed catharsis, he turned to returning guest , Eli Lake. Eli — host of The Re-Education ...
Oct 12, 2023•1 hr 24 min
Yascha Mounk returns for round two! If you missed part one of our conversation with the political theorist, writer, and podcaster about his latest book, The Identity Trap , stop now and listen to that episode first. We pick up where we left off last time and get deep into debate about strategic essentialism, the privileging of marginalized voices, and the incoherencies of standpoint theory . We also ask Yascha why he disagrees with John McWhorter’s theory that the proponents of the Identity Synt...
Oct 02, 2023•57 min
Political theorist, writer, and podcaster Yascha Mounk returns! Last time , we spoke about Yascha’s last book: The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure . This time, Adaam got to air his personal grievances as we dove into the thorny topic of his latest book: The Identity Trap . Yascha covers a ton: he traces the intellectual history of the postmodern ideas that captured the academy in the 2010s; he explains how these once-fringe ideas subsequently infiltra...
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr 10 min
We bring in the fall with a big conversation about big tech, with the authors of System Error: Stanford professors Rob Reich (expertise in: political science, philosophy, ethics, democracy, digital technology), Mehran Sahami (software engineering, in particular machine learning and AI, and VC funding), and Jeremy Weinstein (political science, government, social impact). We cover the systemic drivers in tech (VC-capital, utopianism, and the “optimization mindset”), bemoan the resulting decline in...
Sep 12, 2023•1 hr 5 min
James (Jamie) Kirchick is an author, columnist for Tablet magazine, historian, podcaster, and staunch believer in/defender of liberal values — and he’ll speak up against any party/group currently trampling on them. He began his journalism career writing about domestic and foreign politics; his first book, The End of Europe focused on the rise of populism in the continent (paid subscribers — stay tuned for some bonus content on this topic!). The first part of this conversation is all about Jamie’...
Aug 11, 2023•1 hr 51 min
Scientist-turned-historian Peter Turchin returns! Peter first came on the pod a few months ago to discuss the famous prediction he made in 2010 that we were headed for crisis, circa 2020. Last time, we covered the controversy he’s stirred up within the historical discipline, the methodologies behind cliodynamics/his data-based predictions, and the drivers of social unrest (in particular, elite overproduction). This conversation — recorded on the heels of the publication of his new book End Times...
Jul 08, 2023•1 hr 11 min
David Krakauer is the President of the Santa Fe Institute — an academic institution that conscientiously bucks the overly-siloed and ideological bents of most universities these days. Krakauer is an evolutionary biologist who studies “the evolution of intelligence and stupidity on Earth.” He joined us on the pod for a wide-ranging conversation covering the history of complexity science, the inadequacies of the academe, the aesthetic “third way” between maximalism and minimalism, and the artifa...
Jun 06, 2023•1 hr 35 min
William Deresiewicz — author of Excellent Sheep, The Death of the Artist, and The End of Solitude — has lived many lives. He’s been an orthodox Jewish boy who lost his faith; a journalism school student unimpressed by the pretensions of the profession; a literature professor who (blasphemously) loved books and teaching. Today, he’s an author, essayist, and nostalgic ex-New Yorker. No matter where he’s been in life, Deresiewicz has often been on the outside looking in, which is maybe why he’s abl...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 40 min
Nellie Bowles is one of the few journalists who lives and writes in the Venn diagram of both Adaam and Vanessa’s interests. For years she was the tech reporter for The New York Times and her epic 2022 piece on San Francisco’s decline for The Atlantic deservedly kicked up a lot of attention, including from your podcast hosts — for different reasons, of course. In 2021, she left “mainstream” media and started the independent media outlet The Free Press with her wife Bari Weiss (where she writes th...
Apr 11, 2023•1 hr 14 min
