Lenore Skenazy, co-founder and president of the Let Grow Project , joins Bridget to talk about the crisis of anxiety, depression, and passivity in kids today. Let Grow is devoted to giving kids back the independence they used to have before we had the ability to track their every move via an app. They discuss today's trend of rewriting all of childhood as if the kid is in extreme danger, why we have to recalibrate what we think kids can do, how the milk carton kids of the 80s warped the vis...
May 19, 2022•2 hr 43 min
Rikki Schlott, co-host of the Lost Debate podcast, joins Bridget as a representative of Gen Z. They discuss coming of age during the Trump years - a time when political polarization reached a fever pitch - and then how a pandemic changed the established norms on them. They cover Rikki's path after leaving college due to the pandemic, how she wants to bring a voice to the centrist Gen-Z perspective that exists but isn't reflected at all in media or social media, her worries about her ge...
May 12, 2022•1 hr 13 min
Arielle Isaac Norman is a comic and podcaster who sits down with Bridget to talk about what being a "gold star" lesbian means in today's shifting landscape of gender fluidity. They discuss feeling like males in female bodies, how prioritizing the concept of gender identity over biological reality in women's sports doesn't make sense, why we should all be taking lessons from birds, and how Arielle has been threatened with ostracization from the queer community for voicing...
May 05, 2022•2 hr 53 min
Douglas Murray, author and associate editor of The Spectator , sits down with Bridget to talk about his latest book The War on The West . He and Bridget discuss how we're basically living through an assault on the principles of the Western tradition of the Enlightenment that were fundamental in our society, how our media landscape rewards the highly ignorant, the incredibly ugly race debate we're being lured into, why resentment doesn't get us anywhere, the difference between rese...
Apr 28, 2022•2 hr 38 min
Jessica Keenan is a stand-up comic who's pregnant with identical twins. She and Bridget sit down to discuss their shared breathing problems, Jessica's concern that she won't be able to tell her sons apart, being pregnant "old ladies" and what that means for raising their kids, the realization that worrying about the baby is never going away, the lifelong commitment of parenthood, and how feeling at war with themselves is one of the the hardest parts of pregnancy. They al...
Apr 21, 2022•1 hr 24 min
Bridget sits down with Dr. Sally Satel for a conversation about political correctness in medicine and what it's doing to doctors and patient care. They discuss the premise that a doctor of a different race can't understand you, what it means in medicine when every difference in outcome is inevitably attributed to systemic racism, how implicit bias does not translate into how people interact with each other, and how political correctness as an orthodoxy is intended to maintain a victim ...
Apr 14, 2022•2 hr 36 min
The Lost Debate team, Ravi Gupta, Cory Bradford & Rikki Schlott, sit down with Bridget to discuss the mission behind The Lost Debate podcast program and the intention to create a space and media company that brings different people together to have conversations. They discuss how they all wound up working together, why they try not to speak to their audience's biases, the rise of the phrase "I don't agree with everything you say," reaching people outside of their silos, t...
Apr 07, 2022•1 hr 23 min
Clifton Duncan (actor, writer & podcaster) stops in to discuss his path to culture war commentator, much the same as Bridget's. They discuss why you have to be kind of crazy to be an actor, the problems within the entertainment industry, how artists seem to be more worried about appeasing their peers than reaching broader audience, and why people shouldn't be condescended to and called bigots and Nazis simply because they have different opinions. They also cover the arrogance of ou...
Mar 31, 2022•2 hr 45 min
Mahri Irvine and Lauren Adams work for the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF). And they join Bridget to discuss their lawsuit against the state of California to protect single sex prisons and fight Senate Bill 132 which allows incarcerated men to be housed in women’s correctional facilities based on self-declared “gender identity.” They cover why women deserve and need single-sex spaces, the cultural ideology that got us here, why there's a disproportionate amount of anger being directed ...
Mar 24, 2022•2 hr 51 min
Michael Shellenberger, author of San Fransicko & Apocalypse Never , stops in to discuss the humanitarian crisis of addiction, mental illness, and homelessness happening in California right now. He and Bridget talk about how state-facilitated addiction camps are destroying the fabric of our cities, how supervised drug consumption sites work in other countries, how Fentanyl is crucifying a generation, what harm reduction actually means, why some people need to face jail time in order to get th...
Mar 17, 2022•2 hr 19 min
Mónica Guzmán stops in to discuss her new book, I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times . She and Bridget discuss how whenever there are lots of people who stand on opposite sides of an issue that division has a reason for being there and we should strive to understand it, why belonging is the number one concern for most people, the tension between understanding and judgment, and why we should all just start with the baseline assu...
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 24 min
Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson ( Guys We F*cked: The Anti Slut-Shaming podcast ) drop in to discuss what they've learned about women and sexuality in the last 8 years doing their show. They share how Corinne's on a hunt for the truth, whether it will hurt her or not, and Krystyna's on the hunt for aliens and ghosts, why women are constantly throwing away their lives and acting like dumb bitches for trashy men, and how they deal with the second-hand trauma of reading coun...
Mar 03, 2022•1 hr 18 min
Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention , is back to discuss the collapse of our ability to pay attention and the 12 factors that are causing it. He and Bridget discuss how being chronically distracted is twice as bad for your intelligence than being stoned, living in a perfect storm of cognitive degradation, the loss of our ability to focus on deep things, the privilege of being able to disconnect, and why it's not a coincidence that our attention has collapse...
Feb 24, 2022•2 hr 44 min
Ian Higgins, comedian, television host, one half of The Grade Cricketer , and representativ e of Australia, joins Bridget to discuss the severity of Australia's lockdowns and mandates. They cover the "island mentality," Australia's isolationist tendencies, the succession movement in Western Australia, why Australians are much more trusting of their government than Americans, and why most of the population supports the Covid measures put in place. They also discuss the politic...
Feb 17, 2022•2 hr 57 min
Meghan Murphy, journalist, and founder of Feminist Current , a feminist web site and podcast, sits down with Bridget to discuss the real world consequences of speaking out about gender identity, ideology & legislation, specifically as they pertain to women's rights, and the loss of safe spaces for women in our society. Meghan talks about being deplatformed, receiving death threats, not being published, losing friends, and ultimately moving to Mexico from Canada as a result of her public...
Feb 10, 2022•2 hr 55 min
Jenn Lyon ( Claws , Justified ) sits down with Bridget to discuss her path to acting, how being a preacher's daughter always made her feel like public property, getting kicked out of the first college she went to, her battle with an eating disorder, why she finally sought treatment, and her fear that being healthy would impede her ability to ever book another job. They discuss her role on Claws , why it's the best job she's ever had, why she embraces body neutrality over body posi...
Feb 03, 2022•1 hr 20 min
Amanda Knox (exoneree, journalist & podcaster) is on a mission to reclaim her identity. She sits down with Bridget for a thoughtful and introspective conversation about how her identity, face, and name have come to define her in ways that were not in her control, and how she's defining her own world moving forward. They discuss how embracing complicated emotions allows you to have a better perspective, how she dealt with the stress and waiting during her trial process and jail time, wha...
Jan 27, 2022•2 hr 44 min
Kathleen Madigan has been a comic for more than 30 years. She takes a break from her Do You Have Any Ranch tour to sit down with Bridget and discuss their similar upbringings in large Irish Catholic families - which is basically like growing up in a roast battle - wondering what was wrong with small families and people who don't have cousins in every city, the fine art of speed eating, and why Kathleen is the expendable one in her family because she doesn't have kids. They cover when y...
Jan 20, 2022•2 hr 52 min
Aymann Ismail ( Slate Magazine staff writer) sat down with Bridget for an interview on January 6th 2022, coincidentally, Ismail had been in D.C. on January 6th, 2021, so inevitably their conversation covers the events of that day, including Aymann's sense of the mood of the crowd, what made it different from other Trump rallies, and why many different things can all be true at once about the Capitol riot. They also discuss Aymann's trip to Egypt during the Arab Spring and his coverage ...
Jan 13, 2022•2 hr 25 min
Adam Carolla ( The Adam Carolla Show ) stops in to talk about his new comedy special Truth Yeller . He and Bridget discuss is wandering career trajectory from stand-up to sketch comedy, radio, television, podcasting, and back to stand-up. They cover why people are scared to talk about sex these days, how Adam keeps his job separate from his personal identity, why he feels bad for the Alyssa Milanos of the world, how he wound up on some sort of no-fly list for Netflix & HBO, the importance of...
Jan 06, 2022•1 hr 17 min
Story Hour with Bridget Phetasy is a segment where Bridget reminisces with cousin Maggie and tells stories explaining who she is and how she got here. Bridget and Maggie tell tales of their individual and shared experiences with the holidays growing up. They cover their childhood traditions at their grandparents' house and then the diverging of their holiday celebrations as they grew up. Bridget talks about the stress of her parents' divorce, the annual meltdowns, the traveling and gen...
Dec 30, 2021•57 min
Rabbi David Wolpe, the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple, sits down with Bridget to discuss the complexity of human beings, learning how to be okay with people being upset with you, the advantage of getting older, how social media is turning adults back into teenagers, the difficulty of staying away from politics at the pulpit in today's social climate, and why we need more windows and fewer mirrors. They also discuss Rabbi Wolpe's strategies for tolerance and listening to someone ...
Dec 23, 2021•2 hr 35 min
Briahna Joy Gray is the former National Press Secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign, and the host of Bad Faith podcast. She and Bridget cover Briahna's background as a corporate lawyer, the truth about the way most corporate laws are written and the system we've inherited, how she became interested in politics, and how she wound up working for the Bernie Sanders campaign. They also discuss their willingness to have their minds changed, the importance of making your point in a way t...
Dec 16, 2021•2 hr 21 min
Former US Presidential Candidate, Andrew Yang, sits down with Bridget to discuss his decision to leave the Democratic Party, the unexpected reaction and fallout as a result, his founding of the Forward Party, why a two party system doesn't work at all, and the importance of ending the duopoly if we have any hope of solving the problems this country faces. They cover the importance of an independent media, the difficulties of galvanizing the "mushy middle" into action, why American...
Dec 09, 2021•2 hr 35 min
Jesse Morton was once an American born, jihadist propagandist who ran Revolution Muslim , a New York City-based organization active in the 2000s and connected to a number of terrorism cases. He and Bridget talk about his upbringing, how he discovered Islam and the process of his radicalization, and then the slow evolution of nuance creeping back into his life and what eventually caused him to reexamine his belief system and deradicalize. They cover the work he's doing now with his organizat...
Dec 02, 2021•2 hr 14 min
Comedian Drew Lynch drops in to talk about his latest stand-up special, Concussed . He and Bridget discuss overcoming life's adversities including the head injury he suffered a decade ago, how it led him to comedy, what it taught him, and how at the end of the day it's how you respond to life's adversities that determines your character. They cover the grind of feeding the algorithm, how social media can rob you of things that used to be fulfilling, boxing yourself into your own b...
Nov 25, 2021•2 hr 36 min
Comedian, writer & actor Aida Rodriguez stops in to discuss Fighting Words her new special streaming on HBO Max and her desire to give people perspective on what's going on in the world. It's easy to talk to people who think like you and talk like you, Aida hopes to push people outside the bounds of their own experiences and perhaps connect them to others in a new way. She and Bridget discuss the weird time we live in where comedians are held to a higher standard than public offici...
Nov 18, 2021•1 hr 23 min
Katherine Brodsky was doxxed, harrassed and threatened because of a job posting on Facebook. She and Bridget discuss what happened, why she refuses to apologize, how it shifted the way she interacts with the world, and the private messages of support she received from people who were too scared to say anything publicly. They cover the toxicity of cancel culture, the long term effects in can have in your life, how other people's silence makes you feel even more isolated and alone, and how th...
Nov 11, 2021•2 hr 11 min
Ben Shapiro is back and he and Bridget cover a range of topics including his move out of California to Florida, what the breaking point was that made his family leave the state, the massive divide right now between the red states and the blue states, how to restore the credibility and moral authority of public health officials, the long-term effects of masks on children, why risk is unavoidable, and why we're all susceptible to being mini petty tyrants. They also discuss how corporate heads...
Nov 04, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Batya Ungar-Sargon stops in to discuss her new book, Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy . She and Bridget discuss the history of American journalism and how it was once a crusader for the poor and the working class, when and how that changed, and the vast disparity that exists between the classes now. They explore how Liberals who see themselves on the right side of history are divorced from the working class, but that does not mean that Conservatives are speaking for them either....
Oct 28, 2021•1 hr 29 min
