Happy holidays from the WTH team. In case you missed it, we are re-upping one of our best pods of the year with John Yoo, to explain why kicking candidates off the ballot (looking at you, Colorado) is undemocratic... Is it correct that election officials can disqualify Trump based on the 14th Amendment? Was it really necessary or strategic to begin impeachment proceedings against Biden now? Is our Republic unraveling? This is precisely why Marc and Dany called on Biden to pardon Trump. This is w...
Dec 28, 2023•59 min•Ep. 233
Nearly three months into the Israel-Hamas war, we’re back with Elliott Abrams for an update on what the hell is going on, and more importantly, where to go from here. The military objectives – what Israel must do in order to secure its people – are one level, but as the conflict continues, there are deeper issues that will take time and clarity to address. How do we deradicalize both the Palestinian population in support of Hamas? What about Hezbollah? Iran? And how can we help Israeli security ...
Dec 21, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 232
In 2002, Ruy Teixeira co-authored The Emerging Democratic Majority . Now, two decades later, his new book is out – Where Have All the Democrats Gone? So what happened to the Democratic Party in those intervening years? A couple of major factors stand out. First, the Democrats have bled working-class voters – once the party’s base. This means that your average Democrat today is not a UAW union worker, but probably a middle to upper-class post-grad student at Harvard. Or Colombia. Or U Penn. Secon...
Dec 14, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 231
The best-kept secret about aid to Ukraine? 90% of the money the US allocates for military aid is spent here at home. The money goes right to American defense companies that employ American workers to produce the weapons systems that Ukraine is using to fight Russia. Not only that: the money is revitalizing decayed production lines, bringing back institutional knowledge about weapons manufacturing to the fore, and pushing the American defense sector to innovate and modernize old weapons systems. ...
Dec 07, 2023•54 min•Ep. 230
Why is the United Nations siding with Hamas in its war on Israel? An exaggeration? Nope. The examples are endless. The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), devoted to the question of Palestinian refugees in name, but de facto a front for Hamas; leadership on the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council from China and Iran, setting the anti-Israel agenda; UN employees teaching antisemitic propaganda, promoting Hamas on their personal social media accounts, and blocking condemnation of ...
Nov 30, 2023•55 min•Ep. 229
Since the events of October 7, the Chinese Communist Party has been spreading virulent antisemitic memes in the U.S. via its favorite information warfare tool: Tik Tok. We have had episodes on Tik Tok before, but the urgency of this issue has reached a fever pitch, culminating with the celebration of Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” on the app last week. Tik Tok is pervasive – around a third of young adults use it for news – and it is incredibly effective. It is not just the propaganda that...
Nov 22, 2023•55 min•Ep. 228
What do Critical Race Theory and antisemitism have in common? A lot, actually, from the roots of each movement, to the ideology, to the way they are weaponized by the left today. The overarching philosophy linking these movements together is a Manichean ordering of peoples into groups of oppressed or oppressor – usually, but not always, based on the color of one’s skin. Indeed, it is no mistake that in the aftermath of WWII, Jews sought to categorize themselves as white, a move that has now fed ...
Nov 16, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 227
It is unclear whether Iran chose the exact date and time of the Hamas attacks, but the detail is irrelevant. The Islamic Republic of Iran has funded, coordinated, trained, and armed Hamas and other proxies for years. Should Israel not definitively succeed in eliminating Hamas, Iran will learn a critical lesson: its strategy works. What does Iran want from this war? Eventually, hegemonic control of the Middle East; in the meantime, derailing normalization between Israel and the Arab states, elimi...
Nov 09, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 226
There are Charlottesvilles happening every day in America. This time, they’re everywhere, driven by an explosion of antisemitism. And these Charlottesvilles are happening at Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford among other elite havens of academe. This is not the alt-right, fringe antisemitism of years past. The modern version has taken on the flavor of the leftist elite: it equates Zionism with racism; it coalesces the extreme aspects of BLM, feminism, and other groups against a common enemy; it is ...
Oct 31, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 225
It has been over 20 days since the House of Representatives ousted, and then successively failed to re-elect, a speaker of the House. The dysfunction could not be coming at a worse time: war in Europe, war in the Middle East, rising danger in the Pacific. Budgets are not getting passed, much less additional aid packages for Ukraine and Israel. The House cannot even convene to condemn the Hamas terrorists – what the hell is wrong with our country? One infuriating piece of information from our pod...
Oct 25, 2023•50 min•Ep. 224
The monstrosity of Hamas’ attack on Israel is hard to fathom. This podcast, with Times of Israel reporter Haviv Gur, shares some insight into developments on the ground in Israel, tragedies that Israelis are experiencing real-time, and analysis of the political, religious, and military aspects of the conflict. He also gives us a glimpse into Israel’s calculus following the attack – what do Israelis think Palestinians are thinking? Where are the roots of Palestinian extremism, how do the majority...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 223
On October 7th, Israel suffered the worst attack it has experienced in its history at the hands of the terrorist group Hamas. 900 casualties in Israel, including at least 11 American citizens – not to mention around 150 hostages taken by Hamas, most back to the Gaza Strip where they will be held as bargaining chips. The shocking adjectives being used are spot on: heinous, evil, unconscionable. And one lesson has emerged crystal-clear: weakness on Iran does not lead to moderation and bonhomie, it...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 222
Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown last week when it passed a continuing resolution – a stop-gap spending bill that finances the government for a little over a month. What does this really mean? It means that we are spending at previous levels of government while important investment bills for the future are frozen, hamstringing the federal government in carrying out its number one job: to provide for the common defense. But the problem is bigger, and goes back further, than this we...
Oct 04, 2023•53 min•Ep. 221
Gallup, Pew, and other reputable polling institutes have been lock-step in reporting the precipitous decline of American trust in the country’s institutions over the past few years. Every survey examining public faith in our institutions to do what is right, to provide for the common good, or to simply function at all has hit rock bottom. Surprising? Not really – these dropping percentage points coincide with upticks in intense partisanship, erosion in our political process, and culture wars. An...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 220
The projected Biden-Trump rematch is not merely depressing, it is causing policymakers on the left and the right to abandon good sense. The result? A double-whammy Biden impeachment and Trump constitutional crisis as the country heads into the election season. Is it correct that election officials can disqualify Trump based on the 14th Amendment? Was it really necessary or strategic to begin impeachment proceedings against Biden now? Is our Republic unraveling? This is precisely why Marc and Dan...
Sep 20, 2023•59 min•Ep. 219
In a post- Dobbs political landscape, abortion policy has become the great divider. But disagreements over abortion cannot stifle much-needed conversations about what can be done to support American women, mothers, fathers, and children. To nobody’s surprise, WTH co-host Marc is a conservative. His colleague at the Washington Post Alyssa Rosenberg, is liberal. Together, they undertook the critical task that one might expect from our lawmakers, and put their differences aside to write a productiv...
Sep 13, 2023•51 min•Ep. 218
This summer, several articles aired in mainstream media outlets citing unnamed individuals from the Pentagon, and criticizing the speed and tactics of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. These critiques appear to at once reflect a poor understanding of the military goals and capabilities of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and also bolster the growing anti-Ukraine, pro-isolationism cohort in America. The lack of humility is even more remarkable: the US has not fought a war against a protracted Russia...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 217
It may not come as a surprise that in much of the developed world, money spent is not necessarily money used well. We have done podcasts on the ideological and political dangers of bad development policy, but the dollar-to-donuts, real practical bent of the conversation is just as important. Because at the end of the day, the international community has come up with many (169) development objectives, most all of them unreachable (we have only met one). Instead of looking at the trajectory of UN ...
Aug 30, 2023•43 min•Ep. 216
Little known fact: the intelligence war between the East and the West started long before 1945. And not only that; it did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90s either. Indeed, this silent conflict has been lurking in the background of virtually every major historical event since 1917. The intelligence wars of the past century have been defined by theft, driven by fear, and dictated by tyrants from Stalin then to Putin and Xi Jinping now. But today, the age of the traditional c...
Aug 23, 2023•48 min•Ep. 215
The What the Hell crew continues our summer reading series! Our next pick is The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink . The Peacemaker’s focus is Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy, adding to previous research with recently declassified national security documents. But just as importantly, the history presented reminds us why the challenges we face today – socialism rebranded, struggles for sovereignty in Ukraine and Taiwan – are not novel. In fact, it is pretty simple...
Aug 16, 2023•42 min•Ep. 214
This August, the What the Hell crew brings you a summer reading series! Our first pick is Chip War, a book the NYT hailed as a cross between Mission Impossible and the China Syndrome. Nominally, this is the story of the semiconductor industry, but it is really a forecast of modern grand strategy, great power conflict, and the security of the global economy. It is no mistake that the book’s author, Chris Miller, set out to write a book about military strategy – and then realized that military str...
Aug 09, 2023•47 min•Ep. 213
With the incessant politicization of real foreign policy issues, sometimes it is helpful to go back to the numbers. And in this case, the numbers are detached from the reality that anti-Ukraine Republicans are trying to sell. In fact, a new summer survey from the Reagan Institute finds that a 76% supermajority of Americans, including 71% of Republicans, agree that it is important to the US that Ukraine wins the war. This is not the “Ukraine fatigue” story we have been told. Moreover, support for...
Aug 02, 2023•46 min•Ep. 212
One of America's greatest engines of growth is fossil fuels – cheap, reliable energy that jumpstarted the industrial revolution and paved the way for the security and prosperity we enjoy today. Others will not be so lucky. Many African countries lack energy security and are reliant upon foreign aid and international organizations that impose environmentally correct conditions on assistance. Indeed, rather than affording African nations the same pathway to prosperity that Western countries used, ...
Jul 26, 2023•48 min•Ep. 211
Last week at the NATO summit in Lithuania, the world watched as Ukraine was denied an actionable plan for membership in the alliance. It was almost a rinse and repeat from 2008, when Ukraine and Georgia pushed for membership, and were offered a similarly passive statement – save for one major exception: today, Ukraine is actively fighting for its life. In fact, Ukraine is doing NATO’s job for it: defending Europe, upholding sovereignty, and keeping Russia’s imperialist ambitions at bay. And, not...
Jul 19, 2023•54 min•Ep. 210
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private military company Wagner Group, staged a rebellion against Putin’s regime in Russia on June 24th. For a brief moment, the Wagner forces took over Rostov-on-Don, and came within 125 miles of Moscow before coming under heavy fire by the Russian military, and turning back. Putin struck a deal with Belarus president Lukashenko wherein Prigozhin was exiled to Belarus in exchange for amnesty. But who is Prigozhin? None other than Putin’s former caterer. If it soun...
Jul 12, 2023•45 min•Ep. 209
The Supreme Court went out with a bang in 2023 – before heading off to recess, SCOTUS struck down affirmative action, ruled Biden’s loan forgiveness grab unconstitutional, and prioritized the First Amendment in a creative design case. Each of these cases (save for KBJ’s recusal on the affirmative action vote) was decided 6-3: the conservative majority versus the liberal bloc. Despite the ensuing media mayhem that accompanied the rulings, however, the cases are each staked squarely in the law – n...
Jul 05, 2023•59 min•Ep. 208
If you thought the Trump indictment capped the pattern of White House prosecutions, well, you’d be wrong (though see the WTH joint op-ed on how to end the prosecutorial death loop). Now, Hunter Biden has been indicted on misdemeanor charges of tax evasion – news that was decried as a “sweetheart deal.” But a former IRS investigator and FBI officials who came forward to Congress present a government cover-up, from the DOJ disallowing a 2018 investigation into Hunter Biden, to limitations on actua...
Jun 28, 2023•46 min•Ep. 207
The dictators of the nanny state are waging war on things that work. Daily appliances that make life manageable (your gas stoves, your AC, your lawn equipment) are increasingly under assault, with dubious climate/equity rationales. But the effects on climate are negligible, and the myriad electric substitutions don’t just have environmental costs of their own, many simply don’t work. So what is really going on? Instead of protecting the consumer as these bans claim to do, this new technocratic b...
Jun 21, 2023•52 min•Ep. 206
When the Founders conceived the U.S. Constitution, they were under the assumption that the head of state in America would be guided by honor – that an impeachment would virtually never be necessary, that the shame of the prospect would force the accused to step down from office. That model of leadership with integrity is absent in today’s political climate. In former president Donald Trump’s second, and more serious indictment, he has been charged with 37 counts relating to his retention of clas...
Jun 14, 2023•50 min•Ep. 205
Over the past 15 months, Ukrainians have surpassed expectations in their response to the Russian invasion, showing valor and resilience. But more than a year into the fighting, many of those who advocate for aid to Ukraine still do so as a matter of idealism. Voters should know that it is also in the United States’ vital national interests. President Biden, our commander-in-chief, has a responsibility to explain to the American people what is at stake in the war in Ukraine: the consequences of f...
Jun 07, 2023•44 min•Ep. 204
