For the last quarter century, an Italian macher from New Jersey has been one of the most powerful people in the United States. If you?re a certain type of nerdy, obsessive, legally inclined conservative, he?s basically Taylor Swift. But most people don?t know who he is because he doesn?t want them to know. He has never held or sought political office. He does not hail from Silicon Valley or Wall Street. He is not a writer, pundit, or political aide. He rarely does interviews. And yet his influence is hard to understate. People in power?particularly presidents?trust and listen to him. I?m talking about Leonard Leo, the animating force behind the Federalist Society and the key node of a growing network of conservative groups aiming to reshape the culture and the country. Whether you?ve heard of him or not, he has no doubt directly affected your life in some way. Leo is the person who counseled George W. Bush to appoint Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. He had an arguably even greater influence on President Trump. Trump was new to Washington when he first became president. Leo, on the other hand, knew everyone in town. Leo counseled Trump and helped pick and prepare Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett for confirmation. And that?s just the Supreme Court. Leo has cultivated talent across every level of the judicial system. Leo understands the levers of Washington. He understands how Congress works, how the press works, and most importantly, how the courts work. He is, in a sense, the architect of the Supreme Court?s conservative majority ? the one that overturned Roe v. Wade. Which means he has changed American history?for better or worse, depending on your worldview. Today on Honestly, Bari asks Leo about all of it: his relationship with Trump, their falling out (though he disputes this characterization), how he understands the divide on the right between the old guard like himself and the new characters like Elon Musk and RFK Jr. Bari asks about his so-called dark money groups, the $1.6 billion-dollar gift he was given, and the criticism he gets for wielding power and influence of this magnitude. She asks about Trump?s willingness to defy the courts, and if Leonard sees it that way. They discuss Trump?s controversial moves like sending accused gang members to El Salvador and reinstituting TikTok. She asks why MAGA has recently rejected Amy Coney Barrett, and if gay marriage is a settled matter. And most importantly, in a moment of institutional crisis in American life, Bari asks whether the Supreme Court can remain above the fray. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to fastgrowingtrees.com/Honestly and use the code HONESTLY at checkout to get 15% off your first order. Spring starts here. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The morning of March 8, Mahmoud Khalil was detained at his apartment in New York City. Khalil is a 30-year-old Algerian citizen. He was born in Syria and is of Palestinian descent. He came to this country on a student visa in 2022, married an American citizen in 2023, became a green card holder in 2024, and finished his graduate studies at Columbia University in December 2024. Mahmoud was also the spokesman and negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group that says it is ?fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,? and which played an active role in the rioting that took over Columbia buildings last spring. He has not been charged with any crimes?at least not so far. But the White House wants to deport him on the grounds that he poses a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio went as far as to post on X: ?We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.? Many of us believe that Khalil?s ideology is abhorrent. He enjoyed the United States? educational system?attending one of our most prestigious universities?while advocating for America?s destruction and for a group that seeks the genocide of the Jewish people. At the same time, the case for his deportation is not clear-cut. Here?s the divide: Some say this is an immigration case. As Free Press contributing editor Abigail Shrier has put it: ?This is an immigration, not a free speech case. It?s about whether the U.S. can set reasonable conditions on aliens for entry and residence.? But others say this is, in fact, a free speech case that cuts to the heart of our most cherished values. To figure all this out, we?re hosting three of the smartest legal minds we know. Eugene Volokh is an expert on the Bill of Rights who is currently a senior fellow at Stanford?s Hoover Institution. He?s also a contributor to Reason magazine, where he runs his own blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder is a practicing lawyer and the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. Just yesterday, he filed a lawsuit in the District Court for the Southern District of New York against Khalil and several others for material support for terror. Jed Rubenfeld is a Free Press columnist and a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School. This case is one we have written about extensively in The Free Press?and one that we are actively debating in our newsroom. So we were thrilled to be able to bring together some of the smartest people on this complicated issue. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Visit fastgrowingtrees.com/Honestly and use code HONESTLY for 15% off your first order?spring starts here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The other week Bari traveled to Austin, Texas, to host a debate on a simple little topic: religion and whether we need more of it. There?s a line from Proverbs that has guided believers for at least the past 2,000 or so years. It goes like this: ?The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.? But for most of our lives, this message has been turned on its head. We can?t entirely blame the so-called New Atheists, who dominated the American intellectual scene in the first part of this century, for the death of God?for that, we?d need to go back to Nietzsche or Darwin or the Enlightenment. But the point is that for people of Bari?s generation and cohort, to be an educated, sophisticated, respectable person was to be an atheist. Or at the very least, an agnostic. The percentage of Americans who identify as Christian fell from 90 percent in 1972 to 64 percent in 2022, while the religiously unaffiliated (the so-called ?nones?) rose from 5 percent to 30 percent in the same period, according to Pew Research.The shift toward secularism has been even more pronounced across the Atlantic. Among Europeans ages 16 to 29, 70 percent say they never attend religious services. But after years of decline, this trend may be starting to reverse. A massive new Pew survey found that the share of Americans identifying as Christian has, after many years of decline, finally started to rise again. And the share of Americans identifying with other religions is actually increasing. So are we better off with or without God? The other night in Austin Bari sat down with Ross Douthat, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Shermer, and Adam Carolla. They came together to debate the following resolution: Does the West need a religious revival? Ross and Ayaan argued yes. Ross is a New York Times opinion columnist. His most recent book is Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. Ayaan is an activist and best-selling author of many books including Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women?s Rights.  On the other side, Michael Shermer and Adam Carolla argued no, we do not need a religious revival. Michael is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine and the host of The Michael Shermer Show. He, too, is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers on science, psychology, and faith. Adam Carolla is a comedian, actor, radio personality, TV host, and best-selling author. He currently hosts The Adam Carolla Show. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. FIRE knows free speech makes free people. You make it possible. Join the movement today at thefire.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson are the two most important liberal journalists working in the legacy press today?Ezra at The New York Times, and Derek at The Atlantic. Although they insist they?ll never go into politics themselves, they are offering Democrats a path back to power. To see their way out of the political wilderness, the Democrats need a vision?one that goes beyond resistance to Trump. A vision that can bring back the disaffected Democrats who stayed home, or voted red for the first time, this past November. While other liberals and progressives are doubling down on zombie ideas, afraid to come face to face with a country that has moved decisively to the right, Ezra and Derek are willing to face reality. They see that blue states are functioning?as Bari likes to say?similarly to the DMV. And as a result, people are fleeing to places like Texas and Florida. If you?ve lived in a city like L.A. or San Francisco in the past decade, it?s pretty difficult to sell the idea that the government is working effectively. It?s why so many people are cheering for DOGE. But while DOGE is taking a chain saw to the federal bureaucracy, Ezra and Derek are reformers who believe it can be fixed. They want to rein in the laws, regulations, and liberal thinking that have made it nearly impossible to do anything in this country. They just wrote a new book about all of this called Abundance. Their thesis is simple: To have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need.  While conservatives and libertarians might say: Yes, exactly, let the free market do its thing, Ezra and Derek think the government can play a crucial role?if liberals will let it. So how do we build a government that?s less like the DMV and more like the Apple Store? How will this government actually deliver for Americans and solve our most pressing problems?in housing, energy, transportation, and healthcare? And, how do we reverse our government?s long march into total incompetence? Ezra and Derek have a lot of ideas on how we can get there. Today on Honestly, we hear them. This conversation challenged us, and we hope it challenges and surprises you too. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. ?If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Listen to Unpacking Israeli History: https://link.chtbl.com/DmS_bFpl Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex Karp is many things: a cross-country skier, a long-range shooter, a tai chi expert who might be the only man who knows how to wield a sword but doesn?t know how to drive. He?s also a collector of extremely prestigious degrees. His PhD thesis was called ?Aggression in the Life-World: The Extension of Parsons? Concept of Aggression by Describing the Connection Between Jargon, Aggression, and Culture.?  Since 2003, he has also been the CEO of Palantir, a software and data analytics company that does defense and intelligence work. Simply put, it?s a company that stops terror attacks?while also helping make sports cars go faster and pharmaceutical companies build better drugs. Bari sat down with Alex Karp at UATX to discuss his new book, The Technological Republic, which offers a vision of how Silicon Valley lost its way and how the future of America and the West hinges on it finding its way back?fast. It just debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list. They also discuss Barnard students occupying a campus building, the religious nature of woke culture, and DOGE.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each one of us has a different conception story. For some parents, it?s a romantic night out, maybe over a candlelit dinner. For others, like Bari and Nellie, it involves a trip to a fertility clinic in a mall that doesn?t even validate parking.  And of course, for some it?s a long, challenging, emotional process involving needles, hormones, and many false starts. We know a lot of our listeners can relate to that.   Now, the topic of infertility often seems like the purview of a doctor?s office or a self-help book, or maybe a women?s health column. Where you might not expect to hear about it in painstaking detail is in Andrew Schulz?s new Netflix special. Schulz?s special is vulnerable, obviously funny, and a look into the taboo topic of male infertility. It?s called Life, and if you haven?t already seen it, blow off your plans tonight and watch Life instead.  Now, the last time we had Schulz on this show was three years ago. It was in the thick of the woke culture storm, and Schulz was about to release a comedy special on Amazon. But when the streamer asked him to do what a lot of people at the time were being asked to do in comedy?censor his jokes?Schulz said no. He bet on himself and released the special independently. As he tells Bari today, he ended up making five times what he would have made with Amazon.  We?ve been talking a lot on this show about the vibe shift that?s come for politics and tech. And it?s obviously come for comedy. But actually, we think you could make the argument that comedy created the vibe shift that we?re seeing in so many other parts of the culture. And perhaps that?s because comedians with podcasts have become like the Walter Cronkites of American culture. Theo Von is almost Barbara Walters at this point. And Andrew Schulz has found himself right in the thick of it.  Last October on his podcast, Schulz sat down with then-candidate Donald Trump as he was running for president, for a candid 90-minute conversation. You can imagine the type of response he got for that.  Today on Honestly, Bari asks Schulz about that interview with Trump and whether there are certain people who are beyond the pale. They talk about his difficulty conceiving, what it meant for his masculinity, and she asks about the decision to put his?and his wife?s?vulnerability on camera. And finally, she asks how to resist audience capture. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may have never heard of Sarah Wynn-Williams, but that?s about to change.  She?s written a memoir about her nearly seven years at Facebook, the company that has since rebranded as Meta. In doing so, she?s become the company?s highest-ranking whistleblower.  Until around 72 hours ago, the book?s existence itself was a secret. Wynn-Williams, a onetime New Zealand diplomat, was effectively the company?s top envoy to governments around the world. She traveled extensively with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg?the company?s two top leaders during her time?and her experiences with them often read like pure comedy, a mix of Succession and The Office.  The book, however, is a lot more than that. It?s a shocking insider?s account of working at one of the world?s most powerful companies at the highest level, and the gap between the idealistic way it sold itself to its employees and the world.  It?s called Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. And it coincides with the news that Wynn-Williams has filed an SEC complaint against the company, alleging that Zuckerberg agreed to crack down on the account of a high-profile Chinese dissident living in the U.S. in the hopes that it would help convince Beijing to allow Facebook into China.  On today?s Honestly, Bari and Wynn-Williams discuss her bizarre experiences, her thoughts on the future of Facebook, the pushback she?s already received, and why she wrote this book?despite the risk of taking on a corporate behemoth like Meta.  Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. ?Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this week on Honestly, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Brianna Wu, and Christopher Caldwell shared their views on President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance?s showdown with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and on the Russia-Ukraine war more generally. Simply put, Batya and Chris made the case that Russia is not an American adversary in the way China is and that Trump?s seeming sympathy toward Russian president Vladimir Putin is actually a strategic play to pull Russia away from China and into our orbit. The conversation is provocative. It provoked many of us here at The Free Press. Not all of our listeners agreed with what they heard either. For some, it was frustrating or even angering to hear this perspective. Yes, contrary to popular belief, we do read the comments. And there?s been a tremendous amount of debate inside our newsroom about America?s new posture regarding Russia and Ukraine, just as there is on all of the most important topics of the day. We think that?s our strength. We believe in listening to arguments, in good faith, from people we respect. And if our panel show earlier in the week was dominated by a perspective sympathetic to Trump, today we want to offer a very different perspective from Eli Lake, Free Press reporter and the host of our new podcast, Breaking History. In this episode, Eli explores how a different Republican president?Ronald Reagan?spoke out against Russian aggression. And how his words inspired dissidents from across the Soviet bloc, like the Czech playwright Václav Havel, to lead their own countries to freedom. This is a show that looks to the past to illuminate the present, and we think this episode is especially important right now. So today, Eli Lake on Breaking History. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It?s been four days since the diplomatic earthquake went down in the Oval Office between President Trump, Vice President Vance, and Ukrainian president Zelensky. The world is still feeling the aftershocks. In Europe, leaders have been jolted into action. Ukraine?s European allies, including British prime minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron, met in London on Sunday to forge their own peace plan and agree on additional support for Kyiv. In Moscow, officials are celebrating Trump?s approach to the conflict?and his foreign policy more generally. ?The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely coincides with our vision,? said a Kremlin spokesman. Russian state TV described a new world order with Trump in the White House. In Washington, administration officials have made it clear that it is up to Zelensky to apologize and patch things up if there is any chance of a U.S.-Ukraine mineral deal. ?The president believes Zelensky has to come back to the table and he has to be the one to come and make it right,? one official told NBC News. The Zelensky-Trump bust-up?and the war in Ukraine in general?is one of those important subjects where people we respect (including inside The Free Press newsroom) passionately disagree. There are plenty of other outlets that will give you only one strongly expressed view. But it is our conviction that the only way we can get to the truth is by seriously considering multiple perspectives. The differences of opinion start with the question of what, exactly, we all watched on Friday. Were Trump and Vance bullying a besieged ally in public? Or were we watching the White House finally stand up for American taxpayers? Then there are the bigger questions: Is Trump?s Ukraine policy a long-overdue acknowledgment of the limits of American power? Or an unforced error that endangers not just America?s allies but America itself? And what are the chances of peace with honor for Ukraine? Today we?ve brought together a group of people who answer those questions quite differently: Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon, Democratic fundraiser and strategist Brianna Wu, and special guest Christopher Caldwell, author of multiple books, including The Age of Entitlement. Both Batya and Christopher have pieces up in The Free Press right now: ?Zelensky?s Trumpian Trick? by Christopher Caldwell, and ?What Average Americans Think of Trump?s Showdown with Zelensky? by Batya Ungar-Sargon.  Other must-reads in The Free Press: ?"Trump?s Foreign Policy Revolution" by Matthew Continetti "J.D. Vance?s Fighting Words?Against Me and Ukraine" by Niall Ferguson "A Fiasco in the Oval Office" by Eli Lake "Ten Reasons for the Zelensky-Trump Blowup" by Victor Davis Hanson "What Zelensky Can Learn from Netanyahu" by Michael Oren Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. ?Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. ? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever gone on the internet and stumbled onto this combo of words, or perhaps non-words?: ?Dogecoin.? ?Shiba Inu.? ?Hawkcoin.? ?Bored Ape NFT.? If that sounded like gibberish, don?t worry?we?ll explain. And also, time to start learning, because these terms come out of a new financial ecosystem?the world of crypto, a market that started 15 years ago and is now worth about $3.3 trillion. This new world has caught the attention of none other than President Donald Trump. Since coming to office, Trump has appointed a crypto czar and floated the idea of a national crypto stockpile. And shortly Trump took office, he launched his own meme coin?as did Melania. Trump?s coin has reportedly generated $100 million in trading fees so far. And to top it all off, Trump is taking calls from the biggest names in the business. One of whom is our guest today?Brian Armstrong. Brian is a 42-year-old San Jose native who changed the nature of commerce not only in America but all over the world. He co-founded a cryptocurrency platform called Coinbase in 2012. Now, it?s the largest crypto exchange in the US. To some, he?s doing something as revolutionary as building rocket ships to Mars. To others, he?s growing an industry riddled with scammers, grifters, and criminals. Armstrong says those stories are the sideshow and that Bitcoin?or perhaps another cryptocurrency?will prove itself to be as essential as the dollar. Today on Honestly, Bari asks Brian why he thinks crypto is the way of the future, how he navigates eager regulators, why he?s been so politically active, how MAGA?s "America First" ethos gets along with the borderless, decentralized crypto zeitgeist, and if crypto is really as dangerous as some make it out to be. We also talk about the DOGE, his recent meeting with Trump, and how he once stuck his neck out against the far-left mob. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Get $10 for free when you trade $100+ with code HONESTLY: www.Kalshi.com/Honestly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the past year, right-wing parties across the West have been sweeping elections. Donald Trump in the United States, Argentina?s Javier Milei, Italy?s Giorgia Meloni, El Salvador?s Nayib Bukele, and now Germany. On Sunday, 83 percent of Germans went to the polls?the highest turnout since the Cold War. The Christian Democrats, the country?s center-right party led by Friedrich Merz, won. But that?s not the big story. The big story is that the right-wing populist party, the AfD, came in second place with nearly 21 percent, the strongest showing since WWII. There is a single reason why. It?s not the economy. It?s not the war with Russia. It?s not climate change. It?s immigration. And I?m not talking about jobs or wage deflation. I?m talking about the fact that over the past decade, Germany has seen a net migration of 5 million people, with more than 1 million of the new arrivals coming from Syria and Afghanistan. And the rifts have been palpable. And here, I?m choosing two examples from just last week: An Afghan migrant suspect rammed a car through a crowd of people. Thirty-nine people, including several children, were injured. Just the day before the election, a Syrian migrant became the lead suspect for a stabbing outside of the Holocaust memorial. This all fundamentally tests the limits of assimilation and multiculturalism. The dynamic here is the same that has characterized many Western nations. The center-left and the left have ignored the problem. And the right has named it?and filled the vacuum. As Michael Sandel has put it: ?Fundamentalists rush in where liberals fear to tread.? If there?s a line that captures the politics of our era, it is that. Last week, the very question of whether migrants can adopt pluralism and Western ideals was also put to Australians, after two Sydney nurses went viral when caught on camera saying that they would kill Israeli patients that came into their hospital. One nurse was an Afghan refugee. Here to unpack it all is Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon, Democratic fundraising powerhouse Brianna Wu, and the founder of Quillette, Claire Lehmann. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I?m sure you remember the images of Kfir and Ariel Bibas. They were just nine months and four years old when they were kidnapped by Hamas along with their mother, Shiri, on October 7, 2023. It was impossible to look at the image of her shielding them, her eyes full of terror, the children clinging to her, and not think of the Holocaust.  For more than 500 days, people around the world prayed for the safe return of these babies. Our hopes were raised on February 1, when the fourth member of the family?Yarden Bibas?was liberated after 484 days in Hamas captivity. But as this episode goes live, Kfir, Ariel, and Shiri Bibas won?t be returning home alive. Hamas instead will hand over their remains.  How can Israel live alongside an enemy that kidnaps and murders babies? And what does it mean for us to live in a world, where people in the West tore down posters of the Bibas children.  My friend, Commentary magazine senior editor Seth Mandel, explains why in The Free Press:  ?In a better world, the faces of the Bibas children would be everywhere at all times. In the world in which we live, by contrast, posters with those faces get torn down from bulletin boards. . . . The crimes against the Bibas family are indeed the symbol of the anti-civilizational menace that is Hamas?but also of the cowardice of the political and cultural leaders of the enlightened West. . . . It is impossible for the rest of us to pretend that we didn?t see a chunk of society, whether in person or online, rush to cross that line and cheer on the people who kidnapped two babies . . . .Kfir became a symbol because he is the answer to every relevant question about this conflict. His case is the war boiled down to its essence. Kfir is the dividing line. In a better world, there?d be no one standing on the wrong side of it.? Before the devastating news of the Bibas children broke, Bari sat down with Matti Friedman, Free Press correspondent in Jerusalem. They happened to talk on the very day that Kfir and Ariel?s father, Yarden, was released after being kept in unimaginable conditions. Now Yarden confronts the nightmare that his entire family was murdered. Bari and Matti talk about the toll of this war, why returning the hostages is so fundamentally important to the future of Israel, about the rise of anti-Jewish hate, and about how to be American, Jewish, and Zionist all at the same time, and how Jews are waking up to a new reality in 2025.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. ?Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A lot of people are wondering if things in LA would look different if Rick Caruso had won the mayoral race against Karen Bass in 2022. If he had been mayor when devastating fires began in the city last month, would he have prevented them from consuming about 40,000 acres, which is more than twice the area of Manhattan? At the time he ran, many quietly supported the billionaire real estate mogul?scared to come out publicly against the candidate backed by Barack Obama and celebrities like Shonda Rhimes and Arianna Grande. But now many in LA are texting me, saying they wish he had won. Indeed, some of these lifelong Democrats are now saying that they are Republicans, or the very least they?re whatever Karen Bass isn't. Caruso may have lost then, but he?s acting now like a de facto public official, launching and funding a nonprofit he calls Steadfast LA. He?s leveraged his connections to get companies from Netflix to Amazon to J.P. Morgan to help restore critical infrastructure in the city, he?s worked on how to quickly rebuild homes with the help of AI, and he?s figuring out ways to use America?s most advanced technology to prevent future fires. Now, everyone in California is watching to see what Caruso does next. Will he run for mayor again? Or perhaps even governor of California? And most pressingly, can Caruso figure out a way to save Los Angeles? We also talk about ethical issues around inmates and private-sector firefighters, and about hot-button topics in California?like Trump's plans for immigration, or how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and trans issues are affecting public schools. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Running The Free Press is Bari?s hobby, but her true passion is being a yenta. And one thing Bari has learned from talking to young singles is that there is a total breakdown of sexual relations these days between men and women.  Some blame social media, dating apps, or the alleged feminization of men. But Louise Perry blames the sexual revolution. In 2022, Louise wrote this for The Free Press: ?The sexual revolution isn?t only a story of women freed from the burdens of chastity and motherhood. It?s a story about the triumph of the playboy.? This argument is the crux of her book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, which has just been adapted for young adults?called A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century: The Young Adult Adaptation of ?The Case Against the Sexual Revolution?. This Valentine?s Day, Louise is here to explain how we went wrong as a society on dating, sex, porn, and marriage; how it is impacting women and men differently; how and if we can get back on track; how to date effectively in 2025; and how a revival of Christian sex ethics might be the answer. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It?s Trump?s third week in office and there is no shortage of news to report. Last week, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard advanced in their congressional confirmation hearings for Health and Human Services secretary, FBI director, and Director of National Intelligence, and criticisms of Gabbard resurfaced over her meeting with former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in 2017, and over her defense of Edward Snowden?who she refused to call a traitor. Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States, making him the first foreign leader invited to the new Trump White House. At a press conference with President Trump, he looked like the dog that caught the car when Trump announced that the U.S. would take control of Gaza, and that the 1.7 million people living there would be resettled elsewhere.  Trump also issued an executive order imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid programs, which totaled around $70 billion in 2023. Meanwhile, Kanye has gone nuts again; Trump backed DOGE?s cost-cutting efforts and said Elon would be heading to the Pentagon next, causing shares of defense stocks like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to tumble; and the vibe shift came for the Super Bowl.  To unpack it all today is Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon and political fundraising powerhouse Brianna Wu. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. --- Get $10 for free when you trade $100+ with code HONESTLY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two weeks ago, America thought it was leading the AI race. Then out of nowhere, an unknown Chinese start-up turned the American stock market?and that assumption?on its head. DeepSeek, a Chinese company founded less than two years ago, released a free AI chatbot that rivals the most advanced available open AI products. And they did it despite America?s prohibition on shipping our most advanced microchips to China.  America was caught flat-footed, asking how did this happen? And could we actually lose this tech war?  Now, if your understanding of computers stops at the term hard drive, don?t worry. Today on Honestly, Bari has two incredible guests, experts on both AI and China, who are going to break it all down for you. Tyler Cowen is an economics professor, AI expert, and a must-read writer at his blog, Marginal Revolution. He is joined today by Geoffrey Cane, an expert on China and the author of The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey Into China?s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.  Today, how this happened and what it means. And can America win the AI war with China? Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you know that Joseph Stalin could sing with perfect pitch? Or that he was so scared of his wife that he would hide from her in the bathroom? Did you know that Peter the Great liked to surround himself with naked dwarfs? Did you know that Catherine the Great?long smeared as a nymphomaniac?was actually a lovelorn monogamist? Or that King Herod?s genitals once exploded with maggots? Most historians bore you with dry accounts of battles and treaties, and it?s hard to remember any of it. But not Simon Sebag Montefiore, who writes 900 pages that you cannot put down. Sebag is one of the most important historians alive today. His many books, like Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, The Romanovs, and Catherine the Great & Potemkin are essential to understanding power, politics, revolution, dictatorships, and above all, human nature. While most of Sebag?s books are biographies of people, Jerusalem is a biography of a city?a city, as he writes, that is ?the house of the one God, the capital of two peoples, the temple of three religions, and the only city to exist twice in heaven and on earth.? The book takes you through Jerusalem?s 3,000-year history, from King David to Bibi Netanyahu. It is a must-read. It has sold more than a million copies, and it has just been reissued in paperback. With the ceasefire deal underway in Israel and with Trump a few weeks into his second presidency, we could not think of a better person to talk to than Simon about this moment and how to understand it.  Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fourteen years ago, Amy Chua published Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It was received less like a book and more like a nuclear bomb. Here are some headlines from the time: ?Why I Will Never Be a Tiger Mom.? ?Why Amy Chua Is Wrong About Parenting.? ?Amy Chua Is a Circus Trainer, Not a Tiger Mother.? ?The Human Race Needs Elephant Mothers, Not Tiger Mothers.? ?Amy Chua's Recipe for Disaster and the Externalized Cost of Book Sales.? Then, just as the publicity around Tiger Mother died down, Amy came out with The Triple Package, about why some ethnic groups succeed. People called her racist. Then she came out in support of Brett Kavanaugh's court nomination in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal (before he was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford). Afterward, people accused her of misogyny and grooming. And she was almost forced out of Yale for it.  Then, in 2021, she was accused of hosting boozy dinner parties during COVID lockdowns and ?dinner party-gate? was born. Yale punished her by barring her from teaching her ?small group? first-year student contingency.  Fast-forward to 2025. And the tables have turned. Being a strict ?tiger mom?? In. Free speech? In. Wokeness and hypersensitivity? Out. Covid lockdowns? Definitely out. Vicious character assassinations at Senate confirmations? Out. As Free Press reporter Peter Savodnik just wrote: ?The ideas that Chua was pilloried for are suddenly back in fashion.?  Just a few weeks ago, she attended the inauguration of the incoming president and vice president?one of whom happens to be her former student and mentee.  It?s easy to be a weather vane?to go where the wind blows. It's hard to be Amy Chua?to stand up for your beliefs even when they are not popular, even when it means personal consequences. On today?s episode, live in D.C. during inauguration weekend, Chua explains how and why she won?and what it feels like to be vindicated.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It?s President Donald Trump?s second week in office, and he has wasted no time being the wrecking ball he promised his voters he would be. On Tuesday, he issued a memo freezing trillions of dollars in federal funding, in his attempt to purge the government of ?woke ideology,? which was followed by chaos and confusion?and ultimately blocked by a federal judge. Earlier in the week, Trump convinced Colombia?s President Gustavo Petro to accept deported Colombian migrants?who Petro had turned away from his borders only a day earlier?after Trump threatened a 25-percent tariff on Colombian imports to the U.S.  Back in Congress, the Senate narrowly confirmed Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense in a dramatic tie-breaking vote cast by a hurried J.D. Vance who showed up just in the nick of time. Meanwhile, RFK Jr. is currently having his highly anticipated confirmation hearing to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Just as that began, Caroline Kennedy?the only surviving child of John F. Kennedy?came out Tuesday with a bombshell public denunciation of her cousin, calling him unqualified, ?a predator,? and a hypocrite. She also alleged that he used to ?put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks.? Can?t say we had that on our 2025 bingo card? Finally, the Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek sent tech stocks plummeting on Monday (to the tune of more than $1 trillion) after it rolled out a new app on the U.S. market that is a fraction of the cost of American AI competitors. All of which brought up questions?and panic?about our brewing AI war with China.  To talk about it all, Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik is joined today by Brianna Wu and FP investigative reporter Madeleine Rowley, who spoke to Hegseth this week about his plans to end diversity, equity, and inclusion in the military. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Get $10 for free when you trade $100+ with code HONESTLY: https://kalshi.com/honestly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There has been a cultural sea change over the last year when it comes to health in America. It is shepherded by an unexpected coalition of nutritionists, longevity experts, wellness influencers, holistic and functional medicine doctors, moms wearing babies and natural deodorant, mushroom shamans, and some vaccine skeptics. They?ve gathered under the banner of Make American Healthy Again, or MAHA, and they?re here to tell us that plastic cutting boards, Diet Coke, and pasteurized milk?all things that once seemed perfectly normal in American life?are actually killing us.  A decade ago, if you read that list of personas you would think MAHA is some woo-woo, hippie progressive movement. But here we are in 2025, and this is the same group that helped usher Donald Trump to power.  What does MAHA stand for? What does it look like when it marries itself to power? And what will MAHA actually be able to accomplish over the next four years, under their fearless leader?and risky Health and Human Services nominee?Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?  Live in D.C. during inauguration weekend, Calley Means, Jillian Michaels and Vani Hari explain. Calley is the founder of Truemed and co-author of Good Energy. Jillian is America?s original fitness expert and the author of nine books. Vani is the founder of Truvani, and you probably know her from her blog Food Babe. She also got Subway to remove ?the yoga mat chemical? from its breads. And, the fact that there was a yoga mat chemical in its bread is the whole purpose of this conversation. Today, the three MAHA whisperers explain why this movement just might be the most powerful political force in American life. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Monday, and he came out swinging. On his first day, he signed 26 executive orders and rolled back about 80 of former president Joe Biden?s executive actions. (For comparison, Biden signed nine executive orders on day one; in 2017, Trump signed one; in 2013, Obama signed zero, and in 2009, just two.) Trump was making good on the promises he campaigned on. On immigration, he?s trying to end birthright citizenship. On diversity, equity, and inclusion, he?s saying, ?You?re fired? to federal DEI employees. On trans issues, he signed an order that declares only two genders. And on ?America First,? he?s saying goodbye to the ?Gulf of Mexico? and hello to the ?Gulf of America.?  Trump also announced Stargate, gave TikTok a second life, pardoned about 1,500 January 6 rioters, and pulled out of the Paris climate agreement. Suffice it to say, there is much to discuss. Today, Bari Weiss is back with Batya Ungar-Sargon, Brianna Wu, and Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik to unpack Trump?s first week in office and what they think about?Elon?s arm. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. The first 500 listeners to sign up will get $10 for free when you trade $100+ with code HONESTLY at https://Kalshi.com/Honestly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump, just sworn in as the 47th president, was reelected to be a wrecking ball, a middle finger, the people?s punch to the Beltway?s mouth. And while this populist moment feels ?unprecedented,? it?s not. The rebuke of the ruling class is encoded in our nation?s DNA.  We have seen populist leaders like Donald Trump before. He stands on the shoulders of Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, Alabama governor George Wallace, and Louisiana legend Huey Long. There have been populist senators, governors, newspaper editors, and radio broadcasters. But only rarely has a populist climbed as high as President Trump. In fact, it has happened only once before.  The last populist to win the presidency was born before the American Revolution. He rose from nothing to become a great general. His adoring troops called him Old Hickory, and his enemies derided him as a bigamist and a tyrant in waiting. His name was Andrew Jackson, and he?s the guy who?s still on the 20 dollar bill.  On today?s debut episode of Breaking History, Eli Lake explains how Andrew Jackson?s presidency is the best guide to what Trump?s second term could look like.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Credits: Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil and the Presidency; PBS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Being the Republican House leader is a little like marrying Henry VIII. At some point, you?re getting your head cut off.  But for now, Mike Johnson remains not just physically intact?but in a position of incredible power. Two weeks ago, Johnson was reelected Speaker of the House on the first ballot. Despite having only the narrowest of House majorities?the Republicans control the House by four votes, 219 vs. 215 Democrats?Mike Johnson was able to unite the Republican Party?s warring factions?moderates, the Freedom Caucus, the Raw Milk caucus, libertarians, hawks, doves, and whatever Lauren Boebert is?behind him.  It was tough to pull off, as it would?ve taken only a couple of No votes to send him off to that Republican Valhalla where John Boehner chain-smokes and chugs merlot, Paul Ryan does push-ups, and Kevin McCarthy throws darts at a photo of Matt Gaetz. Now, Donald Trump will become president of the United States and Mike Johnson will have the task of shepherding his agenda through Congress. And because the Republicans control the House by only four seats, the Speaker might have to get very close to some moderate Democrats?particularly those with constituents itching for a tax cut.  Today on Honestly, Speaker Johnson breaks down this challenge. He talks about how the party moves forward with two different visions for America; why he thinks Biden was ?the worst president ever?; he recalls an eerie experience with Biden in the Oval Office; and he even gives us a taste of his uncanny Trump impression. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Very few people have worked closely with President-elect Donald Trump, gotten fired, and walked away with a pretty balanced view of him. But former national security adviser to Trump, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster is an exception. In his book At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, he gives an honest account of working in Trump?s first administration: the good, the bad, and the unexpected. Last week, McMaster sat down with Michael Moynihan at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for an in-person Free Press Book Club event to discuss it all. They talk about his moments of tension with Trump, his understanding of Trump?s foreign policy, and how Trump?s rhetoric toward adversaries was actually good, despite being villainized by the press. And also, as McMaster puts it, Trump can be ?so disruptive, he often interrupts his own agenda.? They also get into the president-elect?s current cabinet picks?ones who McMaster sees as good, like Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, but how good picks do not ensure a harmonious administration. They discuss Trump?s options for handling Russia, Iran, and Hamas in his second term, and why McMaster is surprisingly and cautiously optimistic about Trump 2.0. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute in Washington, D.C. FDD?s experts conduct in-depth research, produce accurate and timely analyses, identify illicit activities, and provide policy options?all with the aim of strengthening U.S. national security and reducing or eliminating threats posed by enemies of the United States and other free nations. Learn more at FDD.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trump?s inauguration is right around the corner, and there is so much to cover about the new White House. In the coming weeks, we?ll have key figures in the Trump administration on Honestly to talk about what they are planning. But, we all know that if Trump 2.0 is anything like Trump 1.0, there are going to be a lot of twists and turns here. And we want to analyze and break down each development that unfolds in Trump?s new administration. Starting today and for the next few months, we?re going to bring you weekly episodes with two of my favorite guests: Batya Ungar-Sargon and Brianna Wu. Batya Ungar-Sargon is a Free Press contributor and the opinion editor at Newsweek. Brianna Wu is a Democratic fundraiser and activist, and in her past life, a video game developer. If you?ve heard them together on Honestly before, you know that these two come from different sides of the political spectrum, but we really value hearing both of their perspectives, even?or especially?when they disagree. We think you will too. Today, we?re going to cover the L.A. fires and their political implications, the civil war inside the MAGA movement between the nationalist populists and the free marketers over H-1B visas, and Mark Zuckerberg?s red pill moment and changes at Meta?and the pair give us their predictions for confirmation hearings beginning this week. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 50% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock worldwide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It?s the biggest crime?and cover-up?in British history. And most people, at least until recently, haven?t even heard of it. Thousands of young girls, mostly children, were systematically groomed and raped by immigrant gangs across the UK over a period of decades. Police turned the girls away. Detectives were discouraged from investigating. Politicians and prosecutors did their best to sweep it under the rug. Journalists skipped the biggest story of their lives. A culture of silence enveloped the United Kingdom. Why? Today, we talk to two women who spoke out years ago about what was happening while nearly everyone looked the other way: the British feminist and author Julie Bindel, and the author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Both took tremendous risks in highlighting the story while the legacy press largely looked away. Bindel is the author, most recently, of Feminism for Women and writes a popular Substack column. Hirsi Ali, a Free Press contributor, is the author of numerous books on radical islam, including Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women?s Rights, which helped bring attention to the grooming gangs scandal in 2021.  Julie and Ayaan explain today what happened, how these rapes and murders were covered up in the name of preserving ?social harmony,? how it?s still happening, why Elon Musk is suddenly tweeting furiously about it and how Britain?s ruling class is being forced to reckon with a scandal it had, until recently, successfully ignored.  It?s a story about ?tolerance? run amok, and how a civilized country can convince itself to accept the most uncivilized crimes imaginable. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you haven?t heard of Bryan Johnson or watched the new Netflix documentary about him, Don?t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, Bryan is a person who has given his life?and his body?over to the science of longevity. That means that he has essentially turned himself into a human lab rat, undergoing hundreds of tests and studies on every human marker imaginable in order to discover the best ways to stop the process of human aging. What he?s found is unconventional, to say the least: He eats dinner at 11 a.m., he has swapped blood with his 17-year-old son, and he measures his nighttime erection lengths?just to name a few of the hundreds of things that you probably have never heard of a person doing in the name of health and longevity. But it?s not just that Bryan wants to reverse aging and live forever. He also thinks we?re at the bleeding edge of a new kind of reality. He believes he?s akin to Amelia Earhart or Ernest Shackleton, and that he?s on the frontier of something big?something that will change everything about humanity as we know it. In that way, this conversation is not just about wacky exercise routines and unusual supplements. It?s a philosophical discussion about the meaning and purpose of life, and what we?re all doing here on this planet.  Today on Honestly, Bryan Johnson tells us about why and how he?s not going to die. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is something so delicious about a single, tight joke in one headline that captures the political moment, or even just the banality of our lives. Here are some examples: ?Drugs Win Drug Wars?; ?Nation Throws off Tyrannical Yoke of Moderate Respect for Women?; ?I Have Decision Fatigue, Says Woman Whose Only Decision in the Last 7 Years Was Not Going to Law School.? These headlines are from satirical news sites like The Onion and Reductress. Both are on the political left. For most of Bari?s life, the big political comedy came from the left. Until The Babylon Bee, which launched in 2016.  The Bee is a Christian conservative satirical news site, which may sound like an oxymoron. It did to us. Until we read it and discovered, it?s funny. Often really funny. While everyone else was busy criticizing and mocking the right, the Bee found success by filling a void. The Bee?s distinctive tagline is ?Fake News You Can Trust.?  Here are a few recent headlines: ?Biden Cancels Aid to Syria After Finding Out Needy Americans Live There?; ?Canadian Dentist Now Offering Euthanasia as Alternative to Cavity Filling.? The crazy thing about the Bee is that the headlines are often not just satire, but prophetic. Here?s an example, in 2020, the Bee posted: ?Democrats Call for Flags to Be Flown at Half-Mast to Grieve Death of Soleimani.? And now Ivy League students are flying Hezbollah flags and mourning the death of the group?s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. In 2021, The Bee published the headline "Triple-Masker Looks Down on People Who Only Double Mask." One day later, CNBC featured a graphic highlighting the higher efficacy of triple-masking.  While the Bee has garnered fame or infamy depending on who you ask, they do try to be equal opportunity critics, poking fun at the right too. Here?s a 2016 headline about Donald Trump: ?Psychopathic Megalomaniac Somehow Garnering Evangelical Vote.? And ?Shocker: European Supermodel Who Married Billionaire Reality Star Might Not Actually Be Conservative.? Still, in the past few years, The Babylon Bee has been the target of online censorship, deplatforming, and media scrutiny. Twitter suspended the Bee?s account in 2022, after it made a joke misgendering Admiral Rachel Levine, President Biden?s head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. The Bee was later reinstated when Elon Musk took over Twitter, who said, ?There will be no censorship of humor.? These days, The Babylon Bee still gets fact-checked by Snopes and USA Today, which perfectly encapsulates our internet age: a parody page getting its jokes fact-checked because people really can?t distinguish between truth and humor.  Today on Honestly is the CEO of The Babylon Bee, Seth Dillon, to talk about it all: the Bee?s Twitter suspension, how he views content moderation and censorship in 2025, the concept of punching down in comedy, and the growth of antisemitism on the far right. Seth also shares how he?ll keep being funny during the Trump presidency and why he believes ?if it?s a joke we?re not supposed to make, it is probably the one we should be telling.? If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This past year was not easy. But 2024 certainly was eventful. Joe Biden dropped out of the race at the eleventh hour, and Kamala Harris?s swift anointment brought us the joy of Brat summer. There was not one, but two assassination attempts against Donald Trump; the continued wars in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon; the sudden and surprising fall of the Assad regime in Syria; the murder of a CEO (and Luigi Mania); mystery drones over New Jersey; and finally, Trump's decisive reelection to the White House.  On a cheerier note, 2024 was also the year of breakdancing at the Paris Olympics; Claudine Gay?s resignation from Harvard; SpaceX?s first commercial spacewalk; and Israel?s epic spy-thriller, pager-explosion attack on Hezbollah?not to mention they took out Hezbollah?s Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas?s Yahya Sinwar as well.  So, what will 2025 bring?  We are starting the year, as we did last December, with a special 2025 predictions episode of Honestly. We called up some friends of the pod?people we trust in their fields?to get a better sense of what?s in store for the year ahead.  Political analyst and former spokesperson at the Department of Justice Sarah Isgur tells us what we can expect in the Trump 2.0 White House. Linguist John McWhorter looks at new words and how language will evolve in the coming months. Our very own Suzy Weiss talks us through the cultural calendar. Stylist Leandra Medine clues us in on fashion trends in 2025, and last but not least: Historian Niall Ferguson tells us, as he did last year as well, whether or not we?re right to have nightmares about World War III?but for real this time.  Some guests cheered us up, whereas others freaked us out. All of them were a pleasure to talk to. We hope you enjoy these conversations with some of our favorite people.   If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. *** This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you believe in the story of the virgin birth and the resurrection, or whether you believe that those miracles are myths, one thing is beyond dispute: The story of Jesus and the message of Christianity are among the stickiest ideas the world has ever seen. Within four centuries of Jesus?s death, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. It had 30 million followers?half of the empire. Today, two millennia later, Christianity is still the largest religion in the world. How and why did Christianity take off, and how did it change the world in such radical ways? Here to have that conversation is historian Tom Holland. Tom is one of the most gifted storytellers in the world, and his podcast, The Rest is History, is one of the most popular out there. Each week, he and his co-host, Dominic Sandbrook, charm their way through history's most interesting characters and sagas. I can't recommend it more highly. Holland's book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind chronicles thousands of years of Christian history, and it argues that Christianity is the reason we have America. That it's the inspiration to both the French and the American Revolutions. That it's the backbone of wokeness as an ideology, but also the liberal forces fighting it. Today, Tom explains how and why the story of Christianity won, how it shaped Western culture and values, and if he thinks our vacation from religion might be coming to an end. Merry Christmas and happy holidays! If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. **** This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merry Christmas, Honestly listeners! We hope you?ve been enjoying the parties, the spirit of charity, the lights, the tree at Rockefeller Center, the schmaltzy movies, and of course, the infectious Christmas music everywhere you turn. But did you know that the Americans who wrote nearly all of the Christmas classics were . . . Jewish? Indeed, many of the writers of your favorite Christmas jingles were the children of parents who had fled Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe during the great wave of immigration between 1880 and 1920. Sammy Cahn, the son of Galician Jewish immigrants, wrote the words to ?Let it Snow!? and was known as Frank Sinatra?s personal lyricist. There is also Mel Torme, the singer-songwriter responsible for composing the timeless ?Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.? His father fled Belarus for America in the early 20th century. Frank Loesser, a titan of Broadway and Hollywood musicals, wrote the slightly naughty ?Baby, It?s Cold Outside.? He was born into a middle-class Jewish family, his father having left Germany in the 1890s to avoid serving in the Kaiser?s military. Johnny Marks, the man who gave us ?Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer,? ?A Holly Jolly Christmas,? and ?Rockin? Around the Christmas Tree??yes, he was also one of the chosens. Then there?s the greatest American composer of them all, Irving Berlin. His ?White Christmas? is one of the biggest-selling singles in the history of American music. Berlin?s earliest memory was of watching his family?s home burn to the ground in a pogrom as his family fled Siberia for Belarus before emigrating to NYC in 1893. Today, Free Press columnist Eli Lake explores why and how it was that American Jews helped create the sound of American Christmas. We hope you enjoy this delightful and surprising jaunt through musical history. Happy holidays! If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. *** This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just a few years ago, as AI technology was beginning to spill out of start-ups in Silicon Valley and hitting our smartphones, the political and cultural conversation about this nascent science was not yet clear. I remember asking former Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Honestly in January 2022 if AI was just like the sexy robot in Ex Machina. I literally said to him, ?What is AI? How do you define it? I do not understand.? Today, not only has it become clear what AI is and how to use it?ChatGPT averages more than 120 million active daily users and processes over a billion queries per day?but it?s also becoming clear with the political and cultural ramifications?and the arguments and debates?around AI are going to be over the next few years. Among those big questions are who gets to lead us into this new age of AI technology, what company is going to get there first and achieve market dominance, how those companies are structured so that bad actors with nefarious incentives can?t manipulate this technology for evil purposes, and what role the government should play in regulating all of this. At the center of these important questions are two men: Sam Altman and Elon Musk. And if you haven?t been following, they aren?t exactly in alignment.  They started off as friends and business partners. In fact, Sam and Elon co-founded OpenAI in 2015. But over the years, Elon Musk grew increasingly frustrated with OpenAI until he finally resigned from the board in 2018. That feud escalated this past year when Elon sued Sam and OpenAI on multiple occasions to try to prevent the company from launching a for-profit arm of the business, a structure that Elon claims is never supposed to happen in OpenAI?and he also argues that changing its structure in this way might even be illegal. On the one hand, this is a very complex disagreement. To understand every single detail of it, you probably need a law degree and special expertise in American tax law. But you don?t need a degree or specialization to understand that at its heart, this feud is about something much bigger and more existential than OpenAI?s business model, although that?s extremely important. What this is really a fight over is who will ultimately be in control of a technology that some say, if used incorrectly, could very well make human beings obsolete. Here to tell his side of the story is Sam Altman. We talk about where AI is headed, and why he thinks superintelligence?the moment where AI surpasses human capabilities?is closer than ever. We talk about the perils of AI bias and censorship, why he donated $1 million to Trump?s inaugural fund as a person who has long opposed Trump, what happens if America loses the AI race to a foreign power like China, and of course, what went wrong between him and the richest man on Earth.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. *** This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week marked a historic turning point in Syria. Rebel forces seized control of the nation, toppling the regime of Bashar al-Assad and ending his family?s brutal 50-year stranglehold on power. For decades, the Assad dynasty ruled through unimaginable violence?launching chemical attacks on civilians, silencing dissent with mass imprisonment and torture, and presiding over a civil war that killed an estimated 600,000 people and drove 13 million into exile. In cities across the world, jubilant Syrians have celebrated the regime?s downfall, having deemed it to be one of the world?s most oppressive dictatorships. But not everyone is celebrating. Or at least, some people are saying there is reason for caution. That?s because the coalition of rebel forces taking control of Syria now is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a militant Islamist organization which originated as an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Its leader is a Saudi-born Syrian who calls himself Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. A 21-year-old al-Jolani left Syria for Iraq in 2003 to join al-Qaeda and fight against America. There, he was captured by the U.S. and put into Bucca jail, which housed some of the most notorious al-Qaeda prisoners. But since emerging on the world stage in the last week, al-Jolani has indicated that he is a reformed man, leading a moderated organization. He insists his al-Qaeda days and their methods?the detentions and torture and forced conversions?are over, and HTS is not going to persecute religious and ethnic minorities. But is it? true?  Few people in the West might know that answer as well as journalist Theo Padnos. In October 2012, Padnos ventured from Turkey into Syria to report on the Syrian Civil War. There, he was captured by HTS (then known as Jabhat al-Nusra) and held captive for nearly two years.  Throughout his captivity, Padnos endured relentless torture at the hands of his captors. He was savagely beaten until unconscious, given electric shocks, and forced into severe stress positions for hours at a time. All of this is to say nothing of the psychological torment inflicted on him. Today, he joins Michael Moynihan to discuss his harrowing experience, the psychology of jihadists, and what the future of Syria will look like under the leadership of his former captors. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kemi Badenoch just became the first black woman to lead the UK?s Conservative Party, the oldest in British politics, colloquially known as ?the Tories.? She?s also 44, has three children, grew up in Nigeria, actually worked at McDonald?s (unlike some American politicians who have claimed to), didn?t go to Oxford or Cambridge, and has a master?s degree in computer engineering. Not exactly your typical Tory party leader profile. But it?s Kemi Badenoch who has just inherited a Conservative Party that has dominated British politics for decades until Labour Party leader Keir Starmer became prime minister earlier this year. The Britain that Starmer inherited?the Britain that Conservatives like David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Rishi Sunak left behind?is a country with enormous debt, a shrinking GDP, a huge immigration challenge, and arguably a national identity crisis. Or as Free Press columnist and British historian Niall Ferguson has bleakly put it, ?it seems that the UK has a national suicide wish.?  Can Kemi Badenoch, the woman who has been compared to Margaret Thatcher, turn her party?and ultimately, her country?around? How will the rising star in British politics offer something different than the past five Tory leaders who served before her? And can she beat out not just the Labour left but also the growing threat from a very energized hard right?  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democrats once seemed to have a monopoly on Silicon Valley. Perhaps you remember when Elon Musk bought Twitter and posted pictures of cabinets at the old office filled with ?#StayWoke? T-shirts. But just as the country is realigning itself along new ideological and political lines, so is the tech capital of the world. In 2024, many of the Valley?s biggest tech titans came out with their unabashed support for Donald Trump. There was, of course, Elon Musk. . . but also WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum; Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who run the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini; VCs such as Shaun Maguire, David Sacks, and Chamath Palihapitiya; Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale; Oculus and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey; hedge fund manager Bill Ackman; and today?s Honestly guest, one of the world?s most influential investors and the man responsible for bringing the internet to the masses?Marc Andreessen.  Marc?s history with politics is a long one?but it was always with the Democrats. He supported Democrats including Bill Clinton in 1996, Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004. He endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and then Hillary Clinton in 2016. But over the summer, he announced that he was going to endorse and donate to Trump. Public records show that Marc donated at least $4.5 million to pro-Trump super PACs. Why? Because he believed that the Biden administration had, as he tells us in this conversation, ?seething contempt? for tech, and that this election was existential for AI, crypto, and start-ups in America.  Marc got his start as the co-creator of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser, which is said to have launched the internet boom. He then co-founded Netscape, which became the most popular web browser in the ?90s, and sold it to AOL in 1999 for $4.2 billion. He later became an angel investor and board member at Facebook. And in 2006, when everyone told Mark Zuckerberg to sell Facebook to Yahoo for $1 billion, Marc was the only voice saying: don?t. (Today, Facebook has a market cap of $1.4 trillion.) He now runs a venture capital firm with Ben Horowitz, where they invest in small start-ups that they think have potential to become billion-dollar unicorns. And their track record is pretty spot-on: They invested in Airbnb, Coinbase, Instagram, Instacart, Pinterest, Slack, Reddit, Lyft, and Oculus?to name a few of the unicorns. (And for full disclosure: Marc and his wife were small seed investors in The Free Press.) Marc has built a reputation as someone who can recognize ?the next big thing? in tech and, more broadly, in our lives. He has been called the ?chief ideologist of the Silicon Valley elite,? a ?cultural tastemaker,? and even ?Silicon Valley?s resident philosopher-king.? Today, Bari and Marc discuss his reasons for supporting Trump?and the vibe shift in Silicon Valley; why he thinks we?ve been living under soft authoritarianism over the last decade and why it?s finally cracking; why he?s so confident in Elon Musk and his band of counter-elites; how President Biden tried to kill tech and control AI; why he thinks AI censorship is ?a million times more dangerous? than social media censorship; why technologists are the ones to restore American greatness; what Trump serves for dinner; why Marc has spent about half his time at Mar-a-Lago since November 5; and why he thinks it?s morning in America. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 50% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 2010s, Ryan Holiday was the head of marketing for the controversial clothing brand American Apparel, and the sought-after media strategist for people like the womanizing blogger Tucker Max. Then he wrote an exposé called Trust Me, I?m Lying, which lifted the veil on his world of media manipulation.  Now, he is an advocate of the ancient philosophy of stoicism, which he roughly defines as the idea that we do not control what happens but we do control how we respond, and that it?s best to respond with four key virtues: courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice.  His series of books on stoic virtues have sold over three million copies worldwide. His latest book, Right Thing, Right Now, is about the necessity of living justly?even when it is hard.  Today: why power corrupts, how ego can destroy you, whether we should remain loyal to people even when they do abhorrent things, the limits of free speech, and how to treat people in our everyday lives.    If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week marked a dramatic escalation in Syria?s 13-year civil war. Rebel factions launched their most audacious offensive in years, capturing Aleppo, the focal point of the war for over a decade. This marked the most serious challenge to President Bashar al-Assad?s government and its Russian- and Iranian-backed allies in nearly a decade. Syrian and Russian forces are currently unleashing joint air strikes in a desperate attempt to reclaim the city. Iran has thrown its weight behind al-Assad, promising increased support to shore up his faltering grip on power. But Syria is just one piece of a much larger?and far more dangerous?puzzle. The Middle East is on a knife?s edge. Just last week, Israel and Hezbollah reached a fragile ceasefire along the Lebanon border, but tensions remain high. In Gaza, Israel has continued its operations against Hamas, who still hold 63 hostages. And then there?s Iran?the architect of much of the region?s instability?whose escalating provocations make it seem like a direct war with Israel is no longer a question of if, but when.  These conflicts are deeply interconnected, and the fall of one domino could set off far-reaching consequences. The potential power vacuum left by a weakened al-Assad regime could reshape alliances and alter the balance of power in ways that reverberate from Tehran to Tel Aviv, and from Moscow to Washington. To help us make sense of these rapidly unfolding events and their implications for the region, Michael Moynihan is joined today by Haviv Rettig Gur, a senior analyst at The Times of Israel and one of the sharpest minds on Middle East politics.  In this conversation, they unpack what?s going on in Syria, the root causes of tribal war and dysfunction across the Arab world, the ceasefire in Lebanon, what comes next in Gaza, the weakening of Iran, and what all of this means for Israel and the United States. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As you?re recovering from indulging in stuffing and pecan pie, we wanted to bring you a special bonus episode we put together in collaboration with our friends at StoryCorps. If you haven?t heard of StoryCorps, it?s an organization that has been gathering individual stories from across the country for over 20 years and collects them in the U.S. Library of Congress. StoryCorps?s online archive now has the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered. Today, we wanted to play seven stories about gratitude. There?s one about a man?s deeply held appreciation for his father, a story about a mother who forgave the man who killed her son, and one about a busboy who prayed over Robert Kennedy right after he was shot in 1968. There?s a story about a first love, an unexpected friendship, and being yourself. We know it sounds cheesy, but these stories made us laugh and cry, and we think you?ll love them, too. And as StoryCorps?s founder Dave Isay tells us, ?Don?t forget about the beauty in poetry, and the grace in the stories of our loved ones and neighbors hiding in plain sight all around us.?  Thank you so much to Dave and StoryCorps for partnering with us for this episode. If you want to have a conversation with a stranger across the political divide, sign up at One Small Step. If you want to honor a loved one over the holidays with a StoryCorps interview that goes straight from your phone into the Library of Congress with one tap, participate in their Great Thanksgiving Listen. And, of course, if you want to support one of our favorite nonprofits, you can donate here.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Thanksgiving, Honestly listeners! If you?re anything like the rest of America, you?ll be spending the day with family, cooking turkey, eating sweet potatoes, and. . . watching football. Whether or not you?re from Texas, the game on most American TVs on Thanksgiving Day will be the Dallas Cowboys. But just behind the players are the real stars of the show: blue and white pom-poms accenting sparkly white cowboy boots dancing to the sound of ?Thunderstruck? for 41.8 million viewers at home. We?re talking, of course, about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders?who you may have seen in the viral Netflix documentary, America?s Sweethearts?which is what today?s episode is all about. Why, you might ask, would we talk about cheerleading on Honestly? Because as we watched the documentary, we realized that the show is about a lot more than cheerleading, football, faith, patriotism, and quintessential American culture. Yes, it?s about those things?and yes, it?s a reality show about making a very competitive dance team?but really, it?s a master class in leadership and excellence. So today, we?re talking with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders? director, Kelli Finglass. We ask her how she became the master operator she is today, leading an organization just as well as?or perhaps better than?a Fortune 500 company, how she created a culture of dedication and precision, and most importantly, what it takes today to build a phenomenal team.  It?s a different kind of episode than you?re used to these days?no talk about Matt Gaetz or Elon Musk?but it?s an all-American conversation for an all-American day. And it couldn?t be more fitting and fun. We hope you enjoy it. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peggy Noonan does what we try to do every day at The Free Press: tell the truth, make sense of things plainly and without pretension, frame the news in a way that helps the reader make sense of things, and put things in a historical context that gives the day-to-day depth and meaning.  The very annoying thing about Peggy Noonan is that she makes the thing that we know is so very hard look so very easy. And she does it week after week after week in The Wall Street Journal?which adds up to more than 400 columns over the last 25 years.  In her newest?and ninth?book, A Certain Idea of America, she collects 80 of her best columns published over the last eight years. Now, the idea that old newspaper columns might be good fodder for a book sort of seems like a weird idea, given that newspapers are most famous for being the next day?s fish wrapper. But somehow this book feels urgent and timeless. Which means that Peggy Noonan?s old columns are better than most people?s brand-new ones. That?s probably because she knows a thing or two about rhetoric and American politics. She was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. She helped President George H.W. Bush get elected. She consulted for the TV show The West Wing.  In today?s conversation, we talk about how Peggy understands Trump?s win and the political revolution that we?re living through, what it feels like to lose in a values war, and what it feels like to defend things like civility and decency in 2024. We also talk about Trump?s appointments so far, Peggy?s first meeting with Trump, and how, despite our troubles, America remains a good and great country?and why it?s so important for young people to know that.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Throughout the election, we heard one warning, repeated ad infinitum: A Donald Trump victory would precipitate a fascist dictatorship, and the United States would soon resemble Nazi Germany.  But Democrats didn?t take up arms to defend the ramparts of democracy. They didn?t repel Trump?s storm troopers who descended on Washington. Instead, something more. . . traditional happened. President Joe Biden welcomed Donald Trump to the White House, congratulated him, and promised a ?smooth transition.? (A courtesy, we should note, that Trump did not extend to Biden in 2020.) But now that Democrats have lost power?both in the White House and Congress?what changes should they make to regain it?  Here to answer that question today are Freddie deBoer and Ruy Teixeira. Freddie is a writer, self-described Marxist, and longtime critic of ?social justice? identity politics. Ruy is a political demographer, Democratic strategist, and co-author of the book, Where Have all the Democrats Gone?   We talk about how Democrats became the party of elites, whether Kamala Harris?s loss is the death knell of identity politics, why abortion wasn?t enough to save the Democrats, and whether the party will learn any significant lessons from this historic defeat.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trump?s gains among working-class voters of all races?according to exit polls, he won the majority of Latino men at 55 percent?represent the ongoing realignment of the Republican Party. What was once Reagan?s party of free trade, low taxes, and limited government seems to be shifting toward a multiracial working-class party that celebrates economic protectionism and credibly courts unions.  But what will this shift mean for the future of the party. . . and American politics? Trump?s cabinet appointments so far don?t paint a clear picture. His nominee for secretary of state, Florida senator Marco Rubio, has some clear neoconservative instincts. But Trump also tapped as director of national intelligence former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who has thundered against the ?neocon? influence on her new party.  So what is this new Republican Party? Is it still the party of Reagan? Is it still even a party of conservatism?  Here to discuss it all today are Sarah Isgur, Matthew Continetti, and Josh Hammer.  Sarah Isgur is a columnist for The Dispatch. She clerked for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and served as Justice Department spokeswoman during the first Trump administration. Matthew Continetti is a columnist at Commentary, founding editor of The Free Beacon, and author of a new book: The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism. And Josh Hammer is senior editor at large at Newsweek and host of The Josh Hammer Show.  Today, they join Michael Moynihan to discuss Trump?s appointments, the significance of J.D. Vance, the roots of MAGA and where the movement fits into the history of the Republican Party, and the uncertain future of the American right.  And if you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday night, president-elect Donald Trump announced that the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will head a new initiative in the Trump administration: the Department of Government Efficiency, or ?DOGE.? Aside from the very strange fact that internet meme culture has now landed in the White House?Dogecoin is a memecoin?more importantly, what the announcement solidifies is the triumph of the counter-elite. A bunch of oddball outsiders ran against an insular band of out-of-touch elites supported by every celebrity in Hollywood?and they won. And they are about to reshape not just the government but also the culture in ways we can?t imagine. And there was one person I wanted to discuss it with. He is the vanguard of those antiestablishment counter-elites: Peter Thiel. People describe the billionaire venture capitalist in very colorful terms. He?s been called the most successful tech investor in the world. A political kingmaker. The bogeyman of the left. The center of gravity in Silicon Valley. There?s the ?Thielverse,? ?Thielbucks,? and ?Thielists.? To say he has an obsessive cult following would be an understatement. If you listened to my last conversation with Thiel a year and a half ago on Honestly, you?ll remember that Peter was the first guy in Silicon Valley to publicly embrace Trump in 2016. That year, he gave a memorable speech at the RNC, and many in his orbit thought it was simply a step too far. He lost business at Y Combinator, the start-up incubator where he was a partner. Many prominent tech leaders criticized him publicly, like VC and Twitter investor Chris Sacca, who called Thiel?s endorsement of Trump ?one of the most dangerous things? he had ever seen.  Well, a lot has changed since then. For one, Thiel has taken a step back from politics?at least publicly. He didn?t donate to Trump?s 2024 campaign. There was no big RNC speech this year. But the bigger change is a cultural one. He?s no longer the pariah of Silicon Valley for supporting Trump. On the surface, Thiel is someone who seems full of contradictions. He is a libertarian who has found common cause with nationalists and populists. He likes investing in companies that have the ability to become monopolies, and yet Trump?s White House wants to break up Big Tech. He is a gay American immigrant, but he hates identity politics and the culture wars. He pays people to drop out of college, but, in this conversation at least, still seems to venerate the way that the Ivy Leagues are an indicator of intelligence. But perhaps that?s the secret to his success: He?s beholden to no tribe but himself, no ideology but his own. And why wouldn?t you be when you make so many winning bets? From co-founding the e-payment behemoth PayPal and the data analytics firm Palantir (which was used to find Osama bin Laden) to being the first outside investor in Facebook, Thiel?s investments?in companies like LinkedIn, Palantir, and SpaceX, to name a few?have paid off big time. His most recent bet?helping his mentee J.D. Vance get elected as senator and then on the Trump ticket as vice president?seems also to have paid off. The next four years will determine just how high Thiel?s profit margin will be. Today: Thiel explains why so many of his peers have finally come around to Trump; why he thinks Kamala?and liberalism more broadly?lost the election; and why the Trump 2.0 team will be better than last time, with antiestablishment figures who are willing to rethink the system. We talk about the border, trade deals, student debt, Israel and foreign policy, the rise of historical revisionism, the blurry line between skepticism and conspiracy, and his contrarian ideas about what we might face in a dreaded World War III. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 50% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even your most optimistic Mar-a-Lago member didn?t see Donald Trump winning the popular vote and taking all seven swing states. He even came within five points of taking the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey! So, what on earth does the Democratic Party do next?  They can stay the course and resist. It?s what they did the last time Trump won. In the aftermath of Trump?s 2016 victory, America was stunned. Every time he opened his mouth, Trump exploded political norms, and the Democratic Party responded in kind. Being a mere opposition party?at least at that moment for the Democrats?was not strong enough for this situation they believed. Instead they needed to become a resistance. And while Democrats won in 2020, the resistance ultimately did not work. Democrats spent a decade telling Americans that Trump was an existential threat, yet Americans didn?t care. The Democrats? goal was to scrub Trump from future history. Instead, he now controls it.  Democrats need to look inward if they want to have a shot at winning in 2028. They need to act like an opposition, not a resistance.  Today, Ei Lake explains why this will require a different approach, but one for which there is already a template. He tells the story of how a few centrist renegades saved the Democrats from oblivion 40 years ago. In 1984, after Ronald Reagan?s 525?13 Electoral College landslide over Walter Mondale, the Democrats were not just in disarray?they were on life support. And yet, eight years later, they found their savior: a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. And they remade their party. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. ?Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 50% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. . . again. It was a historic political comeback for a candidate rejected by the people just four years ago. But this time, Trump took almost every coveted state: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. And he leads in Nevada and Arizona. The entire blue wall. . . turned red. And unlike 2016, this was not just an Electoral College victory. Surprising pollsters and betting markets alike, Trump also won the popular vote. To top it off, Republicans took control of the Senate, gaining four seats, and maybe more by the time this episode airs. Simply put, it was a red landslide.  It is extremely rare in our history for a president to come back after losing a reelection bid so badly. In fact, Trump's rebound is bigger than Nixon's?bigger than Napoleon's in 1815.  And yet it happened on Tuesday night with the most flawed candidate American politics has ever seen. How did he do it? If you were only watching cable news over the last few years, you would be shocked by the outcome. But if you had been reading The FP, you probably were not surprised. Yes, Kamala had the support of Beyoncé, Oprah, Taylor Swift, and almost every A-lister with a pulse. She outraised Trump by around $600 million. She was endorsed by industry leaders in science and economics. But it?s been clear for some time now that the Democrats do not have the buy-in or trust of the American people. FP senior editor Peter Savodnik said it best: ?They didn?t lose because they didn?t spend enough money. They didn?t lose because they failed to trot out enough celebrity influencers. They lost because they were consumed by their own self-flattery, their own sense of self-importance.? Still, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, CNN and MSNBC tried to explain away Trump's appeal, and the profound failure of the left, with accusations that the American people are the ones to blame. But those explanations are not right.  As exit polls came in, Trump showed strength with black and Latino voters. CNN exit polls showed he won about 13 percent of black voters (up from 8 percent in 2020) and 45 percent of Latino voters (up from 32 percent last election). It shows a massive pickup. He won among voters who make less than $100,000. And compared to 2020, Trump improved in cities, in rural areas, in suburbs. . . . as CNN's John Berman put it: ?It?s kind of an everywhere improvement.?   Here today to make sense of it all is FP contributor and Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, pundit and political powerhouse Brianna Wu, and FP Senior Editor Peter Savodnik.  We reflect on why Democrats lost so dramatically and decisively; how Trump?s comeback happened, despite an impeachment, being found guilty of sexual assault, and 116 indictments; how Trump found success with black and Latino voters; what the next four years might look like with Trump returning to the White House; and if this will be a wake-up call for Democrats.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our newsroom reflects our readers: We aren?t voting in unison. Today, Bari Weiss explains how The Free Press is handling Election Day inside the office.  Read Bari?s full essay. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. ?Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 50% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today?s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bullshit is an American tradition. Think the theatrics of P.T. Barnum, miracle products sold ad nauseam on television in the 1980s and, of course, politicians. Who can forget President Bill Clinton saying ?It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is? during his grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal? And then there?s Donald Trump. He presents as a man with no fact-checking filter, someone happily buying his own convenient bullshit. That?s not quite the same thing as lying.  That isn?t to say Trump doesn?t lie. He?s a politician, after all. But he exists outside the binary of truth and lies. It?s the netherworld of flimflam, hyperbole, sales pitches, and ad copy delivered with all the quiet dignity of a wet T-shirt contest. Donald Trump is a very modern artist, weaving a barrage of anecdotes, fake and real statistics, gossip, and memes into a nebulous and suggestive species of patter.  Democrats have tried to paint Trump as an American Hitler, a Russian agent, a man consumed with evil and hatred. But what they fail to understand is that Trump?s casual relationship to the truth is an echo of past politicians. He is hardly the first bullshitter to ascend to the White House; he?s just the best ever to do it. He paints a picture of a reality he would like us to see, not as it really is.  In this respect, Trump is the crack cocaine variant of many of his predecessors. Ronald Reagan was a folksy, sentimental bullshitter, a president as a Hallmark greeting card. Bill Clinton was a slick bullshitter, perfect for spinning stories at the dawn of the cable news era. Today, Eli Lake explores the soft spot that Americans have for bullshitters like Trump, and their disdain for liars like Richard Nixon. He argues that if you want to understand why Trump may be on the verge of winning the White House again, you have to reckon with our country?s relationship to the pungent brown stuff. It pervades everything from our economy to our culture. Bullshit is dangerous when it comes to science. But in politics, bullshit is sadly essential.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Need a break from political programming? Well, today we have a special treat: It?s The Free Press?s scary movie Halloween special! It?s that time of year: changing leaves, pumpkin spice lattes, animal costumes with sex appeal and, of course, gory, bloody, nightmare-inducing horror movies. We all remember the first horror movie that we were allowed to watch?or maybe that we weren?t allowed to watch, but saw anyway: Silence of the Lambs, Rosemary?s Baby, The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project, Jaws, Carrie, Halloween, or The Shining. For today?s host Suzy Weiss, it was 20 minutes of the movie It?the TV miniseries from 1990, not the 2017 remake. Suzy remembers seeing Pennywise the Clown on the screen and thinking, This will take me years to get over. She still sometimes checks the drain! Year after year, horror movies are consistently profitable?more so than dramas?but they are snubbed when it comes to award shows and critical acclaim. But here at The Free Press, we value and love horror, so much that we?ve gathered our scariest FP writers?Suzy Weiss, River Page, and Kat Rosenfield?to analyze four new horror movies. River, Kat, and Suzy will review MaXXXine, set in grimy and glamorous 1980s Hollywood, about a night killer who targets a porn star who herself is targeting big-screen stardom. Apartment 7A, a prequel to Rosemary?s Baby, about a woman taken in by an unassuming family. Longlegs, a serial killer story about an FBI agent trying to crack the case. And The Substance, about a woman who takes the latest anti-aging elixir, but at a harrowing cost. They talk about what they loved, what they hated, and how they think each movie relates to our current social ills. We?ll also note this episode has spoilers, so let this be a warning! Happy Halloween, folks! If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are no perfect candidates. But what do you do when both candidates are not just imperfect but deeply flawed, and seen by many as unqualified for the job? We are just one week away from a presidential election that will decide if the next four years are helmed by Vice President Kamala Harris or former president Donald Trump. I know many people who are still undecided. Some of them work at The Free Press. These undecided voters have just one presidential debate to reference, and as my friends at Open to Debate said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: ?I can confidently state that we haven?t yet seen a real presidential debate this year. Debates have devolved into political theater, with combative candidates, biased media, agenda-driven moderators, and a fixation on social-media sound bites. This structure fails to deliver the substance voters need.? So today, we are here without the pageantry, makeup, or muted mics, to host not Trump vs. Kamala?though the invitation is still open?but instead two very smart people who represent each side of the choice that we are going to make a week from today.  Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, best-selling author, and host of the podcast Making Sense. Today, he will explain why he is voting for Kamala Harris. Sam has spoken passionately and consistently on this issue since Trump came onto the scene; Sam calls him ?the most dangerous cult leader on Earth? and highlights Trump?s character flaws. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse; he mocked a disabled reporter; he said John McCain wasn?t a hero; he called veterans ?suckers and losers?; if we kept going with examples, we?d be here all day. Sam?s biggest issue is January 6 and Trump?s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Sam writes, ?The spectacle of a sitting president refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, culminating in an attack on the Capitol, remains the most shocking violation of political norms to occur in my lifetime.?  On the other side, Ben Shapiro?lawyer, co-founder of The Daily Wire, best-selling author, and host of The Ben Shapiro Show?will explain why he is voting for Donald Trump. Ben argues that we were a better country under Trump and that his policies make us safer and more prosperous. There were no hot wars, no inflation crisis, and less traffic at the southern border with Trump as president. He makes the case that Trump will not be abandoned by the experts who advised him during his first administration, and he will delegate responsibilities to capable and trustworthy policymakers. He also argues that Kamala is an ?incompetent and unqualified vice president? and that ?radicalism defines her.?  I suspect if you?re listening to this show, you know these two names and have listened to their shows before. It is not an exaggeration to say that Ben and Sam are two of the smartest, most influential, and most insightful voices on the American political scene. That?s one of the reasons we?re so thrilled to host this conversation today. The other is because it?s exactly the kind of conversation we need more of in this country, especially at this moment. I challenge you to think of one debate you heard during this election that was passionate and provocative, but also civil and respectful, between a Trump supporter and a Harris supporter. I can?t think of one. That?s why we put this together. And we really think you?re going to appreciate what you hear. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We don?t think it?s an exaggeration to say that we?re standing at the precipice of what could be a third world war. At the very least, the thing that we refer to as the ?Free World? is burning at its outer edges. Just a few weeks ago, Iran launched its largest-ever ballistic missile attack against Israel, while its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to wage war against Israel, making use of the steady flow of weaponry and funding from Iran?which is ever closer to having nuclear weapons. The war in Ukraine continues to rage, with both sides engaged in intense fighting across multiple fronts. After over a year and a half of relentless Russian bombardment, Ukraine is barely holding the line as the grinding war of attrition drags on. According to The Wall Street Journal, more than one million people on both sides of the border have been killed or injured. And then there?s China, which has lately been attacking Philippine and Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea, terrorizing international waters with impunity as the world watches anxiously. Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran have solidified a new axis of autocracy, united in its goal to unravel the Pax Americana and undermine American dominance. The question on our minds tonight is: What should America do about it? Many Americans are saying they don?t want the United States to continue leading the world order. A 2023 Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey revealed that 42 percent of Americans think that the U.S. should stay out of world affairs, which is the highest number recorded since 1974. It is easy to talk about foreign policy as an abstract idea because war, for us, is thousands of miles away. But foreign policy is a matter of life and death. Not just for people around the world, but for the more than two million Americans that serve in our armed forces. It?s conventional wisdom that American voters don?t prioritize foreign policy. But this year, given the state of the world, that might be different. Which is why we hosted a debate, live in NYC, on this very topic.  Arguing that, yes, the U.S. should still police the world is Bret Stephens. Stephens is an opinion columnist for The New York Times and editor in chief of Sapir. As a foreign affairs columnist of The Wall Street Journal, he was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. And he is the author of America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder. Bret was joined by James Kirchick, contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, writer at large for Air Mail, and contributing writer for Tablet. He is the author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age. He is also a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Arguing that no, the U.S. should not still police the world is none other than Matt Taibbi. Taibbi is a journalist, the founder of Racket News, and the author of 10 books, including four New York Times bestsellers. Matt was joined by Lee Fang. Lee is an independent investigative journalist, primarily writing on Substack at LeeFang.com. From 2015 to 2023, he was a reporter for The Intercept. Be it resolved: The U.S. should still police the world. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices