Dishcast Archive
Find all of our pod episodes in one place, along with corresponding clips and transcripts.
Below are all our guests organized under a general theme (though many could fit under multiple themes):
Foreign Affairs: Fareed Zakaria, Christopher Caldwell, Fraser Nelson, Robert Wright, Tina Brown, Fiona Hill, Samuel Ramani, Edward Luttwak, Anne Applebaum, John Mearsheimer, Yossi Klein Halevi, Dominic Cummings, Michael Schuman, Michael Moynihan, Peter Beinart, Niall Ferguson, Tim Shipman
Race/Wokeness: Douglas Murray, Jonathan Haidt, Johann Hari, Christopher Rufo, John McWhorter, Briahna Joy Gray, Wesley Yang, Glenn Greenwald, Kmele Foster, Michael Hirschorn
Immigration/Diversity: Amy Chua, Bryan Caplan, Charles Murray, Eric Kaufmann, Nick Miroff, Mickey Kaus, Christopher Caldwell, Matt Yglesias
Trump/Politics: Damon Linker, Dexter Filkins, Larry Summers, Matthew Continetti, Ann Coulter, Bob Woodward & Robert Costa, Michael Wolff, Jonathan Rauch, Michael Anton, David Frum, Damir Marusic & Shadi Hamid, Shadi Hamid, Olivia Nuzzi, Coleman Hughes, Sam Harris
Gender/Sex: Richard Reeves, Louise Perry, Jamie Kirchick, Bari Weiss, Kathleen Stock, Christina Sommers & Danielle Crittenden, Katie Herzog & Jamie Kirchick, Carole Hooven, Julie Bindel, Buck Angel & Helena Kerschner, Emily Yoffe, Mara Keisling, Dana Beyer
Pandemics: Peter Staley, David Wallace-Wells (twice), Michael O’Loughlin, Michael Lewis, Meghan Daum
Philosophy/Religion: Kathryn Schulz, Yoram Hazony, Frank Bruni, Christopher Hitchens, Matthew Rose, Sohrab Ahmari, Jennifer Senior, David Goodhart, Francis Fukuyama, David French, Nicholas Christakis, Jim Holt, Roosevelt Montás, Steven Pinker, Cornel West, Antonio García Martínez, Ross Douthat, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Caitlin Flanagan
Addiction/Psychedelics: Maia Szalavitz, Michael Shellenberger, Sam Quinones, Michael Pollan, Shawn McCreesh, Sally Satel, Brian Muraresku
To jump down to a brief episode description, along with links to its audio page, clips, and select transcripts, just type “Command + F” (for Mac) or “Control + F” (for PC) and enter the guest’s last name. (You can also enter the word “transcript” to pop down to one of 23 current transcripts: Angel/Kerschner, Woodward/Costa, Herzog/Kirchick, Brown, Cummings, Flanagan, French, Greenwald, Haidt, Halevi, Hill, Hitchens, Mearsheimer, McWhorter, Kirchick, Montás, Moynihan, Murray, Perry, Rauch, Rose, Rufo, Shellenberger, West, Yang.)
Episode descriptions are listed below in reverse chronological order:
Damon Linker On The Midterms And Extremism (11/11/22)
Damon is a political writer who recently launched his own Substack, “Eyes on the Right.” He’s been the editor of First Things and a senior correspondent at The Week, and he’s the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test. Back when we were both at Newsweek / Daily Beast, he edited my essays, so we’ve been friends for a while. We also both belong to the camp of conflicted moderates. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Fareed Zakaria On Colonialism And Liberalism (11/4/22)
Fareed is the host of the CNN show “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” which has been on the air since 2008. He’s also a columnist for the Washington Post and the author of several bestsellers, including In Defense of a Liberal Education, The Post-American World, and his latest, Ten Lessons For a Post-Pandemic World. He’s also been a friend since 1983. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Kathryn Schulz On Love And Grieving (10/28/22)
Kathryn is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she won a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize for “The Really Big One,” about a future earthquake that will wreak havoc on the Pacific Northwest. She’s also the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, and in this episode we discuss Lost & Found, a memoir about falling madly in love while her father lay dying. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Christopher Caldwell On Europe's Turmoil (10/21/22)
Chris — an old friend and, in my view, one of the sharpest right-of-center writers in journalism — returns to the Dishcast. A senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and contributing editor to the Claremont Review of Books, his latest book, The Age of Entitlement, is a constitutional narrative of the last half-century that is indispensable — especially for liberals — in understanding the roots of our polarization. We discussed the book here. This time on the pod, Chris has just returned from Europe and discusses the rapidly shifting politics there. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Yoram Hazony On Making America Devout Again (10/14/22)
Yoram is a philosopher, Bible scholar, and political theorist. He founded the Shalem Center, a research institute in Israel, and he’s currently president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and serves as chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation in DC. He is one of the most compelling writers in the “post-liberalism” camp on the right, and his most recent book is Conservatism: A Rediscovery. I think you’ll find I challenged him on everything. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Frank Bruni On The Silver Linings Of Suffering (10/7/22)
Frank is a longtime writer at the NYT — ranging from White House correspondent to chief restaurant critic to op-ed columnist, and now also a journalism professor at Duke. We’ve known each other for many years, gay writers of the same generation. His latest book is the bestselling memoir The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found, about aging and optimism after Frank began to go blind. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Richard Reeves On Struggling Men And Boys (9/30/22)
He’s a senior fellow at Brookings, where he directs the Boys and Men Project. His latest book is Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. I’m fascinated by the challenges of modernity for the weaker sex (men), and Richard has grappled with the questions more calmly than most. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Christopher Hitchens On Religion And Terrorism (9/23/22)
As you’ll tell from my brief new intro to this 2006 conversation, my voice right now is so eviscerated I can’t speak at all. Silenced at last! So here is a very early experiment I did with kinda-podcasting, when I took a microphone to Hitch’s place and let the tape roll. A blast from the grave in some ways. We debated the nature of religion and the global war on terrorism. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Louise Perry On The Sexual Revolution (9/16/22)
She’s a writer and campaigner against sexual violence. This year she co-founded a non-partisan feminist think tank called The Other Half, where she serves as Research Director. Her debut book is The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here. Extensive listener debate here.
Matthew Rose On The Radical Right (9/9/22)
A scholar of religion, Rose is currently Senior Fellow and Director of the Barry Center on the University and Intellectual Life — a project of the Morningside Institute — and he previously taught at Villanova. His newest book is A World After Liberalism, an examination of five far-right thinkers, from Julius Evola to Sam Francis, who are proving increasingly influential in post-liberal conservatism in America. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Dexter Filkins On DeSantis And Trump (8/12/22)
How to think about DeSantis? We decided to ask Dexter Filkins, who wrote a super-smart profile of the man for The New Yorker. Dexter is an award-winning journalist best known for covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the New York Times. His book, The Forever War, won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. He’s the best in the business, a native of Florida, and a longtime friend of the Dish. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Sohrab Ahmari On The Failures Of Liberalism (8/5/22)
He’s a founder and editor of Compact: A Radical American Journal, and he’s a contributing editor at The American Conservative. His books include From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith and The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos. A new voice for a new conservatism, I tried to talk him through how he got to this place — politically and spiritually. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Larry Summers On Inflation And Mistakes (7/29/22)
He’s in the news again this week — after persuading Joe Manchin that the climate and healthcare bill he’s pushing isn’t inflationary. Larry Summers has had a storied career, as the chief economist of the World Bank, the treasury secretary under Clinton, and the director of the National Economic Council under Obama. He also was the president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006 and remains there as a professor. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Fraser Nelson On The PM Race And Tory Diversity (7/22/22)
He’s a Scottish Catholic highlander who now edits (brilliantly) the Spectator in London. Deeply versed in Tory politics, and sympathetic to Boris, he seemed the ideal person to ask to explain what’s been going on in Westminster, what went so wrong under PM Johnson, and who is likely to replace him. It’s a one-stop guide to contemporary British politics in a mild Scottish accent. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Peter Staley On AIDS And Monkeypox (7/15/22)
Peter is a political activist, most famously as a pioneering member of ACT UP — the grassroots AIDS group that challenged and changed the federal government. Check out his memoir, Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism. He’s an old friend and sparring partner, so the episode gets fiery at times. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips, and here for a long segment on the feds’ failures on monkeypox.
Matthew Continetti On Conservatism (7/8/22)
He’s a journalist who worked at The Weekly Standard and co-founded The Washington Free Beacon, where he served as editor-in-chief. Currently he’s a contributing editor at National Review, a columnist at Commentary, and a senior fellow at AEI. We discuss his wonderful book, The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism. Go here for the full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Jennifer Senior On Friendship (7/1/22)
She was a long-time staff writer at New York magazine and a daily book critic for the NYT. Her own book is the bestseller, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood. She’s now a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she won the 2022 Pulitzer for Feature Writing. In this episode we focus on her essay, “It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart.” Go here for the full description and audio. Go here, here and here for clips.
Jill Abramson On Journalism And Beltway Scandals (6/24/22)
Jill is a journalist, academic, and the author of five books. She’s best known as the first woman to become executive editor at the New York Times, from 2011 to 2014. She’s currently a professor in the English department at Harvard. We’ve been friends forever. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
David Goodhart On Overvaluing Smarts (6/17/22)
He’s a British journalist who founded Prospect, the center-left political magazine, where he served as editor for 15 years, and then became the director of Demos, the cross-party think tank. We discuss his latest book, Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Jamie Kirchick On Gay Washington (6/10/22)
We took the podcast on the road — to Provincetown for a live chat with Jamie Kirchick, whose new book, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, I reviewed here. We were able to discuss much more than could be covered in pixels — with questions from the audience as well. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Robert Wright On The Ukraine Crisis (6/3/22)
He is a journalist, public intellectual, and the author of many books, including The Moral Animal, Nonzero, The Evolution of God, and Why Buddhism Is True. Bob is quite simply brilliant, and his books have been very influential in the development of my own thinking. Empirical but spiritual, he’s one of a kind. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Francis Fukuyama On Liberalism’s Crisis (5/27/22)
He is simply the most sophisticated and nuanced political scientist in the field today. Frank is currently at Stanford, but he’s also taught at Johns Hopkins and George Mason. The author of almost a dozen books, his most famous is The End of History and the Last Man, published shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His new book is Liberalism and Its Discontents. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
David French On Religious Liberty, CRT, Grace (5/20/22)
He’s a political writer and former attorney who took on high-profile cases for religious liberty. He was also a major in the Army Reserve who served in Iraq, and before that he served as president of FIRE, the campus free-speech group. David now writes for The Dispatch and The Atlantic, and the conservative Christian is a mighty critic of the Trump right. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Tina Brown On The Royal Family (5/13/22)
She needs no introduction — but in magazine history, Tina Brown is rightly deemed a legend, reviving Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, before turning to the web and The Daily Beast (where I worked for her). We talked journalism, life and royals — her latest book is The Palace Papers. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Douglas Murray On Defending The West (5/6/22)
He’s a British writer and commentator, primarily for The Spectator, and his latest book is The War on the West. It’s a powerful narrative of the past couple of decades, in which a small minority waged ideological war on the underpinnings of Western civilization: reason, toleration, free speech, color-blind racial politics. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Bari Weiss On Saving Liberalism From Right And Left (4/29/22)
She was an op-ed editor at the WSJ and the NYT before leaving to create her own op-ed page on Substack, Common Sense. For some reason Bari is one of the most reviled figures on Left Twitter, despite being one of the most gifted editors of her generation. We talk groomers and culture war desperation and the amnesia of recent triumphs. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Jonathan Haidt On Social Media’s Havoc (4/15/22)
He’s a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at the NYU Stern School of Business, and he co-founded Heterodox Academy. His latest book is The Coddling of the American Mind, but our discussion centered on his new piece for The Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” a history of social media. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Nicholas Christakis On Covid And Friendship (4/8/22)
He is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale, where he directs the Human Nature Lab and co-directs the Yale Institute for Network Science. We talked Covid, plagues, and friendship as a virtue. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Fiona Hill On Russia, Trump, The American Dream (4/1/22)
She was an intel analyst under Bush and Obama and then served under Trump as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. Currently a senior fellow at Brookings, her new book is There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Samuel Ramani On Deciphering Russia (3/25/22)
He is a tutor in the Department of Political Science at Oxford and a member of the Royal United Services Institute in London. He has studied Russia’s wars in Chechnya and Syria, and has two books in the works — one on Russia in Africa and another on the current war in Ukraine. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Maia Szalavitz On Drugs And Harm Reduction (3/11/22)
She is the author of Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction and Undoing Drugs. Much of her reporting and research on harm reduction is informed by her own history of drug addiction, including heroin, which we discussed in detail. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Jim Holt On Philosophy, Humor, Hitchens (3/4/22)
I’ve known Jim forever, and he’s one of the liveliest and rudest conversationalists. He’s the author of Why Does the World Exist?, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes, and his latest, When Einstein Walked with Gödel. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Edward Luttwak On Putin, China, Brexit (2/25/22)
He’s a military strategist, historian, and consultant in the “grand strategy” school of geopolitics who has advised many world leaders. He’s the author of almost two dozen books, including Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook and, most recently, The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Anne Applebaum On The Ukraine Crisis (2/16/22)
Who better to comment on the Ukraine standoff as the days unfold than Anne Applebaum? She’s a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of many formidable books, including Red Famine, Gulag: A History (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and her latest, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Kathleen Stock On The Nature Of Sex And Gender (2/11/22)
She was a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex for nearly 20 years. In the fall of 2021, she resigned under duress following a vicious campaign to have her fired for questioning the policy goals of radical trans activists. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Johann Hari On Our Attention Crisis (2/4/22)
His latest subject is the modern curse of screen-driven distraction, and how to combat it: Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — And How To Think Deeply Again. Johann is a close friend, so excuse some of the informality and jokiness at the beginning of this chin-wag. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
John Mearsheimer On Handling Russia And China (1/28/22)
The question of how to deal with a resurgent Russia and a new super-power in China is now an urgent one to think through. I couldn’t think of a better person to kick off this debate than John Mearsheimer, a titan in the field of international relations, and the most eloquent defender of realism in foreign policy I know. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Roosevelt Montás On Saving The Humanities (1/21/22)
He led the humanities-rich Core Curriculum at Columbia for a decade and still teaches there. His new book is Rescuing Socrates. We talk of Augustine and Socrates and Freud and Gandhi and the timelessness of the great texts. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Christopher Rufo On CRT In Schools (1/14/22)
He’s a key architect of the anti-CRT legislation being passed in state legislatures around the country. He’s also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and his Twitter account is tirelessly flagging examples of CRT in the public school system, corporate America, and elsewhere. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Yossi Klein Halevi On Zionism (1/7/22)
He’s an American-born Israeli journalist whose latest book is Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor. I truly enjoyed our conversation — alternately honest and difficult. How can one admire Israel while also being candid about its flaws? Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Michael Shellenberger On Homelessness, Addiction, Crime (12/17/21)
I belatedly came to Shellenberger in my research on nuclear power’s potential to help cut carbon emissions. But his new book is what gave me the idea to interview him. On homelessness, crime, addiction, and the fast-deterioration of our public spaces, San Fran-sicko, despite its trolly title, is empirical, tough-minded and, in my view, humane. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
David Wallace-Wells On Omicron And COP26 (12/10/21)
The Covid news keeps coming, and who better to talk to than David Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine’s Covid specialist and environmental correspondent. He was on the Dishcast early this year, before the vaccines arrived, and he’s about as honest a broker on the pandemic as anyone. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Femsplainers (+ Frum) On Culture Wars, Covid, Russiagate (12/3/21)
I’ve been meaning to invite Christina Sommers and Danielle Crittenden on the pod since they first had me on theirs, Femsplainers, a few years ago. This week we talked about men and women, trans and cis, gay and straight, and they drank rosé and I smoked half a joint. Danielle’s husband, David Frum, also stopped by. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Michael O'Loughlin On AIDS And The Church (11/26/21)
Many of you will recall the horrendous way in which the Catholic Church hierarchy responded to the AIDS crisis. But it was not the only story. On the ground, many lay Catholics, priests and nuns defied the hierarchy and came to the aid of the young and sick and dying. Michael O’Loughlin, another gay Catholic, has written a history book, Hidden Mercy, about this other story. We talked faith, sex, disease, and redemption. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Dominic Cummings On Boris, Brexit, Immigration (11/19/21)
How to introduce Dominic Cummings? I’d say he has a decent claim to be one of the most influential figures in modern European history, whatever you think of him. He innovated Brexit, led the Leave campaign, then guided Boris Johnson into a stinking election victory in 2019. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Sam Quinones On Addiction And Bouncing Back (11/12/21)
The author of Dreamland is out with another book about the explosion of hard and dangerous drugs, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. His reporting was an indispensable part of my big magazine piece on the opioid crisis, and we go into great detail on the pod. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Ann Coulter on Trump and Immigration (11/5/21)
She’s the author of 13 NYT bestselling books, including Adios, America. I know, I know. A lot of you are going to get mad at me for this one. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Steven Pinker On Rationality In Our Tribal Times (10/29/21)
His new book is Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. It’s like taking a Harvard course on the tricks our minds play on us. We had a blast — and I pressed him on several points. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Go here to watch the video.
John McWhorter On Woke Racism (10/22/21)
The Columbia linguist just wrote a bracing tract, Woke Racism, against the new elite religion. He, like me, despises the racism inherent in critical race theory and its various off-shoots, and let’s just say we talked very freely about many of the dynamics of our time. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the whole transcript here.
Bob Woodward & Robert Costa On The Peril Of Trump (10/15/21)
Two of the planet's best reporters uncover more details about the Trump administration. This conversation is a civil, careful examination of the core political question we face today: how can we save liberal democracy from becoming tyranny? Go here for a full description and audio. Go here to watch a recording in living color. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Cornel West On God And The Great Thinkers (10/8/21)
His academic career is long and storied, having taught religion, philosophy, and African-American studies at Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and Union Theological Seminary. Erudite, passionate, and deeply humane, he is an unapologetically leftist Christian, who is also a champion of free speech, civility and the classics. In other words: a rare and beautiful man. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Briahna Joy Gray On Race And Class (10/1/21)
A lawyer and political consultant who served as press secretary for Bernie Sanders, Briahna co-hosts the superb podcast Bad Faith. I start our enjoyable convo with a simple question: how can we best facilitate the flourishing of black America? A tough but civil conversation. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. The debate continued on Briahna’s podcast.
Antonio García Martínez On Christianity And Woke Religion (9/24/21)
He’s quite the Renaissance man: child of Cuban exiles, journalist, PhD student in physics, Wall Street ace, entrepreneur, Facebook ad pioneer, and Silicon Valley apostate. In this episode we dive deep into our Catholic backgrounds, his break toward Judaism, and the new Woke religion. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Ross Douthat On Lyme, Chronic Pain, Faith (9/17/21)
He’s a dear old colleague whose newest book, The Deep Places, is a memoir about his long fight against Lyme disease. In this episode we talked about the world of sickness, which we both know something about, and we debated our differing views of Pope Francis and our different levels of panic over Trump and CRT. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Michael Wolff On The Enduring Danger Of Trump (9/10/21)
A longtime media critic and now the author of three Trump tell-alls, Michael talks with me about the 45th president. How politically dangerous is he still? How delusional and mentally unbalanced? We get into it. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Michael Moynihan On Afghanistan And Free Speech (8/20/21)
He is one-third of the The Fifth Column — the sharp, hilarious podcast he does with Kmele Foster and Matt Welch — and he’s a long-time correspondent for Vice. In this episode we mostly cover the cascading news out of Afghanistan, but also bounce around to topics like old media, woke media, neocons and Israel, Big Tech, and third rails. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Michael Schuman On China's Threat And Confucius (8/13/21)
Currently in Hong Kong, Michael is a veteran journalist on East Asian affairs and a regular contributor to The Atlantic and Bloomberg. His most recent book, Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World, explores the driving force behind the current Xi regime. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Michael Lewis On Covid And Grieving (8/6/21)
A chat with the best nonfiction writer in America — and an old friend. Michael’s latest book, The Premonition, spotlights a band of dissenting doctors that battled the inept government response to Covid-19. He also discusses the recent loss of his daughter. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Wesley Yang On The Successor Ideology (7/30/21)
The writer who coined that term — a sort of unifying theory of wokeness — talks with me about the Great Awokening and how to counter it. He’s a columnist for Tablet magazine, the author of The Souls of Yellow Folk, and a newly minted Substacker. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Peter Beinart On Zionism, China, Apartheid (7/23/21)
He’s a long-time friend, fellow ex-editor of The New Republic, and one of the most influential Jewish critics of Netanyahu’s Israel. In this episode we focused on foreign affairs — China, Israel, and South Africa — as well as our shared apostasy when it comes to Iraq and neoconservatism. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Michael Pollan On Caffeine, Opium, Mescaline (7/16/21)
One of the writers I most revere in journalism, Michael has a style that is as lucid as his research is exhaustive. His new book, This Is Your Mind on Plants — specifically coffee, poppies, and the San Pedro cactus — is a continuation of his magisterial How to Change Your Mind, a deep dive into psychedelics that made the subject more respectable than it’s ever been. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Amy Chua On Immigrant Success (7/9/21)
Amy, who you probably know as the Tiger Mom, is a law professor at Yale. In this episode we discussed the experience of being an immigrant, of being a minority within a minority, and the importance of, in her words, “turning being an outsider into a source of strength,” not victimhood. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Katie Herzog & Jamie Kirchick On Pride And Alphabet People (7/2/21)
Katie, one of the last remaining lesbians in America, is the co-host of Blocked and Reported alongside her battered pod-wife, Jesse Singal. Gay neocon Jamie is a Brookings fellow and the author of the forthcoming book Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. If you’d like to hear a politically incorrect gay and lesbian conversation that would never be aired in the MSM, check it out. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Michael Brendan Dougherty On Spiritual Crises (6/25/21)
He’s a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a prolific writer, primarily for National Review. In this episode, the conservative Catholic writer and former atheist discusses “liquid modernity” and the Great Awokening. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Carole Hooven On Testosterone And The Nature Of Sex (6/18/21)
Prof. Hooven is an evolutionary biologist and the author of the awesome new book, T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us. She’s a teaching star at Harvard and it’s easy to see why. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Bryan Caplan On Open Borders (6/11/21)
He teaches economics at George Mason University. His views on immigration, nation-states, and democracy are extremely different from my own, so we debate all throughout the episode. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Jonathan Rauch On Dangers To Liberalism (6/4/21)
Jon and I go way back to the early days of the marriage movement. In this episode we discussed his important new book, The Constitution of Knowledge, and get into some heated exchanges over Trump, the MSM, and Russiagate — Jon as the optimistic liberal and me as the pessimistic conservative. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Charles Murray On Human Diversity (5/28/21)
He has a new — and probably explosive — book coming out soon, Facing Reality. This conversation is not about that. Instead, I wanted to discuss his last book, which received almost no attention, Human Diversity. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Niall Ferguson On Disasters (5/21/21)
He’s one of my oldest and dearest friends, stretching back to our time at Magdalen College. The prolific historian is out with a new book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Julie Bindel On Gender And Sex Differences (5/14/21)
A co-founder of Justice for Women, she has a long career campaigning against male violence. I disagree with her on many subjects but found strange agreement on others. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Eric Kaufmann On Race And Demographics In The West (4/30/21)
He’s a professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, and he most recently wrote the book Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here clips.
Shawn McCreesh On Surviving The Opioid Crisis (4/23/21)
He’s a first-generation college grad working at the New York Times and just penned a popular op-ed on his own experience growing up in a culture of opioids in suburban Philly. It’s a moving account of a Millennial tragedy. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Buck Angel & Helena Kerschner On Trans And Detrans (4/16/21)
Buck was a pioneering porn star and now a sex educator, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. Helena is a 22-year-old woman who lived as a man on hormone therapy for several years before detransitioning. They share a resistance to the dogma of the trans activist community and speak forcefully and elegantly against it. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Nick Miroff On The Border Crisis (4/9/21)
He’s the supremely talented reporter at the Washington Post covering immigration and DHS, and before that he was a foreign correspondent based in Mexico City and Havana. We tried to break down what is actually happening on the Southern border, and how likely it is to get exponentially worse. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Emily Yoffe On Due Process And Campus Rape (4/2/21)
She’s been the most fearless reporter on the fraught subject of sexual assault and due process on college campuses, first for Slate and then The Atlantic. She also wrote a hilarious book about a beagle, What the Dog Did. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Tim Shipman On Brexit, Boris, The Embattled Crown (3/26/21)
He is simply the best political reporter in Britain and knows the Westminster political class as well as anyone. In this episode, we talk about Boris Johnson’s astonishing luck and charm, as well as the Labour Party’s floundering. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Mickey Kaus On Immigration And Welfare (3/19/21)
He’s an old friend and colleague from way back. His 1992 book, The End of Equality, was hugely influential for welfare reform in the Clinton years. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Sally Satel On Drug Addiction And Personal Agency (3/12/21)
She’s a psychiatrist and journalist who just came back after spending a year with opioid addicts in Ironton, Ohio. We also discussed depression, mental illness, and modernity. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Glenn Greenwald On Woke Journalists, Bolsonaro, Torture (3/5/21)
The indefatigable Greenwald needs no introduction for Dishheads. He was once a demon for the pro-war right; and now for the woke left. You can order his book on Brazil under Bolsonaro, Securing Democracy, and you can donate to the animal shelter he started. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Mara Keisling On The Trans Debate (2/26/21)
She’s a brilliant transgender rights activist and founding executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. I’m so grateful for her willingness to have a robust exchange of views on some issues, along with much agreement as well. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Michael Anton On The State Of Trumpism (2/19/21)
One of the leading intellectuals of Trumpism, Anton was a senior national security official in the Trump administration and is most widely known for writing “The Flight 93 Election,” an essay endorsing Trump in 2016. I think you’ll find our debate, er, lively. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Kmele Foster On Individualism, Equity, Neoracism (2/12/21)
He’s a co-host for the brilliant and funny Fifth Column podcast and the lead producer at Free Think. A friend and an inspiration, Kmele really opens up in this conversation. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
David Wallace-Wells On The Mutating Dangers Of Covid19 (2/5/21)
He’s a deputy editor at New York magazine and one of the sharpest journalists covering the Covid-19 pandemic. This pod is full of fact, insight, and speculation on the virus, the vaccines, and the new variants. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Christopher Caldwell On Downsides Of The Civil Rights Act (1/29/21)
He’s an old friend and, in my view, one of the sharpest right-of-center writers in journalism. A senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and contributing editor to the Claremont Review of Books, his latest book, The Age of Entitlement, is indispensable in understanding the unintended consequences of the Civil Rights Act and the roots of our polarization. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
David Frum On Immigration, Trump, America's Narrative (1/22/21)
Frum needs little introduction; he’s a long-time writer at The Atlantic and the author of many books. We cover a range of issues in this episode, including immigration, Russiagate, and critical race theory. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Michael Hirschorn On Race And Class In America (1/15/21)
He’s the Emmy-winning CEO of Ish Entertainment, which makes political documentaries, and the founder of The People PAC, which promotes democratic values. We talk about race, class, the resistance, the Democrats, “deep canvassing,” the woke and the promise of the unwoke left. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Shadi Hamid On The Capitol Crisis (1/8/21)
A senior fellow at Brookings and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, Shadi runs a podcast and pens articles with Damir Marusic at the Wisdom of Crowds. Shadi has been a strong advocate of the argument that American democracy is resilient, and that Trump never represented an existential threat to American democracy. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Caitlin Flanagan On Cancer, Abortion, Other Christmas Cheer (12/25/20)
She’s a longtime writer at The Atlantic and the author of several books — the most recent is Girl Land. I’ve long been a super-fan. Her extraordinary poise and deep humanity are on full display in our chat. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips. Read the transcript here.
Meghan Daum On The Culture Wars, Covid, Facing Death (12/18/20)
She’s the author of many books and the host of her own podcast, Unspeakable. We talked about our generation; what it feels like, if anything, to be a man or woman; the truthful hyperboles of wokeness and Trump, the poison of Twitter, the lessons of facing death early, and the benefits of solitude. It was a blast. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Damir Marusic & Shadi Hamid On Authoritarian Threats (12/11/20)
This week I did a simulcast episode with Damir and Shadi that will also air on their own podcast, Wisdom of Crowds. We discussed and debated the resilience of American democracy in this fraught time — with some sharp disagreements. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Olivia Nuzzi On Covering Trump (12/4/20)
She’s the brilliant 27-year-old Washington correspondent for my old haunt, New York magazine, who has been covering all things Trump. I talked with her about the man who has defined so much of the news these past five years. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Dana Beyer On The Science Of Sex, Tensions Within "LGBTQ" (11/27/20)
She’s a retired surgeon, a mother, a trans rights advocate, and the former executive director (and current board member) of Gender Rights Maryland. She’s also been on the boards of two Jewish LGBT organizations. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here and here for clips.
Matt Yglesias On Pro-Trump Minorities, Immigrant Patriotism (11/20/20)
The contrarian progressive joins the Dishcast to discuss the fallout of the 2020 election. In the episode we talk about wokeness and media, the cancel culture on the right, the progressives who find patriotism hokey, the black voters who support Biden more than white liberals do, and more. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here and here for clips.
Brian Muraresku On Psychedelics And Christianity (11/13/20)
He’s the author of the NYT bestseller The Immortality Key, which examines the pivotal role that psychedelics may have played in the origins of Western civilization, first among the ancient Greeks and then early Christians. Go here for a full description and audio. Go here for a clip.
Coleman Hughes On The Election’s Blow To Identity Politics (11/6/20)
He’s a brilliant young writer at Quillette on issues related to race, a contributing editor at City Journal, and the host of the podcast Conversations with Coleman. We discuss what kind of authoritarian Trump actually turned out to be, how woke overreach cost the Democrats big this year, and how vulnerable a president Biden could be to the pressures of the identitarian left. Go here for a full description and audio.
Sam Harris On Trump, Biden, The Toll Of Wokeness (10/30/20)
He’s a neuroscientist, philosopher, NYT best-selling author, host of the Making Sense podcast, and creator of the Waking Up App. He’s also an old friend, jousting partner, meditation role model, and all round wonderful man. In thinking who might be an ideal first guest for the first Dishcast, and on the eve of an election, Sam came up immediately. Go here for a full description and audio.
