Conversations with Bill Kristol

By Bill Kristol

News & Politics

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Conversations with Bill Kristol features in-depth, thought-provoking discussions with leading figures in American public life.

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Francis Fukuyama on the War...

01.24.2023

Eleven months into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? What does the West need to do to help Ukraine win? What lessons can we draw from the war about the ambitions of authoritarians, the resolve of liberal democracies ...

Conversations with Bill Kristol episodes:

01.24.2023 Francis Fukuyama on the War in Ukraine, Authoritarianism, and Liberal Democracy Eleven months into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? What does the West need to do to help Ukraine win? What lessons can we draw from the war about the ambitions of authoritarians, the resolve of liberal democracies ...
01.10.2023 James Carville: Biden, Trump, Our Parties, and 2024 Where do things stand two years into Biden's presidency? Should he seek reelection? What other prospective Democratic candidates might emerge in the months ahead? What are the odds Trump will be the Republican nominee, and what might a Republican primary ...
12.20.2022 Harvey Mansfield on Locke, Aristotle, and the Spirit of Liberalism What is liberalism? How did political thinkers like Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu pave the way for modern liberal societies? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield. Mansfield explains the choice of a ...
12.09.2022 Royal Hansen: Cybersecurity and National Security in the Digital Age What is cybersecurity? How has cybersecurity become integrally connected to our national security? What has the War in Ukraine taught us about the vulnerabilities we face? What kinds of cyber threats should we be prepared to meet in the future?To ...
11.29.2022 Whit Ayres: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Road to 2024 What did the midterm elections reveal about Donald Trump’s strength in the Republican Party? What are the central tensions in the GOP as we head into 2023—and what are Trump's chances to win the nomination in 2024? Might Republican elected ...
11.11.2022 Ronald Brownstein: After the 2022 Midterms, What’s Next? What happened in the midterms? What can explain why the 2022 midterm elections defied expectations and countered the trends of recent history? Will Trump be challenged successfully for the Republican nomination? Will Biden run again? To discuss these and other ...
10.26.2022 Frederick Kagan on Ukraine: Where Things Stand—and the Stakes for the Future Eight months into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? According to Fred Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, Ukraine’s stunning battlefield achievements have dramatically altered the dynamic of the war. As he ...
10.14.2022 Ray Takeyh on Iran: Are We Witnessing a Revolution? Iran today is in some kind of revolutionary stage…. All social classes are united behind the idea that they want the extinction of the regime, and all social classes seem to be united on the proposition that reform is not ...
09.29.2022 William Baude: On the Supreme Court after Dobbs After the historic Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, what should we look for as the Supreme Court begins a new term? How will the Court handle controversial subjects such as affirmative action and religious freedom? How should we understand ...
09.09.2022 William Galston: The Politics of Abortion after Dobbs, the 2022 Midterms, and Beyond How has the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade affected the course of the 2022 midterm elections? How has it affected the standing of the two political parties? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Brookings Institution ...
09.01.2022 Tom Tugendhat on Ukraine, NATO, and Strengthening the Alliance of Free States Where do things stand in Ukraine six months into the war? How have the United States, Britain, and NATO contributed to the war effort to this point? What more could we do in the months ahead? What broader lessons should ...
08.27.2022 Ed Glaeser: The Case for Cities Why do great cities rise and fall? Why have cities been pivotal to the dynamism and growth of America's economy? What are the threats cities face today—and what can we learn from history about how best to help our cities ...
08.05.2022 Whit Ayres: On the Republican Party, Donald Trump, the Midterms and 2024 What have we learned about Donald Trump’s influence on Republican elected officials, candidates, and voters through the primary season? What are the central tensions in the party as we head toward the midterms and 2024? To discuss these questions, we ...
07.27.2022 A.B. Stoddard on Biden, Trump, and the Parties: How Crazy Could It Get in 2023 and 2024? Is Donald Trump still the center of gravity in the Republican Party? Will Joe Biden run for reelection? What might our politics look like in 2023 as the races for the 2024 presidential primaries kick into gear? To discuss these ...
07.13.2022 Joe Trippi: The Democrats and the 2022 Midterms In the spring of 2019, when most analysts thought Joe Biden had little chance of winning the party’s nomination, Democratic strategist Joe Trippi predicted that Biden would be the nominee. Now, as analysts predict a Republican wave election in the ...
06.23.2022 Eric Edelman on Ukraine, NATO, and Confronting Our Strategic Challenges What is the state of the war in Ukraine? What is the Ukrainian theory of victory? What are Vladimir Putin’s current aims? What are the strategic and political challenges facing the US and NATO allies? To discuss these questions, we ...
06.08.2022 Stan Veuger on Inflation, the Economic Outlook, and Public Policies we Need We see inflation in our daily lives from prices at the pump, groceries, and services—and as a major focus in our politics. How have the war in Ukraine, the response to Covid in China, and other domestic and international developments ...
05.18.2022 Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns: the Biden Administration, the Parties, 2022 and 2024 Nearly a year and a half into his presidency, how is Joe Biden doing? What are the key tensions within the Democratic Party? How strong is Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party? To discuss these questions, we are joined ...
05.12.2022 Michael Luttig: January 6 and the Ongoing Threat to American Democracy In a recent article, Judge J. Michael Luttig warns that the last presidential election was a dry run for the next. As he explains, since 2020, our political leaders have yet to do what is necessary to protect against future ...
04.28.2022 Frederick Kagan on the War in Ukraine: Where Things Stand Two months into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? What explains the Russian military's failures on the battlefield—and the brave and intelligent resistance of the Ukrainians? How should we grade the response of the US and NATO allies? ...
04.18.2022 Mark Mills: Energy Realism and Geopolitics Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has put the dangers of European reliance on Russian oil and gas into sharp focus. The debate on energy policy in the West is, however, too often built on wishful thinking—particularly regarding our ability to ...
03.31.2022 Stephen Rosen: Taking The Nuclear Threat Seriously Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We need to be prepared to respond to Putin's threats—and to do so effectively we have to understand the role of nuclear weapons in Russian strategy, in American foreign policy, ...
03.23.2022 Aaron Friedberg: The War in Ukraine and the Geopolitical Moment Nearly a month into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? What have we learned from the Ukrainian resistance, the response of America and NATO allies, Putin’s ambitions, and China’s decisions? To discuss these questions, we are joined by ...
03.13.2022 Paul Cantor: Shakespeare and Politics Paul Cantor (1945 - 2022) was one of the preeminent Shakespeare scholars of our time as well as a great popular culture appreciator, critic, and teacher. We were fortunate to host Paul Cantor ten times on Conversations with Bill Kristol, ...
03.06.2022 Garry Kasparov: Dictators and Democracies In this Conversation, released originally in 2018, former world chess champion and human rights activist Garry Kasparov shares his perspective on threats to Western democracies from dictators abroad and illiberal movements at home. Analyzing the geopolitical situation, Kasparov argues that ...
03.01.2022 Eric Edelman: How the West Should Respond to Putin’s War in Ukraine How should the U.S. and others in the West respond to Putin’s war on Ukraine? What dangers and opportunities might we face in the days and weeks ahead? How might the war reshape geopolitics? Less than a week into Vladimir ...
02.25.2022 Anne Applebaum: Putin’s War on Ukraine and its Consequences What is driving Vladimir Putin? What wider ramifications might follow from the war? Why should the fate of Ukraine concern us all? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Anne Applebaum, a leading historian and commentator on Ukraine, Russia, ...
02.02.2022 Diana Schaub: Interpreting Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is considered one of history's most compelling examples of political rhetoric. In this Conversation, Diana Schaub, a preeminent scholar of American political thought and author of His Greatest Speeches: How Lincoln Moved the Nation, argues that ...
01.20.2022 Jonathan Karl: Why Donald Trump’s Election Lies Matter In his recent book Betrayal, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl writes: We now live in a nation where a large part of the population does not trust our elections. There are many reasons for this, but none greater ...
01.06.2022 John McWhorter on Woke Politics, Race, and Education A professor of linguistics at Columbia University and author of the recent book Woke Racism, John McWhorter has been an outspoken critic of woke politics. The appeal to wokeness, he argues, presents a simplistic view of race and attempts to ...
12.14.2021 Ashish Jha on Covid-19: On the Omicron Variant and the Outlook for 2022 Where do things stand with Covid-19? How has the emergence of the Omicron variant changed the situation? What can we expect in the short term and throughout 2022? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Dr. Ashish Jha, ...
12.02.2021 Shep Melnick on Title IX: Equity, Due Process, and Free Speech on Campus In a recent essay, Shep Melnick, a distinguished scholar of American politics at Boston College, writes: Few federal laws have achieved their initial objective more completely than Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Yet today Title IX is ...
11.19.2021 Scott Lincicome on the Economy, Inflation, and the Supply Chain Why have the costs of basic goods and services been increasing in recent months? Will shortages in stores and delays in orders for durable goods persist—and what is the meaning of the often invoked supply-chain issues? What public policies might ...
11.05.2021 Linda Chavez: The Border, the Biden Administration, and Immigration Reform In recent years, immigration has become a major flashpoint in our politics. Our increasingly rancorous quarrels often serve to obscure rather than clarify policy choices, and make it more difficult to achieve sound policies. As a result, even as attention ...
10.21.2021 Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli as the Founder of Modernity But since my intent is to write something useful to whoever understands it, it has appeared to me more fitting to go directly to the effectual truth of the thing than to the imagination of it. — Niccolo Machiavelli, in ...
10.08.2021 William Baude on Election Subversion: How Great a Threat? In a recent law review article, University of Chicago law professor William Baude writes, After the 2020 presidential election, the peaceful transfer of power can no longer be taken for granted. How well did our institutions respond to the challenges? ...
09.21.2021 Joe Trippi: The Biden Administration, the Parties, and Looking Ahead to the Midterms Eight months into his presidency, how is Joe Biden doing politically? How should we understand the current dynamics in the Democratic and Republican parties? What key things should we look for as we head toward the midterm elections in 2022? ...
09.08.2021 Donald Kagan: War and Human Nature Donald Kagan (1932 - 2021), who passed away this summer, was a preeminent historian of both the ancient and modern worlds. In 2015, we were privileged to host Professor Kagan for a wide-ranging Conversation about the major themes of his ...
09.03.2021 Aaron Friedberg: On US-China Relations and the Threats We Face How will the American withdrawal from Afghanistan influence US-China relations? How should we understand China’s geostrategic ambitions—and the threat to Taiwan in particular? How is America dealing with the challenge? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Princeton ...
08.26.2021 Eric Edelman: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations Civilian control over the military, and a non-partisan military, have been bedrock principles of American government since the founding of the country. In recent times, however, significant strains have developed in our civil-military relations. Why should we be alarmed about ...
08.12.2021 David Epstein: The Political Ideas of The Federalist Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to defend the ratification of the Constitution, The Federalist has long been recognized as a fundamental text in American political thought. Yet the complexity and subtlety of The Federalist as a ...
07.28.2021 Ashish Jha: On the Delta Variant, Vaccines, and Where We Stand Where do things stand with Covid-19? How has the emergence of the Delta variant changed the situation? How might things look in the US as we had into the fall? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Dr. ...
07.16.2021 Harvey Mansfield: On Political Philosophy First released in June 2014, this Conversation is the first in our series of Conversations with Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield, one of the leading students of political philosophy. In it, Mansfield reflects on the importance of studying political philosophy ...
07.09.2021 Eric Edelman: On the Consequences of Withdrawal from Afghanistan The Biden Administration has announced that all American troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of August. This would, in Biden’s words, bring to end America’s longest war. In this Conversation, Eric Edelman shares his perspective on the decision ...
06.30.2021 Sean Trende on the Republicans, the Democrats, and Looking Ahead to 2022 and 2024 Where do the Republican and Democratic parties stand almost six months into the Biden presidency? How could changes in emphasis and legislative priorities for each party influence the direction of our politics? What are possible paths forward for the parties' ...
06.18.2021 Jonathan Rauch on Polarization, Information Warfare, and Cancel Culture How has America become so polarized? Has negative partisanship opened the floodgates for disinformation and propaganda in our politics? How is cancel culture related to information warfare? How can those who believe in free government fight back? In this Conversation, ...
06.02.2021 Paul Cantor: Shakespeare and Comedy What is the nature of comedy? How does it differ from tragedy? What can we learn from Shakespeare’s comedies that we might miss if we focus only on tragedies? In this Conversation, Paul Cantor presents a tour-de-force analysis of the ...
05.20.2021 Roya Hakakian: Immigration and the American Idea What is the role of immigration in the history of the United States—and the idea of America? Why has America been uniquely successful at integrating immigrants while other countries often fail? What is the connection between immigration and American patriotism? ...
05.06.2021 Stan Veuger: What is Bidenomics? How should we analyze the economic policies advanced by the Biden Administration? What are the possible effects of the trillions of dollars in government spending and the various programs proposed by the administration? What is America’s overall economic outlook coming ...
04.23.2021 Mark Blitz on Reason, Politics, and Human Nature What can reason tell us about rights, freedom, responsibility, and the common good? What obstacles stand in the way of human beings developing clear thoughts about politics and its role within nature? How can attention to our experiences—for example, of ...

Older episodes

Conversations with Bill Kristol

What's Conversations with Bill Kristol about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Conversations with Bill Kristol episodes:

Francis Fukuyama on the War in Ukraine, Authoritarianism, and Liberal Democracy

James Carville: Biden, Trump, Our Parties, and 2024

Harvey Mansfield on Locke, Aristotle, and the Spirit of Liberalism

Royal Hansen: Cybersecurity and National Security in the Digital Age

Whit Ayres: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Road to 2024

Ronald Brownstein: After the 2022 Midterms, What’s Next?

Frederick Kagan on Ukraine: Where Things Stand—and the Stakes for the Future

Ray Takeyh on Iran: Are We Witnessing a Revolution?

William Baude: On the Supreme Court after Dobbs

William Galston: The Politics of Abortion after Dobbs, the 2022 Midterms, and Beyond

Tom Tugendhat on Ukraine, NATO, and Strengthening the Alliance of Free States

Ed Glaeser: The Case for Cities

Whit Ayres: On the Republican Party, Donald Trump, the Midterms and 2024

A.B. Stoddard on Biden, Trump, and the Parties: How Crazy Could It Get in 2023 and 2024?

Joe Trippi: The Democrats and the 2022 Midterms

Eric Edelman on Ukraine, NATO, and Confronting Our Strategic Challenges

Stan Veuger on Inflation, the Economic Outlook, and Public Policies we Need

Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns: the Biden Administration, the Parties, 2022 and 2024

Michael Luttig: January 6 and the Ongoing Threat to American Democracy

Frederick Kagan on the War in Ukraine: Where Things Stand

Mark Mills: Energy Realism and Geopolitics

Stephen Rosen: Taking The Nuclear Threat Seriously

Aaron Friedberg: The War in Ukraine and the Geopolitical Moment

Paul Cantor: Shakespeare and Politics

Garry Kasparov: Dictators and Democracies

Eric Edelman: How the West Should Respond to Putin’s War in Ukraine

Anne Applebaum: Putin’s War on Ukraine and its Consequences

Diana Schaub: Interpreting Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

Jonathan Karl: Why Donald Trump’s Election Lies Matter

John McWhorter on Woke Politics, Race, and Education

Ashish Jha on Covid-19: On the Omicron Variant and the Outlook for 2022

Shep Melnick on Title IX: Equity, Due Process, and Free Speech on Campus

Scott Lincicome on the Economy, Inflation, and the Supply Chain

Linda Chavez: The Border, the Biden Administration, and Immigration Reform

Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli as the Founder of Modernity

William Baude on Election Subversion: How Great a Threat?

Joe Trippi: The Biden Administration, the Parties, and Looking Ahead to the Midterms

Donald Kagan: War and Human Nature

Aaron Friedberg: On US-China Relations and the Threats We Face

Eric Edelman: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations

David Epstein: The Political Ideas of The Federalist

Ashish Jha: On the Delta Variant, Vaccines, and Where We Stand

Harvey Mansfield: On Political Philosophy

Eric Edelman: On the Consequences of Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Sean Trende on the Republicans, the Democrats, and Looking Ahead to 2022 and 2024

Jonathan Rauch on Polarization, Information Warfare, and Cancel Culture

Paul Cantor: Shakespeare and Comedy

Roya Hakakian: Immigration and the American Idea

Stan Veuger: What is Bidenomics?

Mark Blitz on Reason, Politics, and Human Nature

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