We’re trying something new here on Hold These Truths: a weekly SITREP (Situation Report) on news of the day with real time insights into what’s happening in Congress, the country, and the world. This will now be your one stop shop for real news.

• Matt Gaetz ethics report
• AOC loses ranking member of Oversight Committee
• The Continuing Resolution
• Rethinking the budget process
• Unknowns in Syria
• Corruption in China’s military
• Assassinations in Moscow
• Salt Typhoon (not a James Bond movie)
• DOE’s ban on gas exports
• Trans activists lose their institutional support

John Spencer is the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. He joined Rep. Crenshaw to explore the historical evolution of urban combat and analyze modern strategies for conquering and defending cities. John discusses how urban warfare is playing out in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Ukraine. And he envisions the most likely scenarios for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, along with potential U.S.-Mexico counterinsurgency efforts against the cartels.

•    The evolution of urban warfare •    Regime change and chaos in Syria •    Why willpower often trumps raw numbers •    Hezbollah’s decimation and its implications •    Israeli airstrikes in post-Assad Syria •    “The way you take a city is psychologically.” •    Russia’s miscalculation in Kiev and Ukraine’s resistance •    How Gaza’s conflict was unlike any other •    Why banning missiles could result in more civilian casualties •    Debunking the “Zero Dark Thirty” Fallacy •    “Is that Batman??” •    Why the pager operation wouldn’t have worked in Gaza •    More common misconceptions: The Abacus, Vampire, and Peace Table Fallacies •    Taiwan’s defenses and civilian preparation for invasion •    U.S.-Mexico counterinsurgency strategies to combat cartels

John Spencer currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast. He also serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum, a New York based think-tank. He is a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.

He is the author of three books: Understanding Urban Warfare, (Howgate Publishing, 2022), Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War (Potomac Books, 2022; Winner of the 2023 Gold Medal Award, Best Military History Memoir, Military Writers Society of America), The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender (John Spencer, 2022).

Follow him on X at @SpencerGuard.

American Foreign Policy Council’s Ilan Berman gives us the 101 on the past, present, and possible future of the Iranian regime, Middle East geopolitics, and the potential for Starlink as a tool to topple authoritarian regimes.

·      What do the Iranian dissidents want from the United States?

·      Is the Iranian regime at a tipping point?

·      The changing demographics in Iran

·      How 1979 changed everything

·      The CIA boogeyman

·      Recapping U.S. – Iran historical relations

·      “They’ve had a gun to Israel’s head for a while.”

·      What’s the Iranian regime thinking now?

·      The cold-hearted rationality of Middle East politics

·      Why Iran might fast-track development of a nuclear bomb

·      Three scenarios for a post-ayatollah Iran

·      Why the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps isn’t going away

·      How Elon Musk’s Starlink could transform geopolitics

·      China’s race to dominate space-based digital connectivity

·      Africa’s population boom

Ilan Berman is Senior Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. An expert on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation, he has consulted for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as well as the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and has also provided assistance on foreign policy and national security issues to a range of governmental agencies and congressional offices. Follow him on X at @ilanberman.

David Harsanyi returns to discuss his new book “The Rise of BlueAnon: How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists.” David reveals how the Left has been consumed by a uniquely dangerous and delusional brand of conspiracy theories. And unlike those on the Right, the Left’s conspiracy theories are rarely kept in check by mainstream institutions. Fun and insightful conversation with one of America’s smartest conservative writers.

•    How do we define a conspiracy theory?

•    The psychology of crowds

•    Why “Russia collusion” was an effective conspiracy theory

•    How Adam Schiff played everybody

•    The limits of skepticism

•    Victimhood and paranoia

•    The BLM riots and police assassinations

•    Why the left doesn’t want students to learn civics

•    “I wish someone would do something about how fat I am”

•    What people get wrong about Big Pharma

•    Antisemitism and the left

•    What happened to the groypers?

•    Social media and children’s mental health

•    Climate alarmism

•    Rachel Maddow and other successful purveyors of conspiracy theories

•    “You don’t need to be like your enemy.”

•    Delusions of living in The Handmaid’s Tale

•    The viability argument

•    How leftists sidestep the morality debate

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of several bestselling books. A contributor to the New York Post, his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, USA Today, National Review, and numerous other publications, and he has been featured on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, and dozens of radio talk shows across the country. Follow him on X at @davidharsanyi.

Paul Scharre is an artificial intelligence expert who led the Department of Defense’s working group to establish policies on autonomous weapons systems. He joined Rep. Crenshaw to cover the latest (unclassified) capabilities of AI on the battlefield, the AI arms race with China, and the fine line between utopia and apocalypse which emerging AI tech has to offer us.

•    Equipping Congress to deal with Artificial Intelligence

•    How software has changed since the 1990s

•    No rules: the machine is learning on its own

•    Emergence of robots in the Iraq War

•    The Pentagon’s policy on autonomous weapons

•    Drones over Ukraine

•    The 4 Battlegrounds of Artificial Intelligence

•    The data race with China

•    “Why did ChatGPT say that?”

•    Chinese spies infiltrating American tech

•    Integrating more AI into the U.S. military

•    China’s 1984 Nightmare in Xinjiang Province

•    “They literally call it SkyNet.”

•    Scary hypotheticals for when AI “becomes human”

•    “We’ve seen models engage in spontaneous deception.”

•    AI cooperation agreements with China

•    How do we regulate the next frontiers of AI?

•    Could AI build a nuclear weapon?

Paul Scharre is the Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security. He is the author of "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" and "Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War."

Scharre previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he played a leading role in establishing policies on unmanned and autonomous systems and emerging weapons technologies. He led the Department of Defense (DoD) working group that drafted DoD Directive 3000.09, establishing the department’s policies on autonomy in weapon systems. He also led DoD efforts to establish policies on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance programs and directed energy technologies. Scharre was involved in the drafting of policy guidance in the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, and secretary-level planning guidance.

Prior to joining OSD, Scharre served as a special operations reconnaissance team leader in the Army’s 3rd Ranger Battalion and completed multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a graduate of the Army’s Airborne, Ranger, and Sniper Schools and Honor Graduate of the 75th Ranger Regiment’s Ranger Indoctrination Program.

Follow Paul on X at @paul_scharre.

Shaun Maguire is a venture capitalist, tech entrepreneur, and Caltech physics PhD. He joined Rep. Crenshaw to talk about his journey from Never Trumper in 2016 to supporting President Trump in 2024. Shaun makes the analytical case for why Trump’s method for foreign policy makes sense. Namely, Trump’s ability to flex American power in a language that Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and China understand. Shaun also explains why parts of Silicon Valley are moving right, why our defense industrial base is in dire need of repair, and the physics of how black holes work.

•       Becoming a Reformed Never Trumper
•       Revelations About the Trump-Russia Hoax
•       Recruited by DARPA – War in Afghanistan
•       Narrative Violations – Trump at NATO
•       The Hunter Biden Laptop
•       Trump’s ‘Peace Through Strength’ Doctrine
•       Trump’s Record of Countering Russia
•       Deep Undercover Russian Spies
•       How to Negotiate with the East
•       Tips to Avoid Broken Brain Syndrome
•       Has X Been Good for Free Speech?
•       Politics in Silicon Valley
•       Defense Startups + DoD Procurement
•       tHe MiLiTaRy InDuStRiAL cOMpLeX
•       The Deepest Mysteries in Physics
•       Black Holes and the Beginning of the Universe
•       Quantum Gravity, Bottled Water, and “The Bulk”
•       Known Unknowns in Physics
•       How LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves (for Dummies)

Shaun Maguire is a partner at the venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital. He has founded two companies (one in space technologies and another in global internet security) and holds a PhD in physics from Caltech. Shaun also previously worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He was deployed to Afghanistan for three months and his team received a Joint Meritorious Unit Award for their work. Follow him on X at @shaunmmaguire.

*SPECIAL CROSSPOST EPISODE* 

Rep. Crenshaw joined Michael Moynihan and Matt Welch for their weekly podcast series The Fifth Column. Really fun conversation covering a lot of ground. Topics include:

·       How to be a Navy SEAL

·       Losing an eye in Afghanistan

·       Dan can’t find his glasses / “I can’t see shit”

·       Lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan

·       A case study in intelligence failure and confirmation bias

·       On leaving the Taliban in power

·       Has Trump been good on foreign policy?

·       The Republican Party post-Trump

·       Tucker "is best friends with Hunter Biden!”

·       Why are you even in Congress?

·       On the mechanics of Congress

·       Maybe a hundred normal congressmen

·       What has Dan accomplished for Texas?

·       Is populism winning?

·       On banning TikTok

Michael Moynihan is a former contributor for Daily Beast and Vice on HBO. Follow him on X at @mcmoynihan.

Matt Welch is the Editor at Large of Reason. Follow him on X at @MattWelch.

Subscribe to The Fifth Column on Substack here: https://www.wethefifth.com/podcast

In honor of Columbus Day, we’re reposting a Hold These Truths classic from 2020 with historian Dr. Mary Grabar:

You may have never heard of him, but no historian has had a greater influence on modern America than Howard Zinn. His most popular work, A Peoples History of the United States, was brought into the cultural mainstream with Matt Damon's Oscar winning 1997 film Good Will Hunting. The book is a precursor to the 1619 Project - tracing the roots of America's sins and inequities to Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage and the rise of capitalism.

So for Columbus Day, we invited Dr. Mary Grabar, a historian and author of "Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned A Generation Against America", to join us for an objective look at Zinn's perspective on American history, his motivations for attacking the USA and capitalism, and the ramifications of his influence on generations of academia.

Dr. Mary Grabar is an author and a resident fellow at the The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization. She is also the founder of the Dissident Prof Education Project. Follow her on Twitter at @MaryGrabar.

Sixty years ago, Americans could easily envision a not-too-distant future of vacations on Mars, miracle cures, clean and infinite energy, and, of course, flying cars. But the dream collapsed, we entered an era of technological and economic stagnation, and pop culture became fixated on catastrophizing the outcomes of scientific innovations. AEI’s James Pethokoukis traces the origins of this “Great Downshift” in optimism and progress – largely due to 1970s regulatory decisions and changes in risk tolerance – and he gives us a roadmap for returning to the era of a risk-taking, future-oriented society.

James Pethokoukis is the author of “The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised.” He is a senior fellow and the DeWitt Wallace Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he analyzes US economic policy, writes and edits the AEIdeas blog, and hosts AEI’s Political Economy podcast. He is also a contributor to CNBC and writes the Faster, Please! newsletter on Substack. Follow him on X at @JimPethokoukis.

Dr. Todd Rose joins Rep. Crenshaw to discuss his latest research into Americans’ views on the most controversial issues, including abortion, immigration, the defund the police movement, and antisemitism. The conclusion? It turns out Americans are a lot less divided than you might think. Dr. Rose identifies the root causes of this false polarization and calls attention to a far greater concern for the future of the country: the overwhelming majority of Americans who believe society is inherently unfair to them.

Check out Dr. Rose's latest research report here: https://populace.org/research 

Dr. Todd Rose is the author of "Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions". He is the co-founder and president of Populace, a think tank committed to ensuring that all people have the opportunity to pursue fulfilling lives in a thriving society. He was a faculty member at Harvard University where he founded the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality and directed the Mind, Brain, and Education Program. Follow him on X at @ltoddrose.