If you’re anything like us, you’re a sucker for a good spy show: Homeland, Tehran, Fauda, The Bureau. We’re fascinated by the life of spies—the secret meetings in Beirut cafés, the wigs and false identities, the double and triple lives, always one step away from exposure, risking everything for their country.

Most of the time, those TV characters are pure fiction and the stories are the stuff of Hollywood. But our guest’s new book, The Sword of Freedom, reads just like one of those fantastical thrillers—except every word of it is true.

Yossi Cohen—the former director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency—spent most of his 38-year spy career in the shadows. He was known only by a letter: Y, or sometimes “The Model,” apparently for his looks. He was, as he writes, “a ghost, never to be seen and unable to be heard. I was invisible, a breath of wind in human form.”

Cohen operated under dozens of different identities in some of the most dangerous places for an Israeli, and he personally orchestrated some of the most daring operations in Israel’s history: stealing half a ton of Iran’s most secret nuclear documents from a warehouse in Tehran; assassinating Iran’s top nuclear scientist using an AI-powered machine gun operated remotely via satellite; setting the stage for the pager attack that crippled Hezbollah last year; creating secret relationships with Arab leaders—relationships that changed the direction of the Middle East.

If you look online, you’ll hear that Mossad has been behind everything from tsunamis to floods to political assassinations of famous Americans.

So we could think of no one better to answer the question of what Mossad actually does—and to address the endless conspiracies that swirl around Israel’s version of the CIA—than Cohen. 

Today, we talk about all of that. It’s a rare glimpse inside Mossad, inside the world of real espionage—and a conversation with a man who helped shape history from the shadows, and who clearly is considering a run for prime minister.

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You know the name Woody Allen. Everyone does. He’s made some of the most acclaimed films ever made: Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors—he list goes on and on and on. He’s made an astonishing 50 movies.

You see his influence everywhere, from sitcoms to stand-up to just about every rom-com made since Annie Hall premiered in 1977. And in the process, he turned himself into America’s most unlikely leading man: short, thinning hair, bespectacled, and exceptionally neurotic.

Now, at age 89, Allen is out with his first novel, What’s With Baum? Its protagonist is an anxious, smart Jewish writer with a messy personal life who gets himself in a great deal of trouble. Yes, it’s like a Woody Allen movie in book form. It’s also funny and delightful, and touches on a major theme of our age: the idea that an accusation, once made, is as good as a conviction.

Allen knows something about that. In 1992, his longtime romantic partner Mia Farrow discovered that Allen had begun a relationship with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Allen was in his 50s at the time, Previn was just 21. All hell broke loose, with Farrow accusing Allen of grooming and preying on her daughter.

The scandal became fodder for tabloids and late-night talk shows but soon took a much darker turn, with Farrow accusing Allen of molesting their 7-year-old daughter Dylan in August 1992. The charges were never proven in court—indeed they were twice dismissed—but the court of public opinion was another matter.

Today on Honestly, we get into everything about Allen—from the accusations to his subsequent cancellation in the MeToo era to his childhood in Brooklyn and his climb from Flatbush to the commanding heights of American comedy, film, and culture. We delve into how he’s changed and the many ways in which he hasn’t. We talk about his marriage to Previn, which is still going strong after 28 years. His thoughts on President Donald Trump, NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, The New York Times, and American politics more broadly. We’ll hear what he thinks about life, death, and aging as he approaches 90, and much, much more.

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Yesterday, in broad daylight, in front of a crowd of 3,000 people at Utah Valley University, Charlie Kirk was shot dead. Kirk was not just a husband, not just a father, and not just one of the most prominent young conservative voices in the country. He made his name doing something fundamental to the American project: disagreeing out loud. 

He famously said, “When people stop talking, bad stuff happens.”

And so his thing was going to campuses, setting up a tent, and asking people to change his mind. People on campuses lined up to challenge him, often fiercely debating—and that was the point. He was a living embodiment of our First Amendment.

As Matthew Continetti wrote in our pages: “The attack didn’t just deprive a family of its center. It struck at the ties that hold a free society together: open assembly, civil debate, viewpoint diversity. Like every terrorist act, the shooting was meant to instill fear—in this case, fear of speaking out, of exposure, of making a difference.”

And as shocking and tragic as his murder is the response to it: the people online celebrating—yes, celebrating—his death simply because they disagreed with his politics.

Today Bari sits down with Ben Shapiro, Senator Mark Kelly, Matt Continetti, Katherine Boyle, Konstantin Kisin, and The Free Press’s own Eli Lake and Maya Sulkin to reflect on Kirk’s life and this awful moment in American history—and to consider how we can begin to look forward.

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When Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the Supreme Court, she was in some ways an unlikely choice. She was living in South Bend, Indiana, not New York or D.C. She went to Notre Dame Law School, making her the only justice that didn’t go to Harvard or Yale. She’s the mother of seven kids. And, at the time of her appointment, she’d largely spent her career as a professor, with just under three years on a federal appeals court.

To put it bluntly, Amy Coney Barrett was an outsider.

But people close to President Donald Trump saw something: She was an originalist. A former clerk for Antonin Scalia. A devout Catholic with real intellectual bona fides. And a rising star in the conservative legal movement. In short, she was the ideal jurist to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

After her 2020 nomination, the left called her inexperienced and a religious zealot. They said her confirmation hearing was rushed, and that she would undermine trust in the Supreme Court.

But with a 52–48 vote, just six weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Barrett was confirmed—without one Democratic vote. She took her seat at the highest court at just 48 years old, and became only the fifth woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court.

Considering how our nation’s most powerful people stick around into their 80s, she’ll likely have a major impact on American law and life for decades to come.

We’re now five years into her time on the bench. And in a turn of events, CNN ran a piece last year titled “The Last Best Hope for Supreme Court Liberals: Amy Coney Barrett.” Newsweek ran “Amy Coney Barrett Is Liberal Justices’ ‘Best Chance’: SCOTUS Analyst ” and The New York Times ran “How Amy Coney Barrett Is Confounding the Right and the Left.”

How did we get from “dangerous, religious zealot” to “last best hope”?

On one hand, Barrett has done what one would expect of a Republican appointee: voting to overrule Roe v. Wade; voting to outlaw affirmative action; and voting against the administrative state.

At the same time, she has voted with liberal justices in some of the most pivotal cases—and in Trump-related cases, she is the member of the conservative supermajority who has sided in Trump’s favor the least. 

In short, Barrett surprises. She just wrote a new book called Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, where she makes the simple but salient points: Her job is not to like all of her decisions, nor is it  to please the media or a president. It’s to follow the text of the Constitution, full stop. 

On Thursday night Bari sat down for a rare conversation with Justice Barrett at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York City. 

Bari also asks her about key cases like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the birthright citizenship case, nationwide injunctions, the shadow docket, transgender minors getting medical treatment, her willingness to dissent with liberal justices, her response to people who call her an “evil DEI hire,” and so much more.

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

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Everyone wants the war in Gaza to end. The reason the war is not over is because about 50 people are still being held hostage by Hamas.

Twenty of them are alive, but on the brink of death. About 30 of them have already been killed, and their bodies remain in Hamas captivity.

There are differing opinions on the best way to bring them home: continue the ground war in Gaza, or take the partial deal put forward by Qatar and Egypt—which includes a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in exchange for hundreds of security prisoners.

This war is one where everyone has an opinion. But in our view, no opinion matters more than those of the families whose loved ones, including their children, are living in Hamas terror tunnels. These families are in a collective debate about the best way to bring their loved ones home.

So we want to play a really special episode from Conversations with Coleman that illuminates these differences, and showcases arguably the largest debate in Israeli society today.

Coleman Hughes sat down with three hostage families: Tzvika Mor, the father of Eitan Mor, a 23-year-old security guard at the Nova Music Festival taken by Hamas; Talik Gvili, the mother of Ran Gvili, who on October 7 leaped into action and fought Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Alumim;and Dalia Cusnir, the sister-in-law of brothers Iair and Eitan Horn. Iair Horn was released, and Eitan Horn remains in Hamas custody.

Today, their families tell their stories and explain what they think is the best way to bring their family members home.

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Ever travel to Europe in the summer and suddenly feel very “ra ra ra” about America?

It’s not because of American culture, or food, or architecture. The thing people miss first and foremost is AC. Yes, air-conditioning.

It’s an American treasure and of course, fodder for many dad jokes.

But beyond the jokes, this invention has been politically and culturally transformational.

AC allowed factories to operate through the summer—creating more productivity, prosperity, wealth, and American dynamism.

It’s allowed Americans to live in the most uninviting places in the country—ever been to Arizona or Texas in the summer?

And this very flexibility to live in places like Phoenix and Austin has shifted migration, demographics, and even our political map.

So today we want to bring you podcasts from another show in The Free Press podcast network—Breaking History.

Eli Lake and his producer Poppy Damon speak with Salvatore Basile, the author of Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything, about how air-conditioning—once called “comfort cooling” and “refrigeration systems”—evolved from a bespoke invention to a household status symbol and a political force.

The episode is so interesting because it highlights inflection points that propelled this technology.

If you’re listening with your AC on high, you won’t want to miss it.

If you want to hear more from Eli Lake on Breaking History, follow here.

Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.

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You might have heard of the new term: “woke right.” It’s the idea that the illiberalism that has swallowed the progressive left—what we often refer to as “wokeness”—has come for the right.

Here’s how we think about the dynamic:

Over the past two decades the woke left said: “Everything is taboo”—our Founding Fathers, the idea that men and women are different, the idea that wearing hoop earrings is verboten because it’s cultural appropriation, and on and on.

Naturally, people got fed up. Including people like Bari.

Then some on the right exploited that anger, and said: “Nothing is taboo”—not words like “gay” or “retarded,” but also not “Holocaust revisionism” or “white nationalism.”

Some of this dynamic is playing out in the headlines: The woke left changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Then the White House changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America—the Trump administration even temporarily banned the Associated Press from the White House press room after it continued to publish “the Gulf of Mexico.”

When the woke left tried to change the character of our nation’s founding and take down statues of Winston Churchill and George Washington, the right took down a description of Jackie Robinson’s military service that was on the Department of Defense website because it was too DEI-coded.

On that note, the White House also recently said they would conduct a review of Smithsonian exhibitions to make sure they align with American ideals.

And when the woke left said trans, disabled, people of color are the most oppressed class in America, the woke right says white, Christian men are actually at the bottom of the totem pole—creating a new form of identity politics, in right-wing language.

It’s a fascinating and alarming dynamic. The same phenomenon on each side of the political spectrum. We would argue wokeness on the left went totally mainstream. 

Rod Dreher is one of the rare voices calling attention to the illiberalism on the right—and the danger it poses. He says the right has a unique opportunity to stop this woke impulse before it metastasizes.

Rod is a contributing editor at The American Conservative. He’s the author of many books including his new bestseller, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. And he most recently wrote in our pages “The Radical Right Is Coming for Your Sons.”

Bari recently sat down with him to discuss why the woke right tolerates antisemitism and white nationalism, why this movement is appealing to men specifically, if it is fair to equate the woke right with the woke left, why he himself is not even comfortable with the term woke right—we’ll get into that in the conversation—and what happens if this impulse on the right goes mainstream.

This interview was originally a Free Press subscriber-only livestream, and we’re planning to do more of these. If you want to come to one, all you need to do is become a Free Press subscriber today.

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On November 1, 2007, a man named Rudy Guede broke into a random home in Perugia, Italy, then raped and killed Meredith Kercher—a 21-year-old exchange student from the University of Leeds.

You might not even remember the names Rudy Guede and Meredith Kercher. But one name you will remember is Meredith’s roommate, Amanda Knox, a 20-year-old exchange student from Seattle.

In the weeks and years after Kercher’s murder, the media and the prosecution concocted a narrative that Amanda, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and Guede had played a violent sex game leading to Kercher’s murder.

Amanda was portrayed as a deviant sex fiend, a slut, a killer, and a psychopath. The problem is that none of it was true. Amanda had only been dating Sollecito a week. She had never met Guede. And most importantly, she was not playing a sex game that led to Kercher’s death.

Amanda would end up spending a total of eight years on trial and four years in prison for a murder she did not commit.

And Kercher’s real murderer—Guede—would never be charged with killing Kercher alone. He’d spend only 13 years behind bars for this crime. And after his release in 2021, he would be accused of committing a similar crime again.

Here’s the part of the story most people don’t know: On the morning of November 5, 2007, Amanda Knox was taken into custody in Italy. She wasn’t given a lawyer or a translator. She wasn’t told that she was a suspect. She was questioned for 53 hours. She was struck by a police officer, gaslit, and pressured into signing a confession.

Now, 18 years since she was taken into custody, she has released a memoir called Free: My Search for Meaning to tell the full story of what happened in Perugia, how she fought for vindication, how the tabloids and credible news organizations villainized her, and what her life has been like since she was exonerated in 2015.

Today on Honestly, Bari asks Amanda Knox how she survived in prison, how she reintegrated into society, why she returned to Italy to confront the prosecutor who put her behind bars, why she chooses forgiveness, and what it means to be truly free.

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The question of who represents the working class is probably the hottest debate in American politics. Is it Republicans? Democrats? Or socialists like Zohran Mamdani?

Pundits can debate that question all they want, but the undeniable test is: Who do the unions believe stands for working people?

For a century, unions were undeniably Democratic. And in 2021, Joe Biden tried to carry on that tradition. He went as far as to say: “I intend to be the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.” Then in 2023, he became the first sitting president to walk a picket line, joining United Auto Workers in their strike against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.

But as the Democratic Party went left, and then further left, many union members—who were reliable Democratic voters—broke the mold and voted for Donald Trump—nearly half of union households, to be exact.

Was it Trump’s hatred of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)? His promise to bring manufacturing back? His unbridled bravado? Or was it the left’s preoccupation with boutique issues?

The shift was palpable when Teamsters president Sean O’Brien spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention despite being a lifelong Democrat. It felt like a new era.

We’ve reported extensively on how the Democratic Party lost the working class. But now, six months into Trump’s second term, are working-class Trump voters happy with their choice? And how has Trump been for labor in America?

O’Brien—the voice you heard at the RNC—is the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing 1.3 million union workers. It’s one of the biggest unions in the country. As Sean puts it, “They represent airline pilots to zookeepers and everyone in between.” That “in between” includes truck drivers, warehouse workers, mechanics, baggage handlers, construction workers, and UPS drivers—UPS is their largest employer. Basically, Teamsters have organized workers in every occupation imaginable.

And more than his role as Teamsters president, Sean himself is a fourth-generation union member, having joined the Local 25 at 18 as a heavy-equipment driver in Boston. He’s spent 34 years in the union and has a unique vantage point from which he sees American labor.

Today on Honestly, Bari asks Sean: Why did he speak at the RNC? How has Trump been for labor—given his coziness with Elon Musk, DOGE, and his new big, beautiful bill? Can Democrats win union workers back? And can unions find their footing again? How does he plan to organize Amazon—he has some choice words for Jeff Bezos. And how do we ensure more American workers have access to middle-class wages, quality healthcare, and strong pensions?

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Here’s one fun question to ask at a dinner party: What is your favorite conspiracy theory?

There’s the idea that the CIA killed John F. Kennedy. The moon landing was fake, and 9/11 was an inside job. Covid was designed by the Gates Foundation to control the world—and the Covid vaccine had a microchip. There’s the deep state. Chemtrails. QAnon. The Illuminati. Reptilian overlords. Pizzagate—which says that high-ranking Democrats were running a child sex-trafficking ring out of a D.C. pizzeria.

That one, Pizzagate, is rivaled only by the idea that there is a group of Satan-worshipping globalists and Hollywood celebrities who traffic children in order to harvest adrenochrome, a chemical which, in this scenario, is extracted from their blood. Why? It’s obvious: They inject it in order to stay young.

It’s easy to joke about these theories. It’s much harder to reckon with the fact that many Americans believe them sincerely—and their justification is grounded in the fact that some conspiracy theories turn out to not be theories, but fact.

The government was poisoning alcohol during Prohibition. The FBI was illegally spying on civil-rights activists like MLK. The U.S. government did let some few hundred black men with syphilis go untreated to study the effects. And Covid likely came from a lab in Wuhan, China. 

The question is how to tolerate and even encourage healthy speculation and investigation? How do we allow for skepticism of received wisdom, which may actually be wrong, without it leading to reptilian Jewish overlords? 

In the past few weeks, the speculation surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s life and death is a perfect example of this conundrum. It’s a story filled with smoke and unanswered questions: How did Epstein get so rich in the first place? Was his wealth connected to his crimes? Was he acting alone? Was there a client list—and if so, who was on it? Why did he get such a sweetheart deal? And on and on.

And then things get more far-fetched: Was Epstein’s suicide faked? Who could have killed him? Was he connected to foreign intelligence? And my favorite: Was he running a Jewish cabal?

To help us understand why conspiracy theories are so compelling—and how we might better engage with those who believe them—is Ross Douthat.

Ross Douthat is an opinion columnist at The New York Times and host of the Interesting Times podcast. He has been covering conspiratorial thinking—how to understand it, and what to do about it—for years.

In 2020, he wrote: “It’s a mistake to believe most conspiracy theories, but it’s also a mistake to assume that they bear no relation to reality. Some are just insane emanations or deliberate misinformation. But others exaggerate and misread important trends rather than denying them, or offer implausible explanations for mysteries that nonetheless linger unexplained.” Which we thought perfectly encapsulated the conundrum of handling conspiracy theories today.

So today on Honestly, Bari asks Ross: What is the state of conspiracy theories in America? How do we dispel conspiracy theories that are clearly false—without relying on establishment sources the public no longer trusts? And what are the consequences when these theories go unchecked?

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.

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