Tevi Troy served as Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush and was one of the administration’s top domestic policy advisors.

He played a key role in shaping health and homeland security policy during a critical era. He’s now a presidential historian and senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the author of Fight House and other books on politics, media, and the presidency.

WHAT WE DISCUSSED

• Why Trump’s second term is more focused and unified than his first
• How Trump negotiates directly with CEOs like Tim Cook and Jamie Dimon
• The story of Elon Musk’s political fallout and why he’s now “homeless”
• Why the administration is taking a cautious approach to AI regulation
• Is Trump’s populist rhetoric just an act?

Park MacDougald is a senior writer for Tablet magazine’s newsletter, The Scroll, and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Recently named a Robert Novak Fellow, his work focuses on exposing information operations and the financial and political networks that manufacture narratives to shape public debate.

WHAT WE DISCUSSED

• The propaganda war against Israel: who’s behind it and why they’re winning.
• The campaign to split Evangelicals from Israel with fake persecution stories.
• "Epstein Gate": Tucker and Bannon's attempt to redefine MAGA and corner Trump.
• Why Tucker Carlson’s anti-Israel crusade has little to do with “America First.”
• The battle over Israel and the future of the post-Trump GOP.

Eric Lipton is an investigative reporter for The New York Times and a multiple Pulitzer Prize winner. His work specializes in dissecting the hidden influence of money and lobbying on American government, revealing how powerful interests shape policy far from public view.

WHAT WE DISCUSSED

• How Trump’s family has built massive new wealth through crypto ventures since his second term began
• Why the scale and direct involvement of a sitting president in these business deals is unprecedented
• The potential conflicts of interest created by Trump’s business partners benefiting from government actions
• Why these business ties haven’t hurt Trump politically—and why most of his base isn’t concerned
• How the use of crypto adds layers of secrecy and foreign influence risk to presidential business dealings

Brian Nosek, a pioneering psychologist and professor at the University of Virginia, shook the scientific establishment in 2015 when his Reproducibility Project revealed that only 36% of published psychology studies could be successfully replicated—exposing a crisis at the heart of scientific research.

As co-founder of the Center for Open Science, Nosek has built an organization dedicated to increasing transparency and accountability in scientific practice. His work challenges the academic incentive structure that rewards publishing novel, positive results over methodological rigor and accurate findings, pushing researchers to focus on career advancement rather than discovering truth.

WHAT WE DISCUSSED

• Brian Nosek reveals the reproducibility crisis in science, where the pressure to publish novel, tidy results often conflicts with rigorous, messy reality.
• How incentive structures in academia can skew research, pushing scientists toward career advancement over truth-seeking.
• The role of decentralized skepticism in science, and why converging evidence over time builds trust in findings.
• Solutions like Registered Reports, which commit to publishing studies regardless of outcome, aiming to align rewards with rigor.
• The impact of bureaucracy and funding biases on research, alongside innovative ideas to reduce friction and accelerate discovery.

Rikki Schlott is a journalist at the New York Post, a fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind. As a Gen Z voice in the national conversation on free speech, she’s become a sharp critic of academic orthodoxy and cancel culture.

Schlott also hosts two podcasts—Lost Debate and We Never Had This Conversation—where she challenges dominant narratives and explores the generational divide over expression, politics, and power.

We discussed:

• How cancel culture ebbs and flows with cultural disruptions - from 2016 to 2020 and post-October 7th
• The generational divide on free speech - why older generations defend it more consistently than Gen Z
• Why academia creates censorious environments and whether government intervention on campuses is appropriate
• The political inconsistency of free speech advocacy - how both sides abandon principles when in power
• Social media's role in free speech debates and why Elon Musk's Twitter takeover led to an unbalanced discourse

Frannie Block, a reporter at The Free Press, writes about how money, power, and ideology shape the narratives espoused by the media, elite institutions, and governments — both foreign and domestic. Our conversation focuses on her recent article “How Qatar Bought America.”

Block has become one of the leading figures in uncovering efforts by the tiny nation of Qatar to influence significant sectors of American life, from K-12 education, to universities and think tanks — and even the highest levels of government.

Her reporting reveals how Qatar uses its vast financial resources in a soft power campaign to shape American politics and soften its image to the American public — while supporting Islamism and jihadism — to position itself as one of the world’s major brokers of diplomatic negotiations.

What we discussed:

• How Qatar is shaping American education, media, and politics through soft power.
• When nearly $100B is invested across U.S. sectors, what does Qatar expect in return?
• How close ties to Trump allies may reveal deeper foreign influence.
• Why a tiny Gulf state is straddling jihadist ideology and U.S. diplomacy.
• When lobbying laws are weak, how much foreign sway goes unnoticed?

Heather Mac Donald, a bestselling author and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is renowned for her incisive critiques of the Black Lives Matter movement and the media's role in constructing misleading narratives around police brutality.

Her influential reporting during the 2020 riots captured national attention, exposing how anti-police rhetoric—propelled by inaccurate and sensationalized media coverage—intensified violence and endangered American cities.

Grounded in rigorous data analysis, Mac Donald has persistently challenged dominant perspectives on race, crime, and policing, arguing that widespread claims of systemic police brutality against Black Americans are not supported by empirical evidence.

WHAT WE DISCUSSED

• Why Heather believes one burned car is too many—and how the left normalizes chaos
• The overlooked cost of illegal immigration: ERs packed, schools overwhelmed, streets less safe
• Why the “illegal immigrant = criminal” narrative might backfire, even if deportation is legal
• The legal battle over Trump deploying the National Guard without Gavin Newsom
• Whether riots are grassroots or astroturfed—and if Trump can realistically stop what’s coming

Israel Ganz is the Governor of the Binyamin Regional Council, which oversees the largest Israeli-controlled area in Judea and Samaria — otherwise known as the West Bank.

A long-time advocate for Jewish life and security in Judea and Samaria, Ganz plays a major role in shaping Israeli policy on settlements and advocates for advancing Israeli sovereignty over the entire contested region.

As tensions escalate and Iran and its proxies grow more desperate, protecting Israeli communities will become even more critical. And while some in the US push for a two-state solution, Gantz believes a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would inevitably endanger Israeli lives.

What was discussed:

• Why Israel’s settler leadership sees October 7 as a turning point for sovereignty
• The data behind Arab support for the Hamas massacre
• How foreign governments are funding illegal Palestinian construction
• How the PA pays families of terrorists — and why that matters for policy
• Why the “two-state solution” is viewed by many Israeli leaders as suicidal

Xaviaer DuRousseau is a former BLM activist turned conservative commentator and the host of Respectfully, Xaviaer at PragerU. In this conversation, he breaks down how parts of the right are drifting into dangerous territory, how Gen Z is changing the political game, and why the Israel conversation has gone completely off the rails—especially since October 7.

What we discussed:

• What the “Woke Right” actually is—and how it mimics the radical left
• Why Kanye West’s spiral says a lot about culture and influence
• How social media pushes young people toward extremes
• What people get wrong about Israel—and what Xaviaer saw on the ground
• Why Gen Z is more serious about politics than they get credit for
• How fake research and TikTok conspiracies fuel anti-Israel takes
• What the IDF does that no one talks about
• Why the political divide in America might be permanent

Rob Henderson is a writer and scholar best known for coining the term luxury beliefs—ideas held and promoted by elites that often harm the working class. A U.S. Air Force veteran and Yale graduate, Rob’s path from foster care to the Ivy League gives him a unique lens on class, culture, and identity in modern America.

We get into:

• Why young men and women are splitting politically across the West
• How dating apps, social media, and modern prosperity are shaping ideology
• The rise of podcast-fueled political activism
• Why elites push ideas that harm the working class (luxury beliefs)
• What’s next for the Democratic Party—and whether anyone’s being authentic
• Rob’s optimism for the future.

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