In the 1990s, Silicon Valley thought access to China would help open their markets and liberalize the nation. Instead, their engagement ended up empowering the CCP and helped build the Chinese surveillance state.

Geoffrey Cain, an investigative journalist and author, joins Oren to explain how some Big Tech firms were captured by China, risking U.S. supply chains by making them vulnerable to Chinese coercion and theft. They focus on how Nvidia’s recent push to sell advanced AI chips to Beijing will empower Chinese ambitions and undermine American security. Finally, they discuss the only workable solution to the threat of China: a hard break.

America once relied on oceans, industrial might, and large stockpiles to give her strategic depth—the ability to maneuver economically, militarily, and technologically during conflict. But those buffers have eroded in the age of drones, cyberattacks, and supply chains controlled by China.

Nadia Schadlow, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and Deputy National Security Advisor during the first Trump administration, joins Oren to discuss how to rebuild strategic depth in an age of globalization and massive technological change. They explore how modern conflicts demand scalable production over bespoke systems, America's bureaucratic roadblocks slowing progress, and the necessity of allies and commercial industry in restoring deterrence. Finally, Schadlow outlines concrete steps the Trump administration could take to close America’s most dangerous shortcomings.

Further reading:

• “New Dimensions of Strategic Depth” by Nadia Schadlow

Economists and politicians told us that President Trump’s tariffs would spark foreign retaliation and drive up domestic prices. But current economic data are beginning to tell a different story.

Anna Wong, chief U.S. economist at Bloomberg Economics, joins Oren to discuss what the post-Liberation Day data are telling us. As tariff rates begin to stabilize due to trade deals, Wong breaks down how tariffs are reshaping firm behavior, potentially driving a wave of future domestic investment by realigning incentivizes. Additionally, Anna and Oren explain why the punditry class’s fixation on near-term CPI levels is missing the bigger story.

From working as a welder to taking on BlackRock as West Virginia’s first Republican-elected state treasurer in decades, Riley Moore’s trajectory has been anything but conventional.

Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) joins Oren to discuss what a conservatism rooted in the dignity of work, the importance of family, and responsive to the needs of working people looks like. Plus, he and Oren unpack the importance of Republican leaders realizing that being pro-life, pro-family, and pro-worker must mean more than just writing it on a bumper sticker.

As the Trump administration reshapes how federal dollars flow to universities, reform-minded academics are rethinking how to fix the systemic problems on campus without jeopardizing important research.

Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management and Nobel Laureate in Economics, joins Oren to unpack why our nation’s bloated and bureaucratic universities need reform and how smarter use of federal funding can incentivize it. Plus, the two make sense of how to create new innovation clusters at universities nationwide rather than just at elite coastal institutions.

Even as the U.S. begins decoupling from our Asian rival, the threat of a second “China shock”—one where the country’s economy dominates key resources and minerals—is rapidly emerging.

Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Oren to dig into how China’s new wave of industrial overcapacity, currency manipulation, and continued cheap exports could ravage America’s economy a second time. They explore how this will impact the global economy, and how the Trump administration could respond with smart industrial policy.

Further reading:

• “The Case that China is Now Actively Resisting Pressure on the Yuan to Appreciate” by Brad Setser
• "We Warned About the First China Shock. The Next One Will Be Worse" by David Autor and Gordon Hanson

Are we all post-liberals now? 

The leading voice in the debate about what comes after liberalism, Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen, joins the podcast to discuss where American politics is headed now that the push for a globalized society has failed to survive contact with geopolitical reality.

He and Oren unpack the failures of the liberal age, from free trade and open borders to foreign wars of adventure, and how a new conservatism helped deliver its demise. Finally, they make sense of where the waning liberalism of today leaves conservatives, and why young people are at the heart of this shift to something better.

Further reading:

• "We Are All Postliberals Now," by Patrick Deneen

The United States remains wholly dependent upon China for 95% of rare earth elements, 100% reliant on imports for 15 critical minerals, and over 80% reliant for eleven more. These minerals enable everything from batteries to semiconductors—and without domestic access, America’s technological dominance is at risk.

Robert Bryce, a leading energy policy scholar, joins Oren to explore how decades of shortsighted policy let China dominate critical supply chains, what it would take to rebuild them, and whether the West can shake off its complacent belief that “the market will fix it” before it’s too late. Finally, they close with a discussion on the promising future of domestic nuclear power.

Further reading:

• “Restoring Leadership in Critical Minerals” by Dean Ball
• Read Robert Bryce’s Substack

Over the last two weeks, an online battle has broken out among the New Right over the Israel-Iran conflict and the Trump administration's bombing of an Iranian nuclear facility. Regardless of whether the recent ceasefire between Iran and Israel holds, the events so far have drawn clear dividing lines within the coalition. What does "America First" mean for Middle Eastern policy?

Josh Hammer, author of Israel and Civilization, and Sohrab Ahmari, U.S. editor of UnHerd, join Oren to debate the wisdom of Trump's attack, the limits of Jacksonian restrictionist foreign policy, and how to think about the U.S. relationship with Israel. The group unpacks the intricacies of what a post-hegemonic world order actually looks like in the Middle East, and how best to respond to what could come next.

Further reading:

• “Is Israel the Ideal 'America First' Ally?” by Oren Cass

Economists have claimed for years that Americans are prospering more than ever before. So why do so few people feel that way?

Philip Pilkington, author of the forthcoming The Collapse of Global Liberalism, joins Oren to discuss how these economic metrics are obscuring real problems. The two challenge the assumption that consumption is an unalloyed good and discuss the need to think about our nation's economic health in a way that centers human flourishing.

Further reading:

• “The Limits of Consumption Deepening: Why Consuming More Makes Us Poorer” by Philip Pilkington