https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hJO4ofx6VU

Podcast audio:

In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, originally released on December 23, 2024, Ben Bayer and Agustina Vergara Cid explore the true meaning of Christmas by examining the history and philosophical significance of our holiday practices.

Among the topics covered:

The secular meaning of Christmas;

A proper view of Christmas’s commercial aspects;  

Why some people are antagonistic towards the Christmas spirit;  

How the doctrine of original sin undermines Christmas joy.

Mentioned in this podcast are Ben Bayer’s articles “Give the Gift of a Guilt-Free Christmas” and “The Meaningful Delights of a Worldly Christmas"  and Onkar Ghate’s essay “An Atheist’s Tribute to Christmas”.

This podcast was recorded on December 18, 2024 and released on December 23, 2024. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI3qhwVi1Eg

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In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Samantha Watkins interviews Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, about the alarming trend of anti-vaccine irrationality coming from government leaders.

Topics include:

The state of vaccine science

Hepatitis B vaccine

Covid vaccine

The cause of conspiracism

The real-world impact of conspiracism

A healthy culture’s approach to vaccine science

Resources: 

“A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease” by Onkar Ghate, in which he shares ARI’s view of the role of government with respect to infectious disease

This episode was recorded on December 15, 2025, and posted on December 18, 2025.

Image Credit: Alex Wong / via Getty Images

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBSu1A2_BSg

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In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Ben Bayer and Elan Journo discuss the recent American attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and scrutinize pretexts for war with Venezuela.

Topics include:

 “War crimes” and international law;

The fake “terrorist” threat;

The “war on drugs”;

 The Venezuelan military “threat”;

Authoritarian presidential power.

Resources: 

Ayn Rand, “The Roots of War”

This episode was recorded on December 9, 2025, and posted on December 11, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

Image Credits: Venezuela flag: Kryssia Campos / Moment / via Getty Images; Trump: Chip Somodevilla / via Getty Images

Podcast audio:

This talk by Alex Silverman was recorded live on July 2nd in Boston, MA as part of the 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference and is available on the Ayn Rand Institute Podcast stream. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KEOmlA-YRo

Podcast audio:

In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Agustina Vergara Cid interviews Josh Windham, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, about the Trump administration’s immigration policy and its violations of constitutional rights.

Topics include:

The Garcia Venegas case;

Arbitrary “mass deportations”;

Kavanaugh on permissible profiling;

Qualified immunity;

DHS’ denial of reality;

Precedent for current enforcement;

American principles betrayed;

Standing up to authoritarianism.

This episode was recorded on December 2, 2025, and posted on December 4, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

Image credits: Police: Octavio Jones / AFP / via Getty Images; Constitution: Tetra Images / via Getty Images

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgur8cEOpnk

Podcast audio:

In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Nikos Sotirakopoulos and ARI’s senior intellectuals make a deep dive into the moral crisis of the conservative movement.

Topics include:

Moral sanction;

“Cancel culture” and free speech;

Conservative tribalism;

How ARI is different.

Resources:

Onkar Ghate’s lecture On Moral Sanction

This episode was recorded on November 19, 2025, and posted on November 22, 2025.

Image Credits: Carlson: Leon Neal / via Getty Images; Fuentes: William Edwards / AFP / via Getty Images

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uCwg6ADk4s

Podcast audio:

In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Nikos Sotirakopoulos and Onkar Ghate discuss the implications of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York. As the country takes another step towards authoritarianism and tribalism, is there any hope to put a stop to the downward cultural and political spiral?

Topics include:

Mamdani’s evil;

Mamdani and populism;

The downward spiral of tribalism;

The education system gave us Mamdani;

Is there a hope for the future?

Resources:

Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, How NOT to Explain Mamdani’s Socialist Revival

This episode was recorded on November 17, 2025, and posted on November 21, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

Image Credit: Michael M. Santiago / via Getty Images

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgeCG_fGFrk

Podcast audio:

In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Ben Bayer and Robertas Bakula examine the key arguments supporting the President’s tariffs before the Supreme Court and expose their un-American hostility to the rule of law. 

Topics include:

Background on the case;

Defying the rule of law;

Hostility to objective legal interpretation;

Tariffs are not foreign policy powers;

The absence of an “intelligible principle”;

Striking down unconstitutional laws;

Un-American arguments and policies;

Likely and desirable outcomes.

Resources: 

Ayn Rand Lexicon, “Law, objective and non-objective”

Ayn Rand, “The Nature of Government”

Ben Bayer, “The Constitutionally Dubious Law Empowering Trump’s ‘Emergency’ Tariff Authority”

Ben Bayer, “The President Has No “Foreign Policy” Discretion To Impose Sweeping Global Tariffs”

Ben Bayer, “The Lawyers Defending Trump’s Tariffs Know They’re Un-American. Here’s How We Can Tell”

This episode was recorded on November 13, 2025, and posted on November 19, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

Image Credit: David Talukdar / Moment / via Getty Images

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4zPY_XnfS8

Podcast audio:

The Enlightenment’s commitment to reason, individualism, and the power of knowledge sparked unprecedented progress in human life. Yet, despite this achievement, contemporary Western societies face deepening crises — mounting political violence, the collapse of alliances of free nations, and a growing support for authoritarian movements. What accounts for this reversal?

In his talk, “Saving the Enlightenment,” delivered at ARI’s 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference, Onkar Ghate diagnoses the problem at its root: our cultural crises are the aftermath of a crucial philosophical gap left by the Enlightenment.

Ghate argues that a key feature of our cultural landscape is “a blind rebellion against an orgy of self-sacrifice.” Crises like 9/11, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the widespread embrace of DEI initiatives marked the unfolding of self-sacrificial policies that cost American lives. Many who now condemn their leaders do not realize how those policies reflect the same moral code they still accept. They embrace alternative ideologies (like nationalism) that channel the same code. So they don’t know their real target: their rebellion against “elite” demands for self-sacrifice is “blind.”

This blindness, Ghate contends, stems from the Enlightenment’s failure to articulate a morality of self-interest. While its philosophers championed reason in science and politics, they never provided an alternative to the ethical frameworks that demanded individuals subordinate their welfare to collective duty. Consequently, modern culture lacks a coherent philosophy that sanctions the individual’s right to pursue happiness.

To secure the Enlightenment’s legacy, Ghate urges, requires adopting an ethical system that validates rational self-interest and personal happiness as moral goods — principles that only Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism fully articulates. Objectivism, in his view, provides “the new morality that's necessary to cement the achievements of the Enlightenment.”

Among the topics covered:

The Enlightenment and its failure

The grip of self-sacrifice

Self-sacrifice in the 21st century

Today’s pseudo-selfishness

Objectivism completes the Enlightenment

This talk was recorded live on July 2nd in Boston, MA, as part of the 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference, and is available on The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast stream. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1sggf9exTQ

Podcast audio:

In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Ben Bayer and Samantha Watkins challenge Zohran Mamdani’s plan to phase out NYC’s Gifted & Talented program — a move that would hold back advanced students from the education they need to thrive — and replace it with universal free childcare.

Topics include:

NYC’s Gifted & Talented Program

Mamdani’s Reasons to End G&T 

Mamdani’s Universal Childcare Proposal

The Goal Is Punishing Gifted Kids

The Reaction to Mamdani’s Proposals

Education Is Not Zero-Sum

Resources: 

Ayn Rand, “The Age of Envy,” Return of the Primitive

Ayn Rand, “The Comprachicos,” Return of the Primitive

This episode was recorded on November 5, 2025, and posted on November 13, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

Image Credits: [Child]: Catherine Delahaye /DigitalVision / via Getty Images[Mamdani]: Stephanie Keith / Stringer / via Getty Images