The Fairfax Files

Israel's Consul General in New York on Iran, October 7, and what Gaza could become without Hamas.

New episode out now. Michael J. Hershman sits down with Ambassador Ofir Akunis, Consul General of Israel in New York and former Israeli cabinet minister, who spent 15 years in the Knesset and was Minister of Regional Cooperation during the Abraham Accords negotiations.

They start with the doubts some American elected officials now voice about the alliance with Israel, the campus protests he watched from his office when he arrived in New York in May 2024, and a frank exchange on immigration and assimilation. Akunis calls October 7 an intelligence failure and traces it to the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. On Iran, Hershman presses him on a war that was meant to take five or six weeks and is now six months old, and on whether Israel could hold off a large scale Iranian attack on its own.

They finish on Gaza after Hamas: Akunis describes skyscrapers, a modern port and a train from Beirut to Cairo, and Hershman argues that the answer is economic development.

🎧 EP9 of The Fairfax Files Podcast - "From Stalemate to Skyscrapers: Iran, October 7, and Gaza's Future With Consul General Ofir Akunis" - host Michael J. Hershman in conversation with Ofir Akunis (Consul General of Israel in New York and former Israeli cabinet minister).

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome and the role of Israel's Consul General in New York

2:31 From journalism to the Knesset and the Abraham Accords

5:06 Israel's coalition politics and the US system

8:12 October 7 and the campus protests in New York

10:28 Questions about the US-Israel alliance

12:11 "Death to America" chants, immigration and Sharia law

15:49 Silent officials and warnings from Europe

17:52 Radical Islam and criticism of Israel

21:42 How October 7 happened: an intelligence failure

22:26 The Gaza disengagement and Judea and Samaria

25:39 Iran, the 1979 revolution and new sanctions

30:26 Can Israel defend itself against Iran alone?

35:02 Hamas, extremists and young Palestinians

40:19 Answering the critics on proportionality

42:41 Gaza after Hamas: skyscrapers, a port and a train

47:09 Closing and New Year wishes

#OfirAkunis #MichaelHershman #Israel #TheFairfaxFiles #NewEpisode

A country this size has never won a World Cup. Marc Edelman says the reason starts with who can afford to play.

New episode out now. Michael J. Hershman sits down with Marc Edelman, nationally recognized sports law scholar, attorney and commentator, for a conversation about who really controls American sport and who pays for it.

Inside this one: whether political controversy had anything to do with the United States losing to Belgium; how the Ted Stevens Act of 1978 handed a single association quasi government power over Olympic and World Cup sport, whatever the official line about politics and sport being separate; why smaller soccer nations like Norway and Cape Verde keep producing players the United States does not, and what early specialization and a pay to play youth system do to the kids who cannot afford the travel team; how non revenue college sport quietly became a second admissions route into elite schools; and the point where Hershman and Edelman openly disagree, which is Name, Image and Likeness, defended here as a correction to a system Edelman calls an antitrust violating cartel.

They also get into the commercialization that has taken the fun out of youth sport, what free agency did and did not do to fan loyalty, and close on a wager about which arrives first, a World Cup for the United States or another title for the Washington Nationals.

🎧 EP8 of The Fairfax Files Podcast - "Pay to Play: Politics, Money, and the Business of American Sports" - host Michael J. Hershman in conversation with Marc Edelman (nationally recognized sports law scholar, attorney and commentator).

Chapters:
0:00 The World Cup, politics, and the US team
3:11 Where government and international sports intersect
6:59 Why US men's soccer trails smaller nations
9:29 Pay to play youth sports and unequal access
13:30 Commercialization, parental pressure, and lost fun
16:59 NIL, college sports, and the antitrust case
21:45 Transfers, fan loyalty, and financial guardrails
27:31 Free agency and the myth of declining fan interest
30:43 Sports as a social outlet and universal language
33:50 FIFA corruption and the limits of self-governance
38:30 Transparency, independent oversight, and reform

#MarcEdelman #MichaelHershman #SportsLaw #TheFairfaxFiles #NewEpisode

Crypto promised money that needs no trust. Ben McKenzie thinks that promise is the con.

New episode out now. Michael J. Hershman sits down with Ben McKenzie, actor turned author, known for The O.C., Southland and Gotham, and now one of crypto's best known skeptics, for a conversation about fraud, money and what happens to a country that stops trusting its own institutions.

Inside this one: why an economics graduate watching crypto ads around live sport in 2021 decided he had a duty to warn people, and what it felt like to be proved right in 2022; what he learned interviewing Sam Bankman Fried and Alex Mashinsky before both went to prison, and why he thinks most frauds start with one small lie rather than a plan; how Trump coin worked, and why the family reportedly cleared 1.4 billion dollars while investors lost multiples of that; the 42 percent of young men who have bought crypto and the advertising that put them there; and why he argues money cannot be trustless, because trust is the only thing money has ever been.

He also makes the case that the 40 trillion dollar national debt and the crypto boom are the same problem wearing different clothes, and that neither gets fixed until the system looks fair enough to believe in.

🎧 EP7 of The Fairfax Files Podcast - "Crypto, Con Men, and the Golden Age of Fraud" - host Michael J. Hershman in conversation with Ben McKenzie (actor turned author, known for The O.C., Southland and Gotham, and now one of crypto's best known skeptics).

▶️ Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/YYB2hHaZU3Y #BenMcKenzie #MichaelHershman #Crypto #TheFairfaxFiles #NewEpisode

"She spent 12 years inside the rooms where America decides who to sanction and who to fight. She is not sentimental about any of it.

New episode out now. Michael J. Hershman sits down with Hagar Chemali, former spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, former Treasury and White House official and host of Oh My World, for a conversation about power, extremism, influence and accountability across the Middle East.

Inside this one: why she thinks there is no lasting peace with Iran while the regime survives, and why she still has hope for the country behind it; how October 7 became, in her words, the biggest strategic mistake Iran and Hamas could have made, and why more countries are quietly exploring peace with Israel because of it; what she saw of Hamas treating its own people as weapons in an information war; the countries outspending Israel on influence in Washington and the parts of that spending that never look like lobbying; the new Lebanon Israel Peace Alliance she co-founded and the first signed agreement between the two countries in over 40 years; and why she believes the UN needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt.

She also tells Hershman what actually differs between the Bush and Obama administrations she served in, and what her Columbia graduate students are telling her about a generation walking away from patriotism.

🎧 EP6 of The Fairfax Files Podcast - ""Power, Propaganda, and a Reshaped Middle East"" - host Michael J. Hershman in conversation with Hagar Chemali (former spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, former Treasury and White House official and host of Oh My World).

#HagarChemali #MichaelHershman #MiddleEast #TheFairfaxFiles #NewEpisode"

He was the man who made problems disappear. Then he became the man who brought the secrets into the light.

New episode out now. Michael J. Hershman sits down with Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, who testified before Congress, cooperated with federal prosecutors and served time in federal prison, for a conversation about loyalty, power, and what all of it actually cost.

Inside this one: what a fixer really does and where the line sits, the 2011 newspaper poll and the ShouldTrumpRun.com experiment that helped set a presidential campaign in motion, how the National Enquirer story about Ted Cruz's father came to be and why the tactic was so hard to fight, why Cohen says he would accept a pardon and what a felony record costs in ordinary daily life, and what genuinely frightens him now about political chaos at both extremes and a generation walking away from patriotism.

Nobody can say he doesn't know what happens behind closed doors in American politics and power.

🎧 EP5 of The Fairfax Files Podcast - "The Fixer: Inside Loyalty, Power, and Prison" - host Michael J. Hershman in conversation with Michael Cohen (Donald Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, congressional witness, bestselling author and podcast host).

▶️ Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/dtDTdUDaNUU

#MichaelCohen #MichaelHershman #Trump #TheFairfaxFiles #NewEpisode"

Michael J. Hershman sits down with Brittany Kaiser, the human rights lawyer turned Cambridge Analytica whistleblower turned tech CEO, to trace her journey from the Obama campaign's pioneering use of social media data to the moment she decided to testify before Parliament and cooperate with dozens of government investigations - a story later told in her bestselling book "Targeted" and the Netflix documentary "The Great Hack."

Inside this one: how sitting next to Facebook's co-founder on the Obama campaign showed her data could reshape elections, why she believes you should own your data like property and put it on the balance sheet, the coordinated disinformation campaign she says is really behind the AI data center backlash, how algorithm-driven outrage is radicalizing people to the point they feel justified in political violence, and her best advice for parents on protecting kids from AI and social media. It's a deep dive into who owns our information and what it will take to build an internet worth handing to the next generation.

The Fairfax Files with Michael Hershman: Guest Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.)In this episode of The Fairfax Files, host Michael Hershman talks with retired three-star Army General Mark Hertling about his new book, If I Don't Return: A Father's Wartime Journal, written as daily letters to his young sons before deploying to Desert Storm in 1990, then rediscovered decades later and turned into a manuscript by his son. The conversation traces Hertling's path from a low-income upbringing in St. Louis to West Point and a 38-year career spanning Desert Storm, the Iraq War, and division command, while also covering leadership lessons from generals and sergeants alike, the changing face of national security in an age of cyber warfare and AI, and candid reflections on patriotism, civility, and what America should aspire to be as it marks 250 years of independence.

In this episode of The Fairfax Files, Michael Hershman returns to the conversation with veteran journalist and law enforcement leader John Miller, CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, and a former assistant director of the FBI, deputy commissioner of the NYPD, and deputy commissioner of the LAPD.

Two security and investigation icons take on the questions defining American public life right now: why New York City can post historic lows in murder, shootings, and burglary while millions of residents still feel unsafe, and what to do about it.

Miller breaks down the gap between crime statistics and lived experience on the streets, in the parks, and on the subway, and lays out a “CompStat for mental health,” a daily, accountability-driven coordination of police, EMS, mental health, and social services that he argues could be stood up tomorrow with no new agency and no new funding.

The conversation turns to the Savannah Guthrie kidnapping in Tucson: what investigators have likely already concluded, what the ransom-by-crypto demand tells us, why the case carries the hallmarks of a “kidnapping gone wrong,” and what makes it unlike the high-profile cases Miller worked at LAPD.

Hershman and Miller then take on the Jeffrey Epstein aftermath: how a botched first prosecution in Florida set the stage for everything that followed, why opening a long-running criminal file to the public is producing unintended casualties, and how a master con man read powerful people so well that none of them ended up the better for it.

The episode closes on civility, Gen Z, faith, patriotism, and the question Hershman keeps returning to in this 250th year of American independence: what kind of world have we created for the next generation, and is it still possible to turn it around?

From CompStat to crypto kidnappings, and from the Epstein files to the slow erosion of civic trust, The Fairfax Files goes inside the conversations that shape how power, corruption, and accountability actually play out.

In our inaugural episode, host Michael Hershman is joined by one of the most respected figures in American law enforcement and intelligence: John Miller.

Miller’s career is a study in “direct action.” He has bridged the gap between reporting on the world’s most dangerous men and hunting them, transitioning from an award-winning journalist at ABC and CBS to senior leadership roles in the FBI, NYPD, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Michael and John dive deep into:

• The 1998 Bin Laden Interview: The chilling behind-the-scenes story of Miller’s trek to a cave in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden first declared war on American civilians.
• The Intelligence Evolution: A candid “autopsy” of the information silos that led to 9/11 and how the U.S. has, and hasn’t, fixed the communication gap.
• Flying Robots & Future Wars: Why the rise of cheap, weaponized drones is redefining domestic security and what it took to finally change the laws of the sky.
• The Iran Strategy: An insider’s look at the current “push-pull” conflict with Iran, the role of Al-Qaeda leaders in hiding, and the search for a coherent exit strategy.

The Fairfax Files pulls back the curtain on the world of high-level investigations and intelligence. Join us as we explore the stories that shaped history and the threats defining our future.