The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

Tina White is a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at Stanford, a self-described libertarian, and the head of a group called Covid Watch, a new nonprofit that released the first ever open-source protocol for a voluntary app that uses anonymous, decentralized data to give all of us more information about the disease that has shuttered the global economy. She talks to Nick Gillespie about all that and her libertarian beliefs.

Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer tells Nick Gillespie that the understandable focus on coronavirus will hurt patients whose care for heart disease, cancer, and other ailments has been delayed or foregone. A surgeon and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Singer also says many medical regulations that have been temporarily suspended should never be reinstated and discusses the ways telemedicine will likely flourish in the post-pandemic era.

Five-term Michigan Congressman Justin Amash has announced that he's running for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination, which will be decided in late May. The 40-year-old son of Middle Eastern immigrants took office in 2011 as a Republican but left the party last July, saying he didn't want to be part of a partisan death spiral. He has consistently voted against corporate bailouts, increases in debt-financed government spending, overseas military interventions, and the prosecution of the federal drug war.

Nick Gillespie talked with Amash about why he thinks Donald Trump is too erratic to be given a second term, why Joe Biden is too old for a first term, and why he believes his vision of a freer country will take him to victory in November.

Justin Amash, the Michigan congressman, has announced his campaign for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination, which will be decided at the L.P.'s convention in May. Nick Gillespie talks with his Reason colleagues Matt Welch, who interviewed Amash just hours after his announcement, and Brian Doherty, who talked with his L.P. rivals shortly after the news of Amash's campaign became public.

It's unlikely that we'll have ubiquitous #Coronavirus testing or a vaccine anytime soon, says Avik Roy of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. But he tells Nick Gillespie we still need to reopen the economy and schools as quickly as possible.

Nick Gillespie talks with Jeremy S. Faust, who trains ER doctors at Harvard Medical School and is pulling daily shifts treating people with COVID-19, about what federal, state, and local responses to the coronavirus pandemic have gotten right and wrong. Faust says that effective containment has to rely on the voluntary participation of people who are given reliable information rather than ones bullied by political and medical authorities.

When The New York Times launched its 1619 Project last year, it sought to "reframe the country's history by placing...

Nick Gillespie talks with Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). They discuss MAPS' ongoing FDA trials to make MDMA a legal drug for use by psychotherapists, the psychedelic renaissance, and why Doblin believes all "people should have the fundamental human right to change their consciousness."

Can price gouging be good, especially for poor people? Michael C. Munger, who teaches economics, political science, and public policy at Duke University, argues that prices contain vital information about supply and demand. When governments attempt to mandate cheap goods, they end up causing more shortages than they solve, especially true during a crisis. He talks with Nick Gillespie about coronavirus, coming food shortages in big cities, and why higher education will never be the same.

Matt Ridley tells Nick Gillespie why the coronavirus caught him by surprise, when he thinks we'll be able to reopen the world economy, why Brexit is good for Europe, and previews his forthcoming book How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom.