The Reason Roundtable

"Trump has been good on these issues in a very vague, 100,000-foot level," says education reformer Lisa Graham Keegan. He's made statements in support of expanding school choice and giving more control to the states. And two of the rumored candidates for U.S. Department of Education secretary—Gerard Robinson, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former education official in Florida and Virginia, and Williamson Evers, a fellow at the Hoover Institution—would be great picks, says Keegan.

On the other hand, former presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson—another rumored candidate—is a head scratcher.

Keegan is a former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction and head of the education consulting firm, the Keegan Company. She'd like to see Trump appoint a secretary who can "manage [all the regulations on the books] to the benefit of freedom...and the people [on the local level] who are actually doing the work."

Nick Gillespie caught up with Keegan for an interview yesterday afternoon.

U.S. presidents possess almost unilateral power to drop bombs on other countries, says historian Thaddeus Russell, and that's why it's very good news that Trump is most libertarian when it comes to foreign policy.

Russell, who's the author of A Renegade History of the United States and is currently writing a book on foreign policy, says Trump's enmity with the neocons at National Review and The Weekly Standard is "fantastic news for us and the world." He points out that Trump advisor (and likely future cabinet member) Newt Gingrich gave a 2013 interview with The Washington Times expressing second thoughts about his neocon past.

Though Trump has pledged to go after ISIS, his general philosophy seems far preferable to Hillary's systematic and carefully thought-out Wilsonian foreign policy. "I don't see a war with Russia and I don't see greater interventionism generally outside of [a] little pocket of the Middle East," says Russell.

Nick Gillespie caught up with Russell for an interview.

"Stop wasting your breath. Start working on your own parties. Start working on your own issues," says Libertarian Party national chair Nicholas Sarwark, responding to criticism that Libertarians played a spoiler role and handed Donald Trump the election. "See if you can take my votes in the actual arena of ideas instead of trying to shame me."

Sarwark sat down with Reason's Matt Welch the morning after the election to discuss the performance of the Libertarian presidential ticket this year, which drew about 3.7 million votes, or slightly less than 4 percent of the national popular vote. He also spoke about the future of the Republican Party and directly addressed Democrats complaining that third parties "spoiled" the election for Donald Trump.

Interview by Matt Welch. Edited by Zach Weissmueller.

After Donald Trump's victory last night, "democrats [may become] interested in limiting the scope of federal power, and restoring the separation of powers," says Georgetown University Law Center's Randy Barnett.

"[When] they were holding power, [this] didn't seem to be a problem. Maybe they can now see the problem."

Barnett joined Nick Gillespie for a discussion of what Trump's victory means for constitutional rights and the Supreme Court.

"[Health care] is not the only thing that matters, and, on balance, I think Donald Trump is going to be worse for freedom than Hillary Clinton would have been," says Michael Cannon, who's the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies. "But health care reform is one area where he might be better if he follows through on his pledge to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better."

Cannon joined Nick Gillespie for a discussion of the four things President-Elect Trump could do to dismantle Obamacare, and what congress might replace it with.

"The mechanisms are there [for Donald Trump to go after political enemies]," says Ken White. "But generally the system trends more towards dysfunction and incompetence than it does towards effective manipulation, and my hope is [he'll talk] big and ha[ve] big dreams [without] really accomplish[ing] anything."

White is an L.A.-based defense attorney, a former assistant U.S. Attorney (1995 to 2001), a Reason contributing editor, and the lead writer at the popular libertarian legal blog, Popehat. He talked with Nick Gillespie about what President Trump will mean for our federal criminal justice system.

"I think Obama has been kind of revolutionary [on criminal justice reform] in that he has said things that no other sitting President has ever said before," says Radley Balko, columnist with the Washington Post. "That said, most of the revolutionary aspects of the administration have been about saying things and not necessarily doing things."

Balko writes a column, The Watch, which covers civil liberties and the criminal justice system and he sat down with Reason TV editor in chief, Nick Gillespie in Nashville to talk about progress made in criminal justice reform.

Edited by Paul Detrick. Interview by Nick Gillespie.

In an unbroken chain of best-selling and page-turning thrillers featuring special-ops agent Scot Harvath, Brad Thor has created a fictional universe that reflects our chaotic contemporary world.

No stranger to stirring the political pot, the "conservatarian" author discusses his discussion with Glenn Beck about the hypothetical removal of a President Donald Trump. Thor's #NeverTrump call to action got him in hot water with Sirius XM after a vociferous exchange last May on Glenn Beck's radio show, with some listeners claiming he was talking about assassination (a charge Thor absolutely rebuts in this interview).

His discussion of his early development as as writer is of interest to his many fans. A writer who can turn the Federal Reserve Bank into a nail-biting thriller – as Thor did in Hidden Order – has valuable lessons to share in the arts of espionage and storytelling.

Produced by Todd Krainin. Hosted by Nick Gillespie.

Obamacare may be "standing on the edge of a death spiral" according to Reason Features Editor Peter Suderman.

Health insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are set to rise dramatically in 2017, an average of 25 percent for middle tier coverage options. What does this increase mean for consumers, taxpayers, and the future of the ACA? Reason TV's Nick Gillespie sat down with Suderman to find out.

Produced by Austin Bragg. Interview by Nick Gillespie.

What's life like for Mike Rowe without a network television show?

Since CNN dropped Somebody's Gotta Do It, Rowe has had his privacy violated by a drone, the former host of Dirty Jobs survived the rumors of his own death swirling about the internet, and in the home stretch of an ugly presidential election, he worries more than ever about unemployment, the skills gap, and a widespread loss of meaning in American life.

Yet Rowe himself remains more popular than ever. Days after Rowe read a letter from his mother detailing how she lost her purse at Wal-Mart, the post went hyperviral. It was seen by over 100 million people – "a third of the country!" he exclaims. "I've never seen anything like it," Rowe tells Reason TV, "I've talked to people at Facebook who said they've never seen anything like it."

Rowe has also found a way to turn C.R.A.P – that's Collectibles, Rare and Precious – into philanthropy. His auction of a swanky Trump Tower bathrobe, signed by The Donald himself, fetched a cool $16,000 on eBay. The money then trickled down from the alleged billionaire to The Mike Rowe Works Foundation, which funds "work ethic scholarships" that provide out-of-luck workers with valuable skills for the modern economy.

Nick Gillespie caught up with Mike Rowe in Nashville, Tennessee to chat about his affection for the Second Amendment, his adventures in podcasting, the 2016 election, the secret to extracting semen from a prize racehorse, and more.

Produced by Todd Krainin. Hosted by Nick Gillespie.