
Is democracy in decline? Despite historic protests in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, and more, Freedom House found that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. What explains this trend? And what hope does democracy have moving forward?



The President of Freedom House Michael Abramowitz joined Dany and Marc to explain why Freedom House assesses that democracy is under assault. They also debate whether US democracy is in decline, President Trump’s role, and what to expect from 2020.



Michael Abramowitz is president of Freedom House.  Before joining Freedom House in February 2017, he was director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. He was previously National Editor and then White House correspondent for the Washington Post.



Download the transcript here.

WTH is going on with freedom in the world? Is democracy in decline?

The American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen address the questions we’re all asking in their podcast, “What the Hell Is Going On?” In conversational, informative and irreverent episodes, Pletka and Thiessen interview policymakers and experts, asking tough, probing questions about the most important foreign policy and security challenges facing the world today.

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President Joe Biden is one of the least popular presidents in the history of presidential polling. Former President Donald Trump faces 91 charges across four criminal cases. Despite their woes and the overwhelming desire of the American people to vote “none of the above,” President Biden and former President Trump will still face off for the second time this November. How will these two senior citizens make the sale? What will most likely hurt them on November 4? Does a third-party candidate have a real shot at the presidency? Amy Walter is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Amy is also a contributor to the PBS NewsHour, a regular Sunday panelist on NBC’s Meet the Press, and appears frequently on CNN and Fox News. Previously, Amy was the political director of ABC News and an inaugural fellow at the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. Matthew Continetti is the director of Domestic Policy Studies and the inaugural Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute. His work has a particular focus on the development of the Republican Party in the 20th century. Matt was also the founding editor and the editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon. Read the transcript here.

WTH Live! Our 250th Episode with Amy Walter and Matthew Continetti on the Biden-Trump Rematch—Live Before a Studio Audience!

Last weekend, for the first time since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran launched a direct attack on Israel from Iranian territory. In total, some 170 drones, 120 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, and more than 30 cruise missiles targeted Israel, with most coming from Iran, and some from Iranian proxies in Iraq and Yemen. In response to what was a well-advertised attack, Israel, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Jordan (among other Arab countries) deployed from land, sea, and air with jets, missile defense, and a guided missile cruiser among a sophisticated array of defensive assets. As a result, a reported seven missiles landed mostly harmlessly in Israel, with injuries restricted to shrapnel injuring a young Bedouin girl. Israeli and American leaders were quick to celebrate Iran’s failed attack and the “restoration of deterrence.” But are the Israelis correct in celebrating Iran’s inability to cause real damage? Or are they ignoring the very real risk that seven Iranian missiles actually hit the State of Israel? What will Iran learn from this exercise? And how did their attack reflect the lessons Russia is learning on Iranian equipment in Ukraine? Frederick W. Kagan is the director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project and a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point. He is the author of the 2007 report Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, which is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq, and the book Lessons for a Long War (AEI Press, 2010). His Critical Threats Project, alongside the Institute for the Study of War, releases regular updates on Iranian activity in the Middle East, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and transnational terrorism on the African continent. Download the transcript here.  Find the Critical Threats Project's Iran Updates here. 

WTH is Iran Attacking Israel? Fred Kagan Explains

Joe Biden and the Democratic Party love labeling Donald Trump and his MAGA followers as the greatest threat to American democracy. So why are Democratic-aligned Super PACs funding self-declared MAGA candidates in GOP primaries? In a recent article for the Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim explains that there are two reasons: The strategy has (so far) helped Democrats win in general elections; more importantly, Democrats long for a time when they were part of the heroic resistance against Trump. But this strategy could backfire: Democratic lawfare against Trump is helping him win over voters who think “the system” is rigged against them. And the moment a Democrat-funded MAGA candidate wins a general election, their warnings about MAGA’s threat to democracy will fall flat on its face. Barton Swaim joined the Wall Street Journal as an editorial page writer in 2018. He writes a regular column on political books. Before joining the Journal, he was an opinion editor at the Weekly Standard. He is the author of The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics (Simon and Schuster, 2016). Read the transcript here.  Read Barton's article Why Democrats Can’t Quit Trump here. 

WTH Can’t Democrats Quit Trump? The WSJ’s Barton Swaim Explains

In the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Joe Biden stood by America’s closest Middle Eastern partner, providing diplomatic cover and military aid. Recently, however, the Biden administration has become increasingly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli operations in Gaza. In March, Biden refused to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire without conditioning it on the release of Israeli hostages or acknowledging the atrocities of October 7. Why the sudden shift in tone from the Biden administration? Will the growing rift between Biden and Netanyahu affect Israel’s war aims in Gaza? And how will Biden’s failure to stand by Israel affect American partnerships in the region? Dan Senor is the host of the podcast Call Me Back and co-author of New York Times bestselling books The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation and Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. He is a former Defense Department official, was a senior advisor to former Speaker Paul Ryan’s campaign for vice president, and was a foreign policy advisor to Senator Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns. Dan was educated at the University of Western Ontario, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Harvard Business School. He is currently a partner at Elliott Investment Management. Read the transcript here.  Find Dan Senor's podcast here. 

WTH Is Going On With Biden and Israel? Dan Senor Explains

According to President Biden, his stewardship of the economy – which he has dubbed “Bidenomics” – should be praised as the best America has ever seen. Unemployment is down and jobs are up. So why exactly are Americans giving such poor ratings to Bidenomics? Perhaps it’s because Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package unleashed the worst inflation in 40 years. And while inflation may be lower today than it was three years ago, its compounding effects mean that prices are still sky-high. On top of that, Americans recently hit a record high of over a trillion dollars in credit card debt. In short, it doesn’t take a PhD to understand that Americans are hurting.  Gary D. Cohn is the Vice Chairman of IBM and served as chief economic advisor and the 11th Director of the National Economic Council to President Donald Trump. Before serving in the White House, Mr. Cohn was President and Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs, a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, and Chairman of the Firmwide Client and Business Standards Committee. Mr. Cohn began his career at U.S. Steel before moving to New York to trade on the New York Commodities Exchange. Read the transcript here. 

WTH is going on with freedom in the world? Is democracy in decline?

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