American Thought Leaders

Half a million unaccompanied minors entered the United States between 2019 and 2023, and experts fear many of them have been trafficked. And that does not include the children who crossed the border with individuals falsely claiming to be their family members. So where are all these children now?Alina Habba, who is currently serving as counselor to the president, says she’s working with the different agencies involved to identify and rescue trafficking victims and prosecute the perpetrators.“I am drafting a couple executive orders regarding that currently that I think will be important to properly get this moving for those kids,” she says.In her role advising the president, Habba says she’s focused on human trafficking and Iraq. Habba is the daughter of Chaldean Catholics who fled Iraq in the 1980s.We dive into her work today and get an update on the status of the long-awaited Epstein files.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 14 March 2025

There are few people who have played a more important role in broadly supporting the rights of religious believers in China than Marco Respinti, director-in-charge of the Bitter Winter magazine.“In the first six to eight months of our existence online as a magazine, some 40 people who were connected to us on the ground were arrested in China. … Half of them simply disappeared,” Respinti says.During the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, I had the great pleasure of finally sitting down with Respinti to discuss how the Chinese Communist Party systematically infiltrates, coopts, and destroys religious movements in China.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 12 March 2025

President Donald Trump has promised that he will bring back American manufacturing during his presidency. What if there aren’t enough Americans who want to work those jobs?“Every year for the last decade or so, for every five tradesmen who retire, two replace them,” says Mike Rowe, Emmy Award-winning TV host of the Dirty Jobs series.“If we don’t have a workforce who is disabused of the stigmas and the stereotypes and the myths and the misperceptions that have kept millions of kids from giving these jobs an honest look ... you’re going to wind up in a pretty nasty feedback loop,” he says.“People still don’t believe me. Even when I show them, not just the stats, but the actual humans who are making $150-grand a year welding with an $8,000 certificate, they just don’t believe it,” he says.Rowe is the founder of mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which awards millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships for young people to learn a skilled trade.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 9 March 2025

President Donald Trump has been widely criticized for his “transactional” approach to diplomacy. But is that really such a bad thing?In this episode, I sit down with China expert and retired U.S. Marine Col. Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow with the Center for Security Policy, to discuss Trump’s approach to diplomacy and negotiations and how America can leverage what he describes as the “kryptonite” of the Chinese regime.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 7 March 2025

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the President Santiago Peña of Paraguay. He shared why Paraguay is one of only 12 countries in the world that recognizes Taiwan instead of communist China and one of only six countries that have moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.Now I’m sitting down with his foreign minister, Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, to learn more about Paraguay, the region, and Lezcano’s candidacy for secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS).“Paraguay matters in the agenda of the United States. Why? Because Paraguay is a very important and key partner for the United States,” says Lezcano. “I think that America abandoned for a long time Latin America. In the last year, the United States lost a lot of markets, a lot of investment, and a lot of opportunities. I think that [now] is the time to work closely again.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 5 March 2025

“When I got my COVID vaccine, my reaction started within an hour, and it started with tingling down the same arm as my injection. It moved to my other arm, then it moved to my legs, and then it moved to my head, into my brain, and I had this horrific electrical, pulsating sensation through my body 24/7.”Brianne Dressen was left severely injured after participating in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trials. She’s the co-founder of the nonprofit React19, which helps people impacted by COVID-19 vaccine injuries. React19 now advocates on behalf of over 36,000 people.“We can’t be found in any kind of database that the public or anyone beyond the government can access,” she says. “All of the programs that we’ve developed, they work together in concert to build an avenue for healing for the people that literally have no avenue.”She’s the subject of the new book “Worth a Shot?: Secrets of the Clinical Trial Participant Who Inspired a Global Movement.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 2 March 2025

Joining me today is Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana. Since he took office last year, he’s implemented sweeping changes in public safety, tax policy, and education.We discuss gains made in the state’s educational rankings, as well as his plans for boosting election integrity, increasing manufacturing, and ensuring fiscal responsibility.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2025

In this episode, we dive into China’s influence and the communist regime’s propaganda efforts worldwide. Joining us is Piero Tozzi, a longtime China expert and staff director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.What are some key misconceptions we have about China and the Chinese regime? And are we finally seeing a real “pivot to Asia” as the Trump administration signals a dramatic reduction in U.S. military presence in Europe and demands that NATO allies pitch in more for Europe’s defense?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 26 February 2025

In January, the western province of Alberta in Canada released a 269-page report—the first of its kind—examining the information and data that informed its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.“Doctors felt pressure to do things they didn’t agree with. We need to have good autonomy where a physician is doing things safely, but they’re allowed to treat their patients in what they believe is the best for them. It still has to be regulated. You can’t just have everybody off on their own, but it has to be done,” says Dr. Gary Davidson, an emergency physician and primary author of the report.“I was asked to form a task force. There’s people on the task force that are more aligned with how I saw it or how I think, and then there were people invited to join who are not aligned with how I think or see it.”The report found that pandemic lockdowns, masking mandates, and vaccine mandates all failed to achieve their intended results.“There’s just so much data out there. The Nordic countries did a huge study—millions of people, showing that if you’re under 50 years old, and if you don’t have any really good reason, you probably shouldn’t get this vaccine,” says Davidson. “And so that’s what we recommend doing in Alberta.”The views expressed in this video are those of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 23 February 2025

Andrew Hale is a senior trade policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. In this episode, we discuss how Trump is using various trade tools to strengthen alliances and weaken adversaries.“I look upon what he’s trying to do as a negotiating tactic. He’s using tariffs as an instrument of statecraft, and also for economic coercion, to achieve matters that sometimes go well beyond trade policy,” Hale says.Hale says that tariffs should be used against America’s foreign adversaries, but not necessarily against its allies.“Among [those on] the protection side, there’s a knee jerk reaction saying a tariff is the panacea to all of our problems. And actually, a lot of these problems we created right here in Washington. And we can fix them right here in Washington, with dealing with some of the stupid and foolish regulations that we have,” he says. “What we cannot go back to is what we had during the Clinton years, what we had during the Bush years, the Obama years—which was this seamless trade with China, where we treat them as a market economy. They’re a non-market economy. They’re a foreign adversary.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2025

“We had a case of a little cell of Christian believers who were all converts from Islam, and they were meeting secretly. And they were infiltrated by a radical terrorist group called Al Shabaab, and they burnt down the house. They captured some of them, they took them onto the beach, and only two of them managed to survive, because they killed the rest of them.”Charmaine Hedding is the founder and president of the Shai Fund, a humanitarian organization that aids, protects, and even rescues persecuted minorities throughout the Middle East and Africa.“In 2014, I watched as the Islamic State swept over Syria and Iraq. And I watched as the Yazidi and the Christian women were taken as sex slaves and sold in the markets of Raqqa and in Turkey and across the Middle East. And I thought to myself, ‘Who’s going to do something about this?’” she says. “The greatest struggle in the Middle East and in Africa, at the moment, is this concept of freedom of religion and belief.”Hedding was born and raised in South Africa, where her father and grandfather were outspoken anti-apartheid activists. Because of their activism, they were eventually forced to flee to Jerusalem when Hedding was a child.“By the time I was 12, we were harassed by agents. And we had agents in the church. We were followed,” she says. “The question that I remember asking myself as a child after reading the stories of the Holocaust is: If I was a European, what would I have done? And would I have put myself at risk to save a Jewish family? And that’s what motivated me, that question.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 19 February 2025

“In the last four years, we’ve seen an aggregate inflation of about 26 percent. So that’s a quarter of your purchasing power—phoosh gone—just disappeared across the board,” says Stefan Rust, founder and CEO of Truflation, a blockchain-based financial data service that provides real-time economic and inflation data.What will be the impact of DOGE’s aggressive cost-cutting? Could it cause a short-term reduction in the size of the U.S. economy?Some people have been talking about risks of deflation—is that really a concern? And what will be the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 16 February 2025

In this episode, I sit down with John O’Sullivan, a former policy and speech writer for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and former editor-in-chief of National Review and executive editor of Radio Free Europe. Today, he’s the president of the Danube Institute, a Hungary-based think-tank.A “unified national identity is an absolute essential for a successful democracy,” he says. “If we continue on a multicultural path, it’s a path which is going to go in the directions of ever more aggressive and hostile identity politics, and people will feel that their neighbors are their enemies.”O’Sullivan’s latest book is titled: “Sleepwalking into Wokeness: How We Got Here.”“The idea of post-nationalism is unachievable if you’re a state. You don’t remain just a post-national state, what you become is something else,” he says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 14 February 2025

The Chinese AI app DeepSeek recently became the most downloaded iPhone app in the United States and caused U.S. tech stocks to plummet. President Donald Trump described it as a “wake-up” call for American companies.So what’s really going on? Is DeepSeek as powerful as people think? Or is there a bigger story here?In this episode, we sit down with AI expert Nicolas Chaillan, former chief software officer for the U.S. Air Force and now founder of the generative AI company Ask Sage.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 12 February 2025

“The fires themselves are pretty much out. There’s a few smoldering remains, but the trouble has just begun,” says Edward Ring, director of Water and Energy Policy for the California Policy Center. “It’s going to be very hard to get everything rebuilt in Los Angeles.”In this episode, we do a deep dive on the California wildfires. How did they originate? Why was the devastation so horrific? Could they have been prevented? What is the scope of the damage? And in the aftermath, what should be done?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 9 February 2025

“They’re at war for the American mind. That’s why you have TikTok out there. That’s why you have DeepSeek. That’s why you have the China Daily. They’re out there trying to control information and your perception of reality,” says Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), who was recently elected for his first term.His first bill seeks to ban the widespread distribution of the China Daily in the House of Representatives. China Daily is a registered foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. In 2020, the newspaper was among many Chinese state media outlets designated as foreign missions in the United States.“It’s propaganda by a foreign government that’s trying to influence the highest echelons of the United States government. It’s unacceptable,” Hamadeh said.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2025

Michael Pack is a documentary filmmaker and the president of Palladium Pictures. During Donald Trump’s first presidency, he led the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees America’s state-funded news networks, including Voice of America.“The budget is something like $900 million,” he says. “It’s only a mid-sized government agency, but it’s one of the largest broadcasters in the world. They’re broadcasting over 70 languages to hundreds of millions of people a week. So it’s really a potent tool, and it’s designed to promote American ideas and values abroad.”In this episode, we discuss his recent films, the future of media, and how the U.S. government can better leverage public diplomacy as a tool against its adversaries.“We could do nothing better, really, than to knock [China’s internet] firewall down. I think if people in China had a chance to hear the range of ideas out there, it would change the country more than almost anything else. And it’s not expensive,” he says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 5 February 2025

Eric Berg, popularly known as Dr. Berg or “The Knowledge Doc,” is a nutritionist and chiropractor specializing in weight loss and alternative health care. He has published more than 6,000 videos and amassed 13 million followers on YouTube, and has trained more than 2,500 doctors and health care practitioners in how diet can impact your health.“When you reduce carbohydrates, it then forces your body to go after your own fat as fuel. So for weight loss, it’s great. And for other things, it’s good too,” says Dr. Berg.In this episode, we discuss Dr. Berg’s approach to health, why he advocates for a keto diet and intermittent fasting, and his thoughts on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary.“If we are going to make some changes, we have to, first of all, make people aware of these hidden ingredients and start to get them out of your diet,” he says. “They find these loopholes and they try to cheat the system. And it’s called ‘organic,’ but is it really organic?”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 2 February 2025

Suella Braverman is the former home secretary of the United Kingdom, and a conservative member of the British parliament. While she was in Washington for President Donald Trump’s inauguration, we sat down to talk about what’s been happening in the U.K., and what Trump’s election means to her and her constituents.“We need to learn a lot from the MAGA movement, from the success of the Republicans under Donald Trump, and really try and apply some of those lessons to U.K. politics right now, because we are mired in the depression, the recession, and the doom and gloom over socialism,” said Braverman.We discussed the grooming gangs scandal currently making headlines in Britain, in which predominantly migrant gangs of men have been sexually assaulting and abusing young girls for roughly two decades.“The Pakistani men who were involved in this abhorrent behavior were targeting white girls for a specific reason—that they have an outdated, unacceptable view of women. And the authorities failed to act because they were scared of the charge of racism,” said Braverman. “It’s one of the biggest national scandals in our history.”We also discussed issues related to anti-Semitism and free speech.“We’ve got this problem in the U.K. of hate marches, where extremism, antisemitism, and Islamism can be paraded on our streets, and the police won’t take any action. And it’s caused a real increase in antisemitism, and it’s made parts of our streets and our public realm no-go zones for Jewish people,” she said.“We have a crisis of free speech in the United Kingdom, and I use that word deliberately. We have a situation where the police have the powers to record your information and log your details, if you’ve said something that might be offensive to someone. It doesn’t matter about the objective nature of what you’ve said. If someone, somewhere, happens to be offended by what you have said, and it relates to a personal characteristic, race, gender, religion, or sex, then that’s it. The case is closed. You will be considered guilty of what we call a ‘noncrime hate incident.'”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2025

At a young age, Cooper Davis was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a low dose of Ritalin, which helped his ability to focus but caused unwanted side effects. To counteract them, he was prescribed other medications. By age 30, Davis was dependent on six different psychiatric drugs at any given time, what’s commonly known in the mental health community as a “prescription cascade.”“It’s complicated enough that the scientific consensus will generally say, ‘We don’t quite understand why these drugs work,’” says Davis.Today, he is executive director of the Inner Compass Initiative, where he addresses America’s mental health crisis and overmedication problem by helping people make informed choices about prescription drugs, diagnoses, and withdrawal.“Once people experience withdrawal symptoms, they get back on the drug. They treat it as confirmation that they are still mentally ill,” says Davis. “Experiential expertise, expertise gained from your own life, is just as valid—and probably more useful in many, many cases than clinical expertise.”Davis says that one out of four adults in America and 6 million children are currently taking at least one psychiatric drug.“That’s going to be inclusive of teenagers, but it is certainly the trend that more and more kids that are younger and younger are being diagnosed and prescribed earlier and earlier.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 29 January 2025

In this episode, we have a special guest: Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña.Paraguay is a unique country. It is one of only 12 countries in the world that recognize Taiwan instead of communist China.It is also one of only six nations in the world, alongside the United States, that have moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Peña said he made the decision despite immense opposition from other world leaders.An economist, Peña served as Paraguay’s minister of finance before he was elected president. He assumed office in August 2023 after a landslide victory. During his tenure, Paraguay has seen robust economic growth, outperforming many other Latin American nations. Last year, Moody’s awarded Paraguay an investment grade rating.In this episode, I ask President Peña about what President Donald Trump’s return to the White House means for Paraguay and Latin America more broadly, his hopes and economic strategy for Paraguay, why he’s concerned about communist China’s influence in the region, and what he thinks about Trump’s recent comments about controlling the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 26 January 2025

President Trump says he wants the United States to control the Panama Canal and other regions and waterways that he says are crucial to America’s national security interests.“The question we would have to have with Panama is: Do you truly, verifiably know everything that China is doing in regards to your canal for national security concerns? And unless they could give us an answer of ‘100%, we do,’ I think that we’re going to have to have more transparency on that. And I think that’s where the conversation is at today,” says Joseph Humire. He is an expert on Latin America, specializing, in foreign policy, national security, and asymmetric warfare.“Worst case scenario for the United States would be that [China] would find a way to disrupt the Panama Canal so that the United States no longer has rapid reaction capabilities to be able to move from the Atlantic into the Pacific,” he says.In this episode, Humire breaks down the context of Trump’s recent comments and explains how vulnerable the United States is to increasing Chinese, Russian, and Iranian influence in the region.“The United States has not had a grand strategy for the Western Hemisphere arguably in 100 years—arguably since the Monroe Doctrine,” he says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 24 January 2025

“In America, we really don’t have a health care system, even though we call everything ‘health’ insurance, ‘health’ care, and this and that,” says Dr. Jingduan Yang.“We’re not healthy as a nation because we allocate all resources trying to deal with consequences of problems or disease, rather than to prevent [them] and find the root causes that cause those problems,” he says.Yang is a specialist in psychiatry and integrative medicine, and is a fifth-generation practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. He’s the CEO of Northern Medical Center and founder of the Yang Institute of Integrative Medicine.Western medicine could learn a lot from the approach of Chinese medicine, he says, which emphasizes prevention before problems become structurally damaging and looking at every part of the body as part of an integrated system.“In Chinese medicine, every organ is connected. ... Therefore, there’s no way you could address any part of the body’s issue without looking at the whole system,” Yang says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 22 January 2025

“The UK has now banned puberty blockers—probably will ban cross-sex hormones too, is my prediction, in the next few years,” said Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.He has been following the massive increase in children identifying as transgender and undergoing what’s known as “gender-affirming care” treatment—from puberty blockers to double mastectomies.“[The World Professional Association for Transgender Health] commissioned systematic evidence reviews as part of the process of developing [Standards of Care Version 8]. When it found out that the evidence reviews, specifically for minors, were unimpressive and did not get them the results that they wanted—that would support their medical approach, they suppressed them. They basically instructed the researchers at Johns Hopkins University who were doing these systematic reviews to not publish them,” said Sapir. “Any way you look at it, WPATH greatly deviated from how responsible, trustworthy medical guidelines are supposed to be developed.”His current area of focus is the pushback to gender interventions for minors, including state bans, lawsuits, and a landmark case now at the Supreme Court.“This case has tremendous consequences for what’s going to happen in the 26 states that have banned these interventions in minors,” said Sapir.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 19 January 2025

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is stepping up its efforts to destroy a religious group in America that it sees as a threat to its rule, according to leaked information from multiple CCP insiders.Tactics include lawfare, bomb threats, smear campaigns, impersonation attempts, and bribing U.S. officials. The Department of Justice sentenced a Chinese agent for trying to bribe an IRS agent to target practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline.So what’s going on exactly? And why would this be a priority for the Chinese regime?Today, I’m sitting down with Erping Zhang, president of the International Falun Dafa Association.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 17 January 2025

“I think race is a very emotional issue with black America, and it can be very easily manipulated. And it has been manipulated for decades by people who use it to direct blacks to vote in a certain way.”In this latest episode in our special series on the U.S. presidential transition, I sit down with Bob Woodson and Joshua Mitchell. Woodson is a civil rights activist and the Founder and President of the Woodson Center. Mitchell is a professor of political theory at Georgetown University.“The partisan debate on race is driven by guilty whites who are seeking absolution from crimes they never committed, and entitled blacks who are seeking absolution from injustices they never suffered,” says Woodson.What does Trump’s victory mean for black America? Will Trump be the first post-racial president? And what is the role of mediating institutions and what Woodson and Mitchell call “invisible knowledge” in revitalizing American communities?“We have levels of despair and depression because the state has become this administrative behemoth, making citizen competence impossible,” says Mitchell. “We’ve got this invitation, literally, to return to the founders’ vision, where we have citizen competence. The only way you can have small government is if you have massive citizen competence.”“The biggest challenge we’re facing is a moral and spiritual free-fall that is consuming people of all races and all colors,” says Woodson. “But we’re not going to be able to find the source of this solution if we are separated by race, and that’s why we must become post-racial.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 15 January 2025

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2“Our bodies are not meant to handle these man-made chemicals that have been invented in the last 50 years. These chemicals are invented for one sole purpose, and that’s to improve the bottom line of the food industry, not improve our health.”In this episode, I sit down with author and activist Vani Hari, popularly known as the “food babe.” For over a decade, she has been exposing toxic ingredients in America’s food—and getting companies to stop using them.“[The FDA has] not reviewed the safety data of these artificial dyes in over 10 years. However, children’s consumption of these artificial food dyes have increased 500 percent,” says Hari. “We’re not trying to stop fast food or get rid of fast food. We want to make it the same as they do in Europe. McDonald’s french fries: 11 ingredients here in the United States, including dimethyl polysiloxane, an ingredient you would find in silly putty ... but in the UK, there’s three ingredients, and the fourth ingredient is optional. It’s just salt.”Hari argues that food companies should add a warning label to every product that uses artificial food dyes, as they already do in Europe.“That would automatically almost force the food industry to remove them here as well, because they do not want parents to be concerned about their products,” she says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 13 January 2025

In this latest installment of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, I’m sitting down with Nazak Nikakhtar, former assistant secretary of commerce for industry and analysis under the first Trump administration. She’s an expert on trade and national security and a partner at Wiley Rein LLP. In this episode, we dive into the debate surrounding the use of tariffs. How have China’s unfair trade practices destroyed American manufacturing? Will tariffs work? Or will they make things worse for the average American? And what other tools will Trump have at his disposal that can restore and protect U.S. industry?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 10 January 2025

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2“We’re being lied to about chronic disease. That’s 90 percent of medical spending—92 percent of American deaths are chronic disease. Only 8 percent are infectious. And we have this system that profits from that. But what we could do, which is what President Trump and Bobby Kennedy talked about, is get to the root cause.”In this episode, I sit down with Calley Means, co-author of “Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health.”He has been working in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement on a blueprint for reforming the public health establishment.“We’re going to let information out. We’re going to do new research on why we’re getting sick. We’re also going to release the existing research. We’re going to stop infantilizing the American patient. We’re going to trust Americans that they’re trying to make the best decisions for their health and their kids,” says Means.“I really think that the problem with public health in America right now is we’ve relied too much on the experts. We should have expertise, we should have to read science, but we should have it open, and then really unlock flexibility for Americans to make the best decision for their personal situation with their doctors.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 9 January 2025

“The science is out there: There have been 64 peer-reviewed studies that Linda Nielsen has reviewed. And they all come to the same conclusion—that children fare better with both parents.”After experiencing firsthand systemic problems within the family court system, in which one parent, typically the father, is relegated to weekend visits with his children in divorce cases, Mark Ludwig founded Americans for Equal Shared Parenting to raise awareness about the need for children to have equal access to both parents.“The opposition has done a great job of creating the narrative that this is just a bunch of angry dads who have anger management problems, conflict resolution problems, and maybe they shouldn’t even be a dad,” he says.Ludwig travels the country advocating for a 50/50 rebuttable presumption—legislation that presumes both parents will share equal custody in a divorce, so long as they are fit, willing, and able.“The No. 1 stability point a child needs is not where they live, but who they have a relationship with. And the stability of the relationship with both parents is more important than what house they live in,” says Ludwig. “I'll fight just as hard for mothers as I do fathers, because I’m not fighting for the mother or the father. I’m fighting for the child.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 6 January 2025

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2“We do need to shrink our spending and we need to get a hold on the debt, but it needs to be done in a way that you have the growth go first. Otherwise, you’re going to end up with less revenue, which means you’re going to actually widen the deficit and create a worse problem—a ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ type of scenario.”As part of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, I’m sitting down with Carol Roth, a former investment banker and author of several books—most recently, “You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back.”In this episode, we discuss the biggest financial challenges facing the incoming administration and how best to navigate them.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 3 January 2025

More than 5,000 minors in the United States underwent transgender surgeries between 2019 and 2023 and nearly 14,000 had transgender-related treatments, according to research into insurance billing codes conducted by the advocacy organization Do No Harm. In total, these treatments and procedures cost at least $119 million.Dr. Stanley Goldfarb is a board-certified kidney specialist and the board chairman of Do No Harm, which recently released a national database on transgender-related services at medical facilities across America.The “gender-affirming” treatment model is based on flimsy evidence and has, in many cases, robbed children of normal lives, he says.Dr. Goldfarb says social justice ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion standards have taken over medical education, to the detriment of patients. Students are no longer taught to think critically and to properly evaluate medical research and statistics for weaknesses and flaws, he says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 1 January 2025

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been advising President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team. At Turning Point USA’s AmFest conference in Phoenix, I sat down with him to discuss key challenges facing the incoming administration, such as how to address Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control of the Panama Canal.“Who’s controlling this very important waterway? It’s the most strategic waterway for the United States of America on the planet,” Flynn says. “China is the dominant player right now between us and them.”Lt. Gen. Flynn says the Chinese regime either owns or controls some component of 80 percent of the largest ports of our hemisphere. “And yet we have people in our government that go ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’”He argues that although America has always been a benevolent “nation of givers,” it must focus more energy on domestic policy, and that every citizen has a responsibility to engage in local action.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 30 December 2024

Kyle Bass is the founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, and he’s known for his prescient bets on major global economic events.In this episode, we dive into why he believes China’s economy is collapsing, why Bytedance hasn’t sold TikTok despite a looming January deadline, and what he believes the big economic and financial priorities of the incoming Trump administration should be.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 27 December 2024

At Turning Point USA’s AmFest conference in Phoenix, I sat down with former TV anchor Kari Lake, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head Voice of America (VOA).VOA is an international broadcaster funded by Congress that releases content in nearly 50 languages to more than 300 million people weekly around the globe.It was founded in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda and share the “policies of the United States clearly and effectively.” VOA later played a major role in the ideological fight against communism during the Cold War.The director of Voice of America is officially nominated by the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. After Senate approval, the candidate must also be approved by a majority vote of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board.What would Voice of America look like under Kari Lake?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 24 December 2024

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2As part of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, I’m sitting down with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.).In the next Congress, Johnson will become chairman again of the homeland security committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has uniquely powerful subpoena powers to investigate crime and corruption within the U.S. government and beyond.In this wide-ranging episode, we dive into the future of the Make America Healthy Again movement; what Johnson believes key steps are for the incoming administration to restore transparency, scientific integrity, and small government; and why Congress needs to retake its oversight authority.“Our oversight authority is probably our greatest authority and greatest responsibility. ... We’ve got to fund government. But then once we funded it, we need to take a look at what we funded. … What we passed, did it actually work?”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 24 December 2024

As part of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, Sebastian Gorka breaks down the complexities of recent events in Syria, and what the incoming Trump administration’s foreign policy may look like when it comes to NATO, the Middle East, Russia, and China.Gorka will serve as Trump’s deputy assistant and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2024

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2Forty-five key figures in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement were recently sentenced to up to 10 years each. More than 1,900 political prisoners have been convicted and imprisoned in Hong Kong in the last five years. Thousands more are simply being held without bail for years on end. About 40 percent of Hong Kong’s entire prison population is being held without a conviction.“They haven’t even taken the trouble to convict these people in a kangaroo court,” says Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.Clifford has lived in Asia since the late 1980s and witnessed Hong Kong’s transformation from a largely free society in 1997, to an increasingly repressive one. He previously served as editor-in-chief of the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post and executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council.He’s the author of multiple books, including “Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World” and most recently “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.”Hong Kong, once celebrated for its economic freedom and rule of law, has now become a key node for authoritarian regimes to evade sanctions, Clifford says. According to a report by Samuel Bickett, Hong Kong has become an indispensable location for the transfer of money, military technology, and prohibited products to Russia, Iran, and North Korea.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 18 December 2024

“Despite decades of a US Department of Education, we’re not doing any better in educating our students. If anything, we’re now doing worse ... I think the question is how the American people can best be served. The goal shouldn’t be to preserve jobs of bureaucrats. The goal shouldn’t be to preserve the status quo. We should ask, how can we best serve students and their families?”As part of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, I’m sitting down with Kenneth L. Marcus, former assistant secretary of education for civil rights and the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 17 December 2024

Universities today are increasingly plagued by ideological nihilism, bloated costs, and the growing infantilization of students with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings,” says Ralston College President Stephen Blackwood.And far too many students are being funneled into universities as the default step after high school, he says. “We’re trying to make universities the kind of catch-all for job training, and universities have historically not played that role,” Blackwood says.Ralston College is an attempt to restore a rich and transformative humanities education, one that ponders the deepest questions of life and that seeks out what is true and what is beautiful.“We thought it was necessary, at this time in Western civilization, to revive the conditions for human flourishing, to reinvent and revive the university and the fundamental role that communities of learning have played throughout the entire trajectory irreducibly in Western civilization,” Blackwood says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 15 December 2024

There is an unprecedented child trafficking crisis in America today. Large numbers of unaccompanied migrant children are being released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to sponsors that are not thoroughly vetted, including individuals associated with dangerous criminal organizations like MS-13 and the 18th Street gang, whistleblowers say.Many migrant children now work backbreaking shifts in slaughterhouses, restaurants, or factories. Others are being sold for sex.From 2019 to 2023, immigration authorities transferred more than 448,000 unaccompanied minors from the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the HHS. A recent watchdog report found that ICE is unable to account for more than 32,000 unaccompanied children who failed to appear for court hearings. Another 291,000 unaccompanied children simply did not receive notices at all.So how many children in America have fallen victim to trafficking? To what extent are international actors facilitating this? What can the incoming administration do to stem child trafficking? What will be the greatest challenges they must tackle?Join me for this special live crossover episode with NTD’s International Roundtable program, hosted by Cindy Drukier. The two of us will be sitting down with three key individuals who have been at the forefront of exposing child trafficking and demanding policy change.Guests:Tara Rodas, HHS whistleblower and 20-year public servant, primarily working in the federal inspector general communityAaron Stevenson, DHS whistleblower and former intelligence research specialist for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration ServicesMary Flynn O’Neill, executive director of the America’s Future nonprofit

Transcribed - Published: 13 December 2024

Drew Pinsky, popularly known as Dr. Drew, is an addiction medicine specialist and host of the TV series “Ask Dr. Drew.” For decades, he has been studying public health and drug addiction in America, exposing its ongoing challenges in nationally syndicated television and radio programs. He saw early on during the COVID-19 pandemic that the response from the authorities would cause unnecessary harm and suffering.“A member of the school board came in and said, ‘We’re going to lock the schools down.’ And I said, ‘Why? Why are you doing that? Who did you consult with? Did an infectious disease doctor come in and say you’ve got to do this?’ ‘No, it’s just the right thing to do.’ ... I knew then that was big, big, big trouble,” says Pinsky.He says that how authorities reacted to the pandemic followed a similar playbook to how they responded to the opioid crisis. And in both cases, he argues, the physician-patient relationship has degraded.“The physician-patient unit is so badly encumbered and so badly adulterated right now that it’s hard for it to function,” says Pinsky. “There are some of us that can’t get over COVID—not the virus—the way our country dealt with the COVID, just mind-boggling.”Pinsky is particularly concerned about the centralization and algorithmizing of medicine.“The young folks are being taught to look at the computer and just fill out forms, do an algorithm, look things up if you don’t know—I mean, I don’t know how you develop judgment. I don’t know how you think about a risk-reward if all you’re doing is following an algorithm on your electronic medical record. It’s really disturbing,” he says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 10 December 2024

“You can literally make all the components of all these drugs in China, you can ship them in a barrel to some plant in New Jersey, mix it, compound it, package and label it, and say ‘made in the USA,’ and then sell it to the Department of Defense. Now, that’s the number one thing I would ask a Congress and the president—to fix that loophole through legislation immediately. They can fix that in the NDAA a week from now, if they were really serious about it.”As part of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, I’m sitting down with Victor Suarez, a retired U.S. Army colonel who served for 27 years and saw, firsthand, serious problems with America’s medical supply chains.In this episode, he breaks down key steps America can take to secure its vital medicines.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 7 December 2024

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, universities throughout America experienced a sharp rise in hostility toward Jews.“I have lost every single non-Jewish friend I had at Harvard—every single one,” said student activist Shabbos Kestenbaum.A proud Orthodox Jew and a former self-described “die-hard liberal,” Kestenbaum endorsed Donald Trump and voted Republican for the first time in his life, believing that the Democratic Party had systematically abandoned Jewish Americans.“As an Orthodox Jew, I grew up with the ideals of: You are an American and proudly so, and you’re Jewish and proudly so. The two were never contradictory. They were quite complimentary. ... They very much influenced each other. As I said in my speech at the Republican Convention, Jewish values are American values. American values are Jewish values,” says Kestenbaum.Harvard University came under particular scrutiny for its failure to combat anti-Semitism on campus, ultimately leading to the forced resignation of its president, Claudine Gay. Today, Kestenbaum is suing his alma mater, alleging federal violations of the Civil Rights Act, under which, due to Trump’s 2019 executive order concerning Title VI, Jewish students are now protected.“When we filed our lawsuit in mid-January, Harvard’s response was not to apologize. It was not to acknowledge the reality of anti-Semitism. It was not to tell us what they were going to do. They filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice, meaning they were asking a judge not only to toss out our lawsuit but to make it so that no other Jewish student in the future would be able to hold them accountable for anti-Semitism,” says Kestenbaum. “To this day, they have not articulated a single policy that would prevent what happened to me from ever happening again to any student, Jew or not.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 5 December 2024

As part of our special series on alternative models of education, I’m sitting down with Michael Fitzgerald, principal of Northern Schoolhouse, an upstate New York private school focused on classical literature and art, immersion in nature, and nurturing strong moral character based on time-tested virtues.“This is the trend in education: ‘It doesn’t matter what you’re reading, as long as you’re reading.’ And I actually disagree with that. I think it’s very important what you’re reading,” Fitzgerald says.“In the end, we want them becoming autonomous people who know how to move themselves well through the world, as truly good people who recognize beauty,” he says.“If you recognize beauty, you can recognize what’s good. And those are highly correlated in the classical world, especially in the Socratic sense. They talk a lot about truth, beauty, and goodness.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 3 December 2024

As part of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, I’m sitting down today with Jeff Clark, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice during the first Trump administration and now senior fellow and director of litigation at the Center for Renewing America.What are recess appointments? Why is Trump so interested in them? Are there legal or historical precedents for them? And how could they impact the effectiveness of this coming administration?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 26 November 2024

We’re launching a special “American Thought Leaders” series during this post-election transition period in which I will be interviewing topic matter experts and former and potential future Trump administration officials to understand what the incoming American administration’s policies in 2025 may look like—for America, Canada, and the world.Today, I’m sitting down with David M. Friedman, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel under the Trump administration, one of the main architects of the Abraham Accords, and the author of “One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 26 November 2024

We’re launching a special American Thought Leaders series during this post-election transition period where I will be interviewing topic matter experts and former and potential future Trump administration officials to understand what the incoming American administration’s policies in 2025 may look like—for America, Canada, and the world.In this episode, I’m sitting down with Todd Bensman, an expert on the border and counterterrorism and author of the book, “Overrun.” He’s a senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington policy institute.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 20 November 2024

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2Greg Scarlatoiu is the new president of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and a longtime expert on the Korean peninsula.In this episode, he breaks down why North Korea has sent troops to fight in Ukraine, North Korea’s long history of involvement in foreign conflicts, what the current situation in this communist nation looks like, and what America’s long-term North Korea strategy should be.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 20 November 2024

I recently had the pleasure of attending a Pandemic Planning conference at Stanford University. It was really the first of its kind, in that it brought together a wide range of voices on the topic in an academic setting, and it was held under the auspices of the new Stanford President Jonathan Levin.“I think it’s expanded the range of things that are allowed to be said in polite society, if you will,” says Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy and the lead organizer of the conference.“The purpose of the conference was to essentially open the floodgates of these kinds of events taking place everywhere around the world,” he says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcribed - Published: 19 November 2024