”I’m a ‘90s liberal, which makes me a right-wing fascist now.”

One of the most recognisable faces of Gen-X comedy, Rob Schneider has been a mainstay of American culture for over 30 years.

Rob was catapulted to fame by three years in the cast of SNL, alongside fellow legends Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Norm MacDonald, and Chris Farley - a run that would earn him three Emmy nominations. Leaving in ‘93, Rob transitioned to films, appearing in the likes of The Waterboy, Big Daddy and 50 First Dates, as well as starring in his own star vehicle: Deuce Bigalow.

More recently, Rob has become something of a political commentator. Cutting away from his peers, he has become increasingly outspoken in his opposition to childhood vaccines, transgenderism and woke culture, as well as his Catholicism and his support of Trump.

Why did we invite him on?

”It’s gotten dangerous. We have to have gun checks at comedy shows now.”

In one of our first interviews post-Trump’s 2024 win, we invited Rob on to share his thoughts on the President, the left, and the divided states of America. It proved to be not only our most popular interview of the trip, but in the history of our show - as of the time of writing, it boasts over 2.4 million views on YouTube.

From that, we can glean that not only do we love talking to Rob, but you seem to appreciate it too. We had to have him back. One year on, there’s so much more to talk about.

What did we discuss?

“There’s a Chinese proverb: ‘May you live in interesting times’… We are certainly living in interesting times.”

The amount that has happened in the last 12 months is, frankly, baffling. Even discounting the West and the world more widely, just looking at America… so much which could not have been predicted this time last year has come to pass. The Epstein scandal, the 12 Day War, which spiralled into the conflict we’re seeing now, the splintering of the MAGA movement - it’s an overwhelming shift.

”The realisation for the liberals that they have lost power is still sinking in. The useful idiots are still protesting, doing their ‘No Kings’ demonstrations … And also there’s a wake-up call for the Republicans that, just because the party is in power, they can’t do all the things they want to do. There are impediments to power.”

Still, if there’s any respite, it’s this: it’s hard to imagine a more ripe time for parody than the age we find ourselves in. Everything is absurd, and the shackles of wokeism have been broadly relinquished. Popular comedy is once again edgy, shocking and, for better or worse, mean.

It’s an unsurprising return to form. After years of censorious scolding, the reaction was always going to be a pendulum swing, equal and opposite in its force. Rob, as a comedian with over thirty years under his belt, warns that the right’s humourists might have missed the key lesson of the woke era…

”In American comedy, we’ve got to be careful. We’ve come out of that COVID tyranny, but all the best stuff about Peter Cook and Monty Python is that it was silly - silliness is king. I fear there’s a lot of serious creeping in, and I think the audience is noticing. I have to be careful too! I have to be careful that I’m not just throwing slop to the conservative masses.”

One of the most significant figures in the pushback was (and is) Dave Chappelle. Arguably the most acclaimed and influential comic of his generation, Dave’s return to comedy in the mid-2010s was initially greeted with universal praise. That soon faded - in Sticks & Stones, Dave began to make jokes at the expense of transgenderism, something he’d double-down across his following specials. Describing himself as “Team TERF” in The Closer, comedy’s greatest living icon made it explicitly clear that he wouldn’t be bowing to the mob. The inevitably 0% Rotten Tomatoes score swiftly followed, but the numbers didn’t lie - Dave was more popular than ever, and did as much as anyone else in his field to steer the ship back on course.

For that, Rob gives Dave all the adulation he can. However, he stresses that even the greats are not immune.

“Dave Chappelle is a genius, but I thought what he said about Charlie Kirk was disgusting. He was sh*tting on him in his last special [The Unstoppable…], making fun of the comparisons people were making to Martin Luther King. But that wasn’t Charlie doing that - that was other people. I didn’t like that…”

Rob’s repulsion to Dave’s comments is not rooted in a distant admiration for Charlie, but rather his close friendship. Talking about him now, Rob becomes visibly misty-eyed.

”Charlie is irreplaceable. I, honestly, as a comedian and a humourist and also a cynic, would get calls from his organisation asking me to be involved. And I was suspicious of it. But then I realised that he’d built an incredible organisation of young people. If you want to influence the future, if you want to return us to traditional American values, you need young people to understand the loss of not maintaining them … And that voice was silenced.”

Approximately zero seconds passed before hysterical leftists raced to drag Charlie’s legacy through the mud. Even today, Rob doesn’t understand it.

”I’m still wrestling with it [eight] months later… Charlie wasn’t like RFK, or JFK, or Martin Luther King. He wasn’t like these leaders who did amazing things but had flaws in their personality. You need those people - people to take big risks and put everything on the line. He was just a genuinely incredible guy. He was a gigantic loss for us.”

Whether you agreed with or even liked Charlie, only the most fringe and sadistic could see what happened to him as anything other than a tragedy. It could have been an opportunity for reconciliation; a bipartisan acknowledgement that things had gone too far and it was time to turn down the temperature.

That opportunity was not fulfilled…

”If Americans have proved anything, it’s that they have no memory of anything. They just move on to the next thing. 25 years after 9/11, you have a Muslim mayor and outdoor prayer.”

If anything, the country is even more divided now than it was then, if such a thing were possible. Even the MAGA coalition, which Charlie played such a seismic role in creating, has fallen apart, and in the most unsightly fashion. As much as his widow has become a symbol of strength and tenacity to some conservatives, to others she’s an object of derision and loathing. In 2026, it seems nothing is sacred.

”If the conservative movement can do anything, it’s destroying itself. There’s a negative thing happening, and it happens to any group that takes power, but there’s a certain ugliness to it.”

As Michael Malice said to us in a recent interview, people define themselves not by what they support, but who they’re against. Once you’re in power, the fighting turns inward; in some ways, this divide within MAGA was inevitable.

Still, it’s undoubtedly been helped along by the President and his administration. One thing you could always say about Trump, in spite of everything else, was that he possessed a cosmic political instinct. Nobody was better than him at reading the temperature and knowing precisely what to say to rally in supporters. In the last year, that skill seems to have atrophied, or been overpowered by other incentives. Rob has been an ardent supporter for years now. How does he feel about it all?

”You dismiss Donald Trump, and you do so at your own peril. It’s very strategic what he’s doing right now. There’s a global reset happening … There’s this idea that whenever a strong man comes along, it’s authoritarianism. We should remember: when weakness comes along, that’s when real authoritarianism rears its head.”

Rob isn’t without his criticisms of the administration (although you’ll have to watch the interview to see what they are). But until the opposition makes amends, he’s still on the train.

”Free speech isn’t just the ability to speak freely and someone to criticise that. It’s the other side of that too - the right of someone to hear it. And I’m still waiting for the Democrats to say that.”

Following up our last conversation with Rob was always going to be a challenge, but this was undoubtedly a funnier, bolder, and more far-reaching interview than its predecessor. As well as covering all the subjects we’ve shared with you so far, we tackle the core difference between American and British satire, his friendship with Jay Leno, the genius of Rob Schneider, and whether comedy is more dangerous now than ever.

The whole thing comes to Substack tomorrow before going out on YouTube and X this Saturday - 7PM UK / 2PM ET. Don’t miss it.

The 48 Laws Of Power is one of the most divisive million-selling books of the last 30 years.

Heralded as a powerful guide to establishing self-worth and success, it’s equally reviled as a form of advocacy for sociopathy, encouraging readers to treat those around them as pawns to be manipulated for their own gain. It’s been cited by some of culture’s most influential figures - including the likes of Michael Jackson, Jay-Z and, allegedly, Fidel Castro - and has also been banned from several American prisons.

Like Machiavelli’s The Prince or Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, it’s an amoral, detached explanation of how power works and how individuals can harness it. It describes power not as it should be, but as it is – the ends for which it’s used are irrelevant to its author: Robert Greene.

Power is a fact of life, and a feature worth understanding. We wanted to get Robert’s insight into the political landscape of our time. How does power function in society? How can leaders accrue more, and how can they use what they have to their advantage? As voters, what should we look out for? Knowing what we know now, what’s to come?

What did we learn?

Hunger for power is a trait we typically reserve for only a slim percentage of society. Politicians, CEOs, police officers, managerial types - those who directly benefit from the gain of influence.

This, Robert assures us, is not true.

”Most people want power. The sense that you have no control or influence over your wife, your kids, your boss, your job, etc., is hugely miserable for the human animal. We need a feeling that we have some power over our environment and the people around us. If you feel powerless, you can turn to some very negative behaviours.”

”Power” has a bad reputation; many believe that the desire for it is often mistaken for a want to use others nefariously. This is mistaken. It can be a malevolent force, but not necessarily. Ultimately, it’s an expression of how others see us - power is a kind of validation.

”Every human being needs a degree of validation. We’re a social animal; the idea that we are individuals is kind of an illusion. Everything that we think is reflected through the eyes of other people. If people are alone and isolated, their sense of being a human can fall apart. We can’t get validation or love from ourselves - we need it from other people.”

Nowhere is the will to power - and how widespread it truly is - more obvious in the 21st century than on social media. The mechanisms of every aspect of modern life are shaped by it. Politicians use it to curry support, celebrities use it to advertise to their fans, and even regular people are suckered into the games of influence.

This all came in the years following the publishing of the 48 Laws. Looking at it now, would Robert change any of them to accomodate such a drastic change?

He thinks not.

”Human nature is human nature. We evolved from our ancestors. Our brains are wired a particular way. We all feel envy, we all have an irrational side, we tend to be self-absorbed. All social media does is exaggerate those qualities and make them worse. It’s a machine for creating envy. It’s a tool that makes it easier to deceive. One of the laws is to court attention at all costs, and social media makes that possible.”

Social media also capitalises on the difference between those who have and those who don’t. The whole function of it, Robert argues, relates to the deceptive end of power-seeking - mislead your peers and rivals about your abilities. Harness that, he says, and things change rapidly.

”If I convince myself that I am powerful, confident and worthy of attention, it creates a self-fulfilling dynamic. People read that you’re confident and presume it comes from somewhere real. I see this in Elon Musk. Say what you will about him, he’s very good at marketing. He creates an automobile company off the back of a myth that he’s a revolutionary person, and that makes people want to fund him. The appearance of power alone can draw people to you.”

Still, is this not all more than a little deceptive?

Robert isn’t advising people to acquire useful skills, or be straight-foward and frank with others, or even simply to do what is right. What happened to meritocracy? Let the best man win?

”Let me introduce to the real world - it doesn’t operate like a utopia. People have egos, they have problems. I worked in TV on a terrible show, I won’t even name it… I was a researcher, and a researcher was considered successful based on how many stories they found that then got made. I was the best of my team. I still got fired. Because I didn’t brown-nose the boss. Because of stupid, stupid egos. They don’t care about results - they care about how they feel. That crosses the line from business, into sports, into entertainment, into warfare, into politics. It goes through everything. And the larger the group, the more politics matter, and the more egos affect things.”

The subjects of egos and politics guide us seamessly to one of the subjects we hoped to explore with Robert - President Donald Trump.

Trump’s political career has been nothing short of astonishing. From novelty nominee in 2015 to elected leader of the free world in 2016, from President to pariah in 2021, and then to come back and win again in 2024 with the most dominant Republican victory in decades. It’s still hard to understand, which is why so many try.

Political scientists the world over have been trying to formalise the secret to his success. Robert, as someone who looks at things much more pragmatically, sees things differently. We had to ask: is Trump adhering to the 48 laws?

”He’s absolutely brilliant at one law of power. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who’s even been better at it. Law 6: court attention at all costs. Everyone’s thinking about him all the time. He knows how to turn anything, even a negative, into a publicity stunt. He’s very, very good at the attention game. Not just getting it, but using it.”

Unfortunately for Trump, his greatest strength, when not ballasted, becomes his greatest weakness. To Robert, it’s Trump’s inability to show any reflection that makes him not just a compelling figure to so many, but a loathsome one to everyone else.

”Envy is a powerful motivator, and when you’re powerful, people envy you. Having a sense of humour, particularly a self-deprecating sense of humour, is very important, because it can cut away on that instinct in others to steal power from you. Abraham Lincoln was a master of it. The problem with Trump is that he’s never self-deprecating. His humour is always at the expense of someone else. That might appeal to cruel people, but to everyone else? I think eventually that wears very thin."

Is this something Trump can outlast, or is he doomed?

”I don’t have a crystal ball, and I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few years. But I know he has a very serious character flaw, and that character flaw will always get in his way…”

And what’s that?

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”When you start looking at the underpinnings of our beliefs, you realise how we divided we are. There’s a lot more hatred than you think.”

Andrew Wilson is one of the internet’s most notorious debaters and not without good reason. His confrontational and arresting style, as demonstrated through his appearances on Piers Morgan Uncensored and the Whatever podcast, has earned him fans and detractors alike. More recently, Andrew has appeared on Jubilee’s flagship show Surrounded, where he faced off against left-wing streamer Destiny, and on the Joe Rogan Experience. Today, he hosts his own podcast The Crucible, which has been described as “the fastest growing debate platform online”.

Why did we invite him on?

Andrew is a voice in ascent. While most well-known pundits initially made their name in other fields - authoring books, stand-up, commentating, etc. - Andrew’s reputation is built purely on his skills in the arena of debate.

That alone makes him interesting. But we were intrigued beyond that.

Andrew’s politics - what he describes to us as a form of cultural nationalism informed by Christian ethics - are also becoming increasingly popular. His right-populist stances have been taken up by some of the most influential conservatives in the world today, and we wanted to explore those maxims with one of their most ardent apologists.

Yet, for as much as we put our challenges to Andrew, he returned some tests of his own.

What did we talk about?

Well, things start off blunt.

”I hate leftists.”

Why?

”They’re psychopaths who are going to destroy everything I care about through suicidal empathy. I hate the entire left. I consider the delineation between progressives and leftists to be minute. It’s all about ethics and they don’t have any. It’s just degrees of psychopathy.”

If Andrew’s expecting an argument about the demerits of lunatic progressivism, he’s come to the wrong place. But why throw all left-wing people in the same bucket? There are plenty of sane left-wing thinkers - many of whom we’ve had on the show - who don’t hate their country or success or merit and are willing to hear the other side and consider the issues with an open mind and humility.

Andrew doesn’t think so.

”It’s all the same kind of thinking. Why do they want what they want? Why aren’t social safety nets voluntary? The whole idea of progressive liberalism is volunteerism, that the government can’t force you to do anything. The promise of leftists, of progressives, is that the government will do what’s fair. That’s why we can’t have a Christian government, because the secularists will do what’s fair. They’re not going to force you to do anything, but they compell me against my will to do all kinds of things.”

Still, there are degrees here. A centre-left thinker might argue for raising taxes a fraction, or opening more community centres, providing a more robust safety net. This is a far cry from the communist who wants totalitarian control of the economy, the press and the means of production.

It’s true, Andrew concedes, but fundamentally, the difference is not meangingful.

”Right and left is dialectical. We view politics in the United States through a duality - it’s left, or it’s right … What are we referencing here? What is ‘left’? Is it social issues? Is it taxes? … I think we could break it down further - these are philosophical positions and people don’t realise it.”

What does Andrew mean by that?

”The left-wing pillar is based around anti-realism and anti-moralism. That’s how you end up with post-modernism and all that. Right-wingers are interested in tradition and religion because they see the world as duty-bound, [whereas] the left see it as about ‘rights’. ‘I have the right to do this, I have the right to do that.’ There are no morals - it’s all stance dependent - which is why they do so many immoral things. Those pillars don’t align, and that’s why we’re constantly clashing.”

If you hadn’t worked it out already, Andrew finds himself squarely on the right. A self-described “paleocon” (conservative in the traditional sense), he appeals to the value of an objective standard. To Andrew, moral relativism is a downward spiral to degeneracy and apathy.

Konstantin challenges him, asserting that, in a liberal society, Andrew is welcome to have his views on any given subject. The only limit is when he tries to move from the philosophical to the political - when he tries to thrust his personal qualms on the wider population. Andrew responds, arguing that these two things are not too different and, in practice, might even be indistinct.

”If there’s no objective appeal to a standard, then everything’s fair game, and then things are eroded… OnlyFans hookers and homosexual marriage, why is this something we have to put up with again? If two men can get married, why not three? Why not ten? Nothing. Nothing prevents that. But we know it’s not good for society.”

Andrew’s response raises the ultimate political question: what is good for society?

Here, we naturally slalom to one of the subjects we were hoping to tackle with our guest: his ‘cultural nationalism’, and his desire for Christian ethics to return to the centre of American government.

Even among believers, it’s a fringe view. The separation of church and state is, today, seen as as a fundamental feature of America’s national identitity. Does Andrew’s view contradict itself? Why should a non-Christian roll over and accept its teachings against their will?

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”Humans have the chance to save ourselves and we’re screwing it up. We know the right answers, but we’re making the wrong decisions.”

‘Roman Yampolskiy’ might not be a name you’re familiar with. After all, the list of celebrity computer scientists can be counted on one’s elbow. But if his predictions come true, he may prove to be one of the most significant academic figures of his generation.

Roman is considered to have coined the term “AI safety” - the research field focused on controlling artificial intelligence. He has also dedicated his life’s work to it. In 2012, he founded the Cyber Security Lab, which he has since directed, and has also worked as a research advisor of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and an ‘AI safety fellow’ of the Foresight Institute. To sound the alarm on what he deems the near-certainty of AI-induced human extinction, he has appeared on Lex Friedman, Joe Rogan and, now, Triggernometry.

Why did we invite him on?

Wherever AI leads us, it’s going to be seismic.

To some, it’s the sure path to utopia. Once AI is complete enough for us to hand it the reins, we’ll be living in the land of milk and honey. A world free of disease and of prosperity the likes of which we have never seen.

That’s one vision. The other is less rosey: a world in which humans are enslaved by their own tools, with their faculties atrophied and blackmailed by a godlike ‘mind’ capable of hypnosis and control.

Some who know the most about it - even some who have helped create the models - are now trying to alert us to the danger. In February, Anthropic AI’s head of safety, Mrinank Sharma, announced his resignation with a public letter in which he declared that the “world [was] in peril.” He’s not alone. Quite suddenly, many who once fiercely advocated the cornucopian view of AI have started to turn.

They’re all catching up to Roman.

Roman was one of the first thought leaders in the field to show hesitancy. Now, he sees us at a crossroads. If we don’t stop soon, we might be signing our own death warrant.

Why? How? That’s exactly what we wanted to know.

What did we learn?

Before we delve into this most complex of subjects, it’s essential to understand exactly what it is Roman does. What is ‘AI safety’, and why does it matter?

”[In AI], we’re creating something with the capacity to replace us or kill us. [The AI safety thinkers] are trying to prevent that. There’s a lot of concern about what AI will do to productivity, creativity, our relationships… but there’s very little about making sure it goes well. If these systems go from sub-human level to above us, we are done.”

Roman says it with a level of confidence that suggests he has a clear image of how it will happen, so why are we “done?” What does “done” even mean?

”Done”, to Roman, describes the total and irrevocable destruction of the human species. The eradication of each member of the population and the likely corrosion of any mark it had on the planet.

Today, people use AI to make amusing cartoons of themselves. The idea that it could be used as a weapon against its creator is unthinkable. How does Roman see it playing out?

”You’re asking me how I would destroy humanity. And believe me, I have a lot of great ideas [laughs]. But it’s not what a super-intelligent computer capable of designing new weapons, physics and poisons would come up with … Squirrels have no concept of how we can kill them - there’s too big a cognitive gap. Similarly, we don’t know what super-intelligent AI could do.”

Doesn’t Roman’s analogy prove that his prediction is, at the very least, not certain? The human race, if it dedicated itself to doing so, could kill every squirrel on the planet. It wouldn’t even be that taxing. The fact squirrels remain alive is testament to the fact that we don’t want to. We like squirrels and so we let them live. Who’s to say AI will be any different?

Even if we grant that it one day could, why would AI even want to destroy us?

”It’s not because the AI hates you. It’s because it wants to do something else and it doesn’t care about you. Maybe it wants to cool down the planet. Why? Well, maybe computations are easier to do in a cold environment. So it freezes the whole planet and we die. Does it care about that? No - it doesn’t matter. Maybe it wants to convert our planet into fuel and fly to another galaxy. It has no built-in concern about your safety. If it wants to accomplish something and the side-effect is humanity dies, that would not be an obstacle.”

However powerful and intelligent AI becomes, we are still its creator. What’s to stop us writing into the code that the preservation and well-being of humanity is a non-negotiable?

Roman tells us we have it backwards.

”We don’t write any code. We train those systems by giving them data. All the data we have and all of the internet, and then it learns something. And whatever it learns, that’s what we’re trying to figure out. We study it like biological artefacts - you observe it and see how it functions. Nobody knows how to encode anything like [what you’re saying] into the models. Nobody’s even claiming to. We simply don’t know how these systems will behave.”

These questions are unavoidable and if Roman’s right, they’re not really questions at all. Yet, the developers at the cutting edge of this technology refuse to slow down. They wax lyrical about the heaven on earth it’ll bring us without consideration for what happens if they’re wrong.

If the survival of humanity is in jeopardy, why do they persist?

”If I’m the guy who created God… maybe I’d get something out of it. But the truth is, when it goes wrong, they won’t even be remembered as the ‘bad guy’ in history - there will be no history books at all.

Tech is defined by its ‘devil-may-care’ attitude. Make changes now, ask questions later. In Facebook’s early days, the company operated on a ‘move fast and break stuff’ mantra. People got hurt, and the social costs are self-evident, but it’s also one of the most profitable companies of the last century. It’s hard to weed out those incentives, and harder still to place ethics at the forefront.

”Historically, most people work in AI never took the time to ask what would happen if they succeeded. It was so hard for so long that they only thought about trying to succeed at all. They never asked ‘if this works, then what?’ Then, the progress became exponential. Now, it’s hyper-exponential; the AI is helping research itself. But do we want this? Did 8 billion people agree to this experiment?”

To some of you, this might sound like science fiction - a problem for the distant future. It won’t happen in my lifetime, or even my childrens’ lifetime, or theirs childrens’; this is something for the populations of the next millenium to worry about.

It’s coming sooner than you think. Much sooner.

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“I feel like you guys are two gays auditioning for the third gay.”

Respected by peers, adored by audiences, Mark Normand is one of the most popular comedians in the world. His idiosyncratic style has earned him praise from some of the most influential comics, described by Jerry Seinfeld as “the best up-and-comer” of his class. Normand has appeared on numerous late-night shows, including The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Conan. He released his critically acclaimed hour-long special Out to Lunch on YouTube in 2020, following it up with the similarly lauded Netflix exclusive Soup to Nuts in 2023. Today, he continues to perform stand-up and co-host the ferociously popular podcasts Tuesdays With Stories and We Might Be Drunk, and last month he released his latest Netflix special: None Too Pleased.

”Ellen’s been cancelled twice. In the ‘90s, we cancelled her for being gay. Then we cleaned up our act a bit, and 20 years later we cancelled her for being a c*nt. That’s progress.”

As well as being one of his generation of comics’ biggest stars, Mark has become something of a regular on Trig. He’s a hilarious and natural conversationalist, and our trips to the States never feel quite complete without catching up with him on the state of comedy, his country, and the wider world. His one-of-a-kind humour can’t be found elsewhere, so we have to go back to the source.

This might be our best conversatoin yet.

”There’s a Muslim joke in this special… I might be killed.”

We recorded this the day Mark dropped his latest hour, and he admits it has him a little worried. Francis assures him he has nothing to fret about. After all, every single one of Mark’s specials has had a joke like that. When Francis saw him most recently in London, Mark opened the set by shouting “Allahu Akbar”.

”I was just reminiscing on that Ariana Grande concert … The UK’s like a banana. The more time goes by, the browner it gets.”

It’s not yet been 60 seconds and we’ve arrived at our first brutal joke. Mark doesn’t allow us to come up for air.

”… But yeah, ‘white supremacy’ is your biggest problem. I don’t understand it. We recognise patterns with them. School shootings, that’s a lot of honkies… Why can’t we look at other patterns? It’s mostly trans now, but they’re still white. And better than the women!”

It’d be uncouthe of us to dwell on such a sensitive subject, so the chat moves to a much lighter, easy-breezy topic: Jeffrey Epstein. On this, Mark has advice.

”Never get photographic evidence. Back in the day there was just the guy at Walgreen’s who’d see your disposable photos, now with the internet… I read somewhere that kids aren’t dancing at their proms because they’re scared of being filmed and of being called ‘cringe’. No wonder they’re shooting up schools! They’re pent up!”

It turns out Mark is actually more more closely connected to the scandal than we would have expected - or hoped.

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The “left-wing Trump supporter” is a rare breed. “A left-wing Trump supporting journalist” is rarer still.

Batya Ungar-Sargon is one such curious case.

In the last decade, as well as being opinion editor at The Forward, she has contributed pieces to the likes of the Daily Beast, The Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Washington Post. In 2024, she published her latest book - Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men And Women, and today, she hosts her eponymous NewsNation talk show - Batya.

Why did we invite her on?

Batya’s unique combination of political attributes makes her an ideal guest for Triggernometry, and especially now. We’ve spoken to both left and right about the MAGA divide and how Iran is deepening that fissure, but Batya represents a view detached from either camp.

Weighing up the various arguments, we didn’t think we’d have a complete picture of the Trump coalition and its likelihood of survival unless we spoke to someone who represents Batya’s small-but-not-insignificant crossover. At that point, why not speak to the woman herself?

What did we talk about?

If your only source was X, you’d come away with the impression that nobody but Ben Shapiro supports this war. Its most ardent advocates enjoy “getting ratio’d” day in and day out, while its critics garner hundreds of millions of impressions by condemning it.
This administration, more so than arguably any in history, is sensitively tuned to the rumblings of social media. They can’t be ignoring it, so why aren’t they responsive to it?

”The podcast sphere is so totally divorced from where average people are at. You see this on Israel, on Epstein, on Iran, again and again and again - the people who claim to be the ‘influencers’ on the right have no real influence on either the President or his voters. The polling bears this out.”

It’s a difficult thing to reconcile. When Trump was elected in 2024, much was made about how his appearances on Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Flagrant, and Lex Fridman helped swing his reputation among the youth, and therefore his chances of securing the Presidency.

If those figures had such influence then, why is Batya dismissing them now?

”The majority of the podcast world is against it, claiming it’s “Israel’s war”. You can’t think of a single podcaster/content creator outside of Ben Shapiro who supports the war. But polling shows 80-90% of Republicans support it! The mainstream media is too easy to take their word for it that there’s a “MAGA divide”, but the numbers are even higher among ‘MAGA Republicans’, up into the 90s…”

Still, it must be getting to Trump somewhat. After all, why else would he be commenting on it? In the last month, he has been telling his followers to ignore Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, two of the conservative movement’s most widely known figures, and “tune in” to Mark Levin’s show instead. Doesn’t the fact Trump’s talking about it, in and of itself, disprove Batya’s thesis?

”He talks about a lot of things… I’m sorry, but Trump talks a lot of sh*t. He’ll talk about whatever he’s thinking about… When Tucker Carlson had Nick Fuentes on his show, there was a huge backlash. There was a closing of ranks against Tucker, and against the Heritage Foundation - a legacy institution - for supporting him. The only person who refused to do that is J.D. Vance, and the President is trying to address that. I hear from Senators all the time: they don’t understand what’s happened to Tucker.”

It sounds like there is a divide, and at the highest levels of government. If the President is of one thinking and his Veep (and supposed heir apparent) of another, what does that mean for MAGA?

”Vance spends too much time on Twitter. What J.D. thinks matters, but the fact that he’s hedging his bets right now does not mean he’s aligned with the base. And he will not be the nominee if he does not distance himself from Tucker Carlson. I know a lot of Republicans for whom it is a dealbreaker, and I know a lot of Democrats who would vote for Marco Rubio.”

It’s quite the thing to “hedge your bets” over. It sounds like there’s a fear that Nick Fuentes is too popular and influential to outright condemn, that if J.D. loses the support of the “groypers”, his electoral victory hangs in the balance. Are there really that many antisemites out there? Batya herself is Jewish - what does she think?

”This has always been relegated to the elites. There has always been something in the soil here against hating Jews. There have been Jews here since 1654; American Jews see themselves as an immigrant community, and it’s a massive betrayal. We are inextricably linked to the founding of this country.”

Still, does it bother her that Jews in America are acting as a sacrificial lamb? That major figures are overlooking bigotry to secure the support of a toxic contingent?

”It doesn’t bother me. The polling on the right hasn’t changed… Young people tend to be leftists; anti-establishment, blaming their problems on the systems. I just don’t see that as the future of the right. The average conservative doesn’t go to college, and therefore doesn’t hate Israel and doesn’t hate the Jews. People on the right who are anti-Israel don’t think Israel has a right to our tax dollars, while the anti-Israel left don’t think it has a right to exist. That is a completely different conversation.”

That may well be so, but whether the antisemitism comes from the left or right, it takes us all to the same place - a dangerous environment for Jews.

Antisemitic memes on X are one thing, but acts of terror are something else entirely. And they’re rising. Just last month, a man drove a van through the doors of a Michigan synagogue, presumably hoping to kill and maim its occupants. He failed and died, but it easily could have gone differently. Batya took a different lesson from it.

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Mike Baker has had two careers. Each could not be more different from the other.

For nearly two decades, Mike was a CIA officer, working in the fields of counterterrorism and counternarcotics. After this, he took his hard-earned expertise to the private sector, first as a technical advisor in the entertainment industry, and then as a talking head. Since, he has been a regular face on the likes of Red Eye, Opie & Anthony, The Greg Gutfeld Show and The Joe Rogan Experience, as well as hosting the Amazon Prime series, Black Files Declassified and his own podcast, The President’s Daily Brief.

Why did we invite him on?

”You should never take what the President says literally. Sometimes he’s just throwing sh*t at the wall to see what sticks.”

We had Mike on at the tail end of 2023, nine weeks after October 7th, to prospect on the uncertain closure of the still-ongoing war in Gaza. It was an enlightening conversation, and we decided then that, should (or when) another moment like that came along, we’d have Mike back to talk about that too.

Just before we set off for America, the country went to war with Iran. We’ve hosted a string of interviews on that subject, tackling it from positions that could not be more opposed from one another. Each has brought an insight and covered a blind spot, and we knew Mike would be no different.

What did we learn?

Much of the debate regarding Iran right now hinges on one core question: did they really want a nuclear bomb?

Some have argued that, rather than planning to build a weapon, Iran only wanted to create the impression that they could. It’s a claim backed up by American intelligence (which has since changed) and, if true, renders this entire intervention unjustified.

Mike doesn’t agree.

”There is no peaceful civilian purpose for 60%-enriched uranium. There just isn’t. Moving it onto 90% is the speediest part. If they’d have kept it at a number that was a reasonable for civilian purposes, things would have been different.”

Not only that, but there were unique reasons that made Iran unacceptable members of the heady club of nuclear-armed states. Most nuclear countries have the bombs for one reason only: to dissuade others from attacking. “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

That, in Mike’s estimation, is not true of Iran. They wanted nukes so they could use them.

”A regime like theirs is more likely to use nukes. The zealous nature of a theocracy… People have done incredible things in the name of religion. We might be tired of the War on Terror, but the terrorists aren’t.”

It might sound like Mike is an unapologetic advocate for America’s intervention in the Middle East. After all, he’s wholly unflinching in his criticism of the Iranian regime, and echoes many of the points we’ve heard from the war’s most ardent defenders. He also thinks it might be a huge mistake.

”I think it’s about time this regime leaves the planet and gives the people of Iran some kind of future. You’re never going to get long-term peace in the Middle East as long as this regime exists. Their stated objective has always been the destruction of Israel. I can believe all that and still believe that this wasn’t well thought through.”

What does Mike mean?

He prospects that America, the most powerful country in the world, might have overestimated its abilities. Still drunk on the success of Venezuela, Trump’s administration strode confidently into the unknown. As we’re starting to learn more, perhaps that was the wrong move.

”I think there were people who thought this was gonna be easier. They didn’t see that the Strait of Hormuz would be ‘a thing’, when it’s Iran’s only bargaining chip… and now they’re surprised?”

It’s baffling to consider how this might have happened. Trump might be a loose cannon, but it’s hard to imagine the entire apparatus of American government could orient itself so off-north. The CIA, in partnership with Mossad, will have had access to the finest intelligence of the region. How could it be that it wasn’t “thought through?”

”That’s a good question. The Pentagon has a lot of smart people, people with real world experience. Does that mean they’re being listened to? I don’t know, I’m not sitting in the room with them. But I can’t imagine there weren’t briefings where someone pointed to a big map of the Strait of Hormuz and didn’t explain how important it was and that Iran controlled it. Now we’re in a position where we’re asking other countries to come in and help.”

A number of isolationist voices have asked: Why should I care? Iran is a country far, far away. It’s a culture I don’t understand populated by people I’ll never know. What does it matter to me?

As Mike explains, nobody will be unaffected by this war - not even the citizens of countries trying desperately to stay out of it.

”It’s a real significant impact, and people will feel it. They’ll see it first at the pump… 1/5th of all oil flows through the Strait. But also liquefied natural gas, which is important for Europe and Asia… And all the other things, fertilisers, helium… This is serious…”

The knock-on is extremely worrying. The cost of everything is certain to rise, and if that continues for long enough, we might face a recession.

At least, that’s what we’ll have to do. Not everyone will be so unlucky…

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Mehdi Hasan is one of the most prolific, admired and fierce left-wing commentators of his generation.

Across his 25 years in journalism, Mehdi has held almost every kind of job going. He’s been politics and news editor for Channel 4, The New Statesman and the Huffington Post, all before 2012 when he became a long-time presenter for Al Jazeera. Moving to the States, he then presented The Mehdi Hasan Show on Peacock from October 2020 and on MSNBC from February 2021. When the show was cancelled in 2023, Mehdi swiftly left the company, opting to start his own: Zeteo, an alternative news outlet focused on progressive ideals. Today, while continuing to lead Zeteo, he also hosts Head To Head on Al-Jazeera and writes for The Guardian.

Why did we invite him on?

This marks the third of an ongoing series of interviews we’re publishing on the Iran War. First was Senator Ted Cruz, pitching the argument-in-favour from the right, then strategist and political advisor Professor Robert Pape joined us to oppose it from the centre.

Now, Mehdi is here to give the left-wing case against it.

Many MAGA pundits have tried to paint today’s anti-war movement as either just another weak-limbed, lilly-livered pet-project by the anti-Trump pearl-clutchers. Suspecting there’s more to the story than that, we thought it would be best to speak to one of the left’s most heralded voices.

What did we learn?

We don’t need to go over how polarising and unusual this war is. The situation has been laid out ad nauseum. Still, it’s interesting to hear what people who have dedicated their lives to predicting and reporting politics make of it.

Mehdi doesn’t mince words.

”I think it’s a disaster. I don’t think it was legal. I don’t think it was justifiable. I don’t think it was necessary. I think it’s self-destructive. I don’t think it’s in the US national interest, and I think a lot of innocent people are being killed as we speak and without any real justification.”

A key problem even many of Trump’s traditional supporters find themselves running into regarding Iran is the objective (or lack thereof). Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is quick to tell the people that America’s “objectives are clear”, but are they? The justification for this war seems to change depending on the day, and each explanation is more incoherent than the last. In Mehdi’s estimation, why is it happening?

”Many reasons, but one was expressed by Marco Rubio before he walked it back. I’m paraphrasing, but he said that Israel was going to attack Iran, and if Iran was attacked they would attack [America], so they decided to attack first. It’s insane on multiple levels. If you think Israel is going to attack Iran, just stop them; they’re your client state. It’s like saying that you think your brother is going to get drunk and crash the family car, so you’re going to wreck it first. It’s a bizarre argument.”

Many of those same former supporters feel that Trump broke his promise. On the campaign trail, Trump was keen to stress his success rate in his previous administration: No New Wars. In fact, he dissuaded voters away from Kamala Harris on that basis - if she gets in, there’ll be war in Iran. He won, and still war came. He changed. Or did he?

”I never bought the bullsh*t shtick that Trump was anti-war. He was pretty beligerent in his first term … expanding drone strikes, bombing Somalia… there was nothing in his first term that said this guy wasn’t totally happy with war. Unfortunately, I’ve been vindicated.”

Still, Trump’s been in power before. He started zero new wars in his previous presidency - a fact he ran on - and the opportunity to engage with Iran was on the table then, yet he didn’t take it. What changed? Why now?

”Leaders, when they’re unpopular at home, start wars abroad. My company did a poll that revealed 52% of Americans believed this war was at least partially launched to distract from the Epstein scandal! You might think that’s a mad conspiracy theory, but most Americans believe it. He’s not just doubling down, he’s quadrupling down.”

Fundamentally, at the root of all of these factors, is one key ingredient: Israel.

After enjoying record-high support in the wake of October 7th, Israel’s public image on the world stage has crumbled. Across Europe and the Middle East, the state’s reputation is in tatters. Most shockingly of all, it’s become increasingly true in America. The Democratic base were the first to pull back, but even Republicans are starting to ask questions.

These questions were enflamed by the recent resignation of decorated veteran and former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent. In his parting statement, Kent stated plainly that this was a war in Israel’s interest and against America’s. To many, it confirmed what they’d long suspected: Israel, America’s client state, was in charge.

Mehdi has no shortage of criticisms for Israel, what does he make of the accusation? His answer is more nuanced than you might have suspected.

”Netanyahu’s on the record saying he’s wanted to attack Iran for 40 years and Trump is the first President who has allowed him to do it. But I think that takes away too much responsibility from Trump, Lindsay Graham and all the hawks in government who have wanted this war for years.”

So, if Israel isn’t the totalitarian-mob-boss it’s often painted as, what is its relationship to the US? Does Mehdi think it has some kind of undue, nefarious influence on the West’s greatest superpower?

”This is not a conspiracy theory. The beauty of these Republicans - their only redeeming feature - is they say the quiet part out loud. We don’t even need to speculate. Lindsey Graham tells us that he coached Netanyahu on how to convince Trump to go to war. Bizarre - a Senator and a foreign leader discussing how to manipulate the President of the Senator’s country … Ted Cruz said in that viral interview with Tucker that he wanted to be the #1 defender of Israel in America. You don’t get other politicians saying that about any other country. There’s nobody in American politics who wants to be the #1 defender of Belgium.”

It’s certainly unusual, but does it prove anything? Could it not just be that these politicians, for whatever personal or religious or strategic reason, believe Israel is an ally that America must keep?

”That’s 100% true. But there are also a bunch of people in American politics, and I know this because they tell me on and off the record, that support Israel because they’re worried about the consequences if they don’t. They’re worried about being primaried, they’re worried about losing their jobs, about being called antisemitic, or being targeted by AIPAC. The idea that there isn’t a very powerful Israeli lobby is absurd.”

To Mehdi, the proof is only becoming more apparent. Before Israel’s war in Gaza, Americans were broadly in support of the Jewish state, and elected officials could camouflage themselves with their base. Now, as the voters become increasingly hostile to Israel, that protection is lifted. The fact these politicians haven’t responded tells you everything.

”You poll Democratic voters and ask whether they support what Israel is doing in Gaza, 8% say ‘Yes’. Among Democrats in Congress, it’s reversed. Why? For the first time in my lifetime, and it’s something I thought I’d never see, Americans are supporting Palestinians more than Israel. It took a genocide for them to switch their position, but it’s happening. If that doesn’t translate into Congress or the Presidency, you have to ask why.”

Well, if Israel has a domineering sway over American politics, the same must be said for Iran and its neighbours. The second most-populous country in the Middle East, it’s also the foremost sponsor of terror groups in the region and boasts extraordinary controls over the world’s fuel supply. By that logic, just as Mehdi might welcome a new government in Israel, should he not hope the same for Iran? For the Middle East, could this not lead to a new era of prosperity, stability and peace?

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Professor Robert Pape is one of the most revered political scientists working today.
Previously, he has served as an advisor for the likes of Barack Obama and Ron Paul, and written three acclaimed books on the subjects of bombing campaigns and suicide terror tactics. Today, he is a tenured professor of political science at the University of Chicago, as well as founder and director of the Chicago Project on Threats and Security. He has also recently begun writing on Substack, which you can sign up for here.

Why did we invite him on?

”President Trump is facing two terrible choices. Terrible for the world, terrible for his presidency.”

This episode is the second in a run of interviews we’ll be releasing tackling the situation in Iran. In the first, published this past Sunday, we hosted Senator Ted Cruz, one of the policy’s most ardent supporters. In his mind, the war is a sure-fire win for America. Something that will be settled in a matter of months, ushering a new era of security and prosperity for the superpower.

Robert is not convinced.

What did we learn?

”My work is looking at the mechanics of things and how that intersects with politics … These strikes were inevitable.”

To the average person, or anyone without an interest in geopolitics, Iran won’t have been a cause for concern until last summer when Trump launched the Twelve Day War. It was the first time many of us had heard about the alleged threat the country posed to the West, and the first time the Western superpower had opted to strike them.

To everyone paying attention, it was the ultimate ticking time bomb. Whatever side of the debate you found yourself on, what happened in Iran mattered to you.

”In 2002, the relationship between America and Iran fundamentally changed. Before that, there were tensions, but in 2002 we discovered that Iran was going to enrich uranium.”

From the outset, Robert walks us through two decades of nuclear development in the Middle East and how it shaped the American response we’re seeing today. When did America start to panic? When did strikes become ‘inevitable’? What could have been done differently? Robert is equipped to answer all these complex questions with remarkable clarity of mind, and it makes for a hypnotic conversation.

Ultimately, only one question truly matters: is this going to work?

That depends. What do we mean by ‘work?’ Whether America achieves its stated aims is one thing, but whether those stated aims are desirable or in America’s long-term interests is another thing entirely. Understanding the difference between those two terms, Robert explains, is crucial.

”The regime change war is failing. Strategically, but not tactically. And we have to be super clear about that. Our bombs are hitting the targets over 90% of the time, our military is hyper-professional. It’s the strategy that’s failing.”

The tactics, according to our guest, are being executed superbly. Trouble is, they’re not having the desired effect. The oh-so-simple promises laid out by those in power have, so far, gone unfulfilled, even inverted. We shouldn’t be surprised.

”At this stage, the goals are to topple the regime and replace it with a better one. That’s not happening. Why not? It’s the pattern of history - it’s never happened before. When you kill the leaders, all the incentives are for the replacement leaders to come in more aggressive than before.”

Many pundits will insist to you that nobody wants this war more than Iran. It’s a claim not without evidence; one doesn’t need to look far for videos of demonstrators celebrating the death of the Ayatollah, heralding in a golden age of democracy and civil liberty. Unfortunately, it’s not an accurate or complete picture. Not all of those videos are actually from Iran. Rather, they depict the Iranian diaspora, much of which is scattered throughout the West. It creates a distorted image of how popular this attack is. In reality, this policy only guarantees one thing…

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”When I was a kid, I would sit at my father’s feet and hear the stories of freedom fighters. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

Loved, hated, never ignored: Ted Cruz is one of America’s most divisive senators.

After several years in Texas office, he made his name internationally in 2016 as he competed for the Republican Party nomination ahead of that year’s general election. Trump would ultimately secure both, but Ted never retreated to the shadows. Today, he is the United States Senator for Texas, as well as the chairman for the Senate Commerce Committee.

Why did we invite him on?

Trump’s war in Iran has polarised Americans as much as any political issue in living memory. It’s no wonder. The administration have failed to deliver a coherent narrative; they don’t even have a case for their opponents to dismiss. The fallout has been swift. As Trump wages the first US military intervention in living memory to not enjoy public support at the time of declaration, many of his most ardent public defenders have rescinded their support and spoken out against him.

Not Ted.

Trump and Ted have had their spats, but on this issue, they’re entirely aligned. Trump, after campaigning on the promise against it, may have switched, but Ted has been utterly steadfast for over a decade - he even entered Congress with the specific intention of being the "leading defender of Israel”.

So, what gives? Why is this war happening?

We’ve spoken (and will continue to speak) to some of the war’s most furious critics. It only seemed fair to hear from one of its most impassioned advocates. Ted, as someone we’ve hoped to interview for some time now, was the ideal choice.

Beyond that, we also wanted to explore what this divide means for the Republican Party, the country’s foreign policy, and who should inherit ‘MAGA’ when Trump bows out of politics.

What did we learn?

”I’m a non-interventionist hawk. You don’t get involved in other countries to build regimes and ‘defend norms’, but you have a strong military to protect Americans. America is safer when our enemies are scared of us. Appeasement encourages bullies and tyrants.”

Some of Ted’s peers have been more than half-hearted about this latest military excursion. There’s a sense that many of them are hedging their bets in case it ends in disaster. Ted, on the other hand, beams with pride. He’s even willing to take a share of the credit.

”I was in the presidential limo, one-on-one with the President. The whole time he was asking what we should do about Iran. I told him that we shouldn’t miss this moment. The regime is weaker than it’s ever been, and if we can collapse it, America would be much, much safer. There are few things we could do that would do more for our security.”

It’s clear Ted believes what he’s saying, but we have already arrived at a subtle incoherence. The regime is weaker than ever, yet its collapse would make America meaningfully safer? Is that possible?

We know the Iranians were negotiating with America at the time of the strike. Why launch a preemptive war of choice on a weakened nation who are willing to do business with you?

Ted’s encountered the question before - from Trump himself. What did he say?

”I said ‘No. They’re not negotiating in good faith - they are liars’. They were only negotiating so they could delay things and rebuild.”

Liars are nothing new in politics. It’s part of the game; everyone keeps their cards close to their chest, pretends to be weak when they are strong, and fakes alliances to scare off predators. Understanding this is how America has been able to negotiate peaceful relations with even its most dangerous adversaries. Why is Iran so different?

”These are theocratic zealots, and the ordinary cost-benefit analysis doesn’t work nearly as well. Kim Jong Un is a megalomaniac, but he wants to stay in power; if he launched a nuclear weapon, his regime would topple like that [clicks his fingers]. If the Ayatollah has a nuclear weapon, there’s a real chance he would detonate it in Tel Aviv, New York or Los Angeles. There would be an overwhelming military response and it would take the lives of many Iranians, but he’d be just fine with that. That would be an acceptable trade-off to him. We should do everything in power to prevent that.”

Much of the furore regarding this conflict comes from the Iraq War generation - old enough to remember, young enough to have served in it. It’s a cliche that history comes in cycles, but rarely so fast; the lessons of history need to be forgotten before they can be repeated. When those critics hear the echoes of that disastrous intervention - talk of ‘regime change’ for example - they shudder. Ted understands.

”Iraq was a serious mistake … And I always opposed it. Why? Because it made America less safe. Same thing in Libya. They had material harms to our national security. But the Iranians are killing Ameicans - they are waging war with us, whether the Democrats want to acknowledge it or not.”

Unlike his colleagues, who are reluctant to use the words ‘regime change’ and seem desperate to find any other combination of words that convey that principle, Ted uses it wholeheartedly.

”The administration has not articulated its objectives as regime change. And that’s understandable - people are suspicious of it, and that’s understandable too. But I think our objective should be unequivocally collapsing this regime. I think Iran having a government that doesn’t chant ‘Death To America’ and succeeds in killing Americans every single year is desirable, and we should be honest about wanting to achieve that.”

So, what’s the vision? How is that going to happen?

Here, Ted is careful in his language, but it doesn’t take much to read between the lines.

”When Tianenman Square happened, the NRA took out an ad in 6 major newspapers. I still remember what it said: one million people rose up in protest, imagine if they had guns [inexact quote]. If a million people rise up with weapons, it’s not a protest -it’s a revolution.”

This is all well and good, but it fails to address the fundamental question at the heart of all this…

Why should Americans care?

Israel is one of America’s closest ally, and this is a war that Netanyahu has campaigned for for literal decades. Many have accused him of dragging the US into his backyard squabble, putting Americans at risk for a cause that shouldn’t affect them. Ted disagrees…

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There’s nobody quite like Michael Malice.

In 2006, before his ascendance to infamy in online-right circles, his life story was already the subject of Ego & Hubris, a graphic novel by Harvey Pekar - one of the most revered comic book writers in history. His own books, Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il, The New Right, and The White Pill: A Tale Of Good And Evil, exhibit his irreverent-yet-tender style and have won acclaim across the political space. Today, he hosts his own podcast, “YOUR WELCOME”, and is on the verge of publishing his first graphic novel - Unwanted.

Why did we invite him on?

”People think dumber people have fewer facts, or are just slower to understand things. That’s not true - they process things differently, and it’s deleterious to democracy. In times passed, the Dean of Havard Law would be on a pedestal. Now, you can see their tweets.”

Michael’s a staple of our trips to the states. Previously, we’ve hosted him to debate anarchy and recount the histories of McCarthyism and the Soviet Union.

It feels like every time we come to America, the country’s in a more puzzling place. Michael - as an outsider in almost every way you could imagine - has a remarkable ability to put the baffling and alien in cogent, empathetic terms, and we hoped he would apply his one-of-a-kind lens to current proceedings. This time, we wanted to have a more free-roaming chat, whether that be on Iran, Israel, the upswing in the ‘New Right’, and the future of American politics.

When Michael sat down across from us in full North Korean dictator-style regalia, we knew we’d come to the right man.

What did we talk about?

The fracturing of the American right, and more specifically the ‘MAGA coalition’, has been a subject of discussion for approaching a year now. Just when you think the civil war can’t get any more intense, another scandal worsens things. Iran, then Epstein, then Iran again, it feels like Trump cannot go more than a couple of weeks without alienating a meaningful percentage of his base.

Michael’s not surprised.

”Human beings define themselves by opposition. We see this in non-political situations. If you have a party with kids and adults, they see themselves as different. If the adults leave, it’s boys vs girls. You shouldn’t be surprised by the Trump coalition falling apart. The common enemy is gone. We are not truth-seeking animals; we are narrative-seeking animals. We don’t run a true-false filter; we run an us-them filter. I don’t know where this goes, but I know it will be entertaining.”

’Where this goes’ is ultimately a question: who inherits MAGA after Trump?

To a section of the coalition, ‘greatness’ is measured in might. With Trump’s election, the time of America rolling over and letting itself be trampled upon was over. Its power was no longer implied, but real, and the movement’s future should be defined by an increased capacity to throw the country’s weight around and shape the world in its image.

To others, MAGA was a promise - a promise of a protectionist, non-interventionist reinvention of the American body politik. MAGA means less presence, not more. Their image is that of a concentrated brilliance. No more empire.

Michael sees things much more simply.

”MAGA is whatever Trump says. It’s not a well-thought-out, Aristotelian philosophy; it’s a combination of preferences, most of which I think are good.”

As it stands, the heir apparent to the Trump’s electoral dynasty is his veep: J.D Vance.
In Michael’s words, this divide is “screwing him up.”

”He’s trying to walk two tight-ropes simultaneously. He’s trying to be Trump Jr, when this clearly makes him very uncomfortable. I don’t know how he navigates this in terms of getting the nomination. 2028 is not a lock for him.”

Say what you will about his politics - J.D. is no dummy. In 2024, Trump might have been the star, but Vance had the indispensible supporting role - he gave credence to Trump’s ideas that the President himself couldn’t lend them. So far, he’s done a good job of spinning the plates - deferring to Trump in such a way that shows support while still granting himself plausible deniability if it goes wrong. Konstantin puts it to Michael: isn’t that enough?

”J.D. is extremely smart, but in all the ways that don’t matter in politics. Trump only selects for loyalty. You look at the first administration and see who’s still there, and there’s 3 of them. He’s hyper-sensitive to people talking badly about him. If J.D. tries to throw him under the bus, Trump won’t be able to keep his mouth shut.”

With war breaking out in Iran, the rubber has well and truly met the road. To one wing of the coalition, it’s one of Trump’s finest political achievements - Ben Shapiro recently called it the “single bravest foreign policy move of [his] lifetime”, and he’s not alone. After all, what could be more MAGA that deposing the violently anti-US Ayatollah and laying the groundwork for a flourishing pro-West democracy in the Middle East?

Yet, to just as much (if not far more) of the coalition, it’s a line in the sand. Any semblance of support for Trump they might have had is gone now. A great deal of this attitude is rooted in the belief that Trump, despite all his promises to the contrary, has failed to put America first. The Iran war, to them, is the most irrefutable proof yet that the President is putting the interest of another country before his own: Israel.

From his outsider vantage, Michael can see both sides.

”It’s hard to make the case that the Iranian war is in America’s interest. It’s also not at all the case that Iran was an imminent threat to America. But people fall into these traps where they blame everything on one factor. ‘It’s the trans people’, ‘It’s Israel’, ‘It’s Trump’ - if any of them vanished, all the problems would go away. If Israel vanished today, I don’t think the American war machine would stop for one second. This is basic liberty analysis.”

Even if you take the Shapiro line of thinking, Iran’s liberation is no guarantee. America might well find itself in a less desirable position than it was in before. To Michael, it’s a near certainty.

”No matter how unpopular the President is, if a foreign nation took them out, America would rally around the Vice President. You’re not going to be in favour of the guys bombing you to oblivion … And when people, especially young men, feel a sense of desperation and have no ability to achieve anything, and think they can make their name elsewhere, they will.”

Several major commentators have been sounding the alarm regarding ‘blowback attacks’. And it’s not mere theory. Earlier this month, a bar in Austin was shot up by a man wearing a “Property Of Allah” hoodie - the incident is being investigated as a potential terror attack.

Just when you think Michael has settled into being appropriately serious…

”We’re at the point now where there are so many mass shootings, the only difference would be that they speak Farsi instead of being trans.”

Francis argues that we in the West don’t understand the Islamist mindset.
We presume everyone thinks like us, even when it’s radically apparent that that isn’t true. For evidence, Francis points to their extreme tactics in- ”What do you mean by ‘extreme?’”

Michael’s question disarms us.

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Ben Bankas is one of America’s fastest rising comic stars. Moving to Austin from Toronto, he quickly established himself as one of the new scene’s most popular voices, achieving a devoted following through his timely black comedy. He’s also one of the most prolific performers; while most comedians take years between specials, Ben has released no less than 6 in the last 3 years. Today, his YouTube channel, where he posts clips, specials and episodes of his podcast, boasts over 160,000 subscribers.

Why did we invite him on?

We love comedians. That’s no secret. Often, they represent a break from the heady, difficult conversations we have on this show. As rewarding and brilliant as they are, it can start to weigh on you, and inviting comics gives us and them a license to laugh. It’s therapeutic.

But that’s not why we invited Ben. Ben’s irrepressibly funny, but he’s also genuinely outspoken. The reason his work resonates with his audience is because of the unshakeable feeling that one gets when they see it - that he believes what he’s saying.

Hyperbole and shock are ingredients, but while many of his peers have made names for themselves pedalling in those things exclusively, Ben is unapologetic and unflinching about saying what he truly thinks. Like it or not, it makes him an ideal guest.

What did we talk about?

”In a way, the more angry people get at the joke, the better. These people have all their problems, and still they choose to be mad about my comedy. You’re welcome - I gave you a break from your own life.”

The role of the comic is an odd one. They’re tasked to distract us from ‘the real world’ as often as they are to hold a mirror up to it. It’s a role that requires tact, consideration, and an artful touch. At least, it does to most - not to Ben. To Ben, funny’s funny, and it’s no more complicated than that.

”A lot of comedy is about making people laugh, but also making them say ‘It’s not the right time!’. I don’t belive in that idea. I don’t believe in censoring myself. If it’s on a stage and people have paid for it, it is the right time.”

Some have accused Ben of going ‘too far’, of ‘punching down’. Looking at the comments of his videos, you don’t have to scroll far before you find someone wagging their finger. Ben finds it amusing; if these people saw his act in person, their hair would whiten.

”My [most shocking] jokes …. I don’t post those. Those are just for the audience. Those are for the people in the room.”

It’s hard to imagine Ben going much darker than what he lets see the light. Occasionally, it’s cost him.

Earlier this year, Ben was embroiled in controversy over his dicey ICE material. The ongoing raids are a sore spot for Americans. They horrify the left, embarrass the right, and alienate the middle ground. It’s not hard to understand why; whether you think the actions are just or not, the footage is disturbing, and there are enough scandalous stories to give the average person pause for thought.

To Ben, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

”I’m Canadian, so I’m an immigrant. I think we need to get rid of these people. I don’t know what to say. It’s the same in Canada. There’s no deporting these people in Canada - they just get a notice and they’re supposed to self-deport. It’s not good for the country; Canada’s becoming a safe haven for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Is that healthy? I want to have a safe, healthy, beautiful country, wherever I am.”

Ben’s most abrasive material on the subject concerned the then-recent death of Renee Good - an American woman who was fatally shot after she attempted to block a convoy of agents with her car. The incident had a deeply polarising effect. To some, she was a peaceful protestor, to others (including White House officials), she was a domestic terrorist.

Comedy = tragedy + time. Ben has little regard for the ‘time’ element of that equation.

”I made a joke about it right when it happened. And it was very funny. At least to my audience. The people who got upset, they were always going to get upset. I don’t care.”

Unsurprisingly, there was a backlash. Shows weren’t cancelled, but Ben’s name was dragged through the mud. Today, he laments how one-sided the discussion has become.

”The venues only care about liberal complaints. They get 50 people who want it cancelled, and that matters more than the hundreds with tickets, the thousands more who wanted tickets and couldn’t get them, and the millions who want to see it online. They don’t care about complaints from the right, or even their customers. The left say ‘It’s free speech, not freedom from consequences.’ It’s a sold-out show! And it’s being cancelled… Is that a free country? Is that free speech?”

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Barry Strauss is a leading authority on ancient military history and a master storyteller of the classical world. He’s the best-selling author of numerous acclaimed books, including The Death of Caesar, The War That Made the Roman Empire, and The Spartacus War—all praised for their fresh perspectives and page-turning prose. His work has been translated into multiple languages and featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. At Cornell, he acts as a Professor of History and Classics and is the former Director of the Cornell Institute for Archaeology and Material Studies, Strauss is known for combining scholarly rigour with cinematic storytelling. He also hosts the podcast “Antiquitas: Leaders and Legends of the Ancient World”, where he distils lessons from the past for today’s world.

Why did we invite him on?

Barry is one of our favourite guests. He joined us for the first time in 2024 to share an abridged story of the leaders of antiquity, before returning last year to chart the collapse of Rome. Not only was it one of our most popular interviews of the year, it was one of our favourite conversations on history to date.

Just 9 months later, we’re thrilled to have him back.

This time, we wanted to explore a subject that still shapes geopolitics today, arguably more than ever: Israel.

”I’m going to talk as a secular historian. Nothing I say should shake anyone’s faith or challenge anyone’s faith.”

In case you’ve missed it, the country’s been in the news lately. But how much is actually known about it? Almost all exploration of the nation’s history traces back to 1948. But that’s only part of the story. Is it all we need to know?

We wanted to answer that question and last year, Barry released a book on this very subject: Jews Vs Rome. There was no debate: he was the obvious choice.

What did we learn?

Before we carry on, we should know: Is this a conversation worth having?

The story of Rome and Israel is undoubtedly a fascinating one - nobody present disputes that. But given how ferocious the situation now is, is it the time to look back like this? Is any of it relevant today?

”Sure.”

Why’s that? Because this story goes back much further than 1948.

”The earliest evidence we have of Jews comes from 1210 B.C., at the end of the Bronze Age: a stele [upright stone slab] which declares the defeat of Israel … Going forward, we have lots of archeological evidence. Letters that refer to Jews, mentions of the god of Judaism… Lots of evidence of them being there. But also across the region, in the diaspora. Turkey, Greece, Rome, Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia)…”

The Zionist argument, if it’s to even be considered, depends on a very serious, core claim: the Jews have always been there. If that’s not true, the entire project is built on a false premise.

”[History tells us that ] the Jews are indigenous to this land. To Judea, to Palestine, to Israel. It’s not like the Zionists threw a dart at the map and said ‘We’re going there!’ They went there because it’s the Jewish ancestral land. Jewish prayers from antiquity talk about it, and Jewish settlers returned to it again and again and again. It never stopped. They weren’t always the majority, but they are a presence there.”

We’ve heard this argument before. It’s a common retort deployed by Israel’s defenders. In fact, Melanie Phillips has made it on our very show.

But is that good enough? Is that enough, in the 21st century, to stake a claim to land?

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”I think you should tell your Prime Minister that he breathes in 0.04% carbon dioxide and he breathes out 4%. So if he wants to be carbon neutral, he should drop dead.”

Ian Plimer is one of Australia’s most infamous scientific minds. To some, he’s an iconoclastic rebel, bravely standing against the debilitating rhetoric of his community. To others, he’s a kook, recklessly undermining the efforts of finer scientists to remedy the most pressing issue of our time: climate change.

A ferociously vocal critic, ‘sceptic’ isn’t a strong enough word for his position - he is defiantly, wholesale opposed to the consensus that exists among the vast majority of his peers.

We are fascinated by anyone who speaks out, and have been curious about Ian’s positions for some time. Crucially, Ian’s no quack. Today, he’s the professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne, and worked on-and-off as a lecturer for several universities over the preceding decades. So why does he cut so strongly against the ride? If the costs for speaking out are so high, what motivates him to do it? Is there something there?

What did we talk about?

Ian’s suspicion of ‘climate science’ has made him a pariah. But his guardedness didn’t start there. In the ‘90s, Ian rose to prominence as a critic of creationism - the belief that the Earth is 4,000 years old, the ‘ancient sediment’ we can observe in our global geology is the result of a historic flood. That’s when he realised even the truth can be weaponised for deception.

”That’s when I realised that there was a very large body of people out there using ‘science’ to promote scams. They were very religious and very misguided. [Later], I saw the same thing in the late ‘90s with climate change.”

It’s an easy, if underhanded, debate technique to describe your opponent as “brainwashed”, or a “cult member”, or “religiously” minded. It imposes on them a degree of gullibility and fundamentalism. You don’t believe this because the evidence backs it up, but because you want it to be true. To Ian, it’s more than a shallow similarity.

”It has all the hallmarks of religion. Sin, redemption, paying penance, having to give things up - the leaders of the religion don’t have to, but the common man does. I started looking at the science, and the evidence didn’t align at all with my area of science: geology. That’s my speciality, but I’m a polymath, and I could very quickly see that this wasn’t science. I could see a big business coming behind it, so I thought it was time to stand up.”

We’re so often told that “all scientists agree” on the climate change ‘consensus’. The numbers thrown around are unlike those regarding any other field of study - some reports put it at exceeding 99%.

How did they get to this number? Ian’s answer is simple: not everyone was asked.

”If you look at the IPCC reports, there’s no geology or palaeontology. And those are the clues for the temperatures and sea levels! That’s how you find out...”

When you look, what do you see?

”You can look at the rocks and back-calculate how much carbon was in the atmosphere. Over the past 5 million years, we’ve had a decrease in carbon dioxide. [In fact], it’s dangerously low. If we halved it, we’d have no vegetation … We’ve seen cycles of climate in the past. Very warm periods, very cold periods … We see sea levels going up and down all the time. Darwin wrote a book about it in 1842!”

Put succinctly as possible, the climate story is as follows…

Human activity is putting unnatural levels of carbon into the atmosphere, and its presence is wrecking the atmospheric balance, causing the planet to heat. Ian’s findings don’t merely cast doubt on the given narrative; they render it incoherent. Not only that - their evidence doesn’t support it.

”We’ve had times in the planet where there is hundreds of times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there is today. And that’s when we enjoyed the greatest ice age in the history of our planet. We have kilometres of ice at the equator, and the evidence is in the rocks. It’s incontrovertible. There’s no relationship between carbon and temperature. There’s not one scientific paper that demonstrates human emissions drive global warming. If there were, you’d never hear the end of it.”

If that’s true, why don’t we hear about it?

Science is the ongoing process of getting things wrong. We have to forgive researchers for that. If we didn’t, we’d never learn more.

That doesn’t seem to be what’s going on here. It sounds like ‘climate scientists’ are pushing something they don’t have reason to.

If the evidence doesn’t support the hypothesis, why hasn’t it just been dropped? Where does the motivation to push an allegedly unfounded argument come from? Isn’t that the antithesis of good science?

”This is the biggest cult in the history of science.”

Why?

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Former wonderkid, Pierre Poilievre entered Canda’s parliament in 2004 at the age of 25. Today, he leads the country’s Conservative Party - the official opposition.

When the federal election rolled around last year, Pierre was the favourite to win. The demise of Justin Trudeau had shatted the nation’s faith in the incumbent Liberal party, a series of scandals in the preceding years having hampered his reputation irrevocably. Calls for him to resign grew to a deafening roar. Voters were desperate for change. It looked like it might be Pierre.

It was as close to a sure thing as there is in politics. Until the inevitable happened. Donald Trump opened his mouth.

Returning to the White House, Trump floated the idea of adopting Canada as America’s 51st state. How serious he was is unclear, but it didn’t matter - Canadians didn’t want it, and they weren’t willing to entertain the risk.

So instead, Pierre leads the Opposition. America (naturally) dominates the geopolitical conversation, but we wanted to know: how are things looking in the Canada? What’s the view of the world from the great white north?

What did we talk about?

”Trump made it hard. We wanted to focus the issue on domestic issues, where we had a strong case, but the sound and fury of the American election made that impossible … We can’t control President Trump, so we should focus on the things we can.”

Trump’s pledge to occupy Canada made him - if he wasn’t before - extremely unpopular with Canadians. The election became an indictment on whichever party would flick his ear harder. According to Pierre, whether or not he meant it is unimportant.

”It’s never going to happen. And everybody knows it’s never going to happen.”

At the time, Pierre could only condemn the American President so much - after all, they’re on the same page on many of the major issues. The same is not true for the Liberal party. Mark Carney, Canada’s current PM, has advocated isolating their neighbour. Europe and Canada should focus on their alliance and leave America out in the cold. You can come in when you learn to play fair. He’s even gone as far as to suggest this alliance should, in place of America’s megalithic influence, cosy up to China. To Pierre, it’s an absurd and undesirable pipe dream.

”You can’t ignore China… but we can’t have a permanent rupture with our closest neighbour and biggest customer in favour of a strategic relationship and new world order with China. We need to have a solid friendship and security partnership with the United States - there’s no way China or anyone else will replace that.”

This is all important, but one can tell it’s not where Pierre’s core interests lie.

In a time of pervasive globalism, he advocates a return to domestic focus. At the end of the day, life in Canada is not what it ought to be. As bad as we think things are elsewhere in the West, there’s an argument that each of our issues are more pronounced there. Demoralisation, deindustrialisation, the rent economy, oppression of speech… it’s the same story again. Some of the stats are baffling.

”Of all the G7 countries, we have the fewest homes per capita. It’s insane; we have 10x more land per person than the 2nd most, which is America. We should be a dirt-cheap place to live. We have the most dirt!”

In Pierre’s estimation, none of this is an accident. It might be easier to take if it were typical run-of-the-mill incompetence and government short-sightedness. And no doubt there are elements of that too. Rather, there has been a systematic, deliberate extraction of wealth from one group to another. The costs are astronomic.

”For the last decade or two, we’ve seen a total betrayal of the working class. The people who move stuff, lift stuff, build stuff… Young people are entering the job market and are seeing their opportunities disappear, taken away by a small group of well-connected insiders. It’s caused immense political instability, as well as the rise in socialism and protectionism. Now is the time to push back - it’s time to give people control of their lives.”

But ’giving people control of their lives’ has not been Canada’s M.O. for some time.

A large factor in Trudeau’s resignation was the drastic loss of support he experienced in the wake of the Canada convoy protest. In case you missed it, in early 2022, a collection of Canadian truckers staged was a series of protests and blockades. Initially, these were organised to oppose the enrolment of COVID vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers, before expanding its scope of influence to all COVID restrictions.

The government’s response wasn’t to hear them out, or weigh up their concerns. It was to punish them.

The federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, granting extraordinary powers to law enforcement. Within a week, blockades and protests had been dismantled, and the government frozen the bank accounts of the convoy’s organisers.

The story rattled the conscience of liberal-minded people the world over. None more so than Pierre.

”The truckers were [just] looking to be heard. In the early days of COVID, they were heroes… driving along lonely highways for weeks, away from their families, bringing us the things we couldn’t live without. Then, when it came time for them to have their say, the government robbed them of their liberties.”

But why did it happen? Stereotypically, Canadians are viewed as gentle, passive people. Is there something about the Canadian psyche that brought it about? Something that allowed a government to dogwalk its people?

Pierre’s response is flat and unbending.

”No.

It was the government. Canadians love their freedoms. They love freedom of speech, free enterprise, freedom of movement … that’s why it’s been easy for me to stand by my principles.”

Perhaps we in our European glass house are in no place to judge. On our island and on the mainland, the same trends are mapping out - trends we feel powerless to stop. It’s hard to recall a time when a major European power became more free than it was before.

Even if the circumstances are different from those in Canada, the mechanisms are precisely the same.

”It all comes down to freedom or force. There’s a movement to concentrate power and control money. That has led to a huge gap between rich and poor. The solution is to give people back the power and shrink the size of government.”

Here, Konstantin challenges him…

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Few writers define the 21st century as comprehensively as Lionel Shriver.

Moreso than arguably any other, one can look through her catalogue and get a sense of where the public conversation was at its release. In 2003, she released the wildly popular We Need To Talk About Kevin (later adapted into the critically acclaimed film of the same name), a chilling post-Columbine exploration of psychology and youth violence that earned her the Orange Prize. The novel launched her into the consciousness of pop culture, a position that she’s maintained through decades of acclaimed best-sellers and acid-tongued writing.

This month, she released her latest novel: A Better Life.

Why did we invite her on?

On both sides of the Atlantic, immigration is the issue of the day. While ICE agents roll into American cities, British voters keep relocating to any party who promises to do more stop to the influx. It invites emotional reactions of all stripes - as much sympathy as there is, there is an equal (perhaps greater) measure of apathy, even hostility.

Lionel, always one to respond to the moment, has met it with a new book that balances and draws from both sides of the argument. We loved it, and we wanted to know what its writer makes of the situation. What does Lionel really think?

What did we learn?

”I am always looking for a gap in the cultural library. There is no point writing a book that’s been written multiple times, so I’m trying to write about something that other people are not writing about - there’s usually a reason.”

Immigration is the mother of all hot button issues right now. It dominates the news cycle, shapes the public conversation, and countless novelists have made contributions to the subject. Going to write hers, Lionel surveyed the lay of the land and noticed that something was amiss.

“There have been plenty of novels about immigration, and they’re almost always implicitly pro-immigrant - that’s the perspective they’re told from. And they’re not bad novels; the narrative of the immigrant’s story is naturally appealling … When you have a sympathetic immigrant, you are writing a pro-immigration book. That’s just the way it works.”

Recently, British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe said in an interview that the UK had been "colonised by migrants". For this, he was condemned by journalists, union leaders, anti-racism campaigners and politicians. Lionel, it won’t surprise you to know, had a view of her own. She agreed with Jim.

”Of course.”

Even if you agree with the notion of Ratcliffe’s comment, you can also see why it was so roundly criticised. At the very least, it’s technically inaccurate. ‘Invasion’ and ‘colonisation’ imply a violent capturing of the land - it implicitly blames the migrant population.

But who is really responsible for these waves of mass immigration? Is it not the fault of our leaders, rather than those who take the opportunity our leaders afford them?

Lionel agrees, going further.

”It is not inevitable. And politicians of a certain stripe have conditioned us to think it is. The US has been taught to believe that the drastic transformation of the country is a natural process like photosynthesis. The sun shines and the immigrants come. It’s as if nobody’s making any decisions that make rapid demographic change. But this is all the result of individual political decisions, and it’s the same in the UK. They’re being let in. They’re being invited.”

Many open-borders types are so caught up in their will to accomodate the migrant population, they are willing to sacrifice the society those people are fleeing to.
Reading Lionel’s new book, Francis found himself returning to a phrase coined by Gad Saad: ‘suicidal empathy’. A form of empathy that is destructive to the party exhibiting it.

Lionel sees Francis’ point, but takes issue with the term itself…

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Freya India is one of the most distinct young writers working today. Exploring the interior lives and modern challenges of young women in the age of atomisation, her Substack, GIRLS, is one of the most popular in Britain, boasting over 50,000 subscribers. She is a staff writer for Jonathan Haidt’s newsletter After Babel, and has also contributed to the likes of The New Statesman, The Spectator, and The Free Press. Her first book, Girls®: Gen Z & The Commodification of Everything, is out this Thursday - 26th February 2026.

Why did we invite her on?

The subject of Gen-Z alienation is nothing new, but few voices speak from first-hand experience. Freya came of age in the era during the transition of social media from a frivolous pastime to an all-consuming, all-conforming enslavement-tech. The damage these platforms have done (and are doing) to our youth cannot be overstated, and Freya is one of its fiercest critics.

She’s been covering the subject for years, but with the release of her new book, it seemed the perfect opportunity to have her back.

However bad you may think things are, rest assured - they are worse.

What did we talk about?

”Something has broken down. The internet offers us simulations, but my generation doesn’t realise that’s all they are. They think Instagram is a community because they’ve never talked to their neighbours. Instead of having friends, they have influencers and forums. They don’t realise these are a replacement for something.”

It would take a streak of hypocrisy for us to condemn social media entirely.
After all, our show wouldn’t be possible without it.

Like all paradigm shifts in society, social media came with drawbacks. The best case study is Gen-Z. Their uncertainty of self, their anxieties, and their inability to ‘grow up’ are things this cohort are so often mocked for that we rarely stop to ask ‘Why?’ Why are they like this?

It’s a holistic disease. For those in the dark, Freya identifies the central symptom.

”Technology has turned Gen-Z women into products. We’re not treating ourselves as human.”

So, how did this happen?

On the parallel tracks of technology and entertainment, social media is the last stop before dystopia. Generations gone by had television, radio and newspapers, yet they didn’t suffer the same degeneration of self.

It wasn’t possible yet. These medias had no real knowledge of their users. Advertising serves and preys upon the innermost fears of consumers. Marketers of yesteryear could only dream of the power that complex, deified algorithms afford them now. They know what you buy, what you care about, and what you’re scared of. By clocking your phone-use, they know what keeps you up at night.

The shift is so radical and profound that it rattled not only how women saw the world, but how they see themselves. In a way, that’s correct; the apps know them better than they do.

”These are age-old anxieties that women have always felt. How you look, how you live… But now they’ve been magnified and exploited by companies, and they’ve become unmanageable. The core experience of girls today is commodification. [In the past], women were sold products and procedures. Now, we are the products.”

These are ancient stresses. Insecurities and shortcomings are a fact of life, but these were always things young women could handle themselves. That’s no longer true. They’ve mutated into something we no longer recognise. Age-old guidance cannot surmount the problems these girls face.

”In the past, someone might make a comment at school and you’d ruminate on it. But now, you can go back to it, and it’s public, and it’s inescapable … The reputational destruction that used to happen on the playground is now happening online, and it’s being shown to other children.”

Not everyone is so sympathetic. After all, what have these companies really done wrong? They’re supplying a demand, what’s wrong with that? If these young girls are so vexed by their phones, can’t they just turnthem off? Feel better by smashing it into pieces.

This, Freya argues, is a misframing. The girls are not extracting from the algorithms - the algorithms are taking from them. They don’t stand a chance.

”How does a young girl compete with a billion-dollar industry who take advantage of all her vulnerabilities? The algorithms pick up on fear and vulnerability. They pick up on your searches and prey on it. If you delete a selfie, they’ll send you an ad for a beauty product. They can identify any insecurity you have and profit from it.”

As much as Freya’s age situates her at the epicentre of Gen-Z, she considers herself lucky to have avoided the worst of it. Others were exposed younger, and to more harmful content. For entire cohorts of youth, degrading pornography and wartime snuff films became their ‘Saturday morning cartoons’. It’s a recipe for disharmony.

“I got a phone at 11. It wasn’t as bad for me, but if you’re young now, you’re getting fed all the rage in the world without having experienced the world at all … It’s a very confusing time. Shows for adults are infantilised while shows for children are sexualised. There’s a hustle culture online, paired with helicopter parenting in the real world.”

Unlike entertainment sources of the previous century, platforms demand participation. Not only are you being fed violence, sex and propagand, you’re expected to have a view and make it known. After all, silence is violence.

Mistakes are inevitable. In the past, young people finding themselves might be afforded the grace of memory: a select few might remember your transgressions, but they’ll know you better than to judge you for them.

Today, things can’t disappear. Every embarrassment, mishandling, and every ill-advised comment is documented. It’s a lode-bearing pillar for cancel culture, and while celebrities were the targets we talked about, the private citizen faced their own kind of social shame. Freya calls it what it is…

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For decades, James Sexton has been one of the most sought-after and recognised figures in the field of marriage law. More recently, he has become a regular guest on the podcast circuit, being interviewed by everyone from Lex Fridman, Andrew Huberman, Steven Bartlett, to even Soft White Underbelly. From 2019 to 2021, he had a recurring segment on The Steve Harvey Show called “How To Stay In Love”. Today, he continues to manage his own practice - Law Offices of James J. Sexton, PC - which he opened in 2001.

His latest book How To Stay In Love (or, in the UK, How To Not F*ck Up Your Marriage) is available now.

Why did we invite him on?

Divorce is almost chic nowadays. Social media inundates us with anti-marriage propaganda, calling upon strangers to ‘leave their man’ or ‘dump her and go it alone’ over the most minor infraction. The grifters who pedal it seem to overlook what a miserable process it is.

We are less interested in the process of divorce itself than we are curious about the circumstances that lead to it. What are the early warning signs? How can it be avoided?

As someone who has helped countless people through it, we knew James would be the man to ask. What we didn’t know was that it would prove to be one of the best interviews we’ve ever done.

What did we learn?

”Being the most famous divorce lawyer is like being the most good-looking leper … But if you want to know what’s wrong with your car, you don’t go to the dealership - you see a mechanic. They know when systems start to fail. If you want to know how to maintain happiness in a marriage, you talk to someone who’s seen the end of it. I’ve seen all the permutations of people losing something they never meant to lose.”

Not just an expert in the field, James is also an unprecedented character: a celebrity divorce lawyer. It could only happen if people were interested in it. So what happened? Are people more interested in divorce now than they used to be? Why?

James has a theory…

”We live in a very performative time. But divorce is different; you can’t pretend you meant to do it. Everybody goes in with the same expectation - staying together until death.”

Heartbreak is captivating. Love is perhaps the most powerful and pervasive of human emotions, and divorce is, as James calls it, ‘intimacy weaponised’. But it’s just compelling - it’s common. More common than even the most pessimistic statistics convey.

”About 50% of marriages end in divorce. And that’s just the number that end catastrophically. How many ‘end’ without getting divorced? Staying together when you no longer love each other, for religious reasons, or for the kids, or because you don’t want to lose half of your stuff.”

It’s an unnerving thing to prospect on. Romantic unhappiness is a fact of life, but for so many to stay there when they have the option to leave is puzzling. Understandable, but irrational.

Regarding the people for whom circumstances have become so catastrophic that they walk into James’ office, what are the leading factors? What are the final straws?

”Infidelity would be #1. I think that’s the symptom rather than the illness; two people who are deeply connected don’t have a proclivity for it. But it’s present in 75%-80% of cases we encounter as divorce lawyers.”

Over his decades of practice, James has come to recognise several key patterns. One of them is the wildly different ways in which men and women respond to revelations of romantic betrayal.

”Men and women ask different questions. When they find out their partner has been unfaithful, the man will ask: ‘Did you sleep with him?’, and the woman asks: ‘Did you love her?’ I think that says something about how we interpret love.”

Common belief might be that men are less faithful than women, but James argues that’s not true. Well, it is true, but it’s not the whole truth.

”Men cheat more, but women cheat better. They cheat bigger. They find the soft landing. If a man cheats on his wife, he’s a disgusting piece of garbage who couldn’t keep it in his pants. If a woman cheats on her husband, she’s the hero of that story.”

Another key pressure is the financial. Money troubles are difficult for everyone, but when partnered with deception and lies? They’re poison to relationships.

”I’ve seen cases where a woman with a ‘spending habit’ has come to your husband and revealed that she has several hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, and he - as the breadwinner - is now responsible for that. It’s the betrayal of it.”

These are all constants. Ancient problems that are as old as marriage - or even romance - itself. Today, we face a whole new host of troubles. Ones that are intrinsically linked to modernity and the frontier of tech we find ourselves in. First and foremost…

”Social media. It’s the greatest amplifier in the world, and the best help to matrimonial law that we never needed. Online, you’re watching everyone’s greatest hits while living your ‘gag reel’. You’re comparing your relationship with its quirks and chaos to the best moments of others. Of course you’re going to be dissatisfied.”

Thesey days, young people seem averse to the very idea of marriage. The stats are, James concedes, troubling. One that is often cited, particularly in fringe online spaces, is that 78% of divorces are initiated by the wife. Is that true? If it is, why?

”That statistic has been weaponised. People like to create the impression that women just get married and stay in it until the guy has enough money and then cash out. If that was what was happening, I’d be the first to say it; I’m often accused of misogyny for reporting the differences between men and women … But that’s not it.”

So, what is it?

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Longevity is an exploding science, and Rhonda Patrick is one of its most recognisable faces. Earning her PhD in Biomedical Science and publishing research in some of the field’s leading journals, Rhonda started FoundMyFitness - a health and science-based platform through which she shares advice on optimising healthspan, longevity, and physical/cognitive performance. Boasting over 1.1M+ followers on Instagram, she is one of the most popular science communicators of our time.

Why did we invite her on?

”At least you have your health” is a cliche for good reason. Whatever hardships are mounted against you, having your physical well-being in order is a prerequisite for a good life.

So what happens when you lose it? What happens when it’s taken?

At a time when more is known about the human body than ever before, it feels increasingly difficult to treat it well. Modern work is less physically demanding yet more emotionally taxing than ever. Food is now mysterious - we don’t always know what we’re eating. We don’t even go outside. It’s never been easier to survive, but that may be at the cost of living well.

The most disturbing changes are invisible. Diminishing testosterone, mildly depleted cognitive function, and the increasing presence of micropolitics in the body. We wanted to know: how serious is the problem? What can we do about it? How much time do we have to solve it?

Rhonda was the ideal candidate, and we were thrilled when she agreed to join us for a conversation.

What did we learn?

”We can’t see them. We can’t smell them. But they’re there. They’re insidious. Every day, we’re being exposed to them. It’s a public health crisis.”

And what is ‘them’?

’Endocrine disruptors’ - chemicals that interfere with the human body’s natural hormone production. You might not have heard of them, but they surround you. These chemicals are woven into everyday items and leak into the things we eat, drink and put on our skin.

”BPA and BPS. They’re in plastic bottles, recyclable packages, aluminium cans, the to-go coffee cups that you use… It’s everywhere.”

Their effects are not benign.

”Lower libido, cardiovascular disease, bone health, your mental health, energy levels. And they’re lowering testosterone. They’re worsening the quantity and quality of sperm that men are producing.”

But that’s not all.

Phalates - synthetic chemicals added to plastics to soften them - are just as ubiquitous, and the effects are arguably even more fundamentally damaging.

”They’re in makeup products, hair products, even the pipes your tap water travels through. And they’re disguised under the words “parfum” or “fragrance” - they extend the half-life of the fragrance, so these items smell better for long. They’re not just lowering testosterone - they’re lowering it at every stage of life. It’s really important to have regular testosterone levels when you’re developing, and women who have high levels of phalates (either from the water or the products they use) are much more likely to have sons with sexual development problems. Undescended testicles, fertility issues, even testicular cancer.”

The omnipresence of these chemicals means there’s no real control group - nobody alive in the developed world will have managed to avoid them their whole life. But that raises a different question: how is society different today to how it might have been without them?

”If I’m speculating… hormones affect your view on things. If you feel anxiety, which low testosterone causes, your view on a variety of topics is going to be affected. I’m not an expert, but it seems obvious to me.”

Another trend we’ve seen in recent years is the increased prevalence of diagnoses of learning difficulties and neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly ADHD and autism.

Many put this down to improved knowledge and sensitivity of testing, while quacks have their competing pet theories. Is there a connection between that trend and what we’re talking about today?

”Yes, there is. There literally is something in the water.”

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Scott Galloway has been a prescient thinker for 30 years.

Today, he’s more popular than ever.

In 1999, the World Economic Forum named Scott as one of the "Global Leaders of Tomorrow”, and has since served on the Board of Directors for Urban Outfitters, The New York Times, Eddie Bauer, and the Haas School Of Business. His 2017 book, The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google, gave readers a fascinating look behind the curtain of the most dominant corporations in history, ellucidating the novel business practices and marketing tactics that have brought them to success. Today, he continues to teach, as well as publish his award-winning weekly newsletter - No Mercy/No Malice.

Why did we invite him on?

We’ve conversed with Scott before - Konstantin appearing alongside him on Diary of A CEO, for example - but never have we had the pleasure of hosting him. He’s been on the wishlist for some time now, and we were thrilled when the opportunity to sit down with one of the most popular thinkers of the decade presented itself.

More recently, Scott has entered the ‘mindset’ conversation, becoming a wildly popular and admired voice in male psychology. His latest book - Notes On Being A Man - was released last year to widespread acclaim.

There’s no shortage of ‘masculinity influencers’ in the world today, but Scott tears away from the herd. His view is unique to him. We wanted to explore it.

What did we talk about?

Before we go into Scott’s assessment of masculinity, it’s important to lay out where he stands. ‘The masculinity crisis’ is typically the domain of right-wingers; conservatives who lament the lack of machismo in modern culture and call upon men to lift weights and beat their chest. It’s a familiar archetype, bur it’s not Scott, who plants himself firmly on the Left.

”I’m a part of the Left, but we have an apostate culture. You either sign up 100% or you’re an enemy. The response is so swift and violent.”

It makes him uniquely powerful. The likes of Jordan Peterson or Nick Freitas… their critics can dismiss them as conservative and never have to contend with what they’re saying. Of course they’d say that, they’re just dumb right-wingers. It’s a tedious, but all-too-familiar retort.

Scott’s position on the Left makes him an effective critic, and puts into harsh daylight how serious the problem is.

“Men between the ages of 20-20 are spending less time outside than prison inmates. 45% of men aged 18-24 have never asked a woman out in person. We’re evolving a species of asexual, asocial males.”

So, how did it happen?

Scott stresses that there is no one factor. That would be too simple - too easily solved. Instead, it’s a tapestry of various forces shaping modern life. First and foremost, unignorably: the internet.

For almost all of human history, young men have had no choice but to go out and make a living, find a partner, build a family and provide for it. Now, not only can they avoid these rites of passage - it’s much easier to do that than see them through. Social media platforms didn’t force men into the shadows, but they made it all too possible to retreat.

”The most valuable companies in the world, with God-like technology, have pounced on and worsened the polarisation of young men from society. Why put on a tie and try get a job when you can sit at home and trade crypto? Why go through the cost and humiliation and stress of seeking a romantic partner when you have synthetic lifelike porn available to you 24/7?”

Perhaps men could be tempted out of their corner if the real world were more inviting. But the situation is not helped by the financial circumstances that young men find themselves in. This group are finding it increasingly difficult to get a foot on the job ladder, start a career, and make something of themselves. Record numbers are living at home later in life, and an alarming rate of them are checking out of the work force entirely. The second-order effects are disastrous.

”Only 1/3 of men under 30 are in relationships, but 2/3 of women under 30 are in relationships. It doesn’t sound possible. But women are dating older; they want partners who are independent, have their sh*t together and can provide for them, and young men can’t do that.”

If things weren’t bad enough, they immediately get worse.

The archetypal image of a single woman is much more tragic than that of the single man. The single woman sits on her sofa, watching soap operas and eating ice cream, warmed by an apathetic cat. The single man? Why, he’s an Ubermensch. A winner. He beds damsels on a pile of money. He might be a pig, but he’s got all the mud he could want.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

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