Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten
21 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 120 ratingsBig Ideas with Ben Weingarten features compelling long-form conversations with exceptional thinkers and doers on the most important ideas and issues of our time, and all time. Discussions focus on topics ranging from national security and foreign affairs, to economics and politics and philosophy and culture with a classical Liberal bent and a grounding in history. Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten challenges the prevailing progressive orthodoxy with a contrarian conservative/libertarian counter-narrative based in individual liberty, limited government, free enterprise and a strong, national interest-oriented and prudently used defense. Host Ben Weingarten is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, Senior Contributor at The Federalist and Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media, a conservative media consulting and production company.
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Episodes
Rep. Mike Gallagher on the Challenge of Communist China
July 07, 2020 15:22 - 31 minutes - 18.7 MBRep. Mike Gallagher (@RepGallagher) (R-WI) is a leading China hawk in Congress, where he serves on the Armed Services Committee, with a background in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence and as a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I had Rep. Gallagher on the podcast to discuss his views on what China really wants, to the parallels between the CCP and the Soviet Union, and the relevance of the Cold War paradigm, to ideological warfare and the challenges America faces in waging it, ...
Rep Brad Wenstrup on the New Cold War with Communist China and Deep State Corruption
May 26, 2020 08:00 - 38 minutes - 24.7 MBRep. Brad Wenstrup (@RepBradWenstrup) (R-OH) is a doctor, Army Reserve officer, and Iraq War veteran who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I had Rep. Wenstrup on the podcast to discuss his views on what he describes as an emerging new cold war with Communist China, and the weaponization and hyper-politicization of our national security and intelligence apparatus. What We Discussed The CCP’s tightening of the noose on Hong Kong Whether America should ditch t...
Hedge-Fund Manager Kyle Bass on Winning the Economic and Ideological Battle with Communist China
April 20, 2020 10:00 - 40 minutes - 22.3 MBKyle Bass (@Jkylebass) is the Chief Investment Officer of Hayman Capital Management, and arguably the most outspoken China hawk on Wall Street. I had Bass on the podcast to discuss his views on the U.S.-China economic competition, what a U.S. grand strategy with respect to China might look like, and much more. What We Discussed Why Bass believes China is a paper tiger China's ignored Achilles' heel The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) effort to set up a competing global reserve curren...
The Democrat-Deep State-Media Cover-Up that Protected the Russiagate Narrative -- Revisiting Awangate with Luke Rosiak
May 28, 2019 22:03 - 44 minutes - 27.4 MBLuke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) is an investigative reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation where he broke arguably one of the biggest scandals in the history of the federal government -- one the media refused to cover and the prosecutors refused to prosecute. This is the story of Awangate, which proved no match for Russiagate -- but should have on its merits. It is the subject of Rosiak's Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect the Democrats, a bo...
Robert Spencer on Islamic Supremacism, U.S. Middle East Policy, Defeating Jihad
November 14, 2018 09:00 - 36 minutes - 30.7 MBRobert Spencer (@jihadwatchRS) is the director of the invaluable counterjihadist website, Jihad Watch, and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of eighteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Mr. Spencer's work sits at the nexus of a number of seminal issues, from national security and foreig...
U.S. Amb. to Germany Richard Grenell on Iran Sanctions Snapback, U.S. Energy Competition with Russia in the EU, Chancellor Merkel
November 01, 2018 14:00 - 26 minutes - 18.2 MBRichard Grenell is the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, and the longest serving UN spokesman and political appointee in American history, where he served from 2001 to 2008. Amb. Grenell occupies one of the most critical positions in American diplomacy in Berlin, not only because Germany represents the EU's largest economy and has disproportionate influence on the continent, but because of its pivotal role with respect to both Iran's efforts to evade U.S. snapback sanctions, and Russia's efforts...
Ex-NSC Official Allegedly Fired Over Memo Warning Trump of ‘Deep State’ Resistance: ‘There’s a Whiff of Tyranny in the Air’ from Politicization and Weaponization of the NatSec Apparatus
September 27, 2018 14:07 - 30 minutes - 21.7 MBRich Higgins is an expert on the nexus between theological doctrines and information age unconventional warfare, and has spent 20 years combating terrorism in a variety of senior positions within the Department of Defenses. Higgins, an early supporter of President Trump, served as director for strategic planning in President Trump's National Security Council (NSC). That all changed when a memo that he had produced for President Trump on the political warfare that he was to face internall...
Did the 'Deep State' Deep Six Pentagon's Lovinger Over Discovery of Shady Defense Department Contracts to FBI Trump Informant Stefan Halper?
August 30, 2018 13:37 - 37 minutes - 25.7 MBSean Bigley (@smb_JD) is a national security attorney who prosecutes intelligence community whistleblower retaliation cases. His firm represents approximately 200 U.S. intelligence officers, diplomats, armed forces members and other security clearance holders each year. But in Mr. Bigley's vast experience as a litigator and former federal background investigator, one case of alleged brazen political retaliation has topped them all. This is the case of former distinguished Pentagon Office ...
Former CIA Operative Charles Sam Faddis on Disastrous Politicization of the Intelligence Community, How China's 'Eating Our Lunch' in Intel and NatSec, The Grave (Ignored) Narco-Hezbollah-Failed State Threat on America's Southern Border
August 22, 2018 13:32 - 45 minutes - 31.3 MBCharles Sam Faddis (@RealSamFaddis) is a retired CIA operative, where he spent decades serving abroad in the Middle East, South Asia and Europe, culminating in his heading CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center’s Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMD) unit, which was charged with pursuing terrorist WMD programs worldwide. It was Faddis who was responsible for leading the first CIA team into Iraq, in advance of the 2003 invasion. Faddis left the CIA when he had the chance to continue advancing up its s...
How Leftism Supplanted Judaism and Subverted Israel and Zionism Under 'Tikkun Olam' -- Social Justice with a Perverse and Baseless Religious Veneer
August 15, 2018 10:00 - 40 minutes - 32.5 MBJonathan Neumann has written perhaps the seminal book on how modern Jewry has supplanted its traditional values and principles with Leftism, based on a perverse, sophistic reading of the concept of tikkun olam, "healing the world," that demands devotion to social justice as the highest good and organizing principle of the Jewish religion. By way of background, Neumann is a graduate of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. He has written for various American, British, and...
Michael Ledeen on the Potential Collapse of Iran's Khomeinist Regime and America's Role, the False Sunni-Shia Jihadist Split, IC and Law Enforcement Sacking of Pro-Israel Political Opponents, Why Gen. Flynn Was Targeted and May Have Falsely Pled Guilty
August 08, 2018 10:00 - 29 minutes - 23.3 MBMichael Ledeen (@michaelledeen) is a historian, longtime think-tanker currently serving as the Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, former Special Advisor to the Secretary of State and consultant to the National Security Council during the Reagan administration and author of 38 books. Perhaps most pertinent to today, Ledeen is an expert on Iran, with deep ties to dissidents and countless individuals in the diaspora cultivated over many decades, dating back to t...
Dennis Prager on the Self-Righteously Suicidal West, the Disaster of Jewish Leftism, Intentions Versus Outcomes on the Left and Right, Western Values and Immigration, Social Media Censorship and PragerU
August 01, 2018 10:00 - 38 minutes - 31.8 MBDennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio host, columnist, author of numerous books, teacher, film producer and co-founder of Prager University -- and these titles barely scratch the surface of his tireless and impactful efforts. In a word, he has dedicated his life to advocating for Judeo-Christian and American values and principles across every medium almost daily to millions of people around the world with uncommon common sense, moral clarity and courage. I had Dennis on the Big I...
Richard Epstein on Classical Liberalism, the Administrative State, Free Speech, Silicon Valley Regulation
July 25, 2018 10:00 - 45 minutes - 35.7 MBProfessor Richard Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. He previously served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 2000. Professor Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago where he taught for 38 years. He is a prolific writer who has authored more than a dozen books on topics ranging from private property to torts...
Confucius Institutes: Centers for Chinese Cultural Exchange, or Trojan Horses for Propaganda and Penetration of U.S. Colleges?
July 11, 2018 10:00 - 32 minutes - 26.2 MBRachelle Peterson is director of research projects at the National Association of Scholars (NAS), an organization dedicated to upholding "the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship." In that position, she has published numerous reports on trends in academia that threaten these values and principles, including one on the subject of this podcast titled Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft ...
SPECIAL EPISODE (JULY 4): Deep Dive on the Declaration of Independence and its Relevance Today
July 04, 2018 08:00 - 47 minutes - 41.3 MBFor Independence Day, I take a deep dive into Declaration of Independence in terms of its unique place in history and the cause of freedom; the link between natural law and natural rights, faith and freedom; the Founding Fathers' emphasis on virtue and morality to sustain a free system of government; the criticality of the Declaration to understanding the Constitution, checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism and representative government; parallels between the charges laid out ...
Democrat Pollster Doug Schoen on Lessons from a Life in Politics, Being a Liberal in a Progressive Age, Learning from Clinton and Nixon, Threats from China and Russia
June 27, 2018 10:00 - 29 minutes - 23.9 MBDoug Schoen has been one of the most influential Democratic campaign consultants and pollsters for over thirty years. He has advised presidents, prime ministers and titans of private industry. He is the author of multiple books; his most recent include Putin’s Master Plan, The Nixon Effect (interview here), and Return to Winter: Russia, China, and the New Cold War Against America (interview here). Even though Doug and I disagree on several political issues, I am proud to call him a mentor...
Penn Law's Amy Wax on Being Ousted from Her First-Year Class Over Comments on Race, Performance and Bourgeois Values, Attacks on Free Speech, Criticism of Affirmative Action and Diversity, Anti-Western Colleges
June 20, 2018 04:30 - 51 minutes - 40.2 MBAmy Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she specializes in social welfare law and policy as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets. She is the author of Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century. Professor Wax has become a controversial figure because of her politically incorrect comments advocating in favor of bourgeois values and the WASP culture from which they stem, and in ...
Andrew C. McCarthy on Russiagate, Clinton-Trump Investigation Double Standards, Mueller's Mandate, DOJ-FBI-CIA Politicization (Part II)
June 13, 2018 04:00 - 58 minutes - 44.7 MBAndrew C. McCarthy (@AndrewCMcCarthy) is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, contributing editor of National Review and author most recently of essential books on the threat of Islamic supremacism including Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America and Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy. In Part II of my in-depth interview with Andy, we discussed Russiagate, the pervasive unethical and at times lawless behavi...
Andrew C. McCarthy: Lessons from the Blind Sheikh Terror Trial, What Animates Jihadists, Why U.S. Middle East Policy Fails, Collapsing Iran's Regime (Part I)
June 06, 2018 08:00 - 1 hour - 58.8 MBAndrew C. McCarthy (@AndrewCMcCarthy) is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, contributing editor of National Review and author most recently of essential books on the threat of Islamic supremacism including Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America and Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy. In addition to being one of the nation’s foremost national security analysts and legal experts — formerly serving as Assist...
Andrew Klavan on the Criticality of Conservative Competition in Culture, Regressive Progressivism, Political Correctness and Free Speech
May 30, 2018 13:00 - 55 minutes - 43.4 MBAndrew Klavan (@andrewklavan) is a screenwriter, bestselling crime and suspense novelist, contributor to publications such as City Journal and PJ Media and proprietor of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” a video podcast on TheDaily Wire. Klavan is witty, he’s got a sense of humor and a keen understanding of the importance of narrative and storytelling to culture. I spoke with him about his intellectual journey from liberal to conservative, the criticality of culture to politics and how conservat...
Heather Mac Donald on Corrosive Identity Politics, Multiculturalism and Unjust Criminal Justice
May 23, 2018 13:00 - 1 hour - 49.1 MBHeather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor at City Journal and author most recently of The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe. Mac Donald, the archetype of an unassuming academic, makes for an unlikely counter-cultural figure. She draws protests and outrage on college campuses across the country because she has the gall to challenge the prevailing progressive orthodoxy about subjects like identity ...