American Thought Leaders

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

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

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

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

America is facing an epidemic of loneliness, and it’s as bad for people’s health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, says U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy.In the past two decades, there’s been a marked rise in suicides and “deaths of despair.”What’s fueling these trends of social fragmentation, isolation, and atomization? And how are they linked to broader political and social trends?In this episode, two of the world’s leading thinkers on bioethics and group psychology join together with me for the first time.Dr. Aaron Kheriaty is a former psychiatry professor and director of the medical ethics program at the University of California Irvine Medical School. He’s the author of “The New Abnormal.”Mattias Desmet is a professor of psychology at Ghent University and author of “The Psychology of Totalitarianism.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2Kyle Bass is the founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, and he’s known for his prescient bets on major global economic events.In this episode, we dive into why he believes China’s economy is collapsing, why Bytedance hasn’t sold TikTok despite a looming January deadline, and what he believes the big economic and financial priorities of the incoming Trump administration should be.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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

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

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

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