American Thought Leaders

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

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

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

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

David Friedman, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and architect of the Abraham Accords, discusses strategies to counter Iranian threats and the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He critiques the feasibility of a Palestinian state and suggests a one-state solution could improve conditions for Palestinians while maintaining Israel's identity. Friedman also highlights the Trump administration's achievements in U.S.-Israel relations, including the embassy move to Jerusalem, and examines Saudi Arabia's potential role in the Abraham Accords.

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

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

Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, is celebrated for his work on the Great Barrington Declaration and advocates for free speech in academia. In this discussion, he shares his insights from a groundbreaking Pandemic Planning conference aimed at encouraging open dialogue among diverse voices. Bhattacharya tackles the dangers of censorship, the necessity of transparency regarding pandemic policies, and the importance of fostering civil discourse. He emphasizes that academia must resist groupthink to uphold its foundational values.

We’re launching a special “American Thought Leaders” series during this post-election transition period in which I will be interviewing topic matter experts and former and potential future Trump administration officials to understand what the incoming U.S. administration’s policies in 2025 may look like—for America, Canada, and the world.Today, I’m sitting down with Jeffrey Tucker, founder and president of the Brownstone Institute. He’s also a columnist at The Epoch Times, where he writes daily about economics, technology, and culture.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“When a country or a state legalizes assisted suicide or euthanasia, it can no longer call itself anti-suicide, because it specifically approves some suicides. ... It’s a very dangerous movement that is normalizing this kind of approach to dying as opposed to natural death.”In this episode, I sit down with Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer, public speaker, award-winning author, and chair of the Discovery Institute Center on Human Exceptionalism.“We’re seeing in Canada also the beginning of a situation where patients who have a tough time getting an oncologist because of such a long waiting list, ask to be killed because they can’t get quality medical care,” Smith says.We dive into his work on bioethics and euthanasia, better known today as “medically-assisted suicide.”“Assisted suicide and euthanasia is a symptom, not a cause, and there’s a deep nihilism that seems to have infected society on many levels,” Smith 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.