American Thought Leaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vani Hari, known as the Food Babe, is an author and activist dedicated to exposing toxic ingredients in food. She discusses the alarming rise of artificial food dyes in American diets without proper safety reviews. Hari highlights the stark differences in food regulations between the U.S. and Europe, advocating for warning labels on harmful additives. She shares her personal journey towards nutrition and emphasizes the necessity for transparency and accountability in the food industry, pushing for a shift towards real, organic ingredients.

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

Calley Means, co-author of "Good Energy" and a public health reform advocate, dives into the alarming truth about America's chronic disease crisis. He argues that 92% of deaths are due to chronic illnesses and critiques the profit-driven system maintaining this status quo. Means emphasizes the need for more patient-centered healthcare and transparency in public health decisions. He highlights the ethical dilemmas posed by corporate influence in health policies and advocates for a shift from managing sickness to promoting holistic health solutions.