Artificial intelligence has leapt from speculative theory to everyday tool with astonishing speed, promising breakthroughs in science, medicine, and the ways we learn, live, and work. But to some of its earliest researchers, the race toward superintelligence represents not progress but an existential threat, one that could end humanity as we know it. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, authors of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, join Oren to debate their claim that pursuing AI will end in h...
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Artificial intelligence has leapt from speculative theory to everyday tool with astonishing speed, promising breakthroughs in science, medicine, and the ways we learn, live, and work. But to some of its earliest researchers, the race toward superintelligence represents not progress but an existential threat, one that could end humanity as we know it. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, authors of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, join Oren to debate their claim that pursuing AI will end in h...
Artificial intelligence has leapt from speculative theory to everyday tool with astonishing speed, promising breakthroughs in science, medicine, and the ways we learn, live, and work. But to some of its earliest researchers, the race toward superintelligence represents not progress but an existential threat, one that could end humanity as we know it. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, authors of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, join Oren to debate their claim that pursuing AI will end in h...
Western politics has increasingly been shaped by a widening divide between the “Somewheres” and the “Anywheres”—those rooted in place and community versus those defined by education, mobility, and openness to change. This clash has fueled populist revolts, strained national solidarity, and reshaped debates over immigration, work, and identity. David Goodhart, author of The Road to Somewhere and The Care Dilemma, joins Oren Cass to discuss how this cultural split took hold and how to restore b...
America’s labor laws promise fairness for workers and a level playing field for businesses, but promises mean little without enforcement. Underfunded agencies and administrative failures have allowed bad corporate actors to exploit employees unable to defend themselves. Seema Nanda, the Solicitor of Labor for the Biden administration, joins Oren to discuss why labor enforcement has fallen into crisis and how immigration policy further complicates the landscape. They explore what it takes to h...
A favorite libertarian parable, I, Pencil, portrays the market as a mystical force beyond human control, an “invisible hand” that government must never try to steer. This conversation tells a different story: how Sharpie manufacturing returned from China to America, and what we can learn about how policy can shape markets in the national interest. Chris Griswold, policy director at American Compass, joins Oren to discuss his Commonplace essay, I, Sharpie, and what the marker’s story reveals a...
While the nation’s cultural curators cluster in a few wealthy zip codes, the voters who decide its elections remain rooted in towns where family, church, and work still bind community together. The result is a political and media class increasingly alien to the country it claims to represent, a dynamic cast in stark relief by the recent memorial for Charlie Kirk. Salena Zito, author of Butler and political reporter for the Washington Examiner, joins Drew to explain how rootedness, not ideolog...
President Trump's second term has brought with it a more combative approach to the American press. Supporters have cheered it as overdue payback for the media's bias, but have the president's recent actions—from threatening broadcast licenses to million-dollar lawsuits against outlets—crossed a line? Emily Jashinsky, DC correspondent for UnHerd and host of the Afterparty podcast, and Haisten Willis, editor of Commonplace, debate whether Trump's recent actions are what a uniquely hostile legac...
Efforts to modernize labor law have stalled in Washington for decades, leaving workers vulnerable to delayed contracts, retaliation, and corporate maneuvers. Meanwhile, a new challenge looms for workers: rapid advances in automation and artificial intelligence, which could threaten not only blue-collar jobs but also white-collar professions once thought untouchable. Sean M. O’Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, joins Oren to discuss labor’s realignment in t...
The abundance agenda claims to offer a new path, one centered on housing, energy, and expanded state capacity. But are advocates of abundance offering a genuine political shift? Or are they just repackaging neoliberalism for the Trump era? At the Abundance 2025 Conference, Oren debated Matt Yglesias, editor of Slow Boring, in a session moderated by Marshall Kosloff, host of The Realignment. During the debate, Yglesias framed abundance as a renewal of liberalism, centered on rebuilding capacit...
Last Friday, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Trump did not have the authority to issue emergency tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), setting up a pivotal Supreme Court battle over the future of the policy tool. Chad Squitieri, professor of law at the Catholic University of America, argues IEEPA’s grant to “regulate importation” clearly includes tariffs, while Peter Harrell, nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Internatio...
America’s political elite assumed Wall Street would finance its future. Instead, private capital chased software and speculation, leaving the nation dependent on foreign supply chains for most manufactured goods. The result is a hollowed-out industrial base that no tax credit alone can fix. Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs and president of the New American Industrial Alliance, joins Oren to lay out the case for a distinctly American sovereign wealth fund, investing in strategic sector...
In the 1990s, Silicon Valley thought access to China would help open their markets and liberalize the nation. Instead, their engagement ended up empowering the CCP and helped build the Chinese surveillance state. Geoffrey Cain, an investigative journalist and author, joins Oren to explain how some Big Tech firms were captured by China, risking U.S. supply chains by making them vulnerable to Chinese coercion and theft. They focus on how Nvidia’s recent push to sell advanced AI chips to Beijing...
America once relied on oceans, industrial might, and large stockpiles to give her strategic depth—the ability to maneuver economically, militarily, and technologically during conflict. But those buffers have eroded in the age of drones, cyberattacks, and supply chains controlled by China. Nadia Schadlow, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and Deputy National Security Advisor during the first Trump administration, joins Oren to discuss how to rebuild strategic depth in an age of globalizati...
Economists and politicians told us that President Trump’s tariffs would spark foreign retaliation and drive up domestic prices. But current economic data are beginning to tell a different story. Anna Wong, chief U.S. economist at Bloomberg Economics, joins Oren to discuss what the post-Liberation Day data are telling us. As tariff rates begin to stabilize due to trade deals, Wong breaks down how tariffs are reshaping firm behavior, potentially driving a wave of future domestic investment by...
From working as a welder to taking on BlackRock as West Virginia’s first Republican-elected state treasurer in decades, Riley Moore’s trajectory has been anything but conventional. Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) joins Oren to discuss what a conservatism rooted in the dignity of work, the importance of family, and responsive to the needs of working people looks like. Plus, he and Oren unpack the importance of Republican leaders realizing that being pro-life, pro-family, and pro-worker must mean mor...
As the Trump administration reshapes how federal dollars flow to universities, reform-minded academics are rethinking how to fix the systemic problems on campus without jeopardizing important research. Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management and Nobel Laureate in Economics, joins Oren to unpack why our nation’s bloated and bureaucratic universities need reform and how smarter use of federal funding can incentivize it. Plus, the two make sense of how to c...
Even as the U.S. begins decoupling from our Asian rival, the threat of a second “China shock”—one where the country’s economy dominates key resources and minerals—is rapidly emerging. Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Oren to dig into how China’s new wave of industrial overcapacity, currency manipulation, and continued cheap exports could ravage America’s economy a second time. They explore how this will impact the global economy, and how the Trump administ...
Are we all post-liberals now? The leading voice in the debate about what comes after liberalism, Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen, joins the podcast to discuss where American politics is headed now that the push for a globalized society has failed to survive contact with geopolitical reality. He and Oren unpack the failures of the liberal age, from free trade and open borders to foreign wars of adventure, and how a new conservatism helped deliver its demise. Finally, they make sense ...
The United States remains wholly dependent upon China for 95% of rare earth elements, 100% reliant on imports for 15 critical minerals, and over 80% reliant for eleven more. These minerals enable everything from batteries to semiconductors—and without domestic access, America’s technological dominance is at risk. Robert Bryce, a leading energy policy scholar, joins Oren to explore how decades of shortsighted policy let China dominate critical supply chains, what it would take to rebuild them,...
Over the last two weeks, an online battle has broken out among the New Right over the Israel-Iran conflict and the Trump administration's bombing of an Iranian nuclear facility. Regardless of whether the recent ceasefire between Iran and Israel holds, the events so far have drawn clear dividing lines within the coalition. What does "America First" mean for Middle Eastern policy? Josh Hammer, author of Israel and Civilization, and Sohrab Ahmari, U.S. editor of UnHerd, join Oren to debate the w...
Economists have claimed for years that Americans are prospering more than ever before. So why do so few people feel that way? Philip Pilkington, author of the forthcoming The Collapse of Global Liberalism, joins Oren to discuss how these economic metrics are obscuring real problems. The two challenge the assumption that consumption is an unalloyed good and discuss the need to think about our nation's economic health in a way that centers human flourishing. Further reading: “The Limits of Cons...
Artificial intelligence has leapt from speculative theory to everyday tool with astonishing speed, promising breakthroughs in science, medicine, and the ways we learn, live, and work. But to some of its earliest researchers, the race toward superintelligence represents not progress but an existential threat, one that could end humanity as we know it. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, authors of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, join Oren to debate their claim that pursuing AI will end in h...
