It’s no secret that young men are sort of unwell. They are four times more likely to kill themselves, three times more likely to struggle with addiction, and 12 times more likely to be incarcerated than women. If that weren’t enough, record numbers of men are not getting married, not dating, not enrolling in school or working, and struggling with serious mental health issues. In response, a cottage industry has emerged—full of influencers and paid courses claiming to teach young men how to become “high value.” But there seems to be a deeper intractable challenge: Young people lack meaning. Fifty-eight percent of young adults say they’ve experienced little or no sense of purpose in their lives over the past month. Shilo Brooks has a simple idea for all of it. He’s telling young men—and really, all young people—to read. Yes, read. The idea is simple: Reading great books can make stronger and better men. He knows he’s facing an uphill battle: Reading for pleasure among American adults has dropped 40 percent in the past 20 years. In 2022, only 28 percent of men read a fiction book, compared to 47 percent of women—a 19-point gap.  Shilo doesn’t have the stereotypical profile for a “lit boy,” as Gen Z might describe him. He’s from a small town in Texas and has a thick Southern drawl. When he was a baby, his stepfather stole his mother’s savings, leaving them with nothing. And he almost didn’t go to college because he couldn’t afford it.  But today, Shilo is president and CEO of the George W. Bush Presidential Center and Professor of Practice in the Department of Political Science at Southern Methodist University. He has also taught at Princeton, the University of Virginia, the University of Colorado, and Bowdoin College.  His prescription is simple. Shilo says: “Great works of literature are entertaining, but they are not mere entertainment. A great book induces self-examination and spiritual expansion. When a man is starved for love, work, purpose, money, or vitality, a novel wrestling with these themes can be metabolized as energy for the heart. When a man suffers from addiction, divorce, self-loathing, or vanity, his local bookstore can become his pharmacy.” This is the driving vision of the new podcast he just launched with The Free Press, called Old School, where he talks to guests about the books that shaped their lives: Fareed Zakaria on The Great Gatsby, Nick Cave on The Adventures of Pinocchio, Richard Dawkins on P.G. Wodehouse novels. Then there’s Coleman Hughes, Ryan Holiday, Rob Henderson, and so much more. Think of it like a boy’s book club that anyone can enjoy. So, here’s what you’ll hear today: a conversation between Bari and Shilo about this project, and how it fulfills the desperate needs of a lost generation. Subscribe to Old School with Shilo Brooks. The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A former Senate staffer recently told our friend, reporter Dexter Filkins: “The last socialist systems in the world are in Cuba and the Pentagon.” My guest tonight is trying to do something about that. And good luck to anyone trying to get in his way. When people think of defense tech titans, they might not think of my guest tonight, Palmer Luckey. He looks more like Jimmy Buffett than George S. Patton. But don’t let his looks deceive you. At the age of 19, Palmer founded the VR company Oculus. Two years later, it was acquired by Facebook for more than two billion dollars. Then, when he was 24—while his peers were making dating apps and platforms to share thirst traps—he founded Anduril Industries, having had no experience whatsoever in the world of defense. Now it’s a $30.5 billion company that develops drones, autonomous vehicles, subs, rockets, and software for military use. At just 33, Palmer spends his days building the most technologically advanced software and war-fighting devices in the world. His goal is straightforward: “Move fast, build what works, and get it into the hands of people who need it.” And the moment could not be more critical. Iran is trying to destabilize the Middle East. Russia is willing to lose countless soldiers to gain slivers of territory in Ukraine. China is gaming how to invade Taiwan—to say nothing of our intensifying cold war and AI arms race. And the West’s enemies are undermining us from without and within. Bari sat down with Palmer Luckey live in D.C. to ask: What can we do about all of it? Does America still have the technological prowess—and, more importantly, the will—to win? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On October 21, 2023, beloved Detroit community leader Samantha Woll was found brutally stabbed to death outside her home—two weeks to the day after the October 7 attacks on Israel. It looked like an open-and-shut case—a hate crime. But swiftly the police ruled that out. Instead they eventually found themselves with two unrelated suspects. When they charged one with murder, the case took a turn that raised questions about antisemitism, race, and justice in America. Hosted by The Free Press’s Frannie Block, this podcast features exclusive interviews and explores the remarkable, too-short life of Woll and the impact she had. And ⁠Spiral⁠ tells the bizarre twists and turns of one of Detroit’s most haunting recent crimes. Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press to binge the full series today, and with reduced ads. Click ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re listening to this, you probably know someone who has struggled with alcohol addiction, or maybe you’re an alcoholic yourself. It’s one of the most universal human experiences. In 2023, 10 percent of the U.S. population met the criteria for alcoholism. That’s 30 million people. And throughout the past hundred or so years, there’s basically been one solution: total sobriety, talk therapy, and Alcoholics Anonymous. And yes, there are countless people ready and eager to say, “AA saved my life.” We know and love many of those people. But as Katie Herzog writes: “The dominance of AA obscures the fact that other options exist too.” Okay, so what are these other options? One of them is a drug called naltrexone that can let alcoholics keep drinking—yes, you heard me right. Katie describes it as a chemical safety net that makes you want to drink less. And in order for the drug to work, you actually have to drink—at least at the beginning. The goal with this method is not necessarily abstinence. It’s reformed, moderate, responsible drinking. Is this all starting to sound like snake oil—or worse, even dangerous? We understand. Over 175,000 Americans die each year from excessive drinking. It causes heart disease, cancer, domestic violence, and suicide. It costs the U.S. economy nearly $250 billion in healthcare expenses. There’s loss of productivity, criminal justice fees, vehicle wrecks—I could go on. And living with alcoholism, or being close to someone who struggles with addiction, can be devastating. So when someone comes along and says, “Your alcoholic loved one can actually drink with naltrexone,” the knee-jerk reaction is to say: “Hell no.” But Katie Herzog, in her new book Drink Your Way Sober, argues that AA—and our traditional thinking—has not worked, and will not work, for everyone. And she makes the case that we should be more open to alternative forms of treatment like naltrexone. You’ll know Katie from her hit podcast Blocked and Reported, which she co-hosts with Free Press contributor Jesse Singal—though she likes to say she is “the only host of the only podcast.” And today, Bari asks her how she got sober using naltrexone—and a program called the Sinclair Method—how the drug actually works, why it’s been shunned by the medical community, and whether she thinks society will buy into it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At 3:22 a.m. ET on October 7, 2023, Bari texted her producer: “Candace, there’s war in Israel.” At that moment, Hamas men still roamed southern Israel, and the details were far from clear. What we knew was that Israel had been attacked and that videos were beginning to make their way from Telegram to X: scenes of dozens of Palestinian terrorists breaking through the security fence and rushing into Israeli territory; clips of Hamas militants, with AK-47s slung over their chests, driving white pickup trucks through the streets of southern Israel; blurry videos of Israelis running for their lives in roundabouts and fields. We had no idea what was about to unfold. We did not know yet that 251 Israelis would be kidnapped that day, including more than 30 children. We did not know yet that what was unfolding was the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust—only this time streaming live on social media. We immediately started bringing you firsthand accounts here on Honestly. You might remember a pregnant woman named Shaked told us about 11 family members who were taken hostage, including her niece, 3, and nephew, 8. Or how two survivors of the Nova Music Festival, Amit and Chen, watched the murder of their friends. We talked to a mother whose daughter was killed at the music festival. And a grandmother who hid in her safe room for hours with her 10-day-old grandson as terrorists shot at the door. And we spoke to a father named Jon Polin, whose son, Hersh, was kidnapped. Little did we know that the entire world would soon know his name. Anyone who bore witness to the evil of that day, and to the horrific tragedy of the war that has followed, prayed that the hostages—the living and the dead—would finally be brought home. For Israelis, that rallying cry—Bring them home—was at the center of their psyche, their longing, their hope for the last two years. And then yesterday, 738 days later, the remaining 20 living hostages came home as part of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan. Yesterday, we spent moments throughout the day glued to our phones, tears streaming down our cheeks, watching the videos of these freed men running into the embrace of their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers—and in some cases even to their little children—after more than two unimaginable years in Hamas captivity.  As Matti Friedman wrote in The FP: “An unfamiliar mood spread like a shift in the weather: relief and optimism. . . . The Israelis who rallied over the past two years under the banner ‘Bring Them Home,’ and whose energies kept the hostages and their families in headlines in Israel and abroad through two dark and often hopeless years, allowed themselves to smile and cheer.” We are under no illusions about what comes next. Yesterday began only phase 1 of Trump’s peace plan (Hamas still holds many of the deceased hostages, which is a breach of the agreement). And serious—perhaps intractable—challenges lay ahead. There are many, many outstanding questions. As Free Press Middle East analyst Haviv Rettig Gur said, “Everything that matters for Gaza’s future is in phase 2 and beyond.” To try to begin answering many of those questions—and to reflect on this historic moment and what it means for Israel and the world—Free Press producer Rafaela Siewert hosted a livestream yesterday that we want to play here for you today. She was joined by former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren; The Free Press’s Matti Friedman and Haviv Rettig Gur; and Nimrod Palmach, who ran into battle on October 7, 2023 of his own accord. And Siewert also speaks to Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin—the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped on October 7 and murdered in Gaza after over 300 days in Hamas captivity. Still, Rachel and Jon woke up every single day for the last two years and fought—in public and around the world—for the return of every last one of the remaining souls to come home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congratulations are not usually in order for someone who has been forced into hiding, someone whose children are scattered across continents for their safety, someone whose supporters are sitting in prison cells for the crime of believing in democracy.  But our guest today, María Corina Machado, just won the Nobel Peace Prize—joining the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Dalai Lama, to name a few.  On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded their 2025 Peace Price to the Venezuelan opposition leader for her tireless work “promoting democratic rights,” describing her as “a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.” She is Venezuela’s first-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner.  Machado’s story, as Jonathan Jakubowicz wrote in The Free Press, “is a political thriller come to life. A 58-year old industrial engineer and former member of parliament, she spent two decades as the most relentless opponent of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro.” That thriller came to a head on July 28, 2024, when Edmundo González, Machado’s stand-in candidate, swept Venezuela’s elections with over 90 percent of the vote. But Maduro, Venezuela’s longtime dictator, claimed victory anyway and seized power. Since then, Machado has been living in hiding, her location undisclosed even to most of her allies, as the regime has arrested hundreds of political prisoners and issued a warrant for her arrest.  Machado has been nicknamed Venezuela’s “Iron Lady,” the same moniker given to Margaret Thatcher, who happens to be her personal hero. She represents what may be the most significant challenge to authoritarian socialism in Latin America, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have her here today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week commemorates the two year anniversary of October 7, 2023. That morning, Hamas invaded Israel. They slaughtered some 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. Forty-eight hostages, some alive and some dead, are still being held in Gaza. In these last two years, the world has changed. In many ways, the past two years have felt like two decades. The world feels like it has tilted on its axis.  There is nobody better suited to make sense of this moment—the lessons learned, the harsh realities that have been revealed, and America’s changing role in the world—than Niall Ferguson. Niall is a columnist at The Free Press. He is also senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the author of 16 books, and one of the most influential historians of our time. This conversation with Niall was a Free Press livestream. To never miss those conversations, and to be able to join them as they unfold, become a subscriber at thefp.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two years ago today, five terrorists broke into Eli Sharabi’s safe room on Kibbutz Be’eri. He had been sheltered there for hours with his wife, Lianne, and teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel, reading horrific texts flooding in from neighbors and hoping somehow his family would be spared. They were not. The terrorists shot and killed their dog, then dragged Eli away, leaving his family behind. As they pulled him out the door, he looked back and shouted: “I’ll come back!” After 491 days in Hamas captivity, Eli did come back. He survived—with most of his time buried deep underground, shackled, starved, subjected to constant humiliation, and psychological and physical torture—all because he believed he would one day be reunited with his wife and daughters. That belief kept him alive. But when he was released on February 8 under a ceasefire agreement, he soon learned the devastating truth: Lianne, Noiya, and Yahel were dead. Hamas murdered them on October 7, 2023. His brother Yossi, also kidnapped, had been killed in captivity as well.  Eli’s memoir, Hostage, out today, is the first published account by a released Israeli hostage. He writes in unflinching detail about being held in the tunnels, about his Hamas captors, and about his singular focus on survival. We read the book, through tears, last week on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur is a day of atonement and forgiveness, but it’s really a day of reckoning with life and death. The story Jews around the world read that morning is of Moses’s final speech to the Israelites before his death, delivered as they stand on the edge of the Promised Land—after slavery in Egypt, after 40 years of wandering in the desert and the loss of an entire generation. Moses tells them: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.” If anyone has earned a right to despair, to give up on life, it’s Eli Sharabi. But he doesn’t. What’s remarkable about Eli is that he chose—and continues to choose—survival at every turn. He chooses life in the face of death. Again and again and again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Leland Vittert is one of America’s most recognizable television correspondents. You’ll know his face from years of frontline reporting in places like Egypt, Libya, Israel, and Ukraine.  You may have followed his tumultuous exit from Fox News in 2021, after clashing with the network over its coverage of Donald Trump—and then his redemption arc, becoming the host of On Balance and the chief Washington anchor at NewsNation.  But what you might not know is that Leland is autistic. He just wrote a book about it, called Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, a Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism. In it, Leland explains that he didn’t talk until age 3, was born severely cross-eyed, and struggled with basic concepts like eye contact, humor, conversation cues, and social rules. Middle school and high school were nothing short of hell.  So how did the kid we just described go from, as he says, “socially lost” to one of America’s most recognizable and charismatic voices? Training. Relentless, nonstop work. His father knew the world wouldn’t change for Leland—Leland would have to change for the world. It is a moving memoir about how Leland—and most notably, his father—worked to “beat” his autism. You’ll have to read it to understand how. Leland was diagnosed about 40 years ago. Since then, conversation has shifted dramatically—and so have rates of diagnoses. In the 1980s, about one in 1,000 American children were diagnosed with autism. Today, it’s one in 31. The questions of what causes autism and how we treat it have become so politicized that the conversation has left people either resentful, anxious, confused, or scared. And most critically, still without answers.  Born Lucky is landing at an especially interesting moment given that the Trump administration has put the topic of autism at center stage. Just last week, Trump held a press conference where he alleged that there was a link between the active ingredient in Tylenol and autism, and told mothers not to take the pain reliever and fever reducer and instead “tough it out.”  That’s among the many things Leland and I talk about in this fascinating conversation.  Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re anything like us, you’re a sucker for a good spy show: Homeland, Tehran, Fauda, The Bureau. We’re fascinated by the life of spies—the secret meetings in Beirut cafés, the wigs and false identities, the double and triple lives, always one step away from exposure, risking everything for their country. Most of the time, those TV characters are pure fiction and the stories are the stuff of Hollywood. But our guest’s new book, The Sword of Freedom, reads just like one of those fantastical thrillers—except every word of it is true. Yossi Cohen—the former director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency—spent most of his 38-year spy career in the shadows. He was known only by a letter: Y, or sometimes “The Model,” apparently for his looks. He was, as he writes, “a ghost, never to be seen and unable to be heard. I was invisible, a breath of wind in human form.” Cohen operated under dozens of different identities in some of the most dangerous places for an Israeli, and he personally orchestrated some of the most daring operations in Israel’s history: stealing half a ton of Iran’s most secret nuclear documents from a warehouse in Tehran; assassinating Iran’s top nuclear scientist using an AI-powered machine gun operated remotely via satellite; setting the stage for the pager attack that crippled Hezbollah last year; creating secret relationships with Arab leaders—relationships that changed the direction of the Middle East. If you look online, you’ll hear that Mossad has been behind everything from tsunamis to floods to political assassinations of famous Americans. So we could think of no one better to answer the question of what Mossad actually does—and to address the endless conspiracies that swirl around Israel’s version of the CIA—than Cohen.  Today, we talk about all of that. It’s a rare glimpse inside Mossad, inside the world of real espionage—and a conversation with a man who helped shape history from the shadows, and who clearly is considering a run for prime minister. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know the name Woody Allen. Everyone does. He’s made some of the most acclaimed films ever made: Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors—he list goes on and on and on. He’s made an astonishing 50 movies. You see his influence everywhere, from sitcoms to stand-up to just about every rom-com made since Annie Hall premiered in 1977. And in the process, he turned himself into America’s most unlikely leading man: short, thinning hair, bespectacled, and exceptionally neurotic. Now, at age 89, Allen is out with his first novel, What’s With Baum? Its protagonist is an anxious, smart Jewish writer with a messy personal life who gets himself in a great deal of trouble. Yes, it’s like a Woody Allen movie in book form. It’s also funny and delightful, and touches on a major theme of our age: the idea that an accusation, once made, is as good as a conviction. Allen knows something about that. In 1992, his longtime romantic partner Mia Farrow discovered that Allen had begun a relationship with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Allen was in his 50s at the time, Previn was just 21. All hell broke loose, with Farrow accusing Allen of grooming and preying on her daughter. The scandal became fodder for tabloids and late-night talk shows but soon took a much darker turn, with Farrow accusing Allen of molesting their 7-year-old daughter Dylan in August 1992. The charges were never proven in court—indeed they were twice dismissed—but the court of public opinion was another matter. Today on Honestly, we get into everything about Allen—from the accusations to his subsequent cancellation in the MeToo era to his childhood in Brooklyn and his climb from Flatbush to the commanding heights of American comedy, film, and culture. We delve into how he’s changed and the many ways in which he hasn’t. We talk about his marriage to Previn, which is still going strong after 28 years. His thoughts on President Donald Trump, NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, The New York Times, and American politics more broadly. We’ll hear what he thinks about life, death, and aging as he approaches 90, and much, much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yesterday, in broad daylight, in front of a crowd of 3,000 people at Utah Valley University, Charlie Kirk was shot dead. Kirk was not just a husband, not just a father, and not just one of the most prominent young conservative voices in the country. He made his name doing something fundamental to the American project: disagreeing out loud.  He famously said, “When people stop talking, bad stuff happens.” And so his thing was going to campuses, setting up a tent, and asking people to change his mind. People on campuses lined up to challenge him, often fiercely debating—and that was the point. He was a living embodiment of our First Amendment. As Matthew Continetti wrote in our pages: “The attack didn’t just deprive a family of its center. It struck at the ties that hold a free society together: open assembly, civil debate, viewpoint diversity. Like every terrorist act, the shooting was meant to instill fear—in this case, fear of speaking out, of exposure, of making a difference.” And as shocking and tragic as his murder is the response to it: the people online celebrating—yes, celebrating—his death simply because they disagreed with his politics. Today Bari sits down with Ben Shapiro, Senator Mark Kelly, Matt Continetti, Katherine Boyle, Konstantin Kisin, and The Free Press’s own Eli Lake and Maya Sulkin to reflect on Kirk’s life and this awful moment in American history—and to consider how we can begin to look forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the Supreme Court, she was in some ways an unlikely choice. She was living in South Bend, Indiana, not New York or D.C. She went to Notre Dame Law School, making her the only justice that didn’t go to Harvard or Yale. She’s the mother of seven kids. And, at the time of her appointment, she’d largely spent her career as a professor, with just under three years on a federal appeals court. To put it bluntly, Amy Coney Barrett was an outsider. But people close to President Donald Trump saw something: She was an originalist. A former clerk for Antonin Scalia. A devout Catholic with real intellectual bona fides. And a rising star in the conservative legal movement. In short, she was the ideal jurist to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After her 2020 nomination, the left called her inexperienced and a religious zealot. They said her confirmation hearing was rushed, and that she would undermine trust in the Supreme Court. But with a 52–48 vote, just six weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Barrett was confirmed—without one Democratic vote. She took her seat at the highest court at just 48 years old, and became only the fifth woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court. Considering how our nation’s most powerful people stick around into their 80s, she’ll likely have a major impact on American law and life for decades to come. We’re now five years into her time on the bench. And in a turn of events, CNN ran a piece last year titled “The Last Best Hope for Supreme Court Liberals: Amy Coney Barrett.” Newsweek ran “Amy Coney Barrett Is Liberal Justices’ ‘Best Chance’: SCOTUS Analyst ” and The New York Times ran “How Amy Coney Barrett Is Confounding the Right and the Left.” How did we get from “dangerous, religious zealot” to “last best hope”? On one hand, Barrett has done what one would expect of a Republican appointee: voting to overrule Roe v. Wade; voting to outlaw affirmative action; and voting against the administrative state. At the same time, she has voted with liberal justices in some of the most pivotal cases—and in Trump-related cases, she is the member of the conservative supermajority who has sided in Trump’s favor the least.  In short, Barrett surprises. She just wrote a new book called Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, where she makes the simple but salient points: Her job is not to like all of her decisions, nor is it  to please the media or a president. It’s to follow the text of the Constitution, full stop.  On Thursday night Bari sat down for a rare conversation with Justice Barrett at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York City.  Bari also asks her about key cases like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the birthright citizenship case, nationwide injunctions, the shadow docket, transgender minors getting medical treatment, her willingness to dissent with liberal justices, her response to people who call her an “evil DEI hire,” and so much more. This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly New episodes of The Isabel Brown Show can be viewed on DailyWire+ here: www.dailywire.com/show/the-isabel-brown-showFollow Isabel on X: www.x.com/theisabelbFollow Isabel on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theisabelbrown Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone wants the war in Gaza to end. The reason the war is not over is because about 50 people are still being held hostage by Hamas. Twenty of them are alive, but on the brink of death. About 30 of them have already been killed, and their bodies remain in Hamas captivity. There are differing opinions on the best way to bring them home: continue the ground war in Gaza, or take the partial deal put forward by Qatar and Egypt—which includes a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in exchange for hundreds of security prisoners. This war is one where everyone has an opinion. But in our view, no opinion matters more than those of the families whose loved ones, including their children, are living in Hamas terror tunnels. These families are in a collective debate about the best way to bring their loved ones home. So we want to play a really special episode from Conversations with Coleman that illuminates these differences, and showcases arguably the largest debate in Israeli society today. Coleman Hughes sat down with three hostage families: Tzvika Mor, the father of Eitan Mor, a 23-year-old security guard at the Nova Music Festival taken by Hamas; Talik Gvili, the mother of Ran Gvili, who on October 7 leaped into action and fought Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Alumim;and Dalia Cusnir, the sister-in-law of brothers Iair and Eitan Horn. Iair Horn was released, and Eitan Horn remains in Hamas custody. Today, their families tell their stories and explain what they think is the best way to bring their family members home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever travel to Europe in the summer and suddenly feel very “ra ra ra” about America? It’s not because of American culture, or food, or architecture. The thing people miss first and foremost is AC. Yes, air-conditioning. It’s an American treasure and of course, fodder for many dad jokes. But beyond the jokes, this invention has been politically and culturally transformational. AC allowed factories to operate through the summer—creating more productivity, prosperity, wealth, and American dynamism. It’s allowed Americans to live in the most uninviting places in the country—ever been to Arizona or Texas in the summer? And this very flexibility to live in places like Phoenix and Austin has shifted migration, demographics, and even our political map. So today we want to bring you podcasts from another show in The Free Press podcast network—Breaking History. Eli Lake and his producer Poppy Damon speak with Salvatore Basile, the author of Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything, about how air-conditioning—once called “comfort cooling” and “refrigeration systems”—evolved from a bespoke invention to a household status symbol and a political force. The episode is so interesting because it highlights inflection points that propelled this technology. If you’re listening with your AC on high, you won’t want to miss it. If you want to hear more from Eli Lake on Breaking History, follow here. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might have heard of the new term: “woke right.” It’s the idea that the illiberalism that has swallowed the progressive left—what we often refer to as “wokeness”—has come for the right. Here’s how we think about the dynamic: Over the past two decades the woke left said: “Everything is taboo”—our Founding Fathers, the idea that men and women are different, the idea that wearing hoop earrings is verboten because it’s cultural appropriation, and on and on. Naturally, people got fed up. Including people like Bari. Then some on the right exploited that anger, and said: “Nothing is taboo”—not words like “gay” or “retarded,” but also not “Holocaust revisionism” or “white nationalism.” Some of this dynamic is playing out in the headlines: The woke left changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Then the White House changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America—the Trump administration even temporarily banned the Associated Press from the White House press room after it continued to publish “the Gulf of Mexico.” When the woke left tried to change the character of our nation’s founding and take down statues of Winston Churchill and George Washington, the right took down a description of Jackie Robinson’s military service that was on the Department of Defense website because it was too DEI-coded. On that note, the White House also recently said they would conduct a review of Smithsonian exhibitions to make sure they align with American ideals. And when the woke left said trans, disabled, people of color are the most oppressed class in America, the woke right says white, Christian men are actually at the bottom of the totem pole—creating a new form of identity politics, in right-wing language. It’s a fascinating and alarming dynamic. The same phenomenon on each side of the political spectrum. We would argue wokeness on the left went totally mainstream.  Rod Dreher is one of the rare voices calling attention to the illiberalism on the right—and the danger it poses. He says the right has a unique opportunity to stop this woke impulse before it metastasizes. Rod is a contributing editor at The American Conservative. He’s the author of many books including his new bestseller, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. And he most recently wrote in our pages “The Radical Right Is Coming for Your Sons.” Bari recently sat down with him to discuss why the woke right tolerates antisemitism and white nationalism, why this movement is appealing to men specifically, if it is fair to equate the woke right with the woke left, why he himself is not even comfortable with the term woke right—we’ll get into that in the conversation—and what happens if this impulse on the right goes mainstream. This interview was originally a Free Press subscriber-only livestream, and we’re planning to do more of these. If you want to come to one, all you need to do is become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 1, 2007, a man named Rudy Guede broke into a random home in Perugia, Italy, then raped and killed Meredith Kercher—a 21-year-old exchange student from the University of Leeds. You might not even remember the names Rudy Guede and Meredith Kercher. But one name you will remember is Meredith’s roommate, Amanda Knox, a 20-year-old exchange student from Seattle. In the weeks and years after Kercher’s murder, the media and the prosecution concocted a narrative that Amanda, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and Guede had played a violent sex game leading to Kercher’s murder. Amanda was portrayed as a deviant sex fiend, a slut, a killer, and a psychopath. The problem is that none of it was true. Amanda had only been dating Sollecito a week. She had never met Guede. And most importantly, she was not playing a sex game that led to Kercher’s death. Amanda would end up spending a total of eight years on trial and four years in prison for a murder she did not commit. And Kercher’s real murderer—Guede—would never be charged with killing Kercher alone. He’d spend only 13 years behind bars for this crime. And after his release in 2021, he would be accused of committing a similar crime again. Here’s the part of the story most people don’t know: On the morning of November 5, 2007, Amanda Knox was taken into custody in Italy. She wasn’t given a lawyer or a translator. She wasn’t told that she was a suspect. She was questioned for 53 hours. She was struck by a police officer, gaslit, and pressured into signing a confession. Now, 18 years since she was taken into custody, she has released a memoir called Free: My Search for Meaning to tell the full story of what happened in Perugia, how she fought for vindication, how the tabloids and credible news organizations villainized her, and what her life has been like since she was exonerated in 2015. Today on Honestly, Bari asks Amanda Knox how she survived in prison, how she reintegrated into society, why she returned to Italy to confront the prosecutor who put her behind bars, why she chooses forgiveness, and what it means to be truly free. Go to ⁠groundnews.com/Honestly ⁠to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question of who represents the working class is probably the hottest debate in American politics. Is it Republicans? Democrats? Or socialists like Zohran Mamdani? Pundits can debate that question all they want, but the undeniable test is: Who do the unions believe stand for working people? For a century, unions were undeniably Democratic. And in 2021, Biden tried to carry on that tradition. He went as far as to say: “I intend to be the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.” Then in 2023, he became the first sitting president to walk a picket line, joining United Auto Workers in their strike against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. But as the Democratic Party went left, and then further left, many union members—who were reliable Democratic voters—broke the mold and voted for Trump—nearly half of union households, to be exact. Was it Trump’s hatred of NAFTA? His promise to bring manufacturing back? His unbridled vibrato? Or was it the left’s preoccupation with boutique issues? The shift was palpable when Teamsters president Sean O’Brien spoke at the 2024 RNC despite being a lifelong Democrat. It felt like a new era. We’ve reported extensively on how the Democratic Party lost the working class. But now, six months into Trump’s second term, are working-class Trump voters happy with their choice? And how has Trump been for labor in America? Sean O’Brien—the voice you heard at the RNC—is the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing 1.3 million union workers. It’s one of the biggest unions in the country. As Sean puts it, “They represent airline pilots to zookeepers and everyone in between.” That “in between” includes truck drivers, warehouse workers, mechanics, baggage handlers, construction workers, and UPS drivers—UPS is their largest employer. Basically, Teamsters have organized workers in every occupation imaginable. And more than his role as Teamsters president, Sean himself is a fourth-generation union member, having joined the Local 25 at 18 as a heavy-equipment driver in Boston. He’s spent 34 years in the union and has a unique vantage point from which he sees American labor. Today on Honestly, Bari asks Sean: Why did he speak at the RNC? How has Trump been for labor—given his coziness to Elon Musk, DOGE, and his new big, beautiful bill? Can Democrats win union workers back? And can unions find their footing again? How does he plan to organize Amazon—he has some choice words for Jeff Bezos. And how do we ensure more American workers have access to middle-class wages, quality healthcare, and strong pensions? Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Visit chevron.com/America to learn more about how Chevron is building a stronger future powered by American energy, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s one fun question to ask at a dinner party: What is your favorite conspiracy theory? There’s the idea that the CIA killed John F. Kennedy. The moon landing was fake, and 9/11 was an inside job. Covid was designed by the Gates Foundation to control the world—and the Covid vaccine had a microchip. There’s the deep state. Chemtrails. QAnon. The Illuminati. Reptilian overlords. Pizzagate—which says that high-ranking Democrats were running a child sex-trafficking ring out of a D.C. pizzeria. That one, Pizzagate, is rivaled only by the idea that there is a group of Satan-worshipping globalists and Hollywood celebrities who traffic children in order to harvest adrenochrome, a chemical which, in this scenario, is extracted from their blood. Why? It’s obvious: They inject it in order to stay young. It’s easy to joke about these theories. It’s much harder to reckon with the fact that many Americans believe them sincerely—and their justification is grounded in the fact that some conspiracy theories turn out to not be theories, but fact. The government was poisoning alcohol during Prohibition. The FBI was illegally spying on civil-rights activists like MLK. The U.S. government did let some few hundred black men with syphilis go untreated to study the effects. And Covid likely came from a lab in Wuhan, China.  The question is how to tolerate and even encourage healthy speculation and investigation? How do we allow for skepticism of received wisdom, which may actually be wrong, without it leading to reptilian Jewish overlords?  In the past few weeks, the speculation surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s life and death is a perfect example of this conundrum. It’s a story filled with smoke and unanswered questions: How did Epstein get so rich in the first place? Was his wealth connected to his crimes? Was he acting alone? Was there a client list—and if so, who was on it? Why did he get such a sweetheart deal? And on and on. And then things get more far-fetched: Was Epstein’s suicide faked? Who could have killed him? Was he connected to foreign intelligence? And my favorite: Was he running a Jewish cabal? To help us understand why conspiracy theories are so compelling—and how we might better engage with those who believe them—is Ross Douthat. Ross Douthat is an opinion columnist at The New York Times and host of the Interesting Times podcast. He has been covering conspiratorial thinking—how to understand it, and what to do about it—for years. In 2020, he wrote: “It’s a mistake to believe most conspiracy theories, but it’s also a mistake to assume that they bear no relation to reality. Some are just insane emanations or deliberate misinformation. But others exaggerate and misread important trends rather than denying them, or offer implausible explanations for mysteries that nonetheless linger unexplained.” Which we thought perfectly encapsulated the conundrum of handling conspiracy theories today. So today on Honestly, Bari asks Ross: What is the state of conspiracy theories in America? How do we dispel conspiracy theories that are clearly false—without relying on establishment sources the public no longer trusts? And what are the consequences when these theories go unchecked? Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices