Episodes

  • WTH Is Going On With Antisemitism at Harvard? The Free Press’s Maya Sulkin Explains
    May 8 2025

    Harvard has finally released its 311-page report on the antisemitism Jewish students face on one of America’s most elite college campuses. The stories of Jews being forced to conceal outward displays of their religion, being shut out of academic and extracurricular spaces alike, and facing systemic harassment are horrifying. However, the intensity of the antisemitism at Harvard is also unsurprising. And the manner in which this report was released indicates the university has no real intention of fixing the root causes of Jew hatred on its Cambridge campus. How did Harvard University go from being a quarter Jewish to becoming a bastion of antisemitism? And how does foreign funding perpetuate antisemitism at elite universities?

    Maya Sulkin is a reporter at The Free Press. Before that, Maya was chief of staff of the FP. She started at the FP as an intern in 2021 while a student at Columbia University.

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    Read Maya's article in the Free Press here.

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    43 mins
  • WTH Are Young Gen Z Voters Turning Conservative? The Yale Youth Poll’s Milan Singh Explains
    May 1 2025

    Gen Z may not be the liberal base of support many on the left hoped they would be. Today, there is a growing split between voters under 30, with 22-29 year olds favoring Democrats by 6.4 points and 18-21 year olds favoring Republicans by almost 12 points. As America’s youngest voters are growing up in the age of COVID lockdowns, social media, and cancel culture, conservative and MAGA ideology is emerging as the new counter-culture, giving young men in particular an opportunity to escape the world around them. How will the youngest voter cohort change the bases of both parties? And how will young voters change as they grow older?

    Milan Singh is the founder and Director of the Yale Youth Poll. Originally from Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is a junior in Pierson majoring in Economics. He has previously worked as a researcher at Slow Boring; a data science fellow at Decision Desk HQ; and social policy intern at the Niskanen Center. This past summer, he worked as a consultant for Blueprint and WelcomePAC. Outside of the classroom, he is one of the Opinion Editors for the Yale Daily News.

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    45 mins
  • WTH is Happening With Ukraine’s Peace Talks? Frederick W. Kagan Explains
    Apr 24 2025

    As President Trump continues to try to end the war in Ukraine, Russia is playing for time. For as long as the U.S. continues to support Ukraine, Russia’s military effort will remain weak and unsustainable. But if Russia is able to stall in negotiations, and degrade American and Western support for Ukraine, they could very well emerge victorious. How should Ukrainian leadership respond to continued American attempts at war-ending negotiations? And what are the consequences if America withdraws its support for Ukraine?

    Frederick W. Kagan is the director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project and a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point. He is the author of the 2007 report Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, which is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq, and the book Lessons for a Long War (AEI Press, 2010). His Critical Threats Project, alongside the Institute for the Study of War, releases regular updates on Iranian activity in the Middle East, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and transnational terrorism on the African continent.

    Read the transcript here.

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    55 mins
  • WTH is Going On in the Negotiations With Iran? Elliott Abrams Explains
    Apr 17 2025

    Following a surprise Oval Office announcement by President Trump during Bibi Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, the United States has once again restarted negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. Thanks to Israeli attacks on Iranian air defenses and its proxies, coupled with crippling U.S. sanctions, Iran has never been weaker and America has never had more leverage over the Islamic Republic. However, Iran’s nuclear program is also significantly larger and more advanced than it was in 2015 or throughout the first Trump administration. What should Trump demand in a new nuclear deal with Iran? And is the administration’s current approach a recipe for success, or are they being played by the Ayatollah?

    Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Chairman of the Tikvah Fund, and the Chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition. He previously served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in Donald Trump’s first administration. His most recent book is If You Will It: Rebuilding Jewish Peoplehood for the 21st Century (Wicked Son, 2024).

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    54 mins
  • WTH Extra! Does Trump Have a Tariff Strategy? Dany and Marc Discuss
    Apr 10 2025

    On this episode of WTH Extra! Dany and Marc discuss Dany’s article, #WTH The Tariff Tsunami. No one should be surprised by Trump’s tariff war. The real question is, what is the President trying to accomplish? Some in the administration argue that the tariffs create leverage to bring about a myriad of free trade agreements the U.S. would not be able to get otherwise. Others argue tariffs will bring back American manufacturing. And some presidential advisors just seem to love tariffs for the sake of tariffs. Is Trump pursuing a radical free trade agenda? Or are these tariffs going to be a permanent fixture throughout his tenure?

    Read the transcript here.

    Read Dany’s article in the WTH Substack here.

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    33 mins
  • WTH: Are Nationwide Injunctions the New Lawfare Against Trump? John Yoo Explains
    Apr 3 2025

    President Trump’s executive actions are being blocked left, right, and center by federal courts issuing nationwide injunctions – or orders for the government to halt a given policy that judges deem unlawful. However, the constitutionality of these national injunctions is up for debate. Should the Supreme Court decide that judicial policy pronouncements are indeed unconstitutional, what will that mean for Executive power? Could it mean that Congress will need to resume doing the work it has shirked for years? And what will it mean for the Trump agenda?

    John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University. Yoo was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the general council of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department. His most recent book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court (Regnery, 2023) with Robert Delahunty.

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    1 hr and 1 min
  • WTH? A European Supreme Allied Commander of NATO? Kori Schake Explains
    Mar 27 2025

    President Trump is reportedly considering abandoning America’s longstanding role commanding NATO forces as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), changing the U.S. combatant command structure, and canceling modernization plans for U.S. Forces Japan. While it’s true that Europe needs to step up to the plate on its own defense needs, abandoning the SACEUR position would place U.S. troops under foreign command, give Washington less leverage over our allies, and weaken deterrence. How can Trump better advance his goal of boosting European defense spending? And where can the Defense Department make cuts that bolster deterrence?

    Kori Schake is a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Before joining AEI, Kori was the deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London; a professor at West Point, University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University; and worked in the State Department, National Security Council, and Department of Defense. She is the author of Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony, and a contributing writer at the Atlantic, War on the Rocks, and Bloomberg. Her upcoming book is The State and the Soldier: The History of Civil Military Relations in America.

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    57 mins
  • WTH: Britain’s Net Zero Push is Economic Suicide. Robert Bryce Explains
    Mar 20 2025

    UK residents are currently paying some of the highest prices in the world for electricity. How did Brits go from being an energy superpower to showering in the gym because it’s too expensive to heat water at home? Perhaps because both Labour and Tory politicians are banning the production and use of cheap hydrocarbons in the pursuit of a “Net Zero future.” How is Net Zero irreparably damaging Britain’s economy? And what does the UK example mean for other states attempting to permanently phase out hydrocarbons?

    Robert Bryce is an author, speaker, and film producer. He has been writing about energy, power, politics, and innovation for more than three decades and is the author of six books on the subject. His most recent book is A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations (PublicAffairs, 2020). Bryce is also the executive producer of the documentary, Juice: How Electricity Explains the World, and the co-producer of the docuseries Juice: Power, Politics & The Grid. He frequently writes on his popular substack robertbryce.substack.com.

    Read the transcript here.

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    Subscribe to Robert Bryce’s Substack here.

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    53 mins
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