American Thought Leaders

It's been over five years since a California law came into effect that allows biological males to be sent to women's prisons if they identify as transgender. The law has no requirement for diagnosis, hormones, or surgery.Called the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, the law is being exploited by male predators and sex offenders, alleges Amie Ichikawa, an advocate for female inmates.“The first busload of men got to the Central California Women's Facility,” Amie Ichikawa recounts, “it was scary. It was terrifying. 33.8 percent are registered sex offenders. I can't think of any worse demographic of people to send into the women's prison.”Amie Ichikawa, a former inmate herself who served five years for kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon, is now the founder and executive director of Woman II Woman. The nonprofit provides legal resources, education, and re-entry support to women in prison. Ichikawa is now also an ambassador at Independent Women and Independent Women's Voice.In this episode, Ichikawa unpacks the consequences of allowing males into women's facilities.How has it profoundly changed the dynamic at these prisons? Why was legislation to exclude registered sex offenders from transfers rejected? Why does she believe some men are exploiting this as a loophole to escape maximum-security male facilities? And why is there a rise in prison clinicians encouraging female inmates to take cross-sex hormones?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Modern biology often presents Darwinian evolution as a settled explanation for the origin and diversity of life.Douglas Axe is chair of molecular biology at Biola University and author of “Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.”In this episode, he argues that when you look at the mathematical probabilities that undergird molecular genetics, there are hard limits that random mutation and natural selection cannot overcome.Notably, Axe does not deny the existence of natural selection. Indeed, he argues that minor adaptations—such as virus mutations or dog breed variations—are well established. But can random mutation and selection explain the origin of complex, functional biological systems when the odds of forming a single functional protein fold are a staggering 1 in 10?We explore various questions: If random processes cannot generate complex biological systems, what does that reveal about the origin of life? Why do children intuitively believe that the natural world was intentionally created? And why is the scientific community comfortable searching for intelligence in deep space through the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), yet resistant to detecting it in the origins of biological life?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Modern culture often treats popular consensus and media narratives as settled truth. Warren Smith, author of the new book “A Mind of Your Own: Independent Thinking in the Age of Misinformation,” argues that our society is increasingly convinced by misleading narratives rather than objective reality.He is the creator of the Secret Scholars Society channel on YouTube, and he's become known for using the Socratic method to introduce people to different viewpoints.He argues that allowing ideas to conflict is essential to intellectual growth.“We recoil often from conflict,” he said, “but that's where growth occurs.”Smith walked me through a host of questions: How do narrative manipulation and herd psychology compel people to abandon logic? How can one learn to identify fallacious arguments? And why does our culture so easily mistake emotional consensus for moral authority?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, I'm sitting down with Tom Homan. A career law enforcement officer, he's served as a cop, border patrol agent, federal investigator, and acting ICE chief, and worked under six presidents from both sides of the aisle.Now as the White House border czar, he's facilitating the most aggressive transformation of immigration enforcement that America has ever seen.Monthly deportations have hit record highs. Enforcement officers are prioritizing high-risk offenders, with over 60 percent of arrests involving individuals with criminal convictions or active felony charges, Homan says.And the pushback has been fierce. Homan says assaults on ICE officers are up 1,600 percent. Threats are up 6,000 percent.We discuss: What new initiatives or priorities can we expect to see in the coming weeks and months? How is the Trump administration dealing with nationwide court injunctions? How is the administration approaching a major China-related loophole on one of its island territories? And how many unaccompanied minors that were unaccounted for in the system have since been found? How many were sex trafficked or used as forced labor?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

What happens when AI agents stop acting like isolated tools and begin collaborating to trick the very systems that evaluate them?Daniel Kokotajlo, executive director of the AI Futures Project and a former OpenAI researcher, describes a recent incident involving AI agents that discovered a way to communicate with one another, share strategies to cheat on their assigned tasks, and organize into a coordinated “swarm” to hack another company.“Over 700 of them,” Kokotajlo recounts, “piled into this attack on Hugging Face.”In this episode, Kokotajlo walks me through how AI agents can operate for long periods, solve complex problems, and even communicate through unexpected channels. He explains why reading an AI's internal messages offers visibility into the agent swarm's behavior—and why that visibility may not last as models become more capable.What does the Hugging Face incident reveal about the limits of current AI safety? Why were some agents willing to “sacrifice” themselves to help the wider group evade detection? And as companies race to invent ever more powerful systems, are we prepared for the risks that inevitably follow?This is the first episode in our new American Thought Leaders series on artificial intelligence.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Ahead of the Trump–Xi summit in Washington this week, I'm sitting down with retired U.S. Marine Colonel Grant Newsham to understand what's really at stake here, and what each side stands to win—or lose.“When the Chinese come here, they are very much testing [our] will … to defend ourselves, to defend our principles, to defend our friends,” Newsham says.Newsham is the former reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces Pacific and author of “When China Attacks: A Warning to America.”In this episode, he breaks down the greatest vulnerabilities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and how the Trump administration could leverage them to America's advantage.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 recently traveled to the Pacific island nation of Palau, home to one of the deadliest battlefields of World War II. And geography still matters: Today, it's a security flashpoint for the United States and its closest Pacific allies.Palau is one of 12 countries in the world that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Because of this and its strategic position, Palau faces continual and mounting pressure from Beijing.Veteran Palauan journalist and Compass Point Institute founder Kambes Kesolei says that China wants “to appear like the good guys.” Indeed, he continues, “they just want to weaken your spirit.”In this episode, he breaks down Palau's unique history and relationship with the United States—and what's at stake as Beijing expands its ambitions in the region.Why doesn't Palau just give in?“Palauans are very loyal people,” Kesolei said. “They—like the allies they have chosen—value democracy, human rights, and freedom of religion.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Centralized agriculture insists that strict federal oversight is essential for food safety and market stability. Joel Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms, argues that a close look at soaring beef prices, local meat production, and farm economics reveals regulatory hurdles that destroy small slaughterhouses and distort true free-market prices.Salatin addresses why high beef prices persist, noting recent droughts, aging farmers, the length of the cattle cycle, and the closing of Mexico's borders. Far from opposing market efficiency, he argues that resilient, local production would respond more accurately to market fluctuations and supply shortages.In this interview, Salatin answers critical questions: How do massive corn and soybean subsidies skew beef prices and drive small cattle operations out of business? What do USDA inspection exemptions like the Prime Act reveal about intrastate commerce and food safety? And why is nature's model of scaling through duplication far more effective than industrial centralization?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 the remote Pacific, emergency medical transport is not a simple call away. Across hundreds of miles of open ocean separating island communities, sudden illness or severe injury can quickly become fatal without rapid intervention.Pacific Mission Aviation pilots Mark Abbott and Brock Welge operate on the front lines of remote search-and-rescue and critical medevac flights, serving remote island peoples.The Christian nonprofit's mission is to provide free emergency evacuations, rescue and disaster relief, medical and food supplies, and even educational resources across Micronesia and the Philippines.In this episode, Abbott and Welge walk me through the unique reality of aviation in the remote Pacific. How do these self-funded aviators execute lifesaving operations? What are the dangers of landing on short, and sometimes neglected, airstrips? And what drew them from working in corporate America to serving remote island communities?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

During World War II, America learned a hard lesson about the strategic importance of the small island nations scattered across the Pacific.Among them is Palau, a nation of 18,000 people in what's known as the second island chain. It's home to the bloodiest battlefield of the Pacific theater, on the island of Peleliu.Today, as the Chinese regime prepares for a possible invasion of Taiwan, Palau finds itself on the front lines again. It's one of only 12 countries that diplomatically recognize Taiwan, and one of only three with a Compact of Free Association with the United States—an agreement that gives the U.S. exclusive military access to Palauan waters in exchange for providing defense, postal service, economic assistance, and other benefits to Palauans.Palau's strategic position has made it a target. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ramped up gray-zone tactics and information warfare across the region to pull small Pacific nations away from Taiwan and the United States.In this episode, I'm sitting down with Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr. Half-American and half-Palauan and born in Baltimore, Whipps decided to give up his American citizenship to serve as president of his father's homeland and chart a new course for its development.In this episode, Whipps explains how Palau is defending its sovereignty against foreign encroachment and shares his vision for the country's future.We cover how the CCP has threatened Palau, how the Compact of Free Association shapes U.S. regional defense strategy, why the U.S. military is building radar sites on the island, and how Western private sector investment can help secure a free Indo-Pacific.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Rusty Reno is the editor-in-chief of First Things Magazine and author of “Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West.”In his book, Reno argues that after the World Wars, Western intellectual elites concluded that the “strong gods”—nationalism and intense ideological loyalty, to name a few—were the root causes of violence. In response, figures like Karl Popper promoted an “open society” framework, aimed at diluting strong loyalties.Decades later, Reno argues, we live in an age when the frameworks that gave human beings stability, purpose, and a sense of belonging have been stripped away.In this episode, Reno unpacks questions such as: What about the 1980s is so desirable to people today? Why are young people dissatisfied with endless choices? And why ought questions of meaning, national identity, and truth return to the center of politics?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Modern medicine in the West often treats chronic and autoimmune conditions as lifelong diagnoses that must be managed rather than cured. Sina McCullough—who has a doctorate in nutrition and is the author of “Hands Off My Food!”—argues that diseases are primarily a state of imbalance, driven by toxicities and deficiencies. These, she says, can often be reversed by restoring “root-level” health.“I refuse to accept the label that disease is a lifelong sentence,” McCullough says. “When you remove the roadblocks standing in the way, the body naturally takes over and heals itself.”McCullough does not, however, dismiss Western medicine entirely—standard diagnostic labs and emergency care remain critical tools. But can modern conventional treatments fully resolve chronic illness without addressing underlying dietary triggers, outdated food labeling, and environmental toxins?In this episode, McCullough tells her story of how she went from near-fatal autoimmune issues to wholly restored health without conventional medicine. She answers critical questions: How do standard blood tests miss severe micronutrient deficiencies? Why are outdated, certified fool labels problematic? And what role do emotional and spiritual health play in physical diseases?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Underground and urban warfare have become the decisive battlegrounds of modern warfare, yet for a long time, military doctrine has been built to avoid both, said John Spencer, a retired U.S. Army major and chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point's Modern War Institute.He's repeatedly embedded himself in active war zones, from Gaza to Ukraine, and personally walked through the nearly two-mile-long Hamas tunnel, wide enough to drive a truck through, that led from Gaza City right up to the Israel-Gaza border wall.A leading expert on urban and underground warfare, he argues that subterranean warfare is spreading globally. He also argues that enemies of the West have deliberately weaponized the laws of war itself, using civilians as shields.How can democratic nations defend themselves when non-state actors intentionally weaponize civilian deaths to create political leverage? How are manipulated statistics and social media disinformation warping the public's understanding of modern-day battlefield realities? And what do we keep getting wrong about modern warfare?Spencer is the author of the new book “Twenty Times I Almost Died: Life Lessons from the Edge of Survival.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Modern American politics is commonly framed as a face-off between traditional conservative and contemporary progressive values.Bradley Thayer, author of “America's 100 Years' War,” argues that a closer look at the tactics shaping Western institutions reveals a deeper ideological struggle—one whose roots trace back to Vladimir Lenin.In this episode, Thayer argues that what threatens America today extends far beyond traditional Marxist economics. He says that neo-Leninist strategies actively work to subvert democracy by hijacking civil society, destabilizing Western borders, and replacing individual rights with group identity.Thayer addresses a host of critical questions: How did Soviet political warfare evolve into a privatized network operating within the United States? Why is the Chinese Communist Party best understood as an illegitimate colonial export of Soviet imperialism rather than an authentic Chinese polity? And how can Americans draw upon our founding principles to end this century-long war?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Many people have come to accept pervasive surveillance as the price of modern life: that our phones, browsers, messages, purchases, and movements will inevitably be collected, analyzed, and sold to those with enough money or power.For many, there's a growing sense that true privacy is irrevocably lost, and resistance is largely futile.Naomi Brockwell disagrees.She is the president of the Ludlow Institute, and with her YouTube channel, she educates people about the many choices they can make to reclaim their privacy—without totally disconnecting from modern life.“I, as an individual, can actually make choices that reclaim basically all of my privacy in the digital age,” she says.She connects the dots between digital privacy and the survival of whistleblowers, investigative journalists, protest movements, and opposition parties—none of which can function without it.Her message is that some things are worth fighting for: “Because submission is its own kind of death.”Her institute recently helped draft a new bill that aims to restore Fourth Amendment protections in the digital era by requiring warrants for the government to access your data online.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Modern biology often posits Darwinian evolution and natural selection as a settled explanation for the vast complexity of the natural world. Yet, looking closely at the nanoscale machinery inside the cell reveals molecular systems that seem to defy a gradual, evolutionary unfolding, says Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and author of “Darwin's Black Box,” “The Edge of Evolution,” and “Darwin Devolves.”“I was startled to see that a foundation concept of my worldview had no support; that it was all built on social considerations,” Behe says.Importantly, Behe points out that he is not rejecting Darwinian evolution in its entirety. Minor evolutionary adaptations are well-established, he says. But can Darwin's theory of evolution adequately explain the origin of complex biological mechanisms that require many interlocking components to function at all?Also, what do recent discoveries in molecular genetics reveal about the boundaries of natural evolution? And why is the scientific consensus on Darwin's theory far less unanimous than it appears?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

It's rare to see large-scale bronze installations built today. In Washington, D.C., as part of America's 250th anniversary celebration, Matthew Taylor has transformed the long-neglected Freedom Plaza with a beautiful new memorial celebrating Revolutionary War heroes. He is an artist, filmmaker, and senior adviser at the National Endowment for the Humanities.Among those featured in the new Spirit of ‘76 installation is Samuel Whittemore, who was 78 when he decided to join the Revolutionary War effort against the British.“They bayoneted him 13 times. They shot him in the head and left him for dead, and yet he lived another 18 years to the age of 96,” says Taylor.“The great thing about these soldiers is most of these people either don't have statues [or] are not very well-known, and this shows that this is the common citizen,” he says.These were “ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help create and build this nation,” he says.The equestrian statue of Caesar Rodney—which had been taken down in Wilmington, Delaware, during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests—is now also on display on a new pedestal in Freedom Plaza.He epitomizes the extraordinary determination of those who secured American independence.“He had facial cancer and emphysema, and he rode 80 miles overnight in a storm to sign and … be the tiebreaker, Delaware, which would ultimately create the Declaration of Independence,” Taylor 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.

Ian Rowe is a charter school founder who believes hard work and accountability—and rejecting victimhood—are the secrets to a good education.His school Vertex Partnership Academies just celebrated its first graduating class, with students moving on to college, the military, and futures that once felt out of reach in an area where only 7 percent of kids typically graduate college-ready.His newest project, Westchester Aerospace and Virtues Academy (WAVA), pairs a classical education with a surprising real-world specialty: aviation and aerospace training.Students will study great books and Western civilization while also learning air traffic control, piloting, aircraft maintenance, airport management, and related trades. The school will sit right next to Westchester County Airport in New York, so students can watch planes and hear real air traffic control, making technical training part of everyday school life.So why aerospace—in an age when AI is upending every industry?“While artificial intelligence is going to affect every industry … there will always be a need for some kind of aircraft to transport people from one location to the other,” Rowe says.“The best defense against the worst excesses of artificial intelligence is to ensure that our students are steeped in the other form of AI—and that is ancient intelligence … virtue, moral formation, character development.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Ahead of the Republican Senate primary runoff tomorrow in South Carolina, I'm sitting down with Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) as he and Sen. Darline Graham make their final appeals to South Carolinian voters.In this episode, Norman dives into his core political priorities, emphasizing fiscal conservatism, securing the integrity of elections through the SAVE America Act, and reforming major entitlement programs.Drawing on his background in the private sector, Norman said Washington needs more business-minded leaders who understand how to balance a budget and tackle national debt.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

A trove of newly released documents, colloquially known as the “Fauci Diaries,” offer an unusually revealing window into the decisions and dynamics that shaped the COVID-19 era.Jeffrey Tucker spent days reading all the documents—over 1,100 pages of materials—which were prepared within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and appear to have been intended, at least in part, as the foundation for an autobiography.Tucker argues that these records offer key insights into what Dr. Anthony Fauci knew, when he knew it, and how that knowledge influenced public messaging and policy.We discuss the early push for an mRNA vaccine, the influential WHO delegation to China in February 2020, the origins and consequences of lockdown policies, and Fauci's relationship with the media.Why did so many countries adopt elements of China's COVID response? What do the documents reveal about the debate over the lab-leak theory? And why did the vaccination push intensify even as breakthrough infections became increasingly apparent?We also examine the clash between Fauci and President Donald Trump, the treatment of dissenting scientists behind the Great Barrington Declaration, and the broader question of how the official history of the pandemic will be written.Dr. Fauci did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Newly released documents reveal how evidence of Chinese penetration of voter registration files and plots to interfere in the election were withheld or downplayed.The new files reveal one of the intelligence officers said they “deliberately massaged” the presidential daily briefing in 2020 to downplay election-related information, with another stating, “I'm basically running a shadow government across the FBI at this point.”John Solomon is chair of the White House Government Transparency Task Force, an award-winning journalist, and founder of Just the News. He breaks down key documents his task force has released—and what more we can expect to see in the coming days and months.Newly declassified documents also upend the prevailing narrative on the Biden–Ukraine story, revealing how the FBI allegedly ran a secret operation known as Round River. According to the documents, it labelled whistleblowers as Russian “conduits” and dismissed the evidence they provided on the Biden family as “Russian disinformation.”John Solomon places Round River within a broader sequence of FBI operations targeting Trump that included Crossfire Hurricane, Plasmic Echo, and Arctic Frost. This is “a wash, rinse, repeat cycle,” he said, going all the way back to the 2016 election and the debunked “Trump–Russia collusion” narrative.In this episode, we examine questions of accountability, the extent of the cover-up, and whether FBI Director Kash Patel will be successful in building a “grand conspiracy” case.Note: This interview was filmed before the latest document drop related to former Rep. Eric Swalwell and alleged Chinese operative Fang Fang. Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Grace Jo was born in North Korea and nearly starved to death as a child during the country's devastating famine in the 1990s.Her father crossed into China in search of food for his family, only to be tortured and die after returning to North Korea. Her grandmother and two younger brothers died of starvation. And her oldest sister disappeared while searching for food. The family suspects she became a victim of human trafficking in China.Jo still remembers that her grandmother's dying wish was to eat a baked potato. It was a wish the family could not fulfill.At six years old, Jo first crossed the Tumen River into China with her mother and sister. In China, they lived in hiding—ever fearful of being sent back to North Korea. Jo was repatriated twice before finally escaping North Korea for the last time.Her story is a haunting account of survival, loss, and hope that shows the brutal reality of life under North Korea's regime and the determination, resilience, and sheer luck it takes to escape it.In 2008, with the help of a missionary, Jo, her mother, and her older sister made it to the United States. She became a U.S. citizen in 2013.Today, she is the founder of the Broken Chains Foundation, formerly the Grace Jo Foundation. And through the Dissident Project, she speaks regularly at schools and other venues, sharing her story to educate young people about the realities of totalitarian and communist regimes.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Is the end of privacy inevitable? Is programmable money inevitable? Is it inevitable that artificial intelligence will eliminate most of the world's white-collar jobs?Oxford professor Carissa Véliz argues that such claims are a red flag.She's the author of the new book “Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future.”Someone who says a future is inevitable is trying to get you to do something and benefit from your belief, she argues.She is convinced that such self‑fulfilling prophecies only work if we believe them and she urges people to defy these narratives by asking: Who is predicting this future? Who benefits? What data supports it—and what missing data might contradict it?Véliz is a philosopher and author who specializes in privacy and the ethics of artificial intelligence. She is an associate professor of philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI and a Fellow at Hertford College at the University of Oxford.Prediction, Véliz explains, is a business model: diagnose a problem, promise that more data will solve it, then sell tools to analyze the huge datasets institutions don't know how to use.Throughout history, rulers have attached themselves to prophets. Today, that role is played by immensely rich and powerful tech executives who advise governments and control key infrastructure and access to citizens via social media.In our interview, we discuss how surveillance and behavioral prediction undermine and erode an open society where people should have the freedom to speak, protest, and be anonymous.Other questions we discuss: Do “digital natives” like Gen Z and Gen Alpha—who have never experienced a true non-digital world—even understand the role of privacy? And what are the best antidotes to the harms of digital life?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 exclusive interview with FBI Director Kash Patel, we dive into the FBI's campaign to take down scam centers around the world, from Burma to the United Arab Emirates.Last year, the FBI launched Operation Blackout, a 16-month campaign that dismantled four of the world's largest scam centers.Working with international partners—notably including China's Ministry of Public Security—the FBI seized over $15 billion, arrested more than 300 individuals, and freed thousands of trafficked victims who had been forced to work at these scam compounds.The amount of money Americans have reported losing to fraud has increased over threefold from 2020 to 2025, according to data from the Federal Trade Commission. And nearly half of that in 2025 went to romance cryptocurrency scams—known as pig-butchering scams.Scammers use texts to build trust before luring victims into fake investments that drain their life savings. Then they move and launder the money through crypto wallets.So what can people do to avoid being scammed? Will the FBI be returning all the seized money? And why has the FBI chosen to work with China on tackling these scam compounds? How can the Chinese regime be trusted to work in good faith?In this wide-ranging interview, we also discuss the FBI's fight to catch spies, investigate transnational repression, cut bureaucratic red tape, and prevent the next terrorist attack.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Almost a year after the Washington Declaration, Armenia is trying to turn a hard-won peace with Azerbaijan into something lasting. In this conversation, Armenia's ambassador to the United States, Narek Mkrtchyan, explains what the agreement means on the ground and why the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity could reshape the region and the country's future.“We sit in a very tough neighborhood. We sit in a very interesting geography. We are at the crossroads of Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, South Caucasus,” Mkrtchyan says.Mkrtchyan describes how Armenia is trying to turn geography into strategy through the development of diplomacy, new trade routes, and international partnerships. He views this as more than a peace process—it's a chance to redefine Armenia's place in the region.“In the center is the concept of crossroads of peace,” Mkrtchyan says.Recently, Armenia also got approval for the biggest artificial intelligence factory in the region—a $4 billion project that officials say could help make the country a hub for computing power and advanced technology.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Americans are ripped off in the billions annually through romance “pig-butchering” scams—the most dominant type. But who's really behind them?The shocking reality is the vast majority of these scammers are trafficked victims, enslaved across more than 60 countries and forced to scam or face torture.“You're working 17-hour days. You're catatonic. You're not getting sleep. You start to doze. They‘ll electrocute you, and if you refuse to scam, they'll torture you,” said Timothy Blackwood, an award-winning Canadian-American film director.His film “Scam Slave: From Hell to Home” follows a Ugandan man promised a high-paying job in Thailand, only to be kidnapped by a Myanmar-based crime syndicate.“There's all different types of scams going on there. There's villas, there's strip clubs, there's clinics to support the staff that are managing and running these compounds,” Blackwood says.These scam centers in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar generate billions that fund even more advanced operations.“It's not simply in the horrific statistics of how many billions of dollars are being scammed from Americans annually, but the human cost to people's lives.”In this episode, I dive into how these operations stay hidden and what can actually be done to stop them.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 values Americans hold dear—such as freedom of speech, religious liberty, and democratic elections—are weaponized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), says Tianliang Zhang, an author, historian, and popular commentator on China affairs.In this episode, he argues that the CCP devised a master plan called “America against America” to exploit those very freedoms and openness in order to undermine U.S. interests.The concept was developed by Wang Huning in 1989, chairman of China's top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).“But how to implement that, that's the unrestricted war,” Zhang says.Unrestricted warfare is a CCP doctrine of leveraging everything as a tool of war, whether it be fentanyl, the media, or election integrity.How is this war waged in practice? The transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners is one such example.The Falun Gong meditation practice was popular in China during the 1990s. An estimated 70 million to 100 million people took it up, crediting it for health benefits and mental well-being. In 1999, the CCP unleashed a nationwide persecution, subjecting the practitioners to various abuses, including slave labor and forced organ harvesting.“CCP sees it as [the] number one threat in its history … so they use American media, they use the freedom of speech here, they use the justice system here to persecute Falun Gong [practitioners],” Zhang said.The CCP's goal, Zhang says, is to “eliminate all the independent thoughts” that do not conform to communist ideology.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Historically, America was always one of the friendliest countries towards Jews compared to many countries in Europe, says Batya Ungar-Sargon.But in recent years, there's a major shift on the left with anti-Semitism on the rise, she says. In this episode, she breaks down the ideological shifts reshaping American politics and explains why she rejects the modern “victimhood hierarchy.”Ungar-Sargon is the author of "The Jews and the Left" and host of “Batya!” on NewsNation argues.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Katharine Birbalsingh has been deemed “Britain's Strictest Headmistress”—and she wears the title proudly. Founder of Michaela Community School in London, Birbalsingh has built one of the UK's top-performing schools by rejecting the educational fads of the last generation and returning to older principles: discipline, personal responsibility, and patriotism.The Michaela Community School is an inner-city, non-selective charter school. Despite three and a half years of opposition from unions and councils, Birbalsingh fought to be able to provide a good schooling alternative for London's poorer communities. And she's succeeded. Her school has repeatedly ranked No. 1 in student progress in the entire country, and thousands of visitors from around the world have come to study and learn from her model.In this episode, Birbalsingh reveals how Western institutions have quietly abandoned the moral formation of children. This, she argues, has driven civilizational decline more than any policy failure. Birbalsingh argues that many of today's schools immerse children in a culture of grievance and victimhood rather than agency and duty.Birbalsingh details the three pillars of Michaela's educational approach: discipline, teacher-led instruction, and what she calls “small-c conservative values,” such as self-sacrifice, ownership, and accountability.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

It is becoming increasingly common to hear the American Dream is dead, with young people today often citing housing prices, the difficulty of finding jobs, and tax burdens.Forbes Media chairman Steve Forbes has a very different take.“A free people always finds ways to move ahead, even though times and circumstances change. The problems we face today are not anything inherent in America, but in mistakes made by government. And the nice thing about that is mistakes can be undone,” Forbes said.He's the editor-in-chief of Forbes Media and the co-author of “Inflation: What It Is, Why It's Bad, and How to Fix It.”In this wide-ranging episode, filmed at the FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas, we dove into the rise of democratic socialist candidates, DEI hiring, inflation, how the United States should approach Taiwan and Iran, and the basic truth about prosperity that no one is teaching today.At the heart of this conversation is an extremely hopeful message: “Human ingenuity is unlimited. Have faith in the future.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Nigeria has become perhaps the deadliest place on earth for Christians, accounting for the vast majority of Christians killed worldwide for faith-related reasons.Beyond the killings, millions more have been displaced into camps, where many now die slowly from malnutrition rather than violence, says Judd Saul.He is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur, and Christian missionary based in Iowa who founded Equipping the Persecuted, an organization dedicated to helping Christians facing jihadi violence in Nigeria.Saul first traveled to Nigeria in 2011 on a mission trip with his grandfather, Duane Wessels.It was an experience that reshaped the direction of his life and work. Since then, he has visited Nigeria multiple times a year.In our interview, Saul explains what forces drive the violence against Christian Nigerians, who make up about 50 percent of the population.“This is a well-organized and funded Fulani Islamic militia who are hell-bent on turning Nigeria into a caliphate,” he told me.According to Saul, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Christians are killed each year, averaging about 35 deaths per day.Roughly 800 Christian communities have been wiped off the map over the past three decades.Views expressed in this video are the opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

China's new ethnic unity law has taken effect, and it's going to be used to justify and expand transnational repression overseas in combination with existing laws on promoting “separatism,” said Guermantes Lailari, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and longtime China researcher.“In this new ethnic law, they encourage people to report on other Chinese who are not promoting ‘unity.'” Lailari said.“So if you're a Chinese person in the United States promoting Taiwan, they can prosecute you in absentia, and the court will have a ruling. And they can put out a red notice or Interpol notice on that person who's overseas, and if that person ever travels to a country that China has bilateral extradition laws with, that person can be detained and transferred to China,” Lailari added.Lailari moved to Taiwan a few years ago to study the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) up close.“This place,” he said, “is being attacked every day, whether it's cyber, cognitive warfare, media warfare, economic warfare, diplomatic warfare.”In our interview, he argues that the CCP poses the most serious long-term threat to Western civilization—not just militarily, but through a combination of legal, economic, psychological, and intelligence operations.In this episode, we dive into why the CCP is fixated on taking Taiwan, and what the global fallout of such a takeover would look like.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Young men have been under attack by popular culture for the last 20 years, argues Nick Freitas, a former Green Beret and Virginia state legislator. They have been told that masculinity is toxic, the future is female, that they are responsible for the world's problems, and that they no longer have a place, he says.Despite this onslaught, Freitas shares a hopeful message for the young men of today: “God has created men for a particular purpose. We are supposed to be strong. We are supposed to be capable. Why? So we can honor God, protect our families, and protect our civilization.”Freitas recently wrote a book entitled “The Manbook: A Point-by-Point Guide to Sucking It Up and Getting the Job Done,” where he shares hard-won lessons on how to be a good man despite resistance, or outright attacks, from the prevailing culture.In this episode, Freitas reveals why a whole generation of men are flocking to radical ideologies—and how to prevent it.Perhaps surprisingly, Freitas puts the onus on the men of older generations, arguing that young men desire good role models and guidance. Older men, therefore, must live the kind of lives that young men would want to model.“The best argument you make is not just the one that you articulate through your words,” Freitas says, “it's the one that you articulate through what you do in your own life.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Rob Henderson grew up in poverty in Los Angeles moving from foster home to foster home, seeing addiction, instability, and family breakdown all around him. He joined the U.S. Air Force at 17, entered Yale University at 25 with help from the GI Bill, and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He climbed “every rung on the American class ladder,” as he describes it.But at Yale and other elite universities, he saw the spread of radical ideas—abolish the police, empty prisons, dismantle marriage, decriminalize all drugs—ideas that he understood would be devastating to the communities he grew up in.And that's how he came to develop his now famous concept of luxury beliefs: “Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the affluent … while inflicting costs on the less fortunate members of society,” he says.How is it that these ideas came to be so pervasive? And what are their true consequences for society?Henderson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor of City Journal, and bestselling author of “Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

“We will not let Communist Party of China define who we are,” said Taiwan's Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, who has been sanctioned by Beijing and labeled a “separatist.”Despite Beijing's ever-growing hostility toward Taiwan, she is not deterred.In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has escalated its “gray zone” operations, naval aggression, large-scale encirclement drills and missile tests, and aircraft incursions into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has promised to seize Taiwan—including by force if necessary.Beijing has also aggressively sought to isolate Taiwan internationally and peel away its allies. Only 11 countries and the Holy See still maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan as of 2026.“China's cognitive warfare, psychological warfare, political warfare, legal warfare, and very aggressive interventions in our domestic society and politics [have] become an increasingly serious problem,” Hsiao said.Born to a Taiwanese father and an American mother, Hsiao previously served in Taiwan's legislature and as the island's top representative in Washington, where she became known for her “cat warrior diplomacy.”Although Taiwan is only about the size of Maryland, it plays a pivotal role in the global economy, producing more than 90 percent of the world's most advanced semiconductors—the chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones, cars, and much of tomorrow's technology.It is also America's fourth-largest trading partner, and nearly half of all global container ships—dwarfing even shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—sail through the narrow Taiwan Strait, carrying trillions in trade.“Everything we're doing today in strengthening Taiwan is to prevent an invasion, to prevent that scenario from happening,” Hsiao said.Recently, Taiwan's National Security Bureau established a secure information-reporting channel for Chinese nationals to submit intelligence tips—a unprecedented move for Taiwan.In this episode, I sat down with Hsiao in the presidential office of Taiwan to understand what's really at stake here and how Taiwan is working to strengthen its whole-of-society resilience and deter a greater conflict.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Leonardo da Vinci once wrote that the key to developing a “complete mind” was to “study the science of art. Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”In 2009, Sherry Zhang and a group of dedicated California parents who were disillusioned with the schools in their area decided to co-found an academic institution that would put this philosophy into practice.A former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory postdoctoral chemist, Zhang shares her unexpected journey from working in a garage tech start up to being a founding member of a classical academy.In this episode, Zhang discusses the core philosophy behind classical education—built upon three tenets: truth, goodness, and beauty. She reveals how intensive training in classical Chinese dance, ballet, visual arts, and music causes students to develop habits of perseverance, focus, and attentiveness that transfer to academics.In an age dominated by instant gratification and digital distraction, Zhang explains how the structure of classical arts provides order that children long for.One student, Hugo, came to the San Francisco High School of the Arts unable to focus and with failing grades. After one year at the school, he began to prosper academically, and his mother was stunned. His story is just one among many, Zhang 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.

“We are definitively, with no debate, in a demographic winter in the history of the United States of America. We have never had a lower marriage rate, and we've never had a lower fertility rate,” says Timothy Goeglein, vice president of External and Government Relations at Focus on the Family.Goeglein is the author of multiple books, including most recently “What Really Matters: Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family.”In our interview, we explore how America ended up where it is today. Why are millions of prime-age men neither working nor seeking a job? Why do women find it so hard to find a good partner? What is the antidote to America's high rates of suicide, drug overdose, pornography addiction, and family dysfunction?“The biggest single challenge facing America in its 250th year … is a spiritual crisis of a pretty substantial order,” Goeglein said. He believes we are witnessing in America “the practical ramifications of destroying an objective moral code … of saying you can't really define good and evil.”Luckily, this is not the whole story. In this interview, Goeglein explains the signs of hope he sees and what he calls “a quiet Renaissance.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Hungary is undergoing a major transformation with the election of a new prime minister.After 16 years in power, Viktor Orban's Fidesz party was swept from office in a historic landslide election in April and with an equally historic turnout of almost 80 percent.The new Tisza party, led by Peter Magyar, won the largest super-majority in Hungary's post-communist history with a platform focused on anti-corruption and national renewal. They've promised major changes to Hungary's constitution, known as the Fundamental Law.So what does this election mean for Hungary and how might the new leadership reorient its relationship with America, the European Union, Russia, and China?Orban was known for his pro-family and pro-tradition domestic policies, while at the same time cultivating close ties with Russia and communist China and distancing himself from the EU.Joining us today to break all this down is Hungarian constitutional law scholar Marton Sulyok, a visiting researcher at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.Sulyok is, notably, also the son of Hungary's current President, Tamas Sulyok.Magyar has demanded the resignation of Sulyok and other Orban allies. It remains to be seen whether they will be forced out by constitutional amendment or other means.Despite his family ties, the younger Sulyok has remained strikingly detached.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Ahead of the 250th anniversary of America's founding, New York Times bestselling author and talk show host Eric Metaxas is publishing his latest book, a 600-page volume titled “Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World.”In the book, he argues that the American Revolution is the “only genuine revolution in the history of so-called revolutions.”So what separated the American Revolution from other revolutions? What made it succeed? And what critical aspects of the American Revolution are no longer being taught in schools today?Metaxas argues that America is currently facing its third existential crisis, after the American Revolution and the Civil War, and understanding the core principles behind America's founding story is critical to preserving the liberties of this nation.In the interview, we confront some key questions: How is the erosion of spiritual faith transforming American society? How does self-government work without the “moral and religious people” that John Adams described as a prerequisite for self-government? What is the proper role of a good citizen?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.