Talk Cocktail

Luigi Mangione became a folk hero after allegedly killing a healthcare CEO. “Free Luigi” merchandise. Hacked highway signs. But he's not alone. In a recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with journalist John Richardson who reveals how Ted Kaczynski's ideology radicalized Mangione and is appealing to alienated young men who've reached a dark conclusion: the system won't change without violence. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

San Francisco's underground robot fight clubs: humanoid machines in steel cages, VR pilots, roaring crowds. China builds the hardware, America stages the spectacle, AI makes them lethal. I talk with journalist and filmmaker Ashlee Vance on my latest California Sun Podcast. He expalins how the technology is advancing at breakneck speed — raising questions about entertainment, military applications, and what happens when these machines become truly intelligent. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

On this recent California Sun podcast I talk with Todd S. Purdum, veteran journalist and author of “Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television.” Purdum expalins how a Cuban refugee revolutionized Hollywood. He invented the three-camera sitcom format, shifted television production from New York to LA, and created the business model that sustained the industry and TV production for seven decades—fundamentally transforming the entertainment business. It cost him everything! Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Political violence isn't an aberration in American democracy — it's a defining trait. From the Boston Tea Party to January 6, it's how we settle our differences.My guest on this WhoWhatWhy podcast is professor Matthew Dallek of George Washington University. The author of numerous books and papers on political violence, including the definitive history of the John Birch Society. Dallek argues we're living through an “era of violent populism” — driven by institutional distrust, dehumanizing rhetoric, and social media acceleration.Every time political violence erupts in America, we fall back on the same comforting phrase: “This isn't who we are.” But what if we have it exactly backwards? Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

On this latest California Sun podcast, John Freeman, author of “California Rewritten: A Journey Through the Golden State's New Literature,” talks to me about how California has become America's new literary center, challenging New York's dominance. He discusses the pandemic book club that sparked his journey, the state's evolving mythology, and how diverse voices are redefining what it means to imagine America's future. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

In the theater of history, irony often plays a leading role. How did the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known — according to the World Bank lifting 1.5 billion people out of crushing poverty — become America's most dangerous political wager? In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Journalist David J. Lynch — author of The World's Worst Bet: How the Globalization Gamble Went Wrong (And What Would Make It Right.) He witnessed first-hand globalization's arc from golden dawn to political twilight and the impact on global trade today. He asks why the smartest people in Washington were so spectacularly right about the economics and so catastrophically wrong about the politics. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Minerva University, has earned the No. 1 ranking in the World University Rankings for Innovation for four consecutive years. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Minerva reimagined higher education — eliminating campuses, lectures, and tenure while sending students to live and study across seven global cities. In this California Sun podcast, Mike Magee, President of the University discusses how Minerva, with only a 4% acceptance rate and students from more than 100 countries, is preparing the next generation of leaders for an interconnected world.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for an entire year of great conversation. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

More than taking to the streets, a souring economy may be democracy's last hope. Beneath calm headlines, inflation persists and wealth accumulates. The numbers reveal what matters most.It's the economy, stupid.” Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign mantra has never felt more prophetic. In an era when presidential scandals barely register, where lawbreaking and corruption seem consequence-free, where the president himself once boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing support — the economy may be the only force powerful enough to reshape our political landscape.And right now, beneath the surface calm, something fundamental may be shifting.In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Matthew Klein, economics commentator and publisher of The Overshoot newsletter. He takes us deep into the weeds of consumer spending, inflation persistence, housing market dysfunction, and the ticking time bomb of household wealth that could reshape everything in ways that simple politics cannot. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Today, as immigrant families are again separated and detained, Satsuki Ina joins me on the California Sun podcast to talk about her memoir “The Poet and the Silk Girl.” Her story chronicles her family's journey through California's network of assembly centers and permanent camps during World War II. It's a reminder, she says, that what happened then is not just history — it's a warning about how easily such chapters of fear and racism repeat themselves.Satsuki was born behind barbed wire at Tule Lake, where she became one of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war. Her parents, both U.S. citizens, lost their freedom and faith in America, leaving a legacy of silence and trauma. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

While America fixates on President Donald Trump's psychology, the real story may be the fundamental mutation of American power itself — one that makes Trump merely a symptom of a deeper transformation reshaping our world.On this recent week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with British novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta, who argues we're missing the seismic shifts beneath the surface. Author of the upcoming book After Nations: The History and Future of the Nation State, Dasgupta reveals how three interconnected crises are fundamentally altering the relationship between the state and its people, creating conditions that demand exactly the kind of disruptive figure Trump represents.America can no longer control the flow of strategic resources that once guaranteed its superpower status. China is building alternative trading networks that bypass traditional American corporate access. Meanwhile, the dollar's global dominance — which has allowed the US to sustain massive debt — faces unprecedented threats from China. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

In March 1998, I had the privilege of sitting down with Jane Goodall, whose pioneering work transformed how we understand chimpanzees and our shared planet. This week, as we mark her passing at 93, we revisit that conversation. The recording has survived nearly three decades — the audio may not be perfect, but her wisdom and spirit shine through.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

How one of California's corporate crown jewels, Apple, faces an unprecedented rebellion. Tech leaders such as Spotify's Daniel Ek and Epic Games' Tim Sweeney are waging a legal war over what they have portrayed as a shakedown operation — the 30% App Store cut that generates massive profits for Apple while stifling competition.On this Califonria Sun podcast I talk with WSJ reporter Tim Higgins to discuss his new book “iWar,” examining Apple's hold on the mobile world, and how the rise of artificial intelligence is threatening to potentially displace the smartphone era altogether.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

We inhabit a fractured information landscape where truth itself has become negotiable. Lying has not only lost its stigma — it's become a viable strategy for success.My guest on this WhoWhatWhy podcast, Renée DiResta, author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, reveals the machinery behind this transformation.Politicians lie with impunity, corporate leaders fabricate narratives, and social media influencers craft false personas, all understanding that in the attention economy, authenticity is just another performance metric.The infrastructure of deception, she explains, has become so sophisticated and pervasive that we've normalized dishonesty as simply another tool in the communications toolkit. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Jeff Chang, in his new biography “Water Mirror Echo,” and in our recent California Sun podcast explores how the short of life of Bruce Lee helped shape modern Asian American culture and politics.Born in San Francisco's Chinatown, Lee was denied the lead role in Warner Bros.'s 1970s TV series “Kung Fu,” which was given instead to David Carradine in yellowface. Lee's collision with Hollywood rejection became a catalyst for his rise at a time of emergent Asian American political consciousness. Chang discusses how Lee became a global symbol of Asian American dignity, and how his legend has only grown in the decades since his death.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

What Ghislaine Maxwell knows about her father Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein may be the final untold chapter of two of the great scandals of our timeBoth men were fabulously wealthy, both wrapped themselves in the trappings of power, both had rumored ties to intelligence services, and both of their lives ended in disgrace. Epstein's death in a Manhattan jail cell remains a source of speculation and allegations of conspiracy. Robert Maxwell's fall from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, is no less shrouded in mystery.And at the center sits Ghislaine — the connective tissue between these two disgraced moguls. A kind of modern-day Mata Hari whose knowledge of Epstein, Trump, her father, and their networks of power and corruption could rewrite history if ever fully revealed.On the WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with British author John Preston about Robert Maxwell. His book, Fall: The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron, captures a man whose life was a study in hubris, ambition, and deceit. Today, revisiting that conversation sheds light not only on Ghislaine's inheritance but on the larger web of power and predation that continues to haunt us — linking Maxwell, Epstein, and the whole bloody mess in between. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Joan Williams— a UC law professor, author of Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back delivers the prevailing wisdom on Democrats' working-class exodus: how cultural condescension drove voters to Trump. But this tidy narrative misses deeper currents of economic and technological transformation, aspirational politics, and structural failures that shaped today's realignment. Getting the prescription wrong could doom us to years more of the chaos we're desperately trying to escape.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Violence subsumes us this week, but at the end of the day, it's still the economy that impacts all of us.Politicians sell tariffs as job protection, but economist Kimberly Clausing cuts through the spin: They're a direct assault on working families' wallets while destroying the very manufacturing jobs they claim to save. In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast The former Treasury official and UCLA professor talks to me about how Donald Trump's trade war has become an expensive lesson in economic self-sabotage.Clausing walks through the real costs: $2,500 annually per household from existing tariffs, with over half of our imports being materials that American companies need to stay competitive. When those costs rise, US manufacturers become less competitive globally, leading to layoffs rather than job creation.The conversation reveals how political rhetoric about trade obscures where the money actually goes — from working families paying higher prices to corporations and governments collecting tariff revenues, funding a policy approach that economists broadly agree makes little economic sense. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

The sons of the elite also struggle.Filmmaker Peter Jones turned his camera on his former classmates from the Harvard School for Boys, a former military academy for boys in Los Angeles, for his new PSB documentary “Fortunate Sons,” chronicling the lives of the 1974 graduating class through their 50th reunion. In this California Sun podcast, Jones tells me that what started as pandemic Zoom calls became surprisingly honest conversations about addiction, suicide, and the pressure of living up to successful fathers. Jones discovered that wealth can't shield against every hardship, and that the men now in their 60s were finally ready to drop the macho act and talk about what really happened.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

How did Silicon Valley's best and brightest become Trump's cheerleaders? Journalist Scott Alan Lucas may have found the origins in his investigation of Cash App founder Bob Lee's 2023 murder. When Lee was killed in San Francisco, tech elites immediately abandoned their supposed data-driven principles, blaming liberal governance despite clear evidence pointing elsewhere. The same figures—including future Trump advisor David Sacks—chose narrative over facts, ideology over analysis. Lucas reveals how this case foreshadowed tech's wholesale embrace of Trump, exposing a disturbing pattern where supposedly rational leaders prioritize political convenience over truth, offering crucial insights into how Silicon Valley went MAGA.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

With China's rising global influence amid America's shifting position worldwide, understanding China's complex history has never been more critical. New York Times diplomatic correspondent Edward Wong offers unparalleled insight in his book "At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China." Through his family's personal story and decades of reporting from Beijing, Wong reveals how China's imperial past continues to shape its modern aspirations and growing tensions with the West.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

For nearly a decade, we've waited for the "smoking gun" that would expose the Trump-Putin relationship. But what if the scandal isn't hidden at all?On this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Craig Unger, bestselling author of House of Trump, House of Putin and American Kompromat. He has spent years documenting what he argues is a 40-year intelligence operation in plain sight. From Russian money laundering through Trump Tower to Jeffrey Epstein's shadowy network, Unger traces connections that others have ignored — and reveals what they spell for Western democracy itself. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Privacy expert Heidi Boghosian argues that America's democratic survival hinges on developing sophisticated digital literacy skills to combat surveillance capitalism and algorithmic manipulation. She connects declining civics education with rising technological dependence, advocating for enhanced cyber hygiene and citizen activism against corporate data collection. While her concerns about digital privacy and educational gaps merit attention, her solutions lean heavily toward regulatory interventions and activist resistance rather than embracing market-driven innovation and empowering individual technological choices. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

When we stop thinking, we enable harm. In this reprise of my WhoWhatWhy podcast with Elizabeth Minnich, she warns us that systemic evils don't need monsters — “it takes all of us” through everyday compliance.I talk with moral philosopher Elizabeth Minnich, who delivers a timely warning about collective thoughtlessness. Building directly on her experience as Hannah Arendt's long-time teaching assistant, Minnich reverses Arendt's famous “banality of evil” thesis.Where Arendt observed how unremarkable Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann appeared during his trial — a conventional man simply “doing his job” — Minnich argues the true danger lies in the “evil of banality”: the way unthinking adherence to clichés, career preservation, and social conformity creates the conditions for extensive harm. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

On my latest California Sun podcast, Jim Newton joins me to discuss “Here Beside the Rising Tide,” exploring how Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead emerged from 1960s California to become unlikely architects of America's counterculture. Newton reveals Garcia as a reluctant icon who feared leadership yet created a multigenerational community that thrives decades after his death. We explore the Dead's anti-commercial ethos, their role as cultural catalysts rather than political activists, and how their California values of freedom and authenticity continue to influence everything from music to tech culture. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

In a week when two Al Jazeera journalists were killed in Gaza, we're reminded that foreign reporting isn't just dangerous—it's occasionally fatal. In this WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with three veteran correspondents—William Dowell, Greg Dobbs, and James Dorsey—they swap stories from Vietnam to Beirut, Iran to South Africa. They trade notes on the life-threatening scrapes they barely walked away from, how the job has changed, and why, even with an average age north of 75, they still can't resist the fight. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Discover the hidden force shaping every aspect of your community—from housing costs to racial inequality to environmental sustainability. Architect and attorney Sara Bronin, author of Key to the City, reveals how zoning, one of the most powerful yet misunderstood tools in local government, dictates where we live, work, and play. Learn why this "invisible" regulation holds the key to building more equitable, livable cities for our future.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

My 2024 conversation with Rachel Bergstein explores the lasting political influence of Judy Blume, whose writing shaped a progressive worldview now under siege from conservative forces. As one of America's most frequently banned authors in the 1980s, Blume became an early champion against censorship—a fight that endures today.Discussing Bergstein's new book, The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us, we examine how Blume's candid treatment of adolescence, puberty, sexuality, and divorce transformed children's literature in the 1970s.Bergstein argues that Blume's impact reaches beyond literature, inspiring a generation of progressives and fortifying the ongoing movement for intellectual freedom and the right to read. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

I'm joined by Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. The port handles 20% of America's incoming cargo. In this California Sun conversation, he reveals how the 7,500-acre complex serves as an economic bellwether, highlighting trends months before consumers feel them. From automation debates to tariff-induced cargo swings, Seroka explains how what happens at the port ripples through the economy and shapes global trade.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year! Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

In 1951, a 25-year-old oil heir with an unplaceable accent declared war on Yale University — and modern American conservatism was born.On this WhoWhatWhy podcast, Sam Tanenhaus, former editor of The New York Times Book Review and the author of Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, talks to me about his monumental 1,000+ page biography of Buckley, a project 30 years in the making.We constantly ask how did we get here? How did the Republican Party transform into MAGA? The answer lies with Buckley — he was the engine that drove this evolution.William F. Buckley Jr. understood what few politicians grasped: Politics was becoming theater, and ideological battles would be won on cultural battlefields.Through meticulous research, including previously unknown family archives, Tanenhaus reveals how Buckley became the original conservative-coalition builder — simultaneously maintaining elite respectability while appealing to grassroots activists. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

What if everything we believe about changing political minds is wrong? The real work of transformation happens elsewhere. What if everything we believe about changing minds is wrong? What if the foundation of democratic discourse — the belief that better arguments lead to better outcomes — is not just flawed but destructively naive? Sarah Lubrano, with her PhD from Oxford and years of writing about the intersection of psychology and politics, brings devastating news: Decades of research reveal that political debates don't change minds; they calcify them.  Her book Don't Talk About Politics reads like a clinical study of American democracy, dissecting why our most sacred ritual of reasoned argument has become democracy's poison pill. But Lubrano's diagnosis goes far beyond the failure of debate. She reveals something more troubling: We've accidentally engineered a society that systematically prevents the kinds of human connections that actually do transform political thinking. 

Now that funding has been cut off by Congress, the future of NPR and individual public radio stations remains uncertain. Back in May, on myWhoWhatWhy podcast, I talked with Steve Oney, who has written what may be the definitive history of NPR, On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR. Some of his conclusions may surprise you.While Fox News and right-wing talk radio built empires of outrage, National Public Radio quietly revolutionized American broadcasting with a different model: nuance, narrative, and long-form journalism in a sea of hot takes. But has NPR's time passed? NPR's greatest enemy might be itself: The broadcaster's “collectivist mentality” that prioritizes consensus over hard-hitting journalism has repeatedly hamstrung innovation.While NPR has been broadcasting tote bags since 1971, can they survive a knife fight, their own risk aversion, and that they still think they're college radio? Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

What if everything we believe about changing minds is wrong? What if the foundation of democratic discourse — the belief that better arguments lead to better outcomes — is not just flawed but destructively naive?Sarah Lubrano, with her PhD from Oxford and years of writing about the intersection of psychology and politics, brings devastating news: Decades of research reveal that political debates don't change minds; they calcify them.In my recent WhoWhatWhy podcast Sarah gives an almost clinical study of American democracy, dissecting why our most sacred ritual of reasoned argument has become democracy's poison pill. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

On this California Sun podcast I talk with Christopher Beam, whose recent New York Times investigation, reveals how a group of brilliant minds from Google, NASA, and the rationalist movement in Berkeley became part of a murderous cult-like group known as the “Zizians.”Unlike Charles Manson's dropouts, these tech elites weaponized artificial intelligence fears and rational thinking into deadly extremism, which was enabled by California's tolerance for radical ideas.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year! Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

That device you check 100 times a day? It exists because of the most consequential business partnership you've never heard of. Financial Times journalist Patrick McGee, author of Apple in China, talks to me about how Apple's quest for manufacturing perfection accidentally created China's technological superpower—while China's scale and ambition created the modern iPhone. Training 3 million workers, orchestrating billion-component supply chains, and reshaping entire economies, this is the untold story of how your iPhone changed the world, and what that means for America's future.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year! Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren joins me on the WhoWhatWhy podcast to decode this historical inflection point. A historian, former Knesset member, and veteran of Israeli government service, Oren offers a unique perspective from someone who has spent his life at the intersection of scholarship and statecraft. Hours before Israel's first strike, he published a prescient piece asking whether this was Israel's “Dirty Harry moment” — the confrontation that would finally call Iran's bluff.

University of Chicago economist Jens Ludwig challenges everything we think we know about gun violence. His groundbreaking research reveals that most shootings aren't about bad people or poverty—they're "garden variety arguments" that escalate tragically within fleeting 10-minute windows. Drawing from rigorous street-level evidence, Ludwig's new book "Unforgiving Places" offers a revolutionary behavioral economics approach that reframes gun violence as solvable through targeted interventions, not endless political battles over gun control.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year! Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Jennifer Pahlka, founder of Code for America and former Obama White House Deputy CTO, talks to me about why government fails in the digital age. Drawing from her groundbreaking work creating the U.S. Digital Service, Pahlka exposes how rigid bureaucratic culture—not lack of money or technology—creates dysfunction. From unemployment systems requiring 17 years to master to 911 calls going unanswered, she demonstrates how accumulated policy complexity destroys state capacity. Her book "Recoding America" offers a roadmap for debugging democracy itself through user-centered design and policy simplification.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year! Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

$500 drones destroyed $100M Russian bombers. Last month (it seems so long ago) Ukrainian forces achieved what seemed impossible: Commercial drones costing less than a smartphone successfully struck Russian strategic bombers worth $100 million each, deep inside enemy territory. This isn't tactical innovation—it's the emergence of warfare where David doesn't just defeat Goliath, but renders him obsolete. On this WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with David Shlapak, senior defense researcher at RAND Corporation, to examine how these miniature flying weapons are rewriting the rules of military power. And while we're already seeing the future of warfare unfold in the skies over Eastern Europe, an even more disruptive shift lies just ahead: the integration of artificial intelligence into autonomous weapons systems. That convergence could redefine not only how wars are fought, but who — or what — does the fighting.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren joins me on the WhoWhatWhy podcast to decode this historical inflection point. A historian, former Knesset member, and veteran of Israeli government service, Oren offers a unique perspective from someone who has spent his life at the intersection of scholarship and statecraft. Hours before Israel's first strike, he published a prescient piece asking whether this was Israel's “Dirty Harry moment” — the confrontation that would finally call Iran's bluff. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Beverly Hills Mayor Sharona Nazarian fled Iran with her family during the revolution to escape religious persecution, learning English as her third language before building a career in clinical psychology. Now the first Iranian American woman to lead the city, she governs a diverse community where roughly 20% of the population trace its roots to Iran. As war unfolds in the Middle East, she's tells us, in this California Sun podcast how she's become the de facto voice of a diaspora caught between American dreams and a longing for peace in their homeland.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year! Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

$500 drones destroyed $100M Russian bombers. Last month (it seems so long ago) Ukrainian forces achieved what seemed impossible: Commercial drones costing less than a smartphone successfully struck Russian strategic bombers worth $100 million each, deep inside enemy territory. This isn't tactical innovation—it's the emergence of warfare where David doesn't just defeat Goliath, but renders him obsolete.On this WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with David Shlapak, senior defense researcher at RAND Corporation, to examine how these miniature flying weapons are rewriting the rules of military power.And while we're already seeing the future of warfare unfold in the skies over Eastern Europe, an even more disruptive shift lies just ahead: the integration of artificial intelligence into autonomous weapons systems.That convergence could redefine not only how wars are fought, but who — or what — does the fighting. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Dr. Rachel Laryea, author of Black Capitalists: A Blueprint for What is Possible, challenges the assumption that capitalism and social justice are incompatible. Drawing from her journey from Goldman Sachs to Yale to entrepreneurship, she reveals how black capitalists operate as strategic insiders within financial systems—not to exploit, but to extract resources for community uplift. Her research shows how communal capitalism, where profit meets social good, offers a blueprint for transforming wealth creation that extends far beyond any single community to anyone seeking sustainable success.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year!Also Follow Me on X @jeffs2009 Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Despite global chaos, America's economy shows puzzling resilience in the face of emerging capital flight, dangerous policy uncertainty, and spiraling debt.As global chaos erupts — from Iran to immigration raids in Big Box parking lots — James Carville's famous dictum echoes louder than ever: “It's the economy, stupid.”On this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast I talk with Noah Smith, author of the widely read substack Noahpinion. While consumer spending down, housing starts are declining, unemployment is creeping upward, and CNBC reveals more about global stability than CNN, understanding economic fundamentals becomes survival knowledge.Smith argues that US resilience so far reflects deep institutional strength built over generations — great businesses and economic frameworks that won't crumble overnight from policy shocks.More alarming is emerging capital flight — foreign investors questioning US economic seriousness for the first time since the 1970s. The traditional dollar-treasury bond relationship has decoupled, signaling unprecedented loss of confidence in American economic management.Smith traces much of this dysfunction to social media's destruction of American solidarity, creating tribal fear that technology will empower “enemy” groups rather than benefit all Americans.The conversation includes Smith's stark warning: Without immediate fiscal austerity, spiraling debt could trigger sovereign default — an economic catastrophe that would require generational recovery. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

When the Soviet Union collapsed, it wasn't the end of history—it was the beginning of capitalism's most seductive experiment. Russia became a Wild East where Big Macs symbolized freedom and suitcases of cash ruled reality. Western corporations flooded Moscow with intoxicating chaos, chasing astronomical returns that seemed too good to be true. They were! Charles Hecker, talks to me about his provocative book "Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia." He explains how corporate greed and willful blindness transformed this capitalist Camelot into Putin's authoritarian trap—a cautionary tale of moral compromise that still tempts businesses today.

Gustavo Arellano is a longtime Los Angeles Times columnist and chronicler of the Latino community. In my recent California Sun podcast he brings his deeply personal perspective to the immigration crackdown unfolding in Los Angeles. He shares observations from the epicenter of protests. Born to a Mexican father who snuck across the border as a teenager, Arellano's voice carries both the weight of historical context and the urgency of someone who sees his community under siege.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year!Also Follow Me on X @jeffs2009 Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

When the Soviet Union collapsed, it wasn't the end of history—it was the beginning of capitalism's most seductive experiment. Russia became a Wild East where Big Macs symbolized freedom and suitcases of cash ruled reality. Western corporations flooded Moscow with intoxicating chaos, chasing astronomical returns that seemed too good to be true. They were! Charles Hecker, talks to me about his provocative book "Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia." He explains how corporate greed and willful blindness transformed this capitalist Camelot into Putin's authoritarian trap—a cautionary tale of moral compromise that still tempts businesses today. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

On this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast I talk with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, historian and author of The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing.He explains how China tells three crucial stories: the story it tells itself to maintain legitimacy, the story it tells the world to project power, and the underground tales that threaten both narratives.Wasserstrom also takes us into the “Milk Tea Alliance” connecting young activists across Asia to the Chinese bookstores now operating in exile in Washington, DC. In doing so, he reveals how ideas of resistance travel across borders even as authoritarianism spreads globally.As Trump faces the challenge of negotiating with Xi, and as China leverages America's own democratic struggles to expand its influence, Wasserstrom offers a way to understand these competing narratives. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

Matthew Specktor, joins me on this California Sun podcast to discuss his new memoir “The Golden Hour.” He offers us a unique perspective on Hollywood's transformation — as both the son of legendary talent agent Fred Specktor and a thoughtful cultural observer, he explains how the movie industry shifted from a close-knit “family business,” where art and commerce balanced, to today's corporate-dominated landscape. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

When we stop thinking, we enable harm. In this WhoWhatWhy podcast Elizabeth Minnich warns us that systemic evils don't need monsters — “it takes all of us” through everyday compliance. I talk with moral philosopher Elizabeth Minnich, who delivers a timely warning about collective thoughtlessness. Building directly on her experience as Hannah Arendt's long-time teaching assistant, Minnich reverses Arendt's famous “banality of evil” thesis. Where Arendt observed how unremarkable Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann appeared during his trial — a conventional man simply “doing his job” — Minnich argues the true danger lies in the “evil of banality”: the way unthinking adherence to clichés, career preservation, and social conformity creates the conditions for extensive harm.

My guest, journalist Jeanne Carstensen uses one devastating 2015 shipwreck to illuminate the global refugee crisis affecting over 100 million displaced people worldwide.In our conversation, she talks of refugees as a self-selecting population—educated professionals like Afghan bankers and Syrian artists who pay smugglers tens of thousands of dollars to escape violence. Their shared dream: reaching safety and rebuilding lives with dignity. Carstensen argues we're witnessing only the beginning of massive global migration, driven by climate change, authoritarianism, and conflict. Contrary to anti-migrant sentiment portraying refugees as society's "dregs," many are middle-class families risking everything for survival. This single story represents countless others in our interconnected world of forced displacement.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It's $8 a month or just $80 for the entire year!Also Follow Me on X @jeffs2009 Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

When we stop thinking, we enable harm. In this WhoWhatWhy podcast Elizabeth Minnich warns us that systemic evils don't need monsters — “it takes all of us” through everyday compliance.I talk with moral philosopher Elizabeth Minnich, who delivers a timely warning about collective thoughtlessness. Building directly on her experience as Hannah Arendt's long-time teaching assistant, Minnich reverses Arendt's famous “banality of evil” thesis.Where Arendt observed how unremarkable Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann appeared during his trial — a conventional man simply “doing his job” — Minnich argues the true danger lies in the “evil of banality”: the way unthinking adherence to clichés, career preservation, and social conformity creates the conditions for extensive harm. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe