Podcasts about White House Office

Everyone wants to know when the next recession is coming. Wall Street watches every data release. Politicians blame their opponents. The Federal Reserve tries to read the tea leaves. And too many commentators treat recessions as if they are an inevitable punishment after a long expansion. But what if much of that conventional wisdom is wrong?In this episode of the Let People Prosper Show, I'm joined by Dr. Tyler Goodspeed, Chief Economist at ExxonMobil and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, to discuss his new book, Recession: The Real Reasons Economies Shrink and What to Do about It.Tyler brings a rare combination of economic history, macroeconomic expertise, and real-world policymaking experience. He served as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the first Trump administration and previously served as Vice Chairman and Chief Economist for Macroeconomic Policy. We overlapped during my time at the White House Office of Management and Budget, where these debates were not academic. They shaped real decisions affecting millions of Americans. With dual PhDs in economics and history, Tyler has the long-run perspective needed to challenge the easy stories politicians tell about downturns. The goal should not be for the government to micromanage the economy. The goal should be to understand what actually causes downturns, avoid making them worse, and build the conditions for stronger long-run growth.

Keisha Lance Bottoms has served as senior advisor to former President Joe Biden, leading the transformation of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and acting as a liaison and media surrogate. Before joining the White House, she worked with CNN as a political commentator based in Atlanta, Georgia, where she served in all three branches of government, as judge, council member, and mayor. She is now running for governor and recently released her new memoir, The Rough Side of the Mountain. Keisha joins me for an inspiring conversation about her life, campaign, and overcoming challenges on the road to success. Got somethin' to say?! Email us at BackroomAndy@gmail.com Leave us a message: 845-307-7446 Twitter: @AndyOstroy Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud @ Radio Free Rhiniecliff Design by Cricket Lengyel

What does it take to rebuild trust in a public health institution, and can listening be a leadership strategy? Virginia State Health Commissioner Dr. B Cameron Webb explored these questions as he stepped into his role earlier this year, beginning his tenure with a statewide listening tour. Dr. Webb shares what Virginians told him was standing between them and being healthy, how he's translating community voice into action inside a 3,200-person agency, and why trust is one of the most critical commodities in public health. He also digs into Virginia's recently released 2025–2029 Plan for Well-Being, what it means to lead through federal funding uncertainty, and how Dr. Webb is rebuilding morale inside a department that has had its own healing to do.  Dr. B. Cameron Webb is the Virginia State Health Commissioner. He previously served as a White House fellow and was a senior advisor for the White House Office of COVID-19 Response. He has advised on public health policy, access to care, and prescription drug pricing. Dr. Webb was also an assistant professor of medicine and public health science at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.   More Links and Information  Check out more Fors Marsh MediaConnect or partner with Fors MarshExplore the Virginia Department of HealthRead up on Virginia's Plan for Well-Being 2025–2026

A secret White House office copies vote.govMillions face losing Medicaid over red tapeWho funds Congress's Israel tripsPlus mosquitoes and a mayor who repealed bedtimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Episode 241 of Payne Points of Wealth, Ryan, Chris, and Bob Payne sit down with Ashley Davis, partner at S‑3 Group and former White House insider, to unpack a remarkable career at the highest levels of government. Ashley shares how she went from a young staffer to employee #1 of the White House Office of Homeland Security in the wake of 9/11, offering a firsthand account of that pivotal day, the chaos that followed, and the creation of one of the most important agencies in modern U.S. history. From the inner workings of the West Wing to today's political climate, Ashley delivers candid insights on leadership, policy, polarization, and what it really takes to navigate Washington. This is a powerful conversation about resilience, decision-making under pressure, and the lessons that still apply far beyond politics.

Our guest today is Mike ter Maat. Mike has just released the book “Broken”. He is a PhD Economist and former Police Officer currently spearheading a strategic program to expand the Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC). With a professional background that includes the White House Office of Management and Budget and over a decade in law enforcement, he specializes in identifying and fixing the structural failures within American institutions. Tell us about your new book, “Broken: How American Politics Is Driving Civil Unrest, Financial Collapse & War. Talk to us about the Republican Liberty Caucus. How do you see the "Liberty" wing of the party acting as a firewall against 2A overreach? With your experience at the White House Office of Management and Budget, what are the specific administrative "pressure points" that the RLC and the 2A community should be targeting for reform? You've been a PhD economist and a training officer on the streets. How does your book BROKEN explain the current rise in civil unrest, and why is a principled Republican movement the key to stopping it? You argue that our political incentives are broken. What is the first step a "Strategic Consultant" for the country would take to restore the rule of law and the right to self-defense? How do people follow you? Originally Aired 6.11.26

After spending time in the Obama White House, Kumar Garg came away with a toolset of skills to help drive change, spotlight good ideas and scale them. Now he's applying those ideas to philanthropy. As the co-founders of Renaissance Philanthropy, Kumar and Tom Kalil have built an organization around a deceptively simple idea: What if philanthropy could help scientists, technologists, and innovators think bigger — and then actually fund the work at the scale required?Kumar and Claudia dive into:Renaissance Philanthropy's approach: time bound and thesis driven fundingHow Kumar would spend $500 million on health right nowHow public health and academics could think biggerKumar's intriguing ‘open notebook' idea:“It's very valuable to me if a researcher has the equivalent of an open notebook. These are all the ideas… Here's my active research projects. Here's all the interesting sort of experiments I've done… you can imagine then sending an agent out and read[ing] people's open notebook.. it would be a way to discover people's work.”Relevant LinksLearn more about Renaissance PhilanthropyGet info on the Big If True Science Accelerator (BITS)See a photo of Kumar's White House white board on TwitterAbout Our GuestsKumar Garg is the President at Renaissance Philanthropy.Kumar has helped to shape the science and tech landscape for almost two decades. Working with Eric Schmidt, he helped design and launch moonshot initiatives in education, provided early support to game-changing ideas and pioneers, and built ongoing multi-donor and multi-sector collaboratives.Prior to that, he helped set budget and policy priorities for the Obama Administration as part of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and drove progress on topics ranging from education and workforce issues, biotechnology, entrepreneurship, space, advanced manufacturing, broadband, nanotechnology, behavioral sciences, digital media, incentive prizes, and broader innovation policy.In particular, he led the Obama Administration's efforts to bolster science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, including development of major budget and policy initiatives in the State of the Union to train 100,000 excellent STEM teachers and bring computer science to all K-12 students, development of the Educate to Innovate campaign with over $1 billion in in-kind and philanthropic investment, and creation of iconic events such as the White House Science Fair.Prior to his time in government, Kumar worked on behalf of parents and children seeking educational reform as an education lawyer and advocate. Kumar received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a law degree from Yale Law School.SourceConnect With UsFor more information on The Other 80 please visit our website - www.theother80.com. To connect with our team, please email claudia@theother80.com and follow us on twitter @claudiawilliams and LinkedInSubscribe to The Other 80 on YouTube so you never miss our video extras or special video episodes!

Everyone wants more housing, more clean energy, more transit, more care infrastructure, and more of the things people need to live good lives. But too much of the “abundance” debate treats workers, unions, environmental review, and community voice as obstacles to building — instead of asking who has power, who benefits, and who gets left out. This week, Goldy and Paul talk with Columbia professors Kate Andrias and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez about their Roosevelt Institute report, Democratic Abundance: An Abundance That Works for Workers. They argue that the problem isn't too much democracy — it's too little. If we want to build at the scale this moment demands, we need an abundance agenda that puts workers, communities, and democratic power at the center from the start. Kate Andrias is the Patricia D. and R. Paul Yetter Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and serves as co-director of both the Columbia Law School Center for Constitutional Governance and the Columbia Labor Lab. Previously, she served as associate counsel and special assistant to President Barack Obama and as chief of staff in the White House Counsel's Office. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is an associate professor and vice dean at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and serves as co-director of the Columbia Labor Lab. From 2021 to 2023, he served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Labor and a senior fellow in the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Further reading:  Report: Democratic Abundance: An Abundance That Works for Workers The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics TikTok: @pitchfork_econ YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer Substack: ⁠The Pitch⁠

This week I'm sharing the fourth and final installment from the day-long conference convened by the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) at Johns Hopkins SAIS on April 3rd in Washington — “The China Debate We're Not Having: Politics, Technology, and the Road Ahead.” The first three episodes featured Jessica Chen Weiss's opening remarks and the panels on what China wants, what the United States wants, and tech rivalry and competing visions of the future. This final installment is a fireside conversation between Henry Farrell and Alondra Nelson, followed by Jessica's closing remarks.Once again, my deep thanks to Jessica Chen Weiss, ACF's inaugural faculty director, for organizing this terrific conference and for so generously letting me share this audio with Sinica listeners.Henry Farrell, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs at SAIS, sits down with Alondra Nelson — Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and former Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy — for what turns out to be the day's most generative reframing of the AI race. Henry begins by asking how it is that ideas once confined to 1980s science fiction — the singularity, AGI, brains-in-vats — have come to anchor mainstream American AI policy discourse. Alondra traces the genealogy back to the “Californian ideology” and the long history of outré thinking in Silicon Valley, but her real point is that something has shifted: U.S. negative sentiment around AI has been climbing and plateauing high since 2022, even as adoption has spread — the opposite of the usual technology-acceptance curve, and the opposite of what's happening in China, Nigeria, or Brazil.From there the conversation opens up into what I found to be its richest vein: the contrast between a Cartesian, disembodied American conception of AI — “we're working on the brains,” as Sam Altman put it when OpenAI shut down its robotics team in 2022 — and a more embodied approach that integrates the cognitive and the physical, which is part of what's powered China's advances in advanced manufacturing and robotics. Alondra is sharp on the costs of the brain-in-a-vat framing: it treats AI as a state of exception in which existing laws and institutions somehow don't apply, and it lets us float aspirational claims (”AI will cure cancer”) that elide all the clunky institutional stewardship actually required to get from aspiration to outcome.She also offers an incisive reading of the Trump administration's AI policy — which, she argues, is misleadingly described as “deregulatory.” Between export controls, the golden share in Intel, immigration restrictions on STEM talent, and the administration's tight stewardship of who wins and who loses in the AI ecosystem, this is industrial policy by another name — and a narrowing of democratic input over decisions of enormous infrastructural consequence.The conversation closes with Henry asking what a small-d democratic successor administration ought to do, and Alondra's answer is bracingly practical: get rid of the state of exception, take the material supply chain of AI seriously (data centers, electricity, critical minerals, communities), let state-level policy generate evidence about what works, and aim for high-watermark aspirations — North Stars, in the spirit of the AI Bill of Rights — rather than pretending the technology itself will deliver our values.Jessica then offers her closing remarks, thanking the panelists, previewing the ACF Insights Series, and putting out the call for new junior fellows at the Institute.Participants:Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study; former Director, White House Office of Science and Technology PolicyHenry Farrell, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs, Johns Hopkins SAISClosing remarks: Jessica Chen Weiss, David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies and Inaugural Faculty Director, ACFSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Research Director at Lawfare, and Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, spoke with Dean Ball, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, about the Trump administration's reported plans to vet frontier AI models before public release.They discussed how Anthropic's Mythos model reshaped the administration's posture on AI risk; why the executive branch lacks clear legal authority for a mandatory pre-deployment vetting regime; the voluntary "kick the tires" framework Frazier and Ball have proposed using CAISI and the Cyber Resilience Fund; whether an FDA-style licensing regime is ultimately inevitable for frontier AI; and the institutional design challenges of building AI oversight that can scale with rapidly improving model capabilities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Science Policy IRL, we talk to people in science policy about what they do and how they got there. In this installment, we're exploring how science policy works from both inside and outside the government. Host Monya Baker is joined by Kumar Garg, president of Renaissance Philanthropy, an organization that helps philanthropists support science, technology and innovation. Prior to joining Renaissance Philanthropy, Garg trained as a lawyer and served in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He shares how he has spent his career finding, funding, and implementing ideas both within the government and outside it via philanthropy, which is uniquely positioned to pilot “big, if true” ideas. ResourcesLearn more about Renaissance Philanthropy by visiting their website and listening to Garg's interview on how philanthropy can fuel scientific innovation. Visit the NIH Brain Initiative website for more information on the initiative. See Team Kalil's white board with more advice on how to get things done.

April 21, 2026 ~ Vance Ginn, Ginn Economic Consulting and Former Chief Economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget joins Kelly Cobb and Kaitlyn Cobb in for Paul W Smith. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What actually holds a nation together when everything feels like it's coming apart?This week, Jenn sits down with Tim Goeglein to unpack the convictions behind his new book, What Really Matters: Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and FamilyDrawing from history, culture, and personal experience, Goeglein makes a clear case: the future of freedom rises or falls on the strength of faith, family, and character.He challenges the quiet erosion of the American family, pointing out that when marriage weakens, everything downstream feels it. Strong families don't just benefit children. They stabilize communities, shape responsible men, and preserve the conditions where liberty can survive.You'll hear why restoring fatherhood is central to rebuilding culture, how faith once anchored public life in ways we've largely forgotten, and what it takes to recover a legacy worth handing down.If you're looking for clarity in a noisy moment and a vision that looks beyond headlines to long-term cultural health, this conversation delivers.Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/4moiGsa---------------------------------------------------------Bio: Tim Goeglein is Vice President of External and Government Relations for Focus on the Family. Formerly, he served as a special assistant to President George W. Bush and as a deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. He was the President's principal outreach contact for conservative and faith-based groups. Tim's extensive resumé includes serving as a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and as a communications director for U.S. Senator Dan Coats of Indiana and Gary Bauer at the Campaign for Working Families. Tim has authored a memoir, The Man in the Middle: Faith and Politics in the George W. Bush Era, and his latest book is titled American Restoration. He and his wife, Jenny, have two sons.

The first panel discussion from the Gray Center's Fall 2025 conference featuring: James Burnham, King Street Legal, and formerly of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Susan Dudley, former Administrator, White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; Founder & Senior Scholar, GW Regulatory Studies Center; Distinguished Professor of Practice, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy […]

The first panel discussion from the Gray Center's Fall 2025 conference featuring: James Burnham, King Street Legal, and formerly of the U.S. Department of Government EfficiencySusan Dudley, former Administrator, White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; Founder & Senior Scholar, GW Regulatory Studies Center; Distinguished Professor of Practice, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public AdministrationLisa Heinzerling, Georgetown University Law CenterModerator: Mene Ukueberuwa, Wall Street Journal

In This Episode Erin and Weer'd discuss: the ATF not backing off from enforcing the Pistol Brace Ban, despite the courts having stayed and vacated it; a Federal court blocking (again?) New York from gaining access to social media  as a requirement for concealed carry permits; a historical look at concealed carry and non-resident travelers from the early days of the United States, courtesy of Alan Beck at The Reload; Maura Healey trying to appear pro-hunting for some reason. Wee'd fisks David Hogg talking about the anniversary of the Parkland shooting; and David talks about the new parts in his latest AR Build! Did you know that we have a Patreon? Join now for the low, low cost of $4/month (that's $1/podcast) and you'll get to listen to our podcast on Friday instead of Mondays, as well as patron-only content like mag dump episodes, our hilarious blooper reels and film tracks. Main Topic DOJ Legal Filing Renews Concerns About ATF's Posture on Braced Pistols Federal Court Blocks New York's Social Media Requirement for Carry Permits  OBS: Victory in Antonyuk v. Nigrelli Analysis: People Transporting Guns Have Long Enjoyed Broad Protection Under the Law Massachusetts Governor Mocked for Trying to Look Pro-Hunting After Anti-2A Attacks Weer'd Audio Fisk David Hogg- It's been 8 years since Parkland Parkland Shooting Suspect: A Story Of Red Flags, Ignored Families of Florida school massacre victims settle lawsuit against federal government 25 Things We Learned about Young Voters in 2025 Court says banning gun sales to young adults under 21 is unconstitutional The Legacy of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Hogg declines to run again for DNC vice chair after new election is called ACP Bonus: The Bloomberg Conspiracy Duck and Cover: Bert the Turtle UPDATED 2: A Deep Dive into Cases Where Civilians Stopped Active Shooters. Did they accidentally shoot bystanders, get in the way of police, get their gun taken away, or create other problems? How does it compare to police who stopped these attacks? Safest States in America Gun Lovers and Other Strangers We Have An AR At Home, Part 1 We Have An AR At Home, Part 2 We Have An AR At Home, Part 3 We Have An AR At Home, Part 4 We Have An AR At Home, Part 5 We Have An AR At Home, Part 6 We Have An AR At Home, Part 7 Building an AR PCC Rainier Arms Armorer Wrench AR15 Gas Block Pinning Jig Manticore Arms Devil Dog Concepts Thril Thril Bantam Stock Installation (YouTube) Parts is Parts Brena Bock Author Page David Bock Author Page Team And More ACP Bingo Weer'dingo Eringo  

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers in America and around the world:Anxiety is running rampant about the future of artificial intelligence and its place in society. When technology CEOs warn of an impending white-collar jobpocalypse (or jobageddon, if you prefer), it's no wonder public pessimism is so widespread. Today on Faster, Please!—The Podcast, I chat with tech policy analyst Dean Ball to help us sift through some of the uncertainty.We talk about recursive self-improvement, the role of AI in everything from medicine to defense, and what to think about the possible growing risk of AI company nationalization.(FYI: Our chat occurred just before the White House released new guidelines for AI federal legislation, about which Ball opined on X/Twitter: “The White House's proposal for a nationwide AI law is a thoughtful document that will serve as an excellent foundation for the legislative work ahead. I would be happy to see these principles, if translated well into statute, become law.”) Ball is a senior fellow at FAI, the Foundation for American Innovation. He recently served as senior policy advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as strategic advisor for AI at the National Science Foundation. He was previously a research fellow at the Mercatus Center and a policy fellow at Fathom. He's also the author of the excellent Hyperdimensional Substack newsletter.In This Episode* Public pessimism (1:37)* Differing narratives (4:21)* The nationalization risk (16:15)* Accountability via audit (25:55)* Productivity projection (34:18)(A lightly edited transcript of our conversation will be appear in my Week in Review issue on Saturday. Another option is using the Substack auto transcript function.)On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

U.S. government agencies continued to have low compliance with a statute designed to ensure that federal websites, software, and other products are accessible for people with disabilities, according to a recent federal review. In a new report, the General Services Administration found that alignment with the accessibility statute known as Section 508 was a 1.96 on a 5-point scale, continuing a trend of lacking compliance. GSA reported that roughly half of agencies didn't review accessibility for their most-used information and communication technology tools, and the majority of agencies don't conduct usability testing with people who have disabilities before resources are deployed or published. The poor compliance showing follows similar findings from past GSA reviews and indicates that more work is needed to help agencies comply. As a result, GSA concluded its report with recommendations that Congress both update the statute to clarify requirements and strengthen enforcement and oversight of agency compliance. The annual report is required by statute and was prepared in consultation with the White House Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Access Board, an independent agency that establishes Section 508 standards. The report includes responses from 212 agencies, parent agencies, and other components. Its publication follows changes to the review process aimed at reducing the reporting burden on agencies. The top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is demanding a full, independent investigation into new reports of DOGE representatives improperly accessing and transferring Social Security Administration data. In a press release sent Tuesday, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said “new disclosures revealed DOGE personnel may have broken federal law and exposed Americans' most sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers.” The release came shortly after the Washington Post reported that an SSA whistleblower said a former DOGE engineer put sensitive information from two agency databases — Numident and the Master Death File — on a thumb drive and planned to share that data with his private-sector employer. Democracy Forward, which represents several labor groups in a lawsuit against SSA over DOGE's “unprecedented data grab,” filed a notice of factual development Tuesday in response to the Post's reporting. The new court filing said the revelations in the article “are consistent with the substantial issues … of disclosures beyond SSA and the federal government as a whole and the ongoing risk of further disclosures of such uncontrolled data.” Peters' press release references the Post's story, but also highlights a January court filing from the Department of Justice that disclosed the use of an unapproved third-party server and communication between DOGE and an advocacy group seeking “evidence of voter fraud.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Yascha Mounk and Dean Ball examine how the fight over autonomous weapons and mass surveillance reveals the impossible choices facing American AI policy. Dean W. Ball served as Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he was the primary staff drafter of America's AI Action Plan. He writes the AI-focused newsletter Hyperdimensional. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Dean Ball discuss the clash between Anthropic and the Department of War over AI usage restrictions, why mass domestic surveillance capabilities make AI governance so challenging, and how to regulate transformative technologies under conditions of radical uncertainty. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following ⁠this link on your phone⁠. Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! ⁠Spotify⁠ | ⁠Apple⁠ | ⁠Google⁠ X: ⁠@Yascha_Mounk⁠ & ⁠@JoinPersuasion⁠ YouTube: ⁠Yascha Mounk⁠, ⁠Persuasion⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As electricity affordability has risen in the public consciousness, so too has it gone up the priority list for climate groups — although many of their proposals are merely repackaged talking points from past political cycles. But are there risks of talking about affordability so much, and could it distract us from the real issues with the power system?Rob is joined by Jane Flegal, a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute and the States Forum. Flegal was the former senior director for industrial emissions at the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, and she has worked on climate policy at Stripe. She was recently executive director of the Blue Horizons Foundation.Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.You can find a full transcript of the episode here.Mentioned:Cheap and Abundant Electricity Is Good, by Jane FlegalFrom Heatmap: Will Virtual Power Plants Ever Really Be a Thing?Previously on Shift Key: How California Broke Its Electricity Bills and How Texas Could Destroy Its Electricity Market--This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …Heatmap Pro brings all of our research, reporting, and insights down to the local level. The software platform tracks all local opposition to clean energy and data centers, forecasts community sentiment, and guides data-driven engagement campaigns. today to see the premier intelligence platform for project permitting and community engagement. Book a demo today to see the premier intelligence platform for project permitting and community engagement.Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A couple of months ago, I joined the Canadian government's AI strategy task force. Out of thirty members, I was one of only four focused on safety. Everyone else was there to talk growth. It reflects a pattern playing out all over the world: we're going all in on AI, and regulation will only slow us down. It's hard to overstate how quickly this shift happened. Just a few years ago, even Elon Musk was calling for an industry-wide pause on AI development, and the Biden administration was developing an “AI Bill of Rights” – one of the most thoughtful and comprehensive frameworks for AI regulation I've ever seen. The architect of that initiative was Dr. Alondra Nelson. Today, she leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study and is fresh off a stint on Zohran Mamdani's mayoral transition team in New York. I wanted to have her on to wrestle with an urgent question: how do you make a technology safe when nobody seems particularly interested in regulating it – and what might happen if we don't? Mentioned: Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work for the American People, by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy The mirage of AI deregulation, by Alondra Nelson (Science) International AI Safety Report 2026, by Yoshua Bengio et al Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

U.S. Tech Corps announced by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Maryland Tech Council to host 7th Annual Technology Transformation Conference  Listen to my latest podcast here  

Keith Humphreys is the Esther Ting Memorial Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His research addresses addictive disorders and the translation of science into public policy.  In addition to over 400 scientific publications, he has written extensively for outlets like The Washington Post and The Atlantic.Dr. Humphreys' public policy work includes testimonies to U.S. House and Senate Committees, to the Canadian and U.K. parliaments, and in many state legislatures. He served on the White House Commission on Drug-Free Communities during the Bush Administration and as Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Obama. He created and co-directs the Stanford Network on Addiction Policy, which brings scientists and policy makers together to improve public policies regarding addictive substances. To recognize his service to addiction-related scholarship and policy, Queen Elizabeth II made him an Honorary Officer in the Order of the British Empire in 2022.Dr. Keith Humphreys' WebsiteSupport the show

Adobe Images On our radar this week… Taco Trump went to Davos intent on taking over Greenland or Iceland (depending on the moment) … calls our allies stupid and worthless … and comes home with the “concept of a framework for a future agreement” that amounts to little more than total surrender to a united Europe. That, after a one-hour rambling, disjointed speech to the assembled world leaders who watched in stunned silence. Trump's really bad week continued at home with a series of defeats: His beauty pageant runner up is forced to resign after a federal court reminds her that she was not, in fact, the U.S. Attorney for northern Virginia The Supreme Court seems poised to veto his efforts to stack the federal reserve with stooges Former special counsel Jack Smith verbally filleted Trump, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee in detail about the case proving “beyond a reasonable doubt” it was Trump who instigated the January 6 insurrection in an effort to overturn the 2020 election Another federal court struck down the blatantly unconstitutional tactics used by ICE in Minneapolis A newly uncovered ICE memo directing Trump's goon squad to break down doors without a warrant has put “Homeland Barbie” Kristi Noem on the defensive … again In Michigan, legislation has been introduced pushing back on ICE tactics by designating no-arrest zones, prohibiting masking of law enforcement with common-sense exceptions, and prohibiting the release of government information to ICE without a judicial warrant Michigan's research universities are pushing back on Trump efforts to effectively stifle free speech on college campuses. We talk with University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker about the challenges facing one of the world's leading research institutions. Acker is Mark’s longtime friend and law partner at the Goodman Acker law firm. Prior to law school, Jordan worked as a communications aide to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. After law school, he served as an associate in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel before being appointed by President Obama to be an attorney-advisor to Secretary Janet Napolitano at the Department of Homeland Security. While at DHS, Jordan worked on cyber, immigration and other homeland security issues. He was elected to the UM Board of Regents in 2018. Acker was named one of Crains Detroit 40 under 40 in 2020, Michigan Lawyers Weekly Up and Coming Lawyers, and is an alum of the non-partisan Michigan Political Leadership Program Fellowship at Michigan State University. Since joining the University of Michigan Board of Regents, he has focused on reforming sexual misconduct reporting and adjudication at the University, NCAA reform, including the future of NIL, expanding the Go Blue Guarantee, and making the University affordable for Michiganders. We’re now on YouTube every week! Click here to subscribe. A Republic, If You Can Keep It is sponsored by © Clay Jones/claytoonz.com  

What does the future of science look like in a rapidly changing Arctic? And how can global scientific collaboration advance climate resilience and sustainable solutions?Joining the conversation are:Dr. Abdulla Al Mandous, President, World Meteorological OrganizationProfessor Dame Angela McLean, UK Government Chief Scientific AdviserProfessor John Holdren, Co-Chair of the Harvard Kennedy School's Arctic Initiative; and Science Advisor for President Obama & Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2009-2017)Moderating was Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland 2017-2024; and Chair of the Arctic Circle Polar Dialogue.This Session was recorded live at the 2025 Arctic Circle Assembly, held in Reykjavík, Iceland, from October 16th to 18th.Arctic Circle is the largest network of international dialogue and cooperation on the future of the Arctic. It is an open democratic platform with participation from governments, organizations, corporations, universities, think tanks, environmental associations, Indigenous communities, concerned citizens, and others interested in the development of the Arctic and its consequences for the future of the globe. It is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. Learn more about Arctic Circle at www.ArcticCircle.org or contact us at secretariat@arcticcircle.orgTWITTER:@_Arctic_CircleFACEBOOK:The Arctic CircleINSTAGRAM:arctic_circle_org

In this episode of The Politics & Risk Podcast, The Council's senior vice president of government affairs, Joel Kopperud, and Audra Jackson, director of government affairs, are joined by Matt Kirk, head of North American retail placement at Acrisure. Jackson and Kirk both served in White House Office of Legislative Affairs, respectively during the Biden and George W. Bush administrations. They share unique stories from the White House spanning from Sept. 11 to the passage of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act to Jan. 6.

My guest today is Cass R. Sunstein, University Professor at Harvard and one of the most influential legal and political thinkers of our time. A prolific author of dozens of books and hundreds of academic articles, Cass has shaped debates in constitutional law, administrative law, behavioral economics, and public policy. He is regularly ranked amongst the very top of the most cited legal scholars alive. Cass also served as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Obama. He has advised governments and international organizations around the world, and was awarded the Holberg Prize, the equivalent of a Nobel in law and the humanities.His latest book, On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom, is a systematic defense of the liberal tradition at a moment when it is, as he shows, under unprecedented pressure. Our conversation is centered around his book. We begin with the urgency at the heart of the book: how liberalism confronts critiques from moral conservatives and egalitarian progressives alike, what it means to defend the liberal framework in an era of fragmentation, etc. We then turn to questions of scaling: does liberalism have internal patterns or institutional mechanisms that allow it to scale across diverse societies. We grapple with how the liberal tradition's “big tent” of thinkers (from Mill and Hayek to Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights) impact liberalism ability to scale. We also explore how liberalism navigates technological change, expertise versus public accountability, and the pretence of knowledge. I hope you enjoy our discussion.You can follow me on X (@⁠⁠ProfSchrepel⁠⁠) and BlueSky (@⁠⁠ProfSchrepel⁠⁠).**References:On Liberalism (MIT Press, 2025) https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049771/on-liberalism/

As part of the Trump 2.0: From Platform to Policy webinar series last year, National Journal editor-in-chief Jeff Dufour talked to Dean Ball, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former Senior Policy Advisor on AI and Emerging Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. They discuss the topic of reshaping federal AI strategy and the Trump administration's AI plan.

The Trump administration is withdrawing the United States from a handful of international organizations that work to strengthen cybersecurity. As part of a broader pullback from 66 international organizations, the administration is leaving the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, the Online Freedom Coalition and the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Trump's decision is in line with a president who has expressed hostility toward the existing international order, an approach critics fear creates a leadership power vacuum for U.S. adversaries to fill. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Thursday: “The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation's sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity.” Rubio criticized the international organizations over “DEI mandates,” “‘gender equity' campaigns” and activities that “constrain American sovereignty.” The National Quantum Initiative has another chance at reauthorization under the latest iteration of bipartisan legislation introduced Thursday. Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Todd Young, R-Ind., are again sponsoring a bill that would authorize new funding to support quantum research and development at federal science agencies after aspects of the program lapsed in September 2023. The National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act would provide support for five more years of the coordinated efforts at agencies, including $85 million per year for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and $25 million per year for NASA. The National Science Foundation and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy would also play key roles. Introduction of the new legislation comes after past attempts at reauthorization failed to pass Congress. The previous Senate reauthorization introduced in 2024 didn't advance out of committee and a House bill from 2023 was unanimously approved by a committee but later stalled. Quantum continues to be a promising and globally competitive area for R&D as researchers work toward advancements in quantum computing. Once fully realized, quantum computing poses potential for both major advancements and challenges for cybersecurity. The initial establishment of the National Quantum Initiative in 2018 was bipartisan recognition that the U.S. needed its own cross-government strategy to coordinate R&D efforts in the public and private sector. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

We assume the internet is a resilient, always-on utility. But is it?  Today, the principles that made the Internet an open, unified platform are under threat. Why? Simply put, because of a convergence of policy overreach and technical mandates that threaten to create a slow, expensive, and insecure “splinternet.” This threat is complicated by a push for “digital sovereignty”, as was most recently on display at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), where the core principles of openness, multi-stakeholder governance, and decentralization were challenged. How do we preserve the utility we all rely on from being choked, fragmented, and/or controlled? Join us for a conversation with Sally Wentworth, the President and CEO of the Internet Society (ISOC). Formerly the Assistant Director for Telecommunications and Information Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and a leading voice in bridging the gap between technical experts and global policymakers. Hosted by: Alexa Raad and Leslie Daigle. Further reading: Russia blocks Snapchat and restricts Apple's FaceTime, state officials say How Pakistan Accidentally Took Down YouTube for the World in 2008 The PRC's Evolving Cyber Laws and Implications for Southeast Asia's Digital Economy and Integration The Fight to Overturn FOSTA, an Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law, Continues Statement on behalf of the Internet Society at WSIS+20 HLM The views and opinions expressed in this program are our own and may not reflect the views or positions of our employers.

Kevin Sabet, an American drug policy scholar, is the only person appointed to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in both Republican (George W. Bush) and Democratic (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton) administrations. He was also an assistant professor adjunct at Yale University Medical School's Institution for Social and Policy Studies. Ann […]

Kevin Sabet, an American drug policy scholar, is the only person appointed to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in both Republican (George W. Bush) and Democratic (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton) administrations. He was also an assistant professor adjunct at Yale University Medical School's Institution for Social and Policy Studies.Ann interviews him about his latest book, One Nation Under the Influence which covers the "micro-dosing" fad in Silicon Valley; the results of "Harm Reduction" policies in Oregon, San Francisco, and Canada and what about drug legalization in Portugal? AND MORE!

In this week's episode, both of our storytellers look back on moments that might have deserved a little more drama than they got at the time.Part 1: When Jess Nurse feels a throbbing pain in her gut, she chalks it up to heartbreak. Part 2: When Maryam Zaringhalam's physician mother goes in for brain surgery, everyone insists there's nothing to worry about.Jess Nurse is a Boston born, NYU graduate and Los Angeles transplant. Her writing career began at the tender age of eight when she wrote a play about a horse, hosted a play reading and no one came. Devastating. She's still working through it. An actor as well, she has guest starred on several TV shows (Quantum Leap, The Resident, Danger Force) and regularly pops up on the commercials of those shows. Very meta. Very multiverse. Jess wants to thank her superhero friends, her Mom and Dad, her sisters Lizzy and Becky and her sweet niece Feather who is already cuter than the cutest Pixar baby. For more of her face and funnies: @jessisnotanurse. Maryam Zaringhalam is a molecular biologist by training who traded in her pipettes for the world of science policy and advocacy. She's on a mission to make science more open and inclusive through her work both as a science communicator and policymaker. She's a Senior Producer for the Story Collider in DC and previously served as the Assistant Director for Public Access and Research Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2023 to 2024. She has a cat named Tesla, named after the scientist and not the car. You can learn more about her at https://webmz.nyc.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we're bringing you an episode of The Journal, produced by Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. In this episode, recorded at WSJ's Tech Live, host Jessica Mendoza sits down with Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to discuss everything from chips to chatbots, how Kratsios thinks AI should be regulated, and whether or not the AI boom might be a bubble. To watch the video version of this episode, visit our WSJ Podcasts YouTube channel or the video page of WSJ.com. Check Out Past Episodes: Condoleezza Rice on Beating China in the Tech Race: 'Run Hard and Run Fast' Reid Hoffman Says AI Isn't an ‘Arms Race,' but America Needs to Win Why This Investor Says the AI Boom Isn't the Next Dot-Com Crash How the U.S. Stacks Up to China's ‘Engineering State' Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at BoldNames@wsj.com. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Read Christopher Mims's Keywords column. Read Tim Higgins's column.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The push for a federal standard on AI is back. With support from President Trump, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is looking to add an effective ban on state-level AI regulation to the end of year National Defense Authorization Act. Despite the White House's backing and strong support from the tech  industry, the effort is facing bipartisan pushback, including from Republican governors like Florida's Ron DeSantis and Democrats in Congress.The battle is shaping up to be a redux of the moratorium effort from the summer, when a ban on state AI rules came close, but failed to make it into the One Big Beautiful Bill. While that preemption effort didn't come with any federal standards in its place, this time proponents of federal preemption are working to assure skeptics that this won't just be a ban on state rules, but will establish some federal safeguards on AI safety and child protection.Can Congress agree to create a national standard that goes beyond simply telling states what they can't do? Have the politics changed much since July when the prior effort failed? Will proposed safeguards be enough to move skeptics and those concerned about AI's societal impact?Evan is joined by Dean Ball, senior fellow at FAI. Previously, he was Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the primary staff drafter of America's AI Action Plan. He is the author of the Hyperdimensional Substack, where his work focuses on emerging technologies and the future of governance.

In the second installment of The Nuclear Threshold mini-series, we turn from missile defense to the human side of nuclear risk — the people, protocols, and split-second judgments that determine whether nuclear weapons are ever used. While deterrence is often framed as a stable system, history tells a far messier story: false alarms, malfunctioning sensors, training tapes mistaken for real attacks, and leaders operating under extreme pressure.Our guest, Dr. Steve Fetter — Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Maryland, former Assistant Director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board — walks us through how nuclear launch authority actually works inside the U.S. system. We explore why the president has sole authority, why that concentration of power is riskier than most Americans realize, and how “launch-on-warning” creates a decision window measured in minutes.Steve breaks down famous near-miss incidents, the vulnerabilities of command-and-control systems, and his proposal to require concurrence from other top officials before any nuclear order is carried out. The conversation is grounded, accessible, and quietly unsettling — a reminder that deterrence relies on human beings who can make mistakes.This episode asks a deceptively simple question with civilization-level implications:How safe is a system that depends on one person getting everything right?

The future of AI may be decided in backyards. Data Centers—the sprawling facilities designed to support the massive computing required to train and run AI models—are being built across the country. One estimate sees more than $1 trillion dollars in capital spending on data centers in the next four years. And they use electricity—a lot of it. While data centers can bring construction jobs,  tax revenue, and economic development to their communities, they also bring complaints about power and water usage, noise pollution, and architectural blight.Debates are raging from town halls to the halls of Congress. Yes, politicians want the US to lead the world in AI, but elected officials, particularly local ones, are hearing from constituents concerned about data centers, including the potential to raise electric bills. The decisions being made right now in places like Northern Virginia, Umatilla, Oregon, and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, will determine whether AI infrastructure is scaled quickly, or whether a backlash slows it down. If done right, data centers can bring world-class tech capabilities, lower electricity prices, energy abundance, and local tax revenue. Done poorly, we see working class Americans paying more for power, the electric grid struggling, and the potential for the American public to turn sour on data canters en masse.So what do people need to know about data centers to make informed decisions? What really is the impact of data centers on water and electricity? What should policymakers in Washington do, if anything, about these debates? And are there ways to balance legitimate local concerns without hamstringing a strategic imperative?Evan is joined by Asad Ramzanali, Director of Artificial Intelligence & Technology Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. He was previously Chief of Staff at the White House Office of Science and Tech Policy under President Biden and Legislative Director to former Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA). You can read his recent op-ed on data centers here. Evan is also joined by Daniel King, Research Fellow at FAI where he focuses on the energy and security dimensions of artificial intelligence. Daniel completed Master's studies in Statistics & Data Science at Yale University and earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Brown University. Check out his substack on AI and energy, Policy Gradients.

This week, we talk about Google's new plan to build data centers in space. Then, we're joined by Dean Ball, a former adviser at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Ball worked on the Trump administration's A.I. Action Plan, and he shares his inside view on how those policies came together. Finally, Professor Mark Humphries joins us to talk about a strange Gemini model that offered mind-blowing results on a challenging research problem. Guests:Dean Ball, senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former White House senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence and emerging technologyMark Humphries, professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier UniversityAdditional Reading: Towards a Future Space-Based, Highly Scalable A.I. Infrastructure System DesignWhat It's Like to Work at the White House Has Google Quietly Solved Two of AI's Oldest Problems? We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The Army is initiating massive organizational reforms for how it buys new weapons and capabilities in an effort to drastically shorten procurement timelines and promote innovation, according to top service officials. Announced Friday, the Army's acquisition portfolio overhaul will consolidate the service's program executive offices (PEOs) responsible for buying new weapons into six new offices called “portfolio acquisition executives” (PAEs). The plan also creates a new office dedicated to rapidly injecting and scaling emerging technologies into Army formations. The transformation comes after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced his intent to revamp acquisition processes across the entire Pentagon on Nov. 7, as well as an April directive from Hegseth that called on the Army to consolidate many aspects of the service — including its procurement organizations. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told reporters Wednesday ahead of the announcement that the new structure aims to mimic best practices from private industry, creating a new system that accepts risk and streamlines capability delivery. The Defense Department's civilian employees whose pay was impacted by the record-setting government shutdown and lapse in appropriations that ended this week are expecting to receive their missed paychecks retroactively. However, questions are swirling about the Pentagon's plans as it reopened Thursday — including the timeline for that out-of-cycle backpay process, whether it will arrive in the form of lump sum payments, and more. According to a new policy memorandum from the White House Office of Personnel Management issued Wednesday after President Donald Trump signed legislation to fund the government: “Federal employees who did not receive pay because of the lapse in appropriations that began on October 1, 2025, must receive retroactive pay at the employee's standard rate of pay for the lapse period as soon as possible after the lapse ends,” pursuant to the U.S. Code. That guidance applies explicitly to the department's personnel affected by the lapse who were either furloughed or performed excepted work activities. Service members and some DOD civilians designated “essential” reported to work during the shutdown — but only military officials were paid. More than 1 million federal employees reportedly missed one partial and two full paychecks during this shutdown, which caused serious financial strain for public servants across the nation. Several reports surfaced this week regarding when the Pentagon might begin processing paychecks and how soon they could start to arrive. The DOD did not appear to publicly release final, comprehensive guidance with details on its workforce repayment schedule and plans. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Global heating continues, despite the increased use of renewable energy sources and international policies attempting otherwise. Even as emissions reduction efforts continue, our world faces more extreme weather, sea level rise, and human health impacts, all of which are projected to accelerate in the coming decades. This raises an important but controversial question: at what point might more drastic interventions, like geoengineering, become necessary in order to cool the planet? In this episode, Nate interviews Professor Ted Parson about solar geoengineering (specifically stratospheric aerosol injection) as a potential response to severe climate risks. They explore why humanity may need to consider deliberately cooling Earth by spraying reflective particles in the upper atmosphere, how the technology would work, as well as the risks and enormous governance challenges involved. Ted emphasizes the importance of having these difficult conversations now, so that we're prepared for the wide range of climate possibilities in the future. How does stratospheric aerosol injection actually work? What is the likelihood that a major nation (or rogue billionaire) might employ this approach in the next thirty years? What ethical, moral, and biophysical concerns should we consider as we weigh the costs and benefits of further altering Earth's planetary balance?    About Ted Parson: Edward A. (Ted) Parson is Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law and Faculty Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Parson studies international environmental law and policy, the societal impacts and governance of disruptive technologies including geoengineering and artificial intelligence, and the political economy of regulation.  His most recent books are The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change (with Andrew Dessler), and A Subtle Balance: Evidence, Expertise, and Democracy in Public Policy and Governance, 1970-2010. His 2003 book, Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy, won the Sprout Award of the International Studies Association and is widely recognized as the authoritative account of the development of international cooperation to protect the ozone layer. In addition to his academic positions, Parson has worked and consulted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, the Privy Council Office of the Government of Canada, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).    Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  

At WSJ's Tech Live, Jessica Mendoza sits down with Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to discuss the pivotal moment in the U.S.-China AI race, how he thinks AI should be regulated, and whether or not the AI boom might be a bubble.  Further Listening: - Is the AI Boom… a Bubble? - How a $1.5 Billion Settlement Could Alter the Course of AI  - The Nvidia CEO's Quest to Sell Chips in China Sign up for WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congress has the power of the purse, not the president. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide how much the federal government spends and for what purposes. While presidents and Congress have always engaged in a push-and-pull over funding, President Trump has taken unprecedented steps to ignore this constitutional framework and impose his own spending priorities. Experts break down these efforts, the lawsuits challenging them, and the impact of these actions on Americans' daily lives. Speakers:Shalanda Young, Former Director, White House Office of Management and Budget; Distinguished Scholar in Residence, NYU School of Law; Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Georgetown McCourt School of Public PolicyLauren Miller Karalunas, Counsel, Brennan Center Democracy ProgramHost, Michael Waldman, President and CEO, Brennan CenterIf you enjoy this program, please give us a boost by liking it, subscribing, and sharing it with your friends. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please give it a five-star rating. Recorded on October 28, 2025.Keep up with the Brennan Center's work by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, The Briefing, at https://go.brennancenter.org/briefing.The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to repair, revitalize, and defend our systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Brennan Center cannot support or oppose any candidate for office.

Nearly two months after calling on the Office of Management and Budget to bar use of xAI's Grok chatbot in government, a coalition of advocacy groups is pressing its case further after the General Services Administration struck a deal with Elon Musk's AI company to deploy Grok across the federal government. In a letter sent Wednesday to OMB Director Russell Vought, the advocacy groups reiterated their concerns in the wake of the GSA OneGov deal, along with recent comments from Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “OMB is entrusted with ensuring that AI systems procured by the federal government meet the highest standards of truth-seeking, accuracy and neutrality,” the letter, led by Public Citizen, stated. “Grok has repeatedly demonstrated failures in these areas and Director Kratsios himself has confirmed that such behavior is the precise type that Executive Order 14319 was designed to prevent.” The letter refers to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in July that seeks to prevent “woke AI,” or ideological biases in models that are used by the federal government. The groups argued in their August letter to Vought that the use of Grok contradicts this order, given its past controversies with spewing antisemitic and pro-Hitler content. Weeks after the letter was sent, GSA inked a deal with xAI to offer Grok models to the government for a nominal cost. Under the deal, federal agencies can buy Grok 4 and Grok 4 Fast for 42 cents until March 2027. The White House appears to be moving forward with plans to redesign federal government websites, registering a new government domain — techforce.gov — this week. The new URL, which was first discovered Thursday by a bot tracking new government domains, leads to a sign-in page that states “National Design Studio” and “Tech Force” at the top. It includes a form for users to submit their email and receive a code to access the website. Records maintained by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency show the domain was registered Oct. 24 and last changed Wednesday. The domain registration comes more than two months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order launching an “America by Design” initiative focused on both digital and physical spaces. A new National Design Studio and chief design officer will lead the initiative and coordinate agency actions. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Is America's debt crisis the biggest threat to prosperity—and can we fix it before it's too late?In this week's Let People Prosper Show, I sit down with Romina Boccia, one of the nation's top fiscal minds and a fearless reformer when it comes to Washington's runaway spending. Romina is the Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at the Cato Institute, where she leads research on federal spending, debt, and entitlement reform. She's also the principal author of Debt Dispatch—the number-one fiscal newsletter read by members of Congress—and author of the new book Reimagining Social Security: Global Lessons for Retirement Policy Changes.I first met Romina during my time at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and I've admired her work ever since. In this episode, we talk about her journey from Germany to D.C., how she became one of the fiercest advocates for limited government, and why entitlement reform isn't just a numbers issue—it's about moral responsibility to future generations.We unpack why the national debt—now over $37 trillion and rising by about $2 trillion a year—is a bipartisan failure decades in the making. Romina explains how unchecked spending, not too little revenue, is driving the crisis—and why sustainable reform to Social Security and Medicare is critical to preserving both freedom and prosperity.For more insights, visit vanceginn.com. You can also get even greater value by subscribing to my Substack newsletter at vanceginn.substack.com. Please share with your friends, family, and broader social media network. 

NASA astrophysicist and JPL Exoplanet Science Ambassador Anjali Tripathi joins Andy, Jesse and Matt to talk about exoplanets and the different ways of finding them including radial velocity, transits and gravitational microlensing, the challenges of studying planetary atmospheres, why telescopes are built in deserts or in space, Anjali's time at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, science communication projects like the Logic 44ever rap video, the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, dark matter, lasers in astronomy, Halloween at the White House, the odd “smells” of other planets and how to take a virtual tour of JPL.

The Washington Roundtable discusses how this week's government shutdown can be best understood by looking at the background and influence of Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Vought is a Christian nationalist who served in the first Trump Administration. He was a chief architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, and has written that the country is in a “post constitutional moment.” Amid the shutdown, Vought has threatened to lay off federal workers en masse and to withhold funds from Democratic-leaning states. The panel considers whether these moves are not just an expansion of Presidential power but a fiscal “partitioning” of America. This week's reading:“Donald Trump's Shutdown Power Play,” by Susan B. Glasser“Can the Democrats Take Free Speech Back from the Right?,” by Jay Caspian Kang“Why Democrats Shut Down the Government,” by Jon Allsop“Is Donald Trump's Sweeping Gaza Peace Plan Really Viable?,” by Robin Wright“Eric Adams Slips Out the Side Door,” by Eric Lach“The Politics of Faith After Charlie Kirk,” by Michael Luo“Grace and Disgrace,” by David Remnick Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last year, an energy permitting reform bill sponsored by Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso passed out of committee but failed to gain full support in the US Senate. Since then, rising energy costs and infrastructure backlogs have only heightened pressure on Congress to take another run at reforming the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). As a result, momentum behind permitting reform is building again. Several legislative efforts are underway, most notably the bipartisan SPEED Act, which would change NEPA requirements in order to streamline the permitting process. It would also set limits on judicial review.  So how likely is meaningful permitting reform, this time around? How would it enable timely development of energy infrastructure without jeopardizing environmental concerns? And what might make it feasible to supporters of fossil and renewable energy alike? This week, Bill Loveless speaks to Jim Connaughton about shifting motivations for permitting reform in DC, and whether policymakers can find enough common ground to push reforms forward. Jim is the CEO of JLC Strategies and the former chairman and CEO of Nautilus Data Technologies. During the George W. Bush administration, he served as chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and directed the White House Office of Environmental Policy.  Credits: Hosted by Jason Bordoff and Bill Loveless. Produced by Mary Catherine O'Connor, Caroline Pitman, and Kyu Lee. Engineering by Gregory Vilfranc.  

Sriram Krishnan is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and former senior product leader at tech giants like Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter (now X), and Snap. Born in Chennai, India, he began his career at Microsoft before moving to Silicon Valley, where he contributed to product development at leading companies and later transitioned to venture capital as a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz from 2021 to 2024, focusing on consumer and enterprise investments. In December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump appointed him as Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, tasked with advancing U.S. dominance in AI amid global competition. Krishnan co-hosted "The Aarthi and Sriram Show" podcast with his wife Aarthi Ramamurthy, interviewing tech leaders and exploring innovation topics. A prolific writer and speaker, he advocates for immigration reform to attract global talent, ethical AI development, and bridging technology with policy to foster economic growth. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. https://bruntworkwear.com – USE CODE SRS https://calderalab.com/srs Use code SRS for 20% off your first order. https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://shawnlikesgold.com https://helixsleep.com/srs https://www.hulu.com/welcome https://ketone.com/srs Visit https://ketone.com/srs for 30% OFF your subscription order. https://moinkbox.com/srs https://patriotmobile.com/srs https://rocketmoney.com/srs https://ROKA.com – USE CODE SRS https://ziprecruiter.com/srs Sriram Krishnan Links: X personal - https://x.com/sriramk X official - https://x.com/skrishnan47 Website - https://sriramk.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of Scaling Laws, Dean Ball, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, to share an inside perspective of the Trump administration's AI agenda, with a specific focus on the AI Action Plan. The trio also explore Dean's thoughts on the recently released ChatGPT-5 and the ongoing geopolitical dynamics shaping America's domestic AI policy.Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Elon Musk steps away from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the chaotic legacy of his aggressive assault on federal agencies continues to reverberate throughout the government. Musk's goal — slashing $1 trillion from the federal budget — has fallen far short. At most, it has cut $31.8 billion of federal funding, a number that the Financial Times reports is “opaque and overstated.” Notably, the richest man on Earth's businesses have received a comparable amount of government funding, most of it going to SpaceX, which remains untouched by DOGE's budget ax.Stepping in to carry the torch is Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and a key architect of Project 2025, the sweeping conservative playbook to consolidate executive power. Under his stewardship, DOGE will continue its mission to dismantle the federal government from within.”Access to all of this information gives extraordinary power to the worst people,” says Mark Lemley, the director of Stanford Law School's program in law, science, and technology. Lemley is suing DOGE on behalf of federal employees for violating the Privacy Act. This week on The Intercept Briefing, Lemley and Intercept newsroom counsel and reporter Shawn Musgrave join host Jordan Uhl to take stock of the legal challenges mounting against the Trump administration's agenda. As the executive branch grows more hostile to checks on its powers, the courts remain the last, fragile line of defense. “ There have now been hundreds of court decisions on issues, some involving the Privacy Act, but a wide variety of the Trump administration's illegal activities,” says Lemley. In partnership with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and State Democracy Defenders, Lemley's suit accuses the U.S. Office of Personnel Management of violating the federal Privacy Act by handing over sensitive data to DOGE without consent or legal authority.Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.