The Arthur Brooks exit interview
In his final appearance on "Banter" as AEI's president, Arthur Brooks discusses his latest book, how the political landscape has shifted since he took office in 2009, the role of think tanks in shaping...
View ArticleAre you about to be automated out of a job? A conversation with Brent Orrell
Axios kicked off 2019 with a headline proclaiming: "AI expert warns automation could take 40% of jobs by 2035." This is the baseline consensus according to Axios future editor Steve LeVine. But is it...
View ArticleAlex Berenson on ‘Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental...
In "Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence" (Free Press, 2019), former New York Times columnist Alex Berenson argues the risks of marijuana are not only...
View ArticleIs China the economic threat it’s made out to be?
Last week, China announced its annual economic growth slipped to 6.2 percent in the second quarter, the country’s weakest expansion in nearly three decades, according to the Economist. What is causing...
View ArticleWhen ‘neocon’ became a slur
“How come you’re so wrong, my sweet neocon?” So asked Mick Jagger on his 2005 album “A Bigger Bang,” and it’s a question many have asked since the Iraq War began. Once a term applied to reform-minded...
View ArticleScott Gottlieb on the CBD craze, vaping, and Juul: A conversation with the...
Is CBD oil safe? How about the Juul? And is it the government’s place to regulate either one? Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb joined us to discuss these questions...
View ArticleHow does America’s higher education system compare to abroad?
“Why can’t we just do what they do in Europe?” Anyone who has spent time discussing college in the United States has probably heard this sentiment before, or thought it themself. Well, the US could...
View ArticleThe past, present, and future of global migration: A conversation with Jason...
As a young reporter in the 1980s, Jason DeParle moved in with a family in the Philippines to write about Manilla’s shantytowns. He kept in touch as the family migrated to the Gulf, the United States,...
View ArticleForeign policy in an age of nationalism
Columns and commentary today are filled with references to the crumbling liberal world order and the resurgence of populism, nationalism, or some odious combination of the two. But what was this...
View ArticleHow do Americans feel about impeachment? Parallels between now and 1998
AEI Senior Fellow Karlyn Bowman returned to Banter to discuss recent polling on impending impeachment proceedings against President Trump. We discuss the effects impeachment might have on the 2020...
View ArticleWhat does the US troop withdrawal mean for Syria, Turkey, and the Kurds?
Michael Rubin returns to the show to analyze the ongoing events in Syria and provide a greater perspective on Turkey’s relationship with the Kurds. We also discuss what a post-Erdogan Turkey could...
View ArticleThe global challenges facing America: A conversation with Paul Wolfowitz
Ambassador Paul Wolfowitz joins the show to discuss the major foreign policy challenges facing the United States today. In a far-reaching conversation, Amb. Wolfowitz discusses the threat posed by...
View ArticleFree-market environmentalism: Larry Selzer on conservation in the 21st century
Spurred on by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and Rachel Carson, the policymakers in the twentieth century enacted numerous ambitious reforms to curb environmental degradation. But many policies came...
View ArticleKim Strassel on Trump, impeachment, and ‘Resistance (At All Costs)’
Critics of President Donald Trump often point to his violation of norms as one example of the threat his presidency poses to American democracy. Kim Strassel of The Wall Street Journal makes the...
View ArticleWhat has globalism ever done for us?
“Globalism” has become an epithet to leaders across the world from Donald Trump to Viktor Orbán. But not to Dalibor Rohac, author of the new book, “In Defense of Globalism,” which advocates an...
View ArticleOn the front lines of the Islamic State
Mike Giglio joins the show to discuss his new book, “Shatter the Nations: ISIS and the War for the Caliphate.” Based on in-depth reporting with protagonists on all sides of the conflict, the book...
View ArticleAn entrepreneur’s memoir: Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts on hard work,...
Today we take for granted that everyday Americans can invest on Wall Street at an affordable price, but Joe Ricketts helped make that happen. He founded Ameritrade with just $12,500 borrowed from...
View ArticleWhere the National Defense Strategy falls short: A conversation with Rick Berger
Since the Cold War, the Pentagon’s “two-war” metric served as the main force-planning construct: It sought to ensure US forces could simultaneously defeat two regional militaries, such as North Korea...
View ArticleThe dignity of ‘back row’ America: A conversation with photojournalist Chris...
For the past seven years Chris Arnade has traveled around the United States photographing and interviewing residents of this country’s forgotten communities. These photographs and interviews eventually...
View ArticleGeorge F. Will on ‘The Conservative Sensibility’
“The proper question for conservatives is: What do you seek to conserve? The proper answer is concise but deceptively simple: We seek to conserve the American Founding.” So writes George Will in his...
View ArticleDoes the US economy need low-skill immigration?
Unanimous agreement is rare among economists, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an economist who didn’t advocate increasing high-skill immigration. About low-skill immigration, however, there is more...
View ArticleTrump, Powell, and the trade war: What should the Federal Reserve do?
Early last week, President Trump asked Twitter, “Who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” Days later Bill Dudley, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, wrote in...
View ArticleCancel student debt? A former Trump administration official argues there is a...
In October, A. Wayne Johnson — one of the Trump administration’s senior student loan officials — announced his resignation, calling the federal student loan system “fundamentally broken.” He then...
View ArticleChina’s stealth war: A conversation with General Robert Spalding
Many people take for granted that China and America have entered another Cold War. Yet unlike 40 years ago, America has extensive ties with its new rival, giving China tremendous leverage over America...
View ArticleNYT’s Bret Stephens on the necessity of American global leadership
While American global leadership may be out of fashion, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens argues that it shouldn’t be. Stephens joins Banter to discuss foreign policy under President Trump and...
View ArticleSpeaker Paul Ryan on capitalism, socialism, millennials, inequality, and more
According to some polls, more millennials today support socialism than capitalism. Is this a temporary blip or a more worrying long-term trend? Paul Ryan worries it is the latter, and the former...
View ArticleAndrew Sullivan on Trump’s presidency, Boris Johnson’s achievement, religious...
This week we sat down with Andrew Sullivan, blogger extraordinaire and former editor of The New Republic. A gay conservative who helped pioneer the marriage equality movement, he was pals with Boris...
View ArticleIs Latin America about to turn hard left?
Argentina looks set to elect the Peronist Alberto Fernández president in October, unseating the center-right leader Mauricio Macri, who has held office since 2015. Why has the right fallen out of...
View ArticleIs President Trump’s North Korea strategy working?
“For perhaps the first time in living memory,” writes Nick Eberstadt in a recent op-ed for The New York Times, “Team Kim is being outmaneuvered by the Americans in their zero-sum contest.” What has...
View ArticleTech platforms and Section 230: Is it time to change how we regulate the...
The phrase “Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act” doesn’t exactly still beating hearts — and yet that provision may be responsible for the internet as we know it. So argues Jeff Kosseff in...
View ArticleCaitlin Flanagan on college craziness: Admissions scandals, campus madness,...
This week we sat down with the great Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic to discuss a few of her recent essays on the craziness of college admissions, what is happening on college campuses, the meaning...
View ArticleDavid French on the launch of ‘The Dispatch’ and the future of the...
This week we sat down with David French to discuss the new media venture he is helping launch, The Dispatch. We also discuss if he is optimistic about the future of conservatism in America, the...
View ArticleCongresswoman Elise Stefanik on impeachment, Iran, and the future of the...
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik recently emerged as a rising star of the GOP for her role in the Trump impeachment hearings. She has long been on the national stage, though, having become the youngest...
View ArticleRoss Douthat on cancel culture, religion in America, and the sad state of...
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat joined Banter to discuss what it’s like being a conservative who writes for a predominantly liberal audience, the state of religion in America, and why the Star...
View ArticleAnthony Scaramucci on the Democratic field, his relationship with President...
Anthony Scaramucci joined Banter to discuss the Democratic field of presidential candidates, his journey from President Trump’s inner circle to fierce critic, the future of the Republican Party, and...
View ArticleGovernor Jeb Bush on education, immigration, and what he’s learned from his...
For Banter’s 400th episode, Governor Jeb Bush joined the show to discuss his time in politics and what he views as the biggest challenges facing the United States. We discuss two issues near and dear...
View Article‘The New Class War’: Michael Lind on the growing divide in US politics
The major fault line in American politics, argues Michael Lind, isn’t Republican vs. Democrat: It is the managerial overclass — the university-credentialed elite that clusters in high-income hubs and...
View ArticleSuper Tuesday special: Matthew Continetti on Biden, Bernie, and the future of...
Just weeks after political pundits left Joe Biden’s campaign for dead, he stormed back on Super Tuesday and reclaimed his status as the Democratic primary’s frontrunner. What caused this resurgence?...
View ArticleWhat’s next for the reform conservatives? Yuval Levin on the future of the...
During the later years of the George W. Bush administration and throughout the presidency of Barack Obama, a group that came to be known as “reformocons” began arguing that the Right needed to update...
View ArticleAEI President Robert Doar on America’s response to the coronavirus
In times of national crisis, how do American institutions respond? AEI President Robert Doar joined Banter this week to discuss the work AEI is doing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and draw on...
View ArticleWhat will COVID-19 mean for US foreign policy? An interview with Kori Schake
How will the coronavirus shape the future of US national security? Will the world hold China responsible? How is the pandemic affecting America’s strategy toward Iran? And what is the greatest novel...
View ArticleCongressman Dan Crenshaw on ‘Fortitude’ and the coronavirus pandemic
Congressman Dan Crenshaw’s story needs no embellishment. In 2012, on his third tour of duty in Afghanistan, an improvised explosive device left his right eye destroyed and his left blinded. Only...
View ArticleJohn Yoo on the constitutional questions raised by the coronavirus
Can President Trump unilaterally “reopen” the country? How much power do the states’ governors have to regulate businesses, parks, and other facilities? Can we make China pay for the economic damage...
View ArticleCOVID-19 in Latin America: Ryan Berg on the virus’s implications for the...
As summer gives way to winter in the Southern Hemisphere, how prepared are the nations of South and Central America for the coronavirus? AEI fellow Ryan Berg joined the show this week to discuss the...
View ArticleHow does coronavirus affect identity politics? A conversation with Christina...
Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, or the “Factual Feminist” as she is known online, joined Banter today to discuss the gender discrimination debates surrounding COVID-19, the state of identity politics in...
View ArticleWhat comes after the coronavirus lockdowns? A conversation with Lyman Stone
Lockdowns don’t work, argues Lyman Stone in a recent piece. Instead, to really crush the curve of coronavirus infections (rather than just flattening it), we need to follow the model of successful...
View ArticleRobert Doar and Ian Rowe on police reform and race in America
In The Wall Street Journal last month, AEI resident fellow Ian Rowe wrote that the great danger of the moment is that “the next generation of Americans—black and white—might grow up believing that the...
View ArticleMarc Thiessen on his interview with President Trump, the 2020 election, and...
Earlier this month, Marc Thiessen walked into the Oval Office for a wide-ranging interview with President Trump, discussing everything from the possibility of renaming bases named after Confederates...
View ArticleNick Eberstadt on demographic change in China, Russia, and North Korea
In recognition of this year’s 2020 Irving Kristol Award recipient, Banter welcomes Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt as the first guest for new co-hosts Robert Doar (AEI President and Morgridge Scholar) and...
View ArticleAdam White on Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court, and the Administrative State
Adam White is a resident scholar at AEI, where his work focuses on American constitutionalism, the Supreme Court, and the administrative state. Concurrently, he is assistant professor of law and the...
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