Episodes
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Shabbos Kestenbaum is a graduate student at Harvard University, researching the intersections between between public policy and contemporary Jewish life in the United States. Shabbos is the lead plaintiff against Harvard University alleging pervasive and systemic antisemitism. Shabbos has appeared on CNN, Fox News, and in The New York Times, and has testified in front of the United States Congress, among other forums, to advocate for the American Jewish community. Currently, Shabbos is working with Congress to pass major pieces of legislation to combat antisemitism.
Adam and Shabbos sit down to discuss the raging antisemitism on college campuses, what the campus protests are really about and the palpable dread felt by Jewish people everywhere since the pogrom of Oct 7 and what can be done about it. As the worldâs oldest hatred flares up yet again, Adam and Shabbosâs discourse is a painful, if potentially healing one thatâs indispensable.
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When he was elected Lt. Governor of Maryland in 2003, Michael Steele made history as the first African American elected to statewide office; and again with his subsequent chairmanship of the Republican National Committee in 2009.
A longtime political analyst and contributor to MSNBC, Michael is currently the co-host of MSNBCâs âThe Weekend,â which airs Saturdays and Sundays at 8AM EST.
Having recently appeared on Michaelâs podcast âThe Michael Steele Podcast,â Adam turns the tables and is able to ask Michael all about his life , his time as the first black party chairman for the RNC, the racial cross currents of the GOP before it became Trumpified, and why he remains a Republican, *though of the Never Trumper sort.
This discussion between Adam and Michael is a conversation that might as well have never ended, and we are overjoyed to see these 2 lock arms in the fight to save democracy.
Listen, Like, and Subscribe to Michaelâs fantastic podcast here: https://michaelsteelenetwork.com/podcasts/
Watch The Weekend on MSNBC: https://www.msnbc.com/the-weekend
Find Michael on Twitter/X: @michaelsteele
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Ron Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, grew up in Los Angeles and Sacramento while his father served as Governor of California from 1967-1975.
After a brief career as a classical ballet dancer, Ron Reagan has spent the past 40 years as a correspondent, host and political commentator in television and radio, chiefly for MSNBC and Air America. He has written for many publications â Esquire, Newsweek, The New Yorker and Playboy among them â and is the author of the New York Times bestseller, My Father at 100. He is a board member of the Freedom from Religion Foundation and has spoken frequently in support of the separation of church and state. Ron and his Italian wife, Federica, divide their time between Seattle and Tuscany.
Adam sits down with Ron for a deeply personal interview with the son of the 40th president to everything from growing up as a Reagan, differing with his father on politics, being an atheist, and writing a poignant memoir about his fatherâs formative years called âMy Father at 100,â which was published in 2011.
Of course, Adam and Ron also discuss how the party of sunny optimistic Ronald Regan could devolve into a den of lies, autocracy and a disdain for the rule of law in the thrall to Donald Trump.
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John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina.
John was one of our very first guests on Dirty Moderate over 2 years ago, and we were thrilled to spend time with this deep thinking, generous, loving, and spirited human again.A 25-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justiceâboth inside and outside faith communities. His work is a testament to finding meaning not only in our politics but in our lives.
Johnâs latest book, âWorth Fighting Forâ is a primer for all things human, humane and compassionate. John knows itâs hard to always stay good but thatâs no excuse for not trying. His latest book is aptly subtitled âFinding Courage and Compassion When Cruelty is Trending.â Adam and John have a searching, moving discourse about all of these essential ideas and more.
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Stella is an Irish psychotherapist who had her own intense experience with gender as a child, and the resolution of her gender distress has made her curious about the wisdom of early intervention. As a result, in addition to facilitating a parent coaching
site that provides practical help to parents who are navigating their childâs gender-related distress, and acting as the presenter for the documentary, âTrans Kids: Itâs Time to Talk (2018), Stella is the director of Genspect, an international organization that offers a healthy approach to sex and gender.
Stella is the co-author of a 2023 book called âWhen Kids Say Theyâre Trans,â a work which explicitly encourages parents not to immediately consider gender affirming surgery or other medical procedures that might prove irreversible. Stella and her colleagues argue that only parents know best and their book hopes to help parents everywhere support their childâs identity without necessarily altering their biology.Stella joins Adam to discuss the current conversation over gender and children and argues that the though the science is far from settled, parents can, and should, love their children for who they are.
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Reed Galen is a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, host of the Lincoln Project podcast and author of The HomeFront Substack, and a self-proclaimed Cassandra.
Reed is an independent political strategist who has spent years advising Fortune 500 companies, and has also worked on several prominent republican campaigns.
He joins Adam to assess the Never Trump movement( of which they are both part) from 30,000 feet and the precariousness of democracy. How will Trumpâs legal predicaments affect his electoral fate? What percentage of independent/Haley voters does Biden need to win re-election? Is to easier to run against Trump when he is the incumbent than when he is a challenger? Has Biden lost the center over his policies on the border, campus protests and inflation?
Itâs America or Trump and you canât have both as Adam and Reed discuss and drive home.
Subscribe to Reed's Substack The Home Front here: https://reedgalen.substack.com/
Follow Reed on Social:
Twitter/X @reedgalen
All things Lincoln Project here: https://lincolnproject.us/
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William Inboden is Professor and Director of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida, and Peterson Senior Fellow with the Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He joins Adam in a discussion centering around his latest book
âThe Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan in the White House and the World.âInbodenâs masterly book provides a definitive account of Reaganâs strategic approach to diplomacy, his nuanced statecraft, and the impact of his decisions on the global stage. This compelling book is a must read especially for its analysis of Reaganâs policies of peace through strength. An examination of Reaganâs military buildup and tough rhetoric towards the Soviet Union are central to Reaganâs legacy, but Inboden goes beyond the surface to explore how Reagan the âcowboyâ became Reagan the diplomat, and emerged as arguably the most consequential 20th century president next to FDR.
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Alana Newhouse is an American writer and editor. She is the founder of Tablet magazine, a dynamic hub of Jewish life, which features news, essays, podcasts and opinion pieces.
In November 2022, Alana wrote an essay for Tablet called âBrokenism.â The essay remains deeply compelling because, as Alana argues, that âthe real debate today isnât between the left and the right . Itâs between those invested in our current institutions, and those who want to build anew.â
This is a must read essay and Alana and Adam use this piece as a springboard to discuss our political and cultural divides , but -also to examine the implications of âBrokenismâ for Jewish people at a time of rising antisemitism.
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Mona Charen is a conservative American journalist, columnist, commentator and best selling author. She is the Policy Editor of The Bulwark, and host of the Beg to Differ podcast, which you need to subscribe to immediately.
Mona fell hard for William F. Buckley as a teenager, and her first job was as editorial assistant at his National Review. She went on to write speeches for first lady Nancy Reagan and then for the Gipper himself. Looking toward the 1988 race, Vice President George H.W. Bush wasnât conservative enough for her. Fast forward through 4 best selling books (see below for links) and much prestige to CPAC-2018, where she got booed and seemingly harassed enough by the MAGA crowd for her views that security chose to escort her out of the building for her own safety.
Folks, this is NOT Lincoln's, Reagan's or Mona's Republican party.
Adam talks to Mona about her career as a conservative thinker, what being a âNever Trumperâ means and about whether or not a new center right party might emerge and what that would mean for a potential post-Trump era conservative movement.Mona's books:
Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003)
Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (and the Rest of Us) (2005), Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense (2018)
Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism (2023)
Mona's New York Times Op-Ed about her CPAC experience: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/opinion/im-glad-i-got-booed-at-cpac.html
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As the host of the podcast History of the Land of Israel, and his own YouTube show, Israel Explained, Shaiel Ben-Ephraim spends his time thinking about Israel and assessing Israelâs long term goals. Given Iranâs attack on Israel, we invited Shaiel back to Dirty Moderate so he and Adam could discuss the implications of Iran launching drones and missiles, including ballistic ones, directly at Israel for the first time in Israelâs history. What does this mean for the stability of the region( or instability?)
Arab nations like Jordan and Saudi Arabia joined Irael in intercepting these missiles, as the United States and the UK. And what does this mean for the Israel Gaza war?
If you are not subscribed to Shaiel's shows and following him on Twitter you are missing out.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shaielb
Twitter @academic_la
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Mike Gonzalez is the Angeles T Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He is a longtime journalist who currently writes for The Washington Examiner. Prior to that, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal, where he was based in Hong Kong.
Mike is an ardent conservative and he sees the re-election of Trump as the only stopgap against the progressive onslaught of the left. His latest book is âNextGen Marxism: What it is and How to Combat it,â which might as well his own ideological manifesto.
Mike and Adam donât agree on Trump in the least, and they spar respectably on various issues. They find enough common ground, however, to affirm Adamâs long held belief that democracy depends upon our disagreement.
Purchase Mike's excellent book here
Explore the work Mike and his colleagues do at The Heritage Foundation here
Curious about Al Gore's concession speech after listening to Mike and Adam? Watch it here
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George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction.
At the time, no one called it the âAmerican Revolutionâ: former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams insisted that the British were the real revolutionaries, for attempting to impose radial change without their colonistsâ consent.With his latest book, The Cause, Joseph J. Ellis sits down with Adam and discusses how his book takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783, recovering a war more brutal than any in American history save the Civil War and discovers a strange breed of âprudentâ revolutionaries, whose prudence proved wise yet tragic when it came to slavery, the original sin that still haunts our land.
Joseph J. Ellis is a leading scholar of American history and is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner for his biographies of our nation's earliest presidents. Ellis is a distinguished professor and seasoned speaker who regales audiences with stories of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other U.S. presidents.
Explore the work of Professor Ellis at his website here
While his fine books are certainly available everywhere, Professor Ellis encourages you to shop at your local independent bookstore :) Click here to find one near you.
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As a young girl born in Canada, Yasmine Mohammed was born into a strict Islamic household. If she missed a word of her Koran readings, she was beat until her feet were bloody and raw. And the Canadian government said there was nothing they could do to help her. âThis is your culture,â they smugly told her.
But Yasmine escaped the horrors of her childhood and the strictures of her faith to emerge as an important spokesperson for women everywhere, especially lapsed Muslims who have also been emancipated from the patriarchal, repressive dogma of Radical Islam. And she wrote a harrowing, must-read book about it.
Yasmine sits down with Adam to discuss âUnveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam,â which is a scathing rejoinder to the ideological left and to all those secular âliberalsâ who prize Wokeness over truth out of fear of âIslamophobia.â âBelieve women,â goes the #MeToo motto. Yasmineâs heroic life and personal story of resilience asks that women who live and have lived under the terror of Islamic extremism are believed too.
-Support Yasmine's org here: www.freeheartsfreeminds.com
-Buy her incredible book: https://www.amazon.com/Unveiled-Western-Liberals-Empower-Radical/dp/1999240502
-Listen to Yasmine's podcast: https://www.yasminemohammed.com/podcast
-Link to her ebook: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o2aIvLt1IVX1Ue8jAbIR9e-s4zTO4IIp/view?usp=sharing
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Damon Linker, is a writer for the Atlantic and is a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He also writes the Substack newsletter âNotes from the Middlegroundâ and is an Open Society Project senior fellow at the Niskanen Center.Damon joins Adam to discuss his latest article for the Atlantic, "The Dead-Enders of the Reagan-Era GOP" in which Damon argues that Mike Pence's non-endorsement of Donald Trump only underlines how irrevocably the Republican Party has left traditional conservatism behind and embraces populism.
Donât miss Damonâs conversation with Adam about how a full on MAGA populist party not only renders the party of Lincoln ideologically impotent but represents a clear and present danger to our republic.
Read Damon's article in the Atlantic article discussed in the episode here
Find Damon's Substack-"Notes from the Middleground" here
Please say you are registered to vote, but just in case... click here
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New York Times columnist David French joins Adam to discuss the role of religion in public life, and he offers up a unique portal into the pro-life movement, and its perils in the aftermath of Roe. David discusses the important role of the courts, and especially the critical role of the Supreme Court, in securing( or not securing) the guardrails against a Trump/MAGA led assault on our institutions and norms.
David is an expert on the law, faith and politics, Prior to his being at the Times, David was at Dispatch, which he helped launch, and The Atlantic, where he was a contributing writer. Prior to those posts, he wrote for National Review from 2015 to 2019. But David spent the bulk of his career as a practicing lawyer, with an emphasis on the First Amendment. He also took time off from that career to join the U.S. Army in his thirties and serve, in Iraq, as a Judge Advocate General (JAG).
Donât miss this captivating conversation between Adam and David, who is unquestionably one of Americaâs more eagle-eyed and incisive voices writing today .
Read David here
Sign up for his weekly newsletter here
Follow and enjoy David on Threads here
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As arguably the pre-eminent voice warning about the dangers of Donald Trump, longtime political operative Steve Schmidt needs no introduction.
But in case you have been abducted by aliens, Steve is the founder, author and host of The Warning, a digital media company comprised of a daily newsletter, podcast and video analysis on his YouTube channel.
Through The Warning, Schmidt discusses the events that are shaping our times and the unseen forces shaping American culture and politics that are rarely discussed on cable news.Schmidt is recognized for his part in the 2008 U.S. election cycle, serving as Senator John McCainâs campaign manager. He also successfully led California Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggerâs re-election campaign in 2006. Schmidt was a top strategist in the 2004 campaign to re-elect President George W. Bush and served in the Bush administration, during which time he led the successful confirmations of two U.S. Supreme Court justices. He spent 10 years as an analyst with MSNBC. Schmidt co-founded the well-known super PAC, the Lincoln Project, in 2019. He left the group in 2021.
Adam is excited to share his conversation with Steve about the Biden/Trump rematch, the moral and philosophical collapse of Steveâs former party into a Trump led authoritarian cult, the Democratsâ notoriously bad communication skills , the rampant mistrust of our institutions and all things relating to this nearly two and a half century old self governing miracle also called America.
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Itâs not playtime in America. Itâs high time in America that we all stand up for democracy. Itâs gonna take all of us, especially independents like myself who will back Biden in November because thatâs putting America first. Itâs America or Trump; you canât have both.âŠ
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Noah Rothman is an author and conservative thinker who is a Senior Writer for National Review, and whose recent bestseller, âThe Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressivesâ War on Fun,â is the chief subject of the second episode of our new series Dirty Moderate After Dark.
Adam and Noah do a deep dive into the origins of Puritan thought, and they detail the odd, and very uniquely American way in which Puritanical thinking is embedded into our cultural and political tapestry. Whatâs more, Noah explains how his book examines the deeply religious and dogmatic English Puritans who settled on the Eastern Seaboard in the 17th century and how their spiritual, if not religious, successors have found a cozy home within the extreme wing of todayâs woke left.
Adam and Noah also discuss the collapse of the Republican Party into an incoherent, ideologically barren cult of personality party led by Trump, and they lament the abandonment of the robust internationalism which the Reagan era GOP once typified and the dangers of todayâs MAGA GOP and the shortsighted, isolationist thinking that they promulgate.
Though neither of them were boozed, Adam and Noah waxed eloquently After Dark about all things philosophical and political, and their conversation was nevertheless wide-ranging, absorbing, and unlike todayâs Puritans, fun.
Find Noah's amazing book here
Read Noah at National Review
Noah on X @NoahCRothman
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Tina Nguyen is a national correspondent for Puck covering the world of Donald Trump and the American right for their The Best & The Brightest newsletter. Previously, Nguyen was a White House reporter for Politico, a staff reporter for Vanity Fair Hive, and an editor at Mediaite.
Her new book, The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out) is a dazzling memoir of Tinaâs fast, furious, stressful and altogether bonkers time in the world of the Conservative movement long before it was destroyed and devoured by Trumpworld.
Tina talks to Adam about her growing up in Boston as the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, how she ended up at the prestigious but right-wing Xanadu known as Claremont McKenna College, and her short but not insignificant stint at The Daily Caller working for its then founder, Tucker Carlson. They explore her front row seat to the rise of what is now the MAGA movement, and how she ended up on the other side of this dystopia, mostly unscathed, but nonetheless loaded with insight as how to best cover Trumpism with all the scrutiny it most definitely deserves.
Tina also gives Adam the tea on some of the more sobering realizations which came to her in her post-Conservative days about some of her previous colleagues and their not so nice agendas. Tinaâs story, which is indeed essential reading , is also a must listen for Dirty Moderates everywhere.
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Philip K. Howard is a lawyer, author and chair of Common Good (www.commongood.org), a nonpartisan organization aimed at replacing red tape with human responsibility and agency.
In his discussion with Adam, Philip discusses his latest book âEveryday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society,â which argues that the post 1960âs legal framework which has guided government policy for 60 years has been a failure. Philip persuasively argues that humans have been disempowered and common sense has been thrown out the window. Inertia and powerlessness have overtaken our politics because so called âgood governmentâ has come to be synonymous with red tape and inefficiency. Philip calls this stasis a âdisease consuming the American spirit,â and that âModern law fails because it is dehumanizing, and, however hard this may prove to be, it must be replaced by a framework that empowers everyday freedom.â
As engaging and incisive a discussion as weâve had on this podcast, Adam and Philipâs dialogue is essential food for thought. Have a listen!
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