Podcasting with John Metaxas

Center Makes Fundraising Push in Face of CUNY Budget Cuts In this second episode of the Podcast of the Center for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies at Queens College CUNY, I speak with the College’s President, Frank Wu, who has emerged as an important ally for the Center as it deals with a cut-off of funding from CUNY. Earlier in 2023 all independent centers at CUNY had to certify that they were capable of self funding. This has provided a challenge to the Center as it prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a fundraising gala in Queens on May 17, 2024. The Byzantine and Modern Greek Center is the brainchild of the late Professor Harry Psomiades, who left a tenured position in the history department at Columbia University to come to Queens in 1974. Since then, the Center has been arguably the largest Hellenic studies program in the country with more than 20,000 students enrolled over the decades. Over its 50-year history the Center has gotten substantial support from the Greek-American community, which has funded the dozens of scholarships that help its primarily middle class students cover the cost of their educations. In addition, it received substantial support from various Hellenic and Hellenic-American foundations, one of which helped endow a professorship in Byzantine studies. But as a recent article in Kathimerini, Greece’s leading newspaper, pointed out, Hellenic studies programs around the world are suffering from decreased funding from their host universities, in part because of an emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) over the liberal arts (though this does not appear to be the motivation at CUNY). In a wide ranging conversation, Wu, a lawyer and legal scholar who has written books on race relations, recounts his upbringing as the child of immigrants from Taiwan and makes connections with the experiences of his diverse student body at Queens, which speaks more than 100 languages. He outlines his vision for a diaspora center at Queens and the vital role the Byzantine & Modern Greek Center plays in the College’s mosaic. And he pledges his support for the Center and expresses his eagerness to work with the Greek-American community to help fund it for the future. Says Wu, “It’s so important that we have a program that looks at and helps to empower the Greek diaspora.” I have served on the Center’s advisory council for three decades, a position in which I followed my father, the late Takis J. Metaxas, a founding member of the council in the early years with Professor Psomiades. I have been able to watch all the successes and challenges the Center has experienced. It is comforting to know that as it faces the future, the Center for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies has College President Frank Wu in its corner.

As Greece works to recover from the devastating financial crisis of the last decade, one of its most vital tasks is to bring talented individuals back into the country to work and create opportunity for others. In this podcast I speak with Dr. George Nounesis, the director and chairman of Demokritos, Greece’s National Centre for Scientific Research. Nounesis, who is an award winning scientist, says he is on a mission to create opportunities for Greek scientists who are living and working abroad to bring their world class research back to Greece. One of the young scientists who has heeded the call to return to Greece is Filippos Tourlomousis. Working with M.I.T.’s Center for Bits and Atoms — an interdisciplinary initiative exploring the boundary between computer science and physical science (where he had done his post-doctoral work) — Tourlomousis is setting up at Demokritos the first labs in Greece for digital manufacturing.  You can watch my video interview with Tourlomousis on my website at: https://www.wallstreetnorth.com/2023/03/reversing-greeces-brain-drain/

This inaugural episode of the Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies Podcast from Queens College (CUNY) features Professor Gerasimus Katsan, director of the College's Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, and its assistant director, Professor Maria Athanasopoulou. They speak in both English and Greek with John Metaxas about the Modern Greek language, what it takes to learn it, how students are different today, and how teaching Modern Greek is different today from the time of the Katharevousa, the conservative form of the language taught until the 1970s. They also offer information on Queens College's senior auditing program, which allows senior citizens to sit in on classes, including online classes.

I am pleased to present, here, one of the highlights of my years at WCBS -- the 2021 Edward R. Murrow Award winning best regional newscast recognized by The Radio Television Digital News Association. I was privileged to co-anchor this newscast, which was a true team effort. Looking back on this broadcast from March 3, 2020, it’s clear that we’ve come a long way since then. That day we reported on New York’s second confirmed case of coronavirus, in a lawyer from New Rochelle, NY. We reported that his family was self-quarantining, a new concept to all of us at that time. The U.S. death toll from the virus stood at 9 people. Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that a coronavirus vaccine would be months away. The Dow would fall 786 points that day as the Fed cut interest rates 50 basis points to help the economy in the looming health crisis. More than 1,300 Democratic delegates were at stake on that Super Tuesday, which would be the day that Joe Biden scored dramatic primary victories on his way to the presidential nomination. You can read more about my time at WCBS at: https://www.wallstreetnorth.com/2022/11/my-last-day-at-wcbs/

Nearly six in ten Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court is out of touch with the country, according to the latest poll by Monmouth University. That opinion has crystallized in the months since the Court took away a woman's constitutional right to an abortion in its June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. On the Friday that Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the newest justice and as the Court was preparing to start its new term on the first Monday in October, Monmouth University released its poll results. I interviewed Patrick Murray, Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute on WCBS, about the poll.

Three days before Eric Adams was elected Mayor of New York, I had the opportunity to interview him live on WCBS during my news broadcast. In a few minutes here, he outlines his vision for the city in the coming years.

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol. I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate. John Metaxas WallStreetNorth.com

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol. I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate. John Metaxas WallStreetNorth.com

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol. I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate. John Metaxas WallStreetNorth.com

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol. I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate. John Metaxas WallStreetNorth.com

My talk with U.S. Ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt, June 18, 2020, regarding Greece's successful response to the COVID pandemic. Ambassador says response was guided by scientific advice. Such U.S. companies as Microsoft, Google and Cisco aided with technology. Silver lining of effort was the progress Greece made in digital governance. The interview is an excerpt from the NHSTalks presentation by the National Hellenic Society: CONTROLLING COVID-19 & TOBACCO CHALLENGES IN GREECE. The program also included Dr. Vasileios Kikilias, Minister, Greek Health Ministry, and noted Pulmonologist Dr. Panagiotis Behrakis.

As the Michael Flynn legal drama comes to its denouement, the media narrative has focused on his guilty plea to lying about conversations with the Russian ambassador and the Justice Department’s late decision to seek to drop charges against Flynn. But Flynn’s other foreign entanglement, with Turkey, may be even more significant to U.S. security, foreign policy and democracy. In a wide ranging interview, John Metaxas speaks with Dr. Elizabeth Prodromou of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University about Flynn’s admitted lobbying for Turkey, his advocacy for the extradition of a Turkish cleric living under political asylum in the United States, and Turkey’s role as a destabilizing force within NATO. Topics covered: 1:05 Why is the Flynn/Turkey connection so important? 2:20 What does this connection tell us about U.S. democracy? 4:36 Who is Fetullah Gulen? 6:56 Tell us about Gulenist schools opened around the world and in the United States. 9:30 What’s happening to many of those Gulenist schools around the world since the falling out between Erdogan and Gulen? 11:44 What are students learning at Gulenist schools in the United States? 13:34 Compare your nuanced description of Gulen with Flynn’s more one-sided portrayal in his op-ed in The Hill. 15:29 Would there be any justification in extraditing Gulen, as Flynn advocated? 17:00 Will we ever know whether Gulen was involved in the coup attempt against the Turkish government, as Erdogan alleges? And will we ever know where Gulen gets his funding? 19:00 Why is Turkey and what’s happening there important to the United States from a geopolitical point of view? 22:45 What is the status of Turkish forces that have encamped on Greek territory along the Evros River? 25:00 What are the implications of Turkish deployment of Russian S-400 missiles for U.S. nuclear weapons located at the Incirlik air base in Turkey? 26:52 President Trump has said he has a conflict of interest because he has a major building in Istanbul. He was willing to appoint Flynn as National Security Advisor despite his ties with the Turkish government. And he effectively gave Erdogan the “green light” to invade northern Syria in a phone conversation. What role does the Trump Administration play in all of this? 30:33 Discuss any apparent “carte blanche” given to Turkey in the light of the beating of U.S. citizens in Washington D.C. by Erdogan’s security detail. 32:24 What do Turkey’s soft power probings into the United States tell us about what’s happening to American democracy? 37:24 What is the status of the re-democratization movement within Turkey? 40:27 Why has Flynn’s Turkey connection not been central to the media narrative in the United States? Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou is a faculty member at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where she directs the Initiative on Religion, Law, and Diplomacy. She is non-resident Senior Fellow and Co-Chair of the Working Group on Christians and Religious Pluralism in the Middle East, at the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, and was non-resident Senior Fellow in National Security and the Middle East, at the Center for American Progress. She is a Co-President of Religions for Peace International. Prodromou served as Vice Chair and Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2004-2012) and was a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Religion & Foreign Policy Working Group (2011-2015). Her research interests focus on geopolitics and religion, with particular focus on the Middle East and Southeastern Europe. John Metaxas is an award-winning broadcast journalist for WCBS and Bloomberg Radio and previously anchored and reported for CNN, CNBC and WCBS-TV. John is an attorney and graduate of Columbia Law and Journalism. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and serves on the union’s national broadcast steering committee. He podcasts on Apple and at JohnMetaxas.com.

Meet the Candidates for NYS Assembly 93rd District: Moderated by John Metaxas -- Wednesday April 29, 2020. Listen here or watch the video at: https://www.wallstreetnorth.com/2020/05/meet-the-candidates-moderated-by-john-metaxas/

My interview with Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal on WCBS, Sunday March 8, 2020.

▪ Harvard Law Prof Waffles on Scope of His Role ▪ Asserts ‘I’m not a full-fledged member’ of impeachment defense team ▪ Claims Sekulow is not conflicted by Parnas Allegations ▪ Dershowitz arguably should be considered an expert witness in this case and Dems should get a rebuttal witness. ▪ Sekulow should be called to testify on Parnas representation. When is a lawyer an advocate and when is he or she a witness? And if a lawyer is a witness, should he or she be allowed to represent their client in that case? More specifically, if Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority are not going to allow witnesses at the impeachment trial of President Trump, should two of the President’s lawyers, who arguably fall into the category of witnesses, be allowed to represent him? Those issues are central to the live on-air interview I conducted with Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz about his role on President Trump’s impeachment defense team in my 2pm hourly newscast on WCBS Newsradio 880 on Saturday.

American Hellenic Institute PODCAST #2: AHI board member James Marketos, Esq., recounts a genocide taunt by Turkish soccer fans this year and speaks on the importance of remembering the Smyrna Catastrophe of 1922 and the need to hold Turkey to account for the destruction of the Christian population of the city. Marketos’s remarks, which served as an introduction to a talk by Georgetown Professor Ismini Lamb in Washington, D.C. on October 4, 2019, are juxtaposed to the audio from a production by republicofplato.org, “The Destruction of Smyrna.” Lamb delivered her talk on “Correcting Three Misconceptions about the 1922 Catastrophe in Smyrna” to a packed house at AHI’s headquarters in Washington.

November 15, 2019: Columbia Law Prof. John Coffee interviews SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson about the latest issues of corporate law that the Commission is considering. Commissioner Jackson recently dissented in a partisan 3-2 vote regarding proposed proxy solicitation rules that he says will make it easier for CEOs to spend shareholder money. The Commissioner makes a compelling case for the SEC's role in protecting investors. Among the other topics Professor Coffee brings up are new practices in short selling, the failure of the WeWork IPO, and whether the Commission has the right to seek disgorgement for violations of SEC regulations. This interview was conducted at Columbia Law School for the podcast of the Blue Sky Blog, http://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu, an offering of the law school's Center on Corporate Governance, which Professor Coffee leads. Ren Holding, the Blog's editor, introduces the podcast. The podcast was produced by John Metaxas of WallStreetNorth Communications, Inc., https://wallstreetnorth.com. John is an alumnus of Columbia Law.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tells John Metaxas that Greece’s Brain Drain Can be Reversed. The prime minister answered the question during a public conversation he had at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, moderated by former Ambassador Nicholas Burns, on September 26, 2019.

Economist Dr. Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics says “Money has died.” He talks about the effects of negative interest rates in Europe. This is an excerpt from his talk at an economics briefing held by the Summit, N.J. law firm Brown Moskowitz & Kallen for their clients on September 23, 2019.

Retired U.S. Ambassador Dr. Susan Elliott tells us that back channel diplomacy is currently going on in ways unimagined by most citizens, through her organization, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. She became the organization’s President and CEO in August 2018. Officially known as Track II Diplomacy, these closed­-door and off­-the­-record conferences provide opportunities for senior U.S. and foreign officials, subject experts, and scholars to engage in discussions designed to defuse conflict, build confidence, and resolve problems, including recent talks on North Korea. Says Ambassador Elliott, “Our organization is playing a critical role at a time when perhaps governments don’t talk to each other, we can help promote dialogue.” Ambassador Elliott gives us an inside look into the world of U.S. foreign policy and the current hot spots in the world from the perspective of her 27-year career in the foreign service, where she rose to the rank of U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan from 2012 to 2015. Dr Elliott also served as Civilian Deputy and Foreign Policy Advisor to the Commander of the United States European Command, as well as Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.