What the Hell Is Going On

In this episode, we are joined by Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade to discuss the themes of his new book, Uniting the States: Six Crucial Moments That Forged the American Miracle. We explore pivotal events that have shaped American history and national identity. Our discussion connects stories of the American founding to modern foreign policy lessons and unity today. How does modern patriotism look compared to the spirit of our Founding Fathers? Is America the place it once was? And do we still have the spirit to lead the world?Speaker, best-selling author, TV and radio personality Brian Kilmeade currently serves as co-host of Fox News Channel's FOX & Friends and as host of Kilmeade and Friends. Prior to joining in 1997, Kilmeade has worked at NEWSPORT TV, the independent station WLIG-TV in New York, KHSL-TV in Ontario, CA, The Jim Brown Show on XTRA-AM, and Channel One. Kilmeade is the author of several New York Times bestselling books, including "Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates", "Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans" and "George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved The American Revolution.” Brian Kilmeade received a B.A. from Long Island University.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.

In this episode, Dr. Dominic Green joins us from the United Kingdom to discuss mounting protests and violence raging across Europe. It’s been a tumultuous month in France in particular, with Paris and other cities engulfed in fire fueled by radical groups. We examine the broader implications of this upheaval for democratic values and societal norms. Is Europe a distant issue, or a precursor to what the United States might face?Dr. Dominic Green is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Examiner, The Critic and the Jewish Chronicle. He edited the US edition of The Spectator and is the author of five books, including The Double Life of Dr. Lopez: Spies, Shakespeare and the Plot to Poison Elizabeth I, Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899, and The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898. He is a regular contributor to The New York Post, The New Criterion, First Things, and The Daily Telegraph. He has taught Writing and History at Brandeis, and Politics at Boston College, and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Arts, the Center for American Culture & Ideas and the FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.

We are joined by Luke Jacobus, one of AEI’s own, to highlight how China’s spies leverage the LinkedIn networking platform to recruit Americans to pass them sensitive knowledge. MSS agents use artificial intelligence to impersonate consultants and pay U.S. clearance holders for national security information. How effective is this recruitment method? What are potential countermeasures? To what extent do private corporations shoulder the blame? Listen in on the risks that face Americans face online every day. Luke Jacobus is a research associate at the Coalition Defense of Taiwan project, a partnership between the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War. His research focuses on the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) politics, the People’s Liberation Army, and the PRC’s overseas influence and espionage activities. Luke is a graduate of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), where he majored in Chinese and International Studies, and speaks Mandarin Chinese.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.

In this episode, we are joined by Chris Miller for a clear-minded and sobering discussion of the future of AI. The geopolitical competition between the United States and China in the field of artificial intelligence is the arms race of the 21st century, yet in this case, the product is self-improving. Some warn it could end humanity, while others refute these claims as exaggerations. So, what is the answer? Is the opportunity greater than the risk? What are the Chinese up to? Can they beat us? We discuss the risks, opportunities, and implications of proper regulation.Chris Miller is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an associate professor at Tufts University. His latest book Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (Scribner, 2022) is a New York Times bestseller. In addition to Chip War, Dr. Miller’s books include We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to Asia from Peter the Great to Putin, Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia, and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR. Dr. Miller’s work has been published in History of Political Economy, the International History Review, and the Soviet and Post-Soviet Review. His commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Moscow Times, and South China Morning Post, among others. He has an MA and PhD in history from Yale University and a BA in history from Harvard University and has done research at Hoover Institution, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Moscow Center and the New Economic School in Moscow.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.

Jason Miyares, former attorney general for the state of Virginia, joins us to discuss Virginia’s hard political shift leftward — skyrocketing taxes, sanctuary cities — and the impact of these policies on its eight million citizens. We weigh rising crime rates, extreme constitutional amendments, and the end of purple Virginia. What the hell are the consequences of this governance? How the hell is this going to impact American citizens?Jason S. Miyares served as the 48th Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2022 to 2026, becoming the first Latino-American — and specifically the first Cuban-American— elected to statewide office in Virginia. As the Commonwealth’s chief legal officer, he led the Office of the Attorney General and represented the interests of more than eight million Virginians. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from James Madison University and his J.D. from the College of William & Mary School of Law. Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.