What the Hell Is Going On
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The American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen address the questions we’re all asking in their podcast, “What the Hell Is Going On?” In conversational, informative and irreverent episodes, Pletka and Thiessen interview policymakers and experts, asking tough, probing questions about the most important foreign policy and security challenges facing the world today.
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With just one week until Election Day in New York City, we’re reflecting on the past and future of the Democratic Party, Gracie Mansion, and the political home of mayoral hopeful, Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist, having campaigned alongside and accepted donations from members of the Democratic Socialists of America, a group with a clear, parasitic strategy towards the Democratic establishment and post-colonial West. What does this mean for our political parties? If successful, what does it mean for New York? And for our country? James Kirchick is a journalist and the New York Times-bestselling author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington and The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age. A contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, a writer at large for Air Mail, and a contributor to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Project, he has reported from over 40 countries and his writing has appeared in many publications including the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
1The Trump administration continues to focus on achieving peace in the Middle East, navigating a fragile ceasefire and defining the conditions for a Palestinian future. Meanwhile, Putin’s war in Ukraine rages on, marked by stalled negotiations and continued bombardments. Both situations have proven more complex and unpredictable than the President initially hoped. Lately, Tomahawk missiles remain top of mind for President Zelensky, while Trump cancelled a proposed summit with Putin. What comes next for these two conflicts? And what can we do to ensure the good guys prevail in the end? General Jack Keane is a retired 4-star general and the former Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army. He is also the Chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, a Fox News Senior Strategic Analyst, and a member of the Secretary of Defense Policy Board. General Keane has previously advised four Defense Secretaries and was a member of the 2018 and 2022 Congressional Commission on the National Defense Strategy. Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
After two incredibly long years, we are finally able to celebrate the return of all living Israeli hostages from the hell of Hamas. Absent specifics and relying on a long history of failed “new beginnings” in the Middle East, Trump’s 20-point Peace Plan begs the question, what comes next? With a successful Phase One and a fragile Phase Two, it is with cautious optimism that we ask: how will disarmament and demilitarization be successfully carried out in Gaza? What does this mean for Israeli politics and the looming election? And how will Western leftist groups react to the end of the fake “genocide”? Dan Senor currently serves as the Chief Public Affairs Officer at Elliott Investment Management in addition to hosting his own podcast, Call Me Back. Mr. Senor served as a senior advisor to U.S. Senator Mitt Romney and former U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in their campaigns for national office. During the presidential administration of George W. Bush, Mr. Senor was based in Baghdad, where he served as chief spokesperson for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Before that, he was a senior Defense Department official based in US Central Command in Qatar. Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
More than three years into Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, our European allies are reconsidering whether or not frozen Russian assets, totaling $300 billion on the continent, can be used to help Ukraine. As part of a broader brought about by the Trump Administration, Western countries are finally prepared to act in concert to overcome financial concerns, investment retaliation, and collective action challenges in supporting Ukraine. In addition, the Cuba-oriented Helms-Burton Act provides useful precedent for the options on the table to further pressure the Russian economy. With the noose tightening via proposed oil sanctions, potential Tomahawk missiles, and mobilized transatlantic support for Ukraine, what choices does Putin have left? Will he be forced to face the music? And what will ultimately bring him to the negotiating table?Stephen Rademaker currently serves as Senior of Counsel at Covington and Burling LLP, helping clients navigate international policy, sanctions, and CFIUS challenges. With over 20 years of experience working on national security issues in the White House, the State Department, and the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Stephen served as an Assistant Secretary of State from 2002 through 2006 and headed three bureaus of the State Department, including the Bureau of Arms Control and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
Two years ago today, Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust. In this episode of WTH Extra! Dany and Marc discuss Dany’s article in the WTH Substack, Two years after October 7, there is no path to peace. Following October 7, 2023, the ideological defeat of Hamas has remained paramount to the survival of Israel. Hamas’s goal remains the same: the complete destruction of the Jewish State. Dany reminds us that what Western leaders fail to understand is that this fight has never been about land; and for as long as the “Palestinian” idea is built upon the destruction of the Jewish state, there will be no peace. A “yes, but” agreement from Hamas changes nothing. So, what’s next? Is the answer a “de-Hamasifaction” like that of post-World War II Germany? And could it extend to both Gaza and the West? Read Dany's article in the WTH Substack here.
On this episode of WTH Extra! Dany and Marc discuss Marc’s column, Democrats shut down the government to protect covid spending, not Obamacare. In the umpteenth government shutdown in recent memory, Democrats have decided that permanent COVID subsides for healthcare, already extended and phased out by a Democrat-controlled government, are more essential than keeping the government open. But… are Republicans actually considering agreeing to D demands? And for Democrats… why another effort at self-immolation? Marc makes it clear, “Democrats claim they are trying to preserve the Obamacare tax credits. Wrong. They're trying to preserve American Rescue Plan tax credits. The pandemic emergency officially ended in 2023. There is no rationale for extending COVID relief spending two years later.”Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
President Trump’s speech before the General Assembly has sparked debate over its style and substance, raising questions about UN organizations that do not serve American interests. As we continue to foot its ever-growing bill, the United Nations system appears to be failing in peacekeeping and security. How did Trump’s speech signal a shift in our relationship with the international organization? When will the 180-day review be released? And what should it say about long-awaited UN reform?Brett D. Schaefer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on multilateral treaties, peacekeeping, and the United Nations and international organizations. Before joining AEI, Mr. Schaefer was the Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Previously, he was a member of the United Nations Committee on Contributions and an expert on the UN Task Force for the United States Institute of Peace. Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
On this episode of WTH, Dany and Marc discuss the assassination of conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk. The problem of political violence in America has only worsened since its uptick in 2020 with compounding factors like spoken and online rhetoric and the symbiosis of the far left and mainstream. It’s inside this Petri dish that a permission structure for violence is worsening our republic and presenting a clear and present danger to our country and those who engage in civil discourse. How does this answer the cancel culture question? And most importantly, how do we contribute to its end and pull us back from the brink? Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
According to major news outlets, the capital of the free world is under federal occupation by Donald Trump. Here in D.C., the 30-day public emergency has expired and Pam Bondi’s “takeover” of the MPD has ended, but National Guard troops aren’t going anywhere with an extended deployment to Nov. 30th. Their presence has led to a major reduction in violent crime, but what happens when they vacate? Is this something that could or should be replicated in other cities across the country? Beyond this highly successful stop gap measure, how can we keep our cities safe?Rafael Mangual is the Nick Ohnell Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a member of the Council on Criminal Justice. He has authored and coauthored a number of MI reports and op-eds on issues ranging from urban crime and jail violence to broader matters of criminal and civil justice reform. In 2025, he was appointed to serve a second term as a member of the New York State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
After splashy announcements from our European, Australian, and Canadian allies, later this month, the UN will vote to “recognize a Palestinian State”. While theatrical and without legal import, the vote can only be understood as a reward for terrorism and October 7th. Hamas and too many Palestinians have no interest in state building, institutions, democratic elections, or taking part in the “two state solution” and never have. And yet, while Hamas is still holding hostages and blocking humanitarian aid, the UN is displaying its bias against Israel. Will a “state” ever satisfy Palestinian nationalism? Are European leaders just making a play for domestic favor? Will the Jordanian option ever see the sun? And if we wanted to, how would we return to status quo ante October 7?Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Chairman of the Tikvah Fund, and the Chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition. He previously served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in Donald Trump’s first administration.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
The intersectional coalition the Democrats put together in 2024, comprised of the 1%, coastal, corporate, elites and the 20% on 80/20 issues, is failing to register new voters or execute at the polls. While they abandon their historic constituencies and adopt more radical left wing cultural ambitions, it’s not clear how the Democratic Party will rebuild. Between inflation and immigration, the Party has antagonized enough voters that they now face a monster structural problem for elections to come. We ask Jay to contextualize the history, how they got here, and how this roadmap will affect the gerrymandering debate, policy, and who we’ll see on the ballot in 2028.Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on political theory, Congress, and elections. He is also a visiting scholar at Grove City College and a contributing editor at the Washington Examiner. He writes and speaks frequently on American elections, with a special attention on placing contemporary trends in historical context.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
Closing out What the Hell’s summer book series, we offer a timely reminder of the value of free speech and critical thinking from a time when it wasn’t taken for granted. Charlie English discusses his book, The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature (Random House, 2025). Charlie chronicles George Minden’s 1980s covert intelligence operation that smuggled literature into Poland from beyond the Iron Curtain. From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s “book club” secretly sent ten million banned titles into the East and combated communist censorship, creating a vibrant culture in Poland that would outlast the toppled Soviet regime. What is the value of printed word in our society? Can ideas beat out on the battlefield? Charlie reminds us they can.Charlie English is a London-based non-fiction writer and the author of three internationally acclaimed books. He has appeared on NPR, the BBC and Channel 4, written for numerous newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Independent, and given talks at Hay, Jaipur and the Royal Geographical Society, where he is a fellow. Formerly, he was Head of International News at Guardian News and Media.Find The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature here.Find the transcript here.
In the next episode of our annual What the Hell’s summer book series, we are time traveling around the world with experimental archeologist, Sam Kean, who shares with us his latest science narrative novel, Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations (Little Brown and Company, 2025). Sam took us on an adventure of the senses, back through the history of mankind and across the globe, from the Egyptian pyramids to the temples of Mexico. “Above all,” he writes, “I hope this book can reveal what unites us today with people from long ago, and help us understand that they were just people, no different than us.” WTH can we learn from living like those in the past? And WTH do caterpillars taste like? Sam Kean is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books that combine history and science. His stories have appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate, among other places, and his work has been featured on NPR. His books The Disappearing Spoon and The Violinist’s Thumb were national bestsellers, and both were named an Amazon “Top 5” science books of the year. Find Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations here.Find the transcript here.
In this episode of What the Hell’s summer book series, bestselling author, Jonathan Horn, discusses his new book, The Fate of the Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines (Scribner, 2025). In it, Jonathan tells the tale of lesser-known American Pacific Theater hero, General Jonathan Wainwright. General Wainwright’s story is a lesson of the importance of keeping your word and honor. As a leader, he says, “no other course of action would be honorable but to stay with my men and share their fate.” What else came of the man left behind? What led him to his infamous surrender? And beyond the medal they share, how should the two generals be remembered?Jonathan Horn is the author of Washington’s End and the Robert E. Lee biography The Man Who Would Not Be Washington, which was a Washington Post bestseller. Jonathan has written for outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times Disunion series, New York Post, The Daily Beast, National Review, and POLITICO. A former White House presidential speechwriter, Jonathan served under President George W. Bush. Find The Fate of the Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines here.Find the transcript here.
Kicking off our annual What the Hell’s summer book series, Zach Cooper discusses his new book, Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries (Yale University Press, 2025). How will the United States and China evolve militarily in the years ahead? Many experts believe the answer to this question is largely unknowable. But in his book, Zack Cooper argues that the American and Chinese militaries are following a well-trodden path. For centuries, the world’s most powerful militaries have adhered to a remarkably consistent pattern of behavior, determined largely by their leaders’ perceptions of relative power shifts. WTH is China on this path? And importantly, WTH is the US?Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US strategy in Asia, including alliance dynamics and US-China competition. He also teaches at Princeton University and serves as chair of the board of the Open Technology Fund. Before joining AEI, Dr. Cooper was the senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Find Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Fall of Great Militaries here.Find the transcript here.
Almost two years after the October 7th attacks, facts about the state of life in Gaza are almost impossible to glean from the daily news. Much of what used to be mainstream journalism has become political activism, and Palestinian allied NGOs, UN organizations, and international press are using selective information as a weapon. Are Palestinians starving? Or is this just another lie in the war on Israel? Matti Friedman joins us to talk about his important piece on Gaza for The Free Press. Matti Friedman is a Jerusalem-based columnist for The Free Press. He’s an award-winning journalist and author of four nonfiction books, of which the most recent is Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai. A former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section, he previously wrote a monthly feature for Tablet Magazine. His writing has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
Dominic Green writes, “The war on free speech is about to violate the most sacred recesses of British life—not the home or the workplace, but the pub.” In legislation dubbed the “Banter Bill”, Parliament is attacking the center of British life in a new effort to hold employers accountable for staff’s hurt feelings over third parties “offensive language”. Under the UK’s two-tiered justice system, government is now in the service of a minority to punish perceived miscreants for free speech. How did the UK government arrive here? And how will the British restore freedom and common sense?Dominic Green is a fellow at the Royal Historical Society, a Wall Street Journal contributor, and a Washington Examiner columnist. He was previously a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and editor-in-chief of The Spectator’s U.S. edition. Dr. Green is the author of five books about British history and society. Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
Last month, New York City took to the polls for their mayoral primary and the Democratic party has decided that a socialist, communist, terrorist supporting, antisemite, is the best candidate for mayor of New York City. Zohran Mamdani is a radical left "intersectionality salad". Between his unironic quotation of Marx to raps about the Holy Land Five, we're left wondering what New Yorkers are thinking and how Mamdani came to these "beliefs". Is this really the path out of the wilderness for the Democratic party?Seth Mandel is the Senior editor of Commentary Magazine who frequently writes on Israel, antisemitism, and national politics. Previously, he has worked as executive editor of the Washington Examiner print edition between 2018 and 2023, and worked previously as an op-ed editor at the New York Post.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
President Trump has made it clear: whichever nation is the obstacle to peace in ending Russia’s war on Ukraine will face an opponent with the military aid and backing of the United States. Putin has no intention of giving up his objectives in Ukraine and Trump is over the bull. Reversing a Pentagon freeze of critical weapons shipments to Ukraine, Trump announced Monday night that more defensive weapons were on the way. In the wake of Russia’s largest combined drone and missile strike, having Patriot missile systems is paramount to Ukraine’s ability to defend themselves. So, what’s it going to take to bring Putin to the table? How can we sufficiently arm Ukraine on Russia’s dime? And when will this bloody war end?General Jack Keane is a retired 4-star general and the former Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army. He is also the Chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, a Fox News Senior Strategic Analyst, and a member of the Secretary of Defense Policy Board. General Keane has previously advised four Defense Secretaries and was a member of the 2018 and 2022 Congressional Commission on the National Defense Strategy.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
Notwithstanding regular headlines and firm conventional wisdom, the MAGA Movement is not and never has been an isolationist faction of the Republican Party. Neither the American people nor self-identified MAGA Republicans are fundamentally isolationist, and in fact score higher than non-MAGA Republicans on support for U.S. intervention abroad. The numbers don’t lie: this year’s Reagan Foundation Summer Poll found the MAGA coalition strongly support Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Why are these results counterintuitive? And how has a tiny isolationist faction of self-appointed MAGA spokespeople drummed up so much noise? Roger Zakheim serves as the Washington Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. Before joining, he was General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. In this role, Mr. Zakheim managed the passage of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, the defense policy bill which authorizes the Defense Department’s budget. Mr. Zakheim’s government experience also includes serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense where he supported the department’s policies and programs related to Iraq and Afghanistan coalition affairs.Read the transcript here
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This was the worst take on this situation I have heard. Trump was not serious and Vance did set up Zelensky. Two bullies trying to gang up on a man who towers over Trump and Vance in his character. Saying Trump would guarantee security so that he could race the country of minerals and make money off the deal was ridiculous. Trump blatantly said that he would not give security guarantees. Trump and Vance have yet to say the slightest negative thing about Putin. Trump and Vance blew this.
Qasim Soleymani was the biggest enemy of ISIS. If you dont believe me, ask about him from Iraqis.
There is no America First Case for supporting Ukraine, only a Joe Biden Case.
great show. You guys are my new go-to.
You two are a new find and I really appreciate your thoughtful and objective perspectives. also great guests. Thank you. what a breath of fresh air.