Episode 1012: Inside the Ukraine War – Drones, Diplomacy, and the Risk of Escalation

The Ukraine war has now outlasted World War I — and there's no clear end in sight. Former CIA Russia analysis director George Beebe joins Newt for a sobering assessment of where things stand. They dig into how AI-guided drones costing $17,500 apiece are reshaping the battlefield and challenging a c…

Episode 1011: Americans Who Made the 20th Century — From Ronald Reagan to Hedy Lamarr

What does it mean to have the American can-do spirit — and who best embodied it during the most turbulent century in our nation's history? Author Richard Battle joins Newt to discuss his new book, AmeriCANS Who Made America: 20th Century — The American Century, the fourth volume in his celebrated s…

Episode 1010: Rick Scott – It's Time for the Senate to Do Its Job

With the SAVE America Act stalled in the Senate for the third time, Senator Rick Scott is sounding the alarm. The former two-term governor and successful entrepreneur joins Newt for a frank conversation about the Senate's capacity, and willingness, to get things done. Scott makes no secret of his f…

Episode 1009: Glory, Grief, and the Gavel The Most Dramatic Speaker's Race in a Century

In January 2023, Kevin McCarthy endured five grueling days and 15 rounds of balloting to win the Speaker's gavel — the most dramatic Speaker's race in a century. John Leganski was at the center of it all. As McCarthy's Deputy Chief of Staff and the youngest floor director in House history, he watch…

Episode 1008: Trump's Superpower The Founders Return

What would the Founding Fathers think of America today? That question sparked historian and novelist Johanna Neuman's new book, Trump's Superpower, in which George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and other founders — plus revolutionary-era writer Mercy Otis Warr…

Episode 1007: Where Are Americans Moving — and Why?

Every year, millions of Americans vote with their feet — packing up and crossing state lines in search of something better. But what exactly are they looking for? In this episode, Newt talks with Jack Salmon, research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, to dig into his new pol…

Episode 1006: America 250 – The Declaration of Independence

On America's 250th birthday, Newt delivers a special solo episode dedicated to the document that started it all: the Declaration of Independence. Newt sets the scene in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 — the heat, the secrecy, the weight of the moment — and traces the path from Lexington and Conc…

Episode 1005: America 250 – The Story of the National Anthem with Shannon McLucas

Newt talks with Fort McHenry National Park Ranger and historian Shannon McLucas about the remarkable story behind America's national anthem. McLucas recounts how Francis Scott Key, a Georgetown lawyer sent to negotiate a prisoner release, found himself aboard a British ship during the 25-hour bomba…

Episode 1004: America 250 – The Greatest Sentence Ever Written with Walter Isaacson

Newt welcomes bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson to discuss his new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, a deep dive into the Declaration of Independence's most celebrated passage: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Crea…

Episode 1003: America 250 – The Future of NASA and Space Travel with Jared Isaacman

Newt talks with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman about America's renewed push into space. Isaacman, a former commercial astronaut who led the Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn missions, discusses how the Artemis program is advancing toward returning astronauts to the moon, with Artemis III testing lun…