American Thought Leaders

💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHG The largest Chinese embassy in Europe is set to rise in the heart of London: a 20,000-square-meter complex at Royal Mint Court.Local councilors rejected it twice. But the government approved it, and a High Court challenge from residents was dismissed this summer.Standing against it is Luke de Pulford, founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC)—an international coalition of lawmakers opposing Chinese Communist Party infiltration.Why does this embassy matter, and why should America care?The site sits directly above fiber-optic cables carrying sensitive financial data between the City of London and Canary Wharf, Britain’s two main financial districts. The architectural drawings are also redacted.“Nearly an entire floor is redacted, so we don’t know what the use of those buildings is, and some of those rooms are in the basement area,” de Pulford says.“If the Chinese were able to, in some way, sabotage or hack this cabling. … They would be impacting any financial services from anywhere in the world who are located in those two financial centers, which of course includes the United States.”MI5 lists China as one of the most serious national security threats facing the UK. So why was the embassy approved?“It’s partly down to the leverage that China exacts, it’s partly down to the carrots that it dangles around economic opportunities, and it’s partly down to the blunt coercion it’s willing to mete out,” de Pulford says.This episode looks at what can still be done to stop the project, why it’s being called the last line of defense, and what it takes to resist communist infiltration from within.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Grace Jo was born in North Korea and nearly starved to death as a child during the country’s devastating famine in the 1990s.Her father crossed into China in search of food for his family, only to be tortured and die after returning to North Korea. Her grandmother and two younger brothers died of starvation. And her oldest sister disappeared while searching for food. The family suspects she became a victim of human trafficking in China.Jo still remembers that her grandmother’s dying wish was to eat a baked potato. It was a wish the family could not fulfill.At six years old, Jo first crossed the Tumen River into China with her mother and sister. In China, they lived in hiding—ever fearful of being sent back to North Korea. Jo was repatriated twice before finally escaping North Korea for the last time.Her story is a haunting account of survival, loss, and hope that shows the brutal reality of life under North Korea’s regime and the determination, resilience, and sheer luck it takes to escape it.In 2008, with the help of a missionary, Jo, her mother, and her older sister made it to the United States. She became a U.S. citizen in 2013.Today, she is the founder of the Broken Chains Foundation, formerly the Grace Jo Foundation. And through the Dissident Project, she speaks regularly at schools and other venues, sharing her story to educate young people about the realities of totalitarian and communist regimes.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Is the end of privacy inevitable? Is programmable money inevitable? Is it inevitable that artificial intelligence will eliminate most of the world’s white-collar jobs?Oxford professor Carissa Véliz argues that such claims are a red flag.She’s the author of the new book “Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future.”Someone who says a future is inevitable is trying to get you to do something and benefit from your belief, she argues.She is convinced that such self‑fulfilling prophecies only work if we believe them and she urges people to defy these narratives by asking: Who is predicting this future? Who benefits? What data supports it—and what missing data might contradict it?Véliz is a philosopher and author who specializes in privacy and the ethics of artificial intelligence. She is an associate professor of philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI and a Fellow at Hertford College at the University of Oxford.Prediction, Véliz explains, is a business model: diagnose a problem, promise that more data will solve it, then sell tools to analyze the huge datasets institutions don’t know how to use.Throughout history, rulers have attached themselves to prophets. Today, that role is played by immensely rich and powerful tech executives who advise governments and control key infrastructure and access to citizens via social media.In our interview, we discuss how surveillance and behavioral prediction undermine and erode an open society where people should have the freedom to speak, protest, and be anonymous.Other questions we discuss: Do “digital natives” like Gen Z and Gen Alpha—who have never experienced a true non-digital world—even understand the role of privacy? And what are the best antidotes to the harms of digital life?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

In this exclusive interview with FBI Director Kash Patel, we dive into the FBI’s campaign to take down scam centers around the world, from Burma to the United Arab Emirates.Last year, the FBI launched Operation Blackout, a 16-month campaign that dismantled four of the world’s largest scam centers.Working with international partners—notably including China’s Ministry of Public Security—the FBI seized over $15 billion, arrested more than 300 individuals, and freed thousands of trafficked victims who had been forced to work at these scam compounds.The amount of money Americans have reported losing to fraud has increased over threefold from 2020 to 2025, according to data from the Federal Trade Commission. And nearly half of that in 2025 went to romance cryptocurrency scams—known as pig-butchering scams.Scammers use texts to build trust before luring victims into fake investments that drain their life savings. Then they move and launder the money through crypto wallets.So what can people do to avoid being scammed? Will the FBI be returning all the seized money? And why has the FBI chosen to work with China on tackling these scam compounds? How can the Chinese regime be trusted to work in good faith?In this wide-ranging interview, we also discuss the FBI’s fight to catch spies, investigate transnational repression, cut bureaucratic red tape, and prevent the next terrorist attack.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Almost a year after the Washington Declaration, Armenia is trying to turn a hard-won peace with Azerbaijan into something lasting. In this conversation, Armenia’s ambassador to the United States, Narek Mkrtchyan, explains what the agreement means on the ground and why the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity could reshape the region and the country’s future.“We sit in a very tough neighborhood. We sit in a very interesting geography. We are at the crossroads of Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, South Caucasus,” Mkrtchyan says.Mkrtchyan describes how Armenia is trying to turn geography into strategy through the development of diplomacy, new trade routes, and international partnerships. He views this as more than a peace process—it’s a chance to redefine Armenia’s place in the region.“In the center is the concept of crossroads of peace,” Mkrtchyan says.Recently, Armenia also got approval for the biggest artificial intelligence factory in the region—a $4 billion project that officials say could help make the country a hub for computing power and advanced technology.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Americans are ripped off in the billions annually through romance “pig-butchering” scams—the most dominant type. But who’s really behind them?The shocking reality is the vast majority of these scammers are trafficked victims, enslaved across more than 60 countries and forced to scam or face torture.“You’re working 17-hour days. You’re catatonic. You’re not getting sleep. You start to doze. They‘ll electrocute you, and if you refuse to scam, they’ll torture you,” said Timothy Blackwood, an award-winning Canadian-American film director.His film “Scam Slave: From Hell to Home” follows a Ugandan man promised a high-paying job in Thailand, only to be kidnapped by a Myanmar-based crime syndicate.“There’s all different types of scams going on there. There’s villas, there’s strip clubs, there’s clinics to support the staff that are managing and running these compounds,” Blackwood says.These scam centers in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar generate billions that fund even more advanced operations.“It’s not simply in the horrific statistics of how many billions of dollars are being scammed from Americans annually, but the human cost to people’s lives.”In this episode, I dive into how these operations stay hidden and what can actually be done to stop them.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHG Since the sexual revolution and the introduction of no-fault divorce in 1969, the institution of marriage in America has undergone a profound transformation.Katy Faust, founder of children’s rights organization Them Before Us and co-author of a book by the same name, argues that marriage has changed from a permanent, child-centered union to a vehicle for adult fulfillment.And now new reproductive technologies—from IVF to surrogacy—are making parenthood possible in ways never seen before.For many, this is progress. But at what cost?Faust argues that for decades, we have prioritized adult desire over a child’s fundamental right to be known, loved, and raised by their biological mother and father.In this episode, she walks me through many complex questions: What makes something a natural right? What is the true impact of divorce on children? Why isn’t surrogacy just a neutral transaction? And for countries facing shrinking birth rates, why is IVF perhaps not the right solution?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

The values Americans hold dear—such as freedom of speech, religious liberty, and democratic elections—are weaponized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), says Tianliang Zhang, an author, historian, and popular commentator on China affairs.In this episode, he argues that the CCP devised a master plan called “America against America” to exploit those very freedoms and openness in order to undermine U.S. interests.The concept was developed by Wang Huning in 1989, chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).“But how to implement that, that’s the unrestricted war,” Zhang says.Unrestricted warfare is a CCP doctrine of leveraging everything as a tool of war, whether it be fentanyl, the media, or election integrity.How is this war waged in practice? The transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners is one such example.The Falun Gong meditation practice was popular in China during the 1990s. An estimated 70 million to 100 million people took it up, crediting it for health benefits and mental well-being. In 1999, the CCP unleashed a nationwide persecution, subjecting the practitioners to various abuses, including slave labor and forced organ harvesting.“CCP sees it as [the] number one threat in its history … so they use American media, they use the freedom of speech here, they use the justice system here to persecute Falun Gong [practitioners],” Zhang said.The CCP’s goal, Zhang says, is to “eliminate all the independent thoughts” that do not conform to communist ideology.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

🔥IMMERSED: Round closes July 30. Invest before the round closes. Learn more about Immersed here: https://ept.ms/44RDBfk “The Cuban regime has been very successful at portraying itself as harmless,” but in reality, Cuba’s intelligence service is “more formidable than the KGB,” says John Suarez, the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.A new 100 page State Department report details the full scope of Cuba’s operations, penetrating all levels of the U.S. government, including the CIA and State Department.How did a country like Cuba become what the State Department describes as the “capital of 21st century communism?”Suarez says the regime’s long-term infiltration operations recruit agents early, especially via university exchanges.For instance, Ana Belén Montes spied for Cuba for 17 years as a senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, leaking critical information that compromised U.S. intelligence operations.In another case, a high-ranking U.S. diplomat, Victor Manuel Rocha, shaped American foreign policy for 40 years to benefit Havana until his arrest in 2023.The Chinese Communist Party is among Cuba’s top backers, installing infrastructure in Cuba to spy on U.S. communications.In this episode, we trace how this small island built a global intelligence network and how sympathizers in free societies help whitewash the regime.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

🔥Check out Immersed and invest in the future of AI-powered spatial computing. Round closes July 30:https://ept.ms/4fY9c4bTaiwan faces millions of cyberattacks and intrusion attempts every day, as well as a dizzying onslaught of disinformation from Beijing.There are few people who understand what Taiwan is really up against better than Taiwanese legislator Wang Ting-yu, a leader in the Taiwanese Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.He’s been sanctioned three times by Beijing and repeatedly threatened for speaking out.In this episode, he reveals Taiwan’s three-step strategy to withstand the Chinese Communist Party’s psychological onslaught.Winning the battle for truth, he believes, is imperative to preserving the life of any democratic nation.And he also breaks down the importance of this tiny island nation. Taiwan produces two-thirds of the world’s semiconductors—and nearly all of the advanced ones—but its importance stretches far beyond this single product. Wang details Taiwan’s strategic position, its role in critical supply chains, and its role as a frontier of human freedom.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Historically, America was always one of the friendliest countries towards Jews compared to many countries in Europe, says Batya Ungar-Sargon.But in recent years, there’s a major shift on the left with anti-Semitism on the rise, she says. In this episode, she breaks down the ideological shifts reshaping American politics and explains why she rejects the modern “victimhood hierarchy.”Ungar-Sargon is the author of "The Jews and the Left" and host of “Batya!” on NewsNation argues.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Katharine Birbalsingh has been deemed “Britain’s Strictest Headmistress”—and she wears the title proudly. Founder of Michaela Community School in London, Birbalsingh has built one of the UK’s top-performing schools by rejecting the educational fads of the last generation and returning to older principles: discipline, personal responsibility, and patriotism.The Michaela Community School is an inner-city, non-selective charter school. Despite three and a half years of opposition from unions and councils, Birbalsingh fought to be able to provide a good schooling alternative for London’s poorer communities. And she’s succeeded. Her school has repeatedly ranked No. 1 in student progress in the entire country, and thousands of visitors from around the world have come to study and learn from her model.In this episode, Birbalsingh reveals how Western institutions have quietly abandoned the moral formation of children. This, she argues, has driven civilizational decline more than any policy failure. Birbalsingh argues that many of today’s schools immerse children in a culture of grievance and victimhood rather than agency and duty.Birbalsingh details the three pillars of Michaela’s educational approach: discipline, teacher-led instruction, and what she calls “small-c conservative values,” such as self-sacrifice, ownership, and accountability.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHGThere’s one place in America where Chinese nationals can enter without a visa.It’s called the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a U.S. territory in the Pacific, right by Guam. And it has become a major security loophole for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence operations as well as Chinese organized crime and birth tourism ventures, said Cleo Paskal, a senior fellow at the Compass Institute.Yet there has been little political will in Washington to close this loophole, Paskal argues.In this episode, Paskal breaks down the CCP’s aggressive influence and gray-zone warfare operations in this region—areas critical to U.S. defense in any Taiwan conflict—and why this matters for U.S. security.Every U.S. president who served in the Pacific theater in World War II understood that the security of the American mainland depends on a secure Pacific perimeter, Paskal said.As such, in addition to two U.S. territories in the region, the United States has maintained Compacts of Free Association with Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands since the end of World War II.These treaties give the U.S. military exclusive defense and strategic access to these countries in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and economic support.But the Chinese Communist Party has sought to aggressively expand its influence in these islands through pressure, gray zone warfare, and disinformation campaigns. Amid all this, U.S. funding for these compacts nearly lapsed in recent years, because many in Washington apparently have forgotten their importance.In this episode, Paskal walks me through a key question: if the security of America’s mainland has always depended on control of the central Pacific, what consequences will we pay now that so few Americans know these islands—or their citizens—even exist?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

It is becoming increasingly common to hear the American Dream is dead, with young people today often citing housing prices, the difficulty of finding jobs, and tax burdens.Forbes Media chairman Steve Forbes has a very different take.“A free people always finds ways to move ahead, even though times and circumstances change. The problems we face today are not anything inherent in America, but in mistakes made by government. And the nice thing about that is mistakes can be undone,” Forbes said.He’s the editor-in-chief of Forbes Media and the co-author of “Inflation: What It Is, Why It’s Bad, and How to Fix It.”In this wide-ranging episode, filmed at the FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas, we dove into the rise of democratic socialist candidates, DEI hiring, inflation, how the United States should approach Taiwan and Iran, and the basic truth about prosperity that no one is teaching today.At the heart of this conversation is an extremely hopeful message: “Human ingenuity is unlimited. Have faith in the future.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Nigeria has become perhaps the deadliest place on earth for Christians, accounting for the vast majority of Christians killed worldwide for faith-related reasons.Beyond the killings, millions more have been displaced into camps, where many now die slowly from malnutrition rather than violence, says Judd Saul.He is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur, and Christian missionary based in Iowa who founded Equipping the Persecuted, an organization dedicated to helping Christians facing jihadi violence in Nigeria.Saul first traveled to Nigeria in 2011 on a mission trip with his grandfather, Duane Wessels.It was an experience that reshaped the direction of his life and work. Since then, he has visited Nigeria multiple times a year.In our interview, Saul explains what forces drive the violence against Christian Nigerians, who make up about 50 percent of the population.“This is a well-organized and funded Fulani Islamic militia who are hell-bent on turning Nigeria into a caliphate,” he told me.According to Saul, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Christians are killed each year, averaging about 35 deaths per day.Roughly 800 Christian communities have been wiped off the map over the past three decades.Views expressed in this video are the opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

🔥IMMERSED: Round closes July 30. Invest before the round closes. Learn more about Immersed here:https://ept.ms/4yurClsFreya India is the author of “Girls: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything.”In this episode, India unpacks how the rise of social media has radically transformed how young women view themselves and the world. She argues that an increasing number of young women no longer view themselves as human beings, but as products competing in a marketplace of likes and followers.India describes the pressure she felt growing up in the age of social media.“I really felt like I had to sell my life to strangers constantly,” she said.From Snapchat’s public friend rankings to TikTok’s algorithms that flood vulnerable users with more of what destabilizes them, many various social platforms are engineered to exploit the very insecurities almost all young people have, she argues.In this episode, we dive into many important questions: Why are so many young women today anxious or unhappy? How has the messaging of modern feminism affected young women—and what are the true consequences? How has ubiquitous pornography altered relationships, and how is it especially impacting young men? And what may help shrink the growing rift between young men and women today?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

China’s new ethnic unity law has taken effect, and it’s going to be used to justify and expand transnational repression overseas in combination with existing laws on promoting “separatism,” said Guermantes Lailari, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and longtime China researcher.“In this new ethnic law, they encourage people to report on other Chinese who are not promoting ‘unity.’” Lailari said.“So if you’re a Chinese person in the United States promoting Taiwan, they can prosecute you in absentia, and the court will have a ruling. And they can put out a red notice or Interpol notice on that person who’s overseas, and if that person ever travels to a country that China has bilateral extradition laws with, that person can be detained and transferred to China,” Lailari added.Lailari moved to Taiwan a few years ago to study the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) up close.“This place,” he said, “is being attacked every day, whether it’s cyber, cognitive warfare, media warfare, economic warfare, diplomatic warfare.”In our interview, he argues that the CCP poses the most serious long-term threat to Western civilization—not just militarily, but through a combination of legal, economic, psychological, and intelligence operations.In this episode, we dive into why the CCP is fixated on taking Taiwan, and what the global fallout of such a takeover would look like.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Young men have been under attack by popular culture for the last 20 years, argues Nick Freitas, a former Green Beret and Virginia state legislator. They have been told that masculinity is toxic, the future is female, that they are responsible for the world’s problems, and that they no longer have a place, he says.Despite this onslaught, Freitas shares a hopeful message for the young men of today: “God has created men for a particular purpose. We are supposed to be strong. We are supposed to be capable. Why? So we can honor God, protect our families, and protect our civilization.”Freitas recently wrote a book entitled “The Manbook: A Point-by-Point Guide to Sucking It Up and Getting the Job Done,” where he shares hard-won lessons on how to be a good man despite resistance, or outright attacks, from the prevailing culture.In this episode, Freitas reveals why a whole generation of men are flocking to radical ideologies—and how to prevent it.Perhaps surprisingly, Freitas puts the onus on the men of older generations, arguing that young men desire good role models and guidance. Older men, therefore, must live the kind of lives that young men would want to model.“The best argument you make is not just the one that you articulate through your words,” Freitas says, “it’s the one that you articulate through what you do in your own life.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHGThere are few people who understand America’s history—both political and artistic—better than Matthew Mehan.Mehan is an associate dean and associate professor of government for Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government in Washington, as well as a best-selling author of children’s literature.His recent book, “The American Book of Fables,” is a beautiful collection of fables celebrating the landscapes, virtues, and enduring principles that have shaped the American story.In honor of the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, we discuss some of these timeless lessons on freedom, friendship, and the development of moral character.On the importance of stories, he said, “American educators from the colonial period forward spent a great deal of effort to try to help people to have these virtues of civility, politeness, civic life, independence, rule of law, justice, truth telling, candor. In one sense, you can have a kind of ‘dark age’ version of these morals, but you have to have a much more adept, technologically advanced moral vocabulary and moral praxis, and that’s what fables and stories can do.”Through adept storytelling, Mehan tackles important questions such as: What is true patriotism, and why is it a virtue? How ought we practice the art of civic friendship when there is so much to divide us? What was the Founders’ vision of American republicanism, and what practices ought we implement in our daily lives to foster love of country?As Mehan argues, there is no better time than America’s semiquincentennial to reflect on the laws, the beauty, the places, the people, and the principles that gave rise to this great nation.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Rob Henderson grew up in poverty in Los Angeles moving from foster home to foster home, seeing addiction, instability, and family breakdown all around him. He joined the U.S. Air Force at 17, entered Yale University at 25 with help from the GI Bill, and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He climbed “every rung on the American class ladder,” as he describes it.But at Yale and other elite universities, he saw the spread of radical ideas—abolish the police, empty prisons, dismantle marriage, decriminalize all drugs—ideas that he understood would be devastating to the communities he grew up in.And that’s how he came to develop his now famous concept of luxury beliefs: “Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the affluent … while inflicting costs on the less fortunate members of society,” he says.How is it that these ideas came to be so pervasive? And what are their true consequences for society?Henderson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor of City Journal, and bestselling author of “Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHGIt’s been over six years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, yet much of the scientific establishment still seems unwilling to acknowledge or openly debate where this virus came from.In this episode, Matt Ridley, co-author of “Viral,” breaks down the significance of newly declassified documents released by Homeland Security Secretary Tulsi Gabbard and the evidence of a coordinated cover-up of COVID-19’s origins.Ridley delves into a key paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published by Nature Medicine, exposing how the authors themselves believed that a lab leak was a likely possibility while publicly pushing the opposite narrative.Troubling questions arise: Why hasn’t the international community held China accountable for what happened at the Wuhan lab? Why is America so attentive to cybersecurity, but completely blind to biosecurity? And why are there such close ties between Western scientific research and Chinese dual-purpose facilities like the lab in Wuhan?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

“We will not let Communist Party of China define who we are,” said Taiwan’s Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, who has been sanctioned by Beijing and labeled a “separatist.”Despite Beijing’s ever-growing hostility toward Taiwan, she is not deterred.In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has escalated its “gray zone” operations, naval aggression, large-scale encirclement drills and missile tests, and aircraft incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has promised to seize Taiwan—including by force if necessary.Beijing has also aggressively sought to isolate Taiwan internationally and peel away its allies. Only 11 countries and the Holy See still maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan as of 2026.“China’s cognitive warfare, psychological warfare, political warfare, legal warfare, and very aggressive interventions in our domestic society and politics [have] become an increasingly serious problem,” Hsiao said.Born to a Taiwanese father and an American mother, Hsiao previously served in Taiwan’s legislature and as the island’s top representative in Washington, where she became known for her “cat warrior diplomacy.”Although Taiwan is only about the size of Maryland, it plays a pivotal role in the global economy, producing more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors—the chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones, cars, and much of tomorrow’s technology.It is also America’s fourth-largest trading partner, and nearly half of all global container ships—dwarfing even shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—sail through the narrow Taiwan Strait, carrying trillions in trade.“Everything we’re doing today in strengthening Taiwan is to prevent an invasion, to prevent that scenario from happening,” Hsiao said.Recently, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau established a secure information-reporting channel for Chinese nationals to submit intelligence tips—a unprecedented move for Taiwan.In this episode, I sat down with Hsiao in the presidential office of Taiwan to understand what’s really at stake here and how Taiwan is working to strengthen its whole-of-society resilience and deter a greater conflict.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHG With Chinese leader Xi Jinping repeatedly stating his plans to take Taiwan by force if necessary, many are wondering: What might such an invasion look like, and how prepared is Taiwan to defend itself and withstand such an assault?Enoch Wu is working to tip the balance in Taiwan’s favor. Born in Chicago to Taiwanese parents, he decided to quit his lucrative career as a finance executive in Hong Kong to join Taiwan’s special forces in his early 30s. And he’s since devoted his life to preventing Taiwan from being wiped from the map by its large totalitarian neighbor.In 2020, he founded Forward Alliance to train ordinary Taiwanese in trauma medicine, search and rescue, establish communication networks, and organize shelters during a crisis.The group has now trained tens of thousands of ordinary Taiwanese to become de facto first responders through partnerships with local churches, schools, and other community groups.Wu explains his philosophy: while the military serves as a country’s sword, societal resilience serves as its shield.At the heart of our conversation is an urgent message: “The whole point of living in a democratic society,” Wu says, “is that we are all owners, and we have to take responsibility. We can’t treat democracy like a heritage that’s just passed down. You can’t take it as a given. You have to continue to nurture it. You have to invest in it. You have to improve it.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Leonardo da Vinci once wrote that the key to developing a “complete mind” was to “study the science of art. Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”In 2009, Sherry Zhang and a group of dedicated California parents who were disillusioned with the schools in their area decided to co-found an academic institution that would put this philosophy into practice.A former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory postdoctoral chemist, Zhang shares her unexpected journey from working in a garage tech start up to being a founding member of a classical academy.In this episode, Zhang discusses the core philosophy behind classical education—built upon three tenets: truth, goodness, and beauty. She reveals how intensive training in classical Chinese dance, ballet, visual arts, and music causes students to develop habits of perseverance, focus, and attentiveness that transfer to academics.In an age dominated by instant gratification and digital distraction, Zhang explains how the structure of classical arts provides order that children long for.One student, Hugo, came to the San Francisco High School of the Arts unable to focus and with failing grades. After one year at the school, he began to prosper academically, and his mother was stunned. His story is just one among many, Zhang says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

🏆Sponsor: FreedomProject Academy enrollment open now!10% discount on tuition w/code: EPOCH10Click here: https://ept.ms/ATL—FPEU.S. federal investigators recently discovered a sophisticated tunnel 55 feet underground between Mexico and California—among the largest ever found—with electricity, a rail system, ventilation, reinforced walls, and a complex hydraulic lift system.White House “drug czar” Sara Carter estimated that it was used to transport narcotics worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This is just one of the over 200 tunnels of varying sizes and sophistication that have been discovered in the last four decades, with many more likely still undetected, she said.As Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Carter is fighting to end the narcotic epidemic killing Americans, seize cartel finances, and make a drug-free life the new norm in America.Deaths from illicit narcotics in America have been rising for decades and reached an all-time high in 2022, with 112,000 Americans dying in a single year. Since the Trump administration took office, that number has dropped to about 68,000 for the 12-month period ending in November 2025. But Americans of all ages are still dying.In this episode, Carter breaks down the complex pipelines that are driving this epidemic and how the Trump administration has been going on the offensive to attack both the supply and demand sides of this crisis.How exactly do illicit narcotics and precursor chemicals make their way into the United States? How have America’s enemies weaponized these deadly drugs? And how can we begin to comprehend the truly devastating human cost—the many young lives that were abruptly cut short and the families left behind?Carter revealed that she always thinks to herself, “This could be my child.”On the evening of our interview, she told us she would be heading to meet an Angel family who recently lost their son, a recent law graduate, to a line of fentanyl-laced cocaine.“His parents had all the hopes in the world for him. … He went to a party after law school in Miami and made a huge mistake. He did a line of cocaine that had fentanyl in it, seized, had a heart attack, and died in an instant in the party,” she says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

“We are definitively, with no debate, in a demographic winter in the history of the United States of America. We have never had a lower marriage rate, and we’ve never had a lower fertility rate,” says Timothy Goeglein, vice president of External and Government Relations at Focus on the Family.Goeglein is the author of multiple books, including most recently “What Really Matters: Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family.”In our interview, we explore how America ended up where it is today. Why are millions of prime-age men neither working nor seeking a job? Why do women find it so hard to find a good partner? What is the antidote to America’s high rates of suicide, drug overdose, pornography addiction, and family dysfunction?“The biggest single challenge facing America in its 250th year … is a spiritual crisis of a pretty substantial order,” Goeglein said. He believes we are witnessing in America “the practical ramifications of destroying an objective moral code … of saying you can’t really define good and evil.”Luckily, this is not the whole story. In this interview, Goeglein explains the signs of hope he sees and what he calls “a quiet Renaissance.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

🏆Sponsor: FreedomProject Academy enrollment open now!10% discount on tuition w/code: EPOCH10Click here: https://ept.ms/ATL—FPEThere are few people who understand the machinery behind modern disinformation and censorship better than Jacob Siegel. He’s a special features editor at Tablet Magazine and author of the new book “The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control.”In this episode, we trace the origins of modern information control, from President Woodrow Wilson’s propaganda office during World War I and President Barack Obama’s “whole-of-society” framework, to the policing of information during the COVID-19 pandemic.He breaks down how government agencies, major tech platforms, and large nonprofits can work together behind the scenes to control who gets to speak and who does not, and what ideas are expressed and which are obscured.“If you can control the information, you can control the society,” Siegel said. And the digital age makes this possible to a degree never reached before, he added.So, how has this transformed our society and our liberties?“The principles of the constitutional order, the principles of the liberal nation state have begun to be profoundly eroded by this new kind of information-based political regime,” Siegel said.“Those rights are relocated into the digital code, so the question of who can speak, who can express their ideas, is no longer clearly defined and delimited by these print-era documents. Now it becomes a question of who controls the digital code.”According to Siegel, the transition to the digital era has resulted in a vast “sweeping away of previously existing local organizations [and] civic organizations.” And more recently, we have been witnessing, whether we are aware of it or not, what he calls the “vast acceleration of the erasure of core remnants of civil society.”So how do we navigate this new digital arena, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Hungary is undergoing a major transformation with the election of a new prime minister.After 16 years in power, Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party was swept from office in a historic landslide election in April and with an equally historic turnout of almost 80 percent.The new Tisza party, led by Peter Magyar, won the largest super-majority in Hungary’s post-communist history with a platform focused on anti-corruption and national renewal. They’ve promised major changes to Hungary’s constitution, known as the Fundamental Law.So what does this election mean for Hungary and how might the new leadership reorient its relationship with America, the European Union, Russia, and China?Orban was known for his pro-family and pro-tradition domestic policies, while at the same time cultivating close ties with Russia and communist China and distancing himself from the EU.Joining us today to break all this down is Hungarian constitutional law scholar Marton Sulyok, a visiting researcher at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.Sulyok is, notably, also the son of Hungary’s current President, Tamas Sulyok.Magyar has demanded the resignation of Sulyok and other Orban allies. It remains to be seen whether they will be forced out by constitutional amendment or other means.Despite his family ties, the younger Sulyok has remained strikingly detached.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Ahead of the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, New York Times bestselling author and talk show host Eric Metaxas is publishing his latest book, a 600-page volume titled “Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World.”In the book, he argues that the American Revolution is the “only genuine revolution in the history of so-called revolutions.”So what separated the American Revolution from other revolutions? What made it succeed? And what critical aspects of the American Revolution are no longer being taught in schools today?Metaxas argues that America is currently facing its third existential crisis, after the American Revolution and the Civil War, and understanding the core principles behind America’s founding story is critical to preserving the liberties of this nation.In the interview, we confront some key questions: How is the erosion of spiritual faith transforming American society? How does self-government work without the “moral and religious people” that John Adams described as a prerequisite for self-government? What is the proper role of a good citizen?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Could communist Chinese infiltration of Canada become an existential threat to American security—or is it already one?Scott McGregor has spent decades in the Canadian military and Canadian intelligence studying the threat that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses to Canada and North America more broadly. He has known about the CCP’s infiltration of Canada for many years and briefed major intelligence agencies in both Canada and the United States about it.According to McGregor, the strategic partnership between Canada and China is extremely detrimental to Canada’s interests—and also poses a major security threat to America.McGregor, who is the co-author of the book “The Mosaic Effect,” told me the partnership “came as quite a shock. ... This strategic alliance ... cuts the legs out of the people that have been trying to bring awareness to the threat of China to Canada and North America.”U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments last year about Canada becoming America’s 51st state alienated many Canadians to such a degree that they are eager to distance themselves from America. But McGregor says the reality is that Canada very much depends on the United States. It’s by far Canada’s most important trading partner and an indispensable military partner.“Canada relies on the United States as a partner in logistics support, especially militarily. When I deployed, we had Canadians that were saved because Americans had helicopters that could operate in regions that we just couldn’t. We didn’t have the capability. The same goes for weaponry,” he says.Without American military support, McGregor warns, “We are left on our own. ... Canada needs the United States.”But do Canadians want to hear such warnings? Do Canadians perhaps tend to overestimate their country’s military strength? Do they understand the depth of the threat from a China under CCP rule? Are they aware of the extent to which Canadian society has already been undermined over the last half century?And are Canadians perhaps too trusting to realize that the CCP has a plan for Canada and is executing it?He tells me: “China has a goal, an objective. It’s not destruction at this point. It’s disruption, and the disruption is working. They’ve outflanked us. We’re fighting amongst ourselves—exactly what they want.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

In this episode, I sit down with China analyst Gordon Chang to understand his view of the recent Trump–Xi talks in Beijing.Who had the upper hand? Why did President Donald Trump take 17 CEOs of America’s largest corporations with him? And what was accomplished?While Xi Jinping tries to present America as a declining power and China as an ascending one, the reality is that China faces several grave problems, Chang says: a collapsing demography, an ailing economy, and a military in disarray after a series of purges.But China also holds two strong cards: a near-monopoly on rare-earth processing and on critical pharmaceutical precursors.At the same time, China is winning the information war, Chang argues.“Xi Jinping has been beating the crap out of us in the information warfare space, and that’s our fault,” he said.Where is the future of U.S.–China relations headed? Will Trump call Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te—something no U.S. president has done in 47 years? How are shifting alliances in the region reshaping the geopolitical chessboard? And how close are we to a major confrontation? Is the “Thucydides Trap” narrative real?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Rosi Orozco is one of the world’s leading voices against human trafficking. She has been working in human rights advocacy for over three decades, and as a member of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, she was the driving legislative force behind Mexico’s famous anti-trafficking law.“There are 50 million people in the world in slavery,” Orozco tells me. And that, she believes, is a low estimate.She was recently involved in helping three rescued girls, who are now at secure shelter in Mexico. “These three girls were minors, and a cartel was training them to kill, to sell drugs, and to [engage in] prostitution.”What happened to those three minors—only 14, 15, and 17 years old—is fairly typical, she says. They saw an ad on TikTok that promised them “work in the tourism industry, and [promised] very good payment.” When they arrived at the Mexican tourist resort, they were captured.Over the years, Orozco has helped more than 400 rescued people, mostly minors, slowly begin to rebuild their lives. But, she says, “400 is nothing compared with the people that haven’t been rescued.” The rescue is just the beginning of a long journey: “It’s difficult work because these girls were completely broken ... to see a smile on their face was really a big victory.”Many people who rescue trafficked children or work in the security shelters where they are protected often risk their own lives. The theme of Orozco’s 5th International Summit Against Human Trafficking this year is “Heroes Wanted.”Orozco also serves as president of the Houston-based “United Against Human Trafficking” nonprofit and created the Trafficking in Persons hotline in Mexico in 2013, giving citizens a direct channel to report trafficking.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

“People have lost sight of what education is supposed to be,” said Caylan Ford. In 2022, she founded Canada’s first tuition-free classical charter school, the Calgary Classical Academy, with just a dozen faculty members.Since then, it has grown to 1,500 students across three campuses in Calgary and Edmonton, with thousands more on the waitlist, and has changed its name to Alberta Classical Academy.For Ford, classical education is all about, as she put it, “turning around the soul so that it’s oriented toward things that are actually eternally true and good and enduring.”Canadian parents crave the classical education Alberta Classical Academy provides. “A lot of the parents who come to us are absolutely desperate. … The existence of this school is like an answered prayer,” Ford said.Surprisingly, Alberta is the only province in Canada that allows charter schools. Just as in America, Alberta’s charter schools are public schools that do not charge tuition. They are statutorily barred from having a religious affiliation.Students study Latin beginning in Grade 5, with additional language options like French in high school. Much emphasis is given to the coherent study of history.“Our students read a lot of primary source material; they’re not judging the past through current prejudices. They’re trying to understand it on its own terms,” Ford said.The school also has a rich world literature curriculum where students memorize a lot, for example, poetry.“We do a lot of memorization work, partly because we want to help them furnish beautiful inner worlds. We want their minds and their souls to be places into which they can retire and find themselves refreshed and renewed,” Ford said.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.💰Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $20,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 855-862-3377 or text AMERICAN to 65532 or click here: https://ept.ms/ATL-AHG

It’s time to fundamentally rethink America’s approach to the Chinese Communist Party, argues Sam Brownback, former U.S. senator, Kansas governor, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, and author of the new book “China’s War on Faith.”Ahead of President Donald Trump’s high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, I’m sitting down with Brownback to understand what’s really at stake and why he believes America is wasting the greatest leverage it has had.“I think we’ve just got to recognize: ... This is an evil regime. They’ve killed more of their own people than any other regime in the history of mankind, and we’ve been treating them like a normal country,” Brownback says.Brownback lays out the case that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is currently conducting three genocides—against the Uyghur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners, and Tibetan Buddhists—through mass detention, torture, cultural eradication, and forced organ harvesting. At the same time, the regime is escalating its war on Christianity, arresting pastors, and crushing underground churches, Brownback says.Now, the CCP is also exporting the technologies it uses to surveil and persecute dissidents to at least 80 other countries, he says.For decades, human rights and religious freedom has been a “red line” for the Chinese regime that American leaders and diplomats have tiptoed around.But the reality is that human rights and religious freedom are the CCP’s deepest vulnerability and insecurity—and America’s most potent weapon and leverage against this regime, Brownback argues.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Paola Brown first turned to homeopathy, a form of alternative medicine based on the principle of “like cures like,” after many years of suffering from unbearable bladder pain. She had been diagnosed with interstitial cystitis, a disease with no known cure.She jokes that homeopaths are called “the doctors of last resort,” and for her, they were exactly that.When she went to see one for the first time, among the first things she asked her doctor was: “‘Do I need to believe in this? Because I don’t.’ And my homeopath says: ‘No, you don’t have to believe in this. I just need to find the right remedy.’”During the interview, she breaks down what homeopathy actually is, where it originated, and why it’s faced regulatory barriers.In the United States, homeopaths are nationally accredited through the Council of Homeopathic Certification. But the FDA has increased restrictions on homeopathic remedies over the last decade, just at a time when many Americans are starting to seek out new treatment options.“We are so sick that we are looking for alternatives, and when we find those alternatives, we’re finding that those alternatives are harder and harder to get access to,” Brown says.Earlier this year, lawmakers introduced the Homeopathic Drug Product Safety, Quality, and Transparency Act. Supporters say it would protect access to homeopathy by creating clearer rules.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

An island nation only one-third the size of Virginia, Taiwan produces more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips and more than 90 percent of the servers powering the AI revolution. And last year, Taiwan became the United States’ fourth-largest trading partner—after Mexico, Canada, and China.More than one-fifth of global maritime trade goes through the Taiwan Strait, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis, and any conflict over Taiwan would be devastating for the global economy—and likely far worse than the economic disruptions caused by the Iran War.Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready for a successful Taiwan invasion by 2027, the PLA’s 100th anniversary.In this episode, I sit down with Taiwan’s representative to the United States, Ambassador Alexander Yui, to understand why Taiwan matters and what’s at stake as the Chinese Communist Party has ramped up its campaign to isolate, intimidate, and encircle Taiwan in recent years.Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s recent visit to Eswatini—Taiwan’s only African ally—had to be abruptly postponed when Seychelles, Madagascar, and Mauritius revoked overflight permissions—presumably due to pressure from Beijing.“They are constantly harassing our naval and air surroundings, trying to create panic and uneasiness,” Yui says.Since 2013, Beijing has built more than two dozen militarized outposts in disputed waters in the South China Sea and has recently been militarizing yet another artificial island known as Antelope Reef.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

In what was the third major attempt on President Donald Trump’s life in an era of escalating political violence, this year’s White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner was abruptly cut short when multiple shots were fired, and a man was apprehended for trying to breach security.The 31-year-old suspect, Cole Allen, could face up to life in prison.Joining us today is Sean Spicer, who previously served as White House press secretary and White House communications director during the first Trump administration. Now, he’s the host of the Sean Spicer Show and author of the newly released book, “Trump 2.0: The Revolution That Will Permanently Transform America.”Spicer is known for being a vocal critic of the WHCA for over a decade and has long refused invitations to attend its events. At the time of the shooting incident, he was on his way to the Renwick Museum Gallery to attend Substack’s annual alternative to the WHCA dinner called “The New Media.”In this episode, we get his reaction to what happened, his new book “Trump 2.0,” and why he argues the second Trump administration will be far more consequential for America than the first.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.