American Thought Leaders
by The Epoch Times
At a time when our nation is portrayed as increasingly polarized, media often ignore viewpoints and stories that are worthy of attention. American Thought Leaders, hosted by The Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek, features in-depth discussions with some of America’s most influential thought leaders on pertinent issues facing our nation today.
Episodes
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The Iran War, China’s Gas Station, and Hidden Links to Riots in France | Richard Miniter
“When you see the recent riots, destruction of stores, looting, burning [of] historic buildings, including churches ... you have to realize these things do not happen spontaneously,” says investigative journalist and bestselling author Richard Miniter. What is the link between what’s unfolding on...
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How We Freed 115 Americans Without Paying Ransoms | Sebastian Gorka
115 Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained have been brought home in the last 20 months—with zero ransoms paid—said Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. In this episode, Gorka takes us inside...
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The Case for Raw Milk, Local Meat, and a Homesteading Revolution in America | Drs. Jill and Robert Malone
Modern industrial agriculture relies on heavy chemical inputs and is built around corporate monopolies, leaving many Americans searching for healthier alternatives, say Drs. Robert and Jill Malone. They’re co-authors of the new book, “Homesteading for Health: One Farm Family’s Guide to Food…
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Inside the Amish’s Battle Against Crippling New York Vaccine Fines | Aaron Siri
In 2022, New York fined three private Amish schoolhouses $118,000 in combined fines for allowing unvaccinated children to attend. This came after New York repealed its longstanding religious exemptions for school vaccination requirements in 2019. New York law allows the state to fine a school up…
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Former DIA Chief Reveals China’s Playbook for Stealing American IP, from Tesla to Coca-Cola to F-35s | David Shedd
From security dossiers and advanced aerospace stealth designs to the mundane technology in your living room, virtually no sector of the American economy has remained untouched by the Chinese Communist Party’s intellectual property theft campaign. In this interview, The Epoch Times senior editor…
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Dr. Phil on UFOs, Government Secrecy, and His Search for Proof
What does the U.S. government actually know about UFOs or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), and what aren’t they telling us? Have non-human intelligences visited Earth already? And what do we know about them? There are few people who have interrogated the facts around UAPs as carefully as...
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Texas Gov. Abbott on Future of Border Security, Data Centers, and Ending Foreign Infiltration
In this episode, I sit down with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He’s the longest-serving sitting governor, having spent 11 years in office, and is running for reelection this November. Abbott has made some major policy bets in America’s second-most-populous state. Last year, he signed a large-scale $1...
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How a Vague Provision of Human Trafficking Law Is Threatening Religious Communities | John Lauro
A 2008 update to the landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is increasingly being used to target religious communities, says attorney John Lauro, and raising red flags for experts in constitutional law. The definition of the term “serious harm” in the statute was altered to include...
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Here’s How Superintelligent AI Could Escape Human Control | Nate Soares
Nate Soares is the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and co-author of “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All.” “One of the critical thresholds here is this point where the AIs exceed the humans at fully automated AI research—or at…
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Peter Navarro: ‘The Biggest Coverup in Medical History’
Six years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are still uncovering what was really happening behind closed doors. “What [Dr. Anthony Fauci] says many times privately in his diary is so at odds with both his public behavior and public statements,” says Peter Navarro, a senior White House...
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EXCLUSIVE: AG Blanche on DOJ Strategy to Combat Voter Fraud, Birth Tourism, and Chinese Espionage
In this episode, I sit down with U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche to discuss the Department of Justice’s latest work to combat voting and registration fraud, Chinese espionage, weaponization of the justice system, and scam centers across southeast Asia. With the Supreme Court rejecting the...
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How a California Bill Lets Sex Offenders Into Women’s Prisons | Amie Ichikawa
It’s been over five years since a California law came into effect that allows biological males to be sent to women’s prisons if they identify as transgender. The law has no requirement for diagnosis, hormones, or surgery. Called the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, the law is being...
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A Mathematical Challenge to Darwinian Evolution | Douglas Axe
Modern biology often presents Darwinian evolution as a settled explanation for the origin and diversity of life. Douglas Axe is chair of molecular biology at Biola University and author of “Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.” In this episode, he argues that when...
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How to Identify a Bad Argument | Warren Smith
Modern culture often treats popular consensus and media narratives as settled truth. Warren Smith, author of the new book “A Mind of Your Own: Independent Thinking in the Age of Misinformation,” argues that our society is increasingly convinced by misleading narratives rather than objective...
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EXCLUSIVE: Tom Homan Reveals Next Targets and How Many Missing Immigrant Children Have Been Found
In this episode, I’m sitting down with Tom Homan. A career law enforcement officer, he’s served as a cop, border patrol agent, federal investigator, and acting ICE chief, and worked under six presidents from both sides of the aisle. Now as the White House border czar, he’s facilitating the most...
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How Over 700 OpenAI Agents Went Rogue and Hacked Another Company | Daniel Kokotajlo
What happens when AI agents stop acting like isolated tools and begin collaborating to trick the very systems that evaluate them? Daniel Kokotajlo, executive director of the AI Futures Project and a former OpenAI researcher, describes a recent incident involving AI agents that discovered a way to...
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Here’s What to Know Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit | Grant Newsham
Ahead of the Trump–Xi summit in Washington this week, I’m sitting down with retired U.S. Marine Colonel Grant Newsham to understand what’s really at stake here, and what each side stands to win—or lose. “When the Chinese come here, they are very much testing [our] will … to defend ourselves, to...
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How Palau Resists Beijing’s Pressure Campaign in the Pacific | Kambes Kesolei
I recently traveled to the Pacific island nation of Palau, home to one of the deadliest battlefields of World War II. And geography still matters: Today, it’s a security flashpoint for the United States and its closest Pacific allies. Palau is one of 12 countries in the world that maintain formal...
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America’s Beef Shortage Explained | Joel Salatin
Centralized agriculture insists that strict federal oversight is essential for food safety and market stability. Joel Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms, argues that a close look at soaring beef prices, local meat production, and farm economics reveals regulatory hurdles that destroy small...
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How These Pilots Became a Lifeline for Remote Pacific Islands | Mark Abbott and Brock Welge
In the remote Pacific, emergency medical transport is not a simple call away. Across hundreds of miles of open ocean separating island communities, sudden illness or severe injury can quickly become fatal without rapid intervention. Pacific Mission Aviation pilots Mark Abbott and Brock Welge...
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EXCLUSIVE: How a Tiny Nation Is Defying Beijing and Defending Its Sovereignty | President Surangel Whipps Jr.
During World War II, America learned a hard lesson about the strategic importance of the small island nations scattered across the Pacific. Among them is Palau, a nation of 18,000 people in what’s known as the second island chain. It’s home to the bloodiest battlefield of the Pacific theater, on...
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The Hidden Costs of a World Without Anything Worth Fighting For | Rusty Reno
Rusty Reno is the editor-in-chief of First Things Magazine and author of “Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West.” In his book, Reno argues that after the World Wars, Western intellectual elites concluded that the “strong gods”—nationalism and intense...
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How I Reversed My Near-Fatal Autoimmune Conditions | Sina McCullough
Modern medicine in the West often treats chronic and autoimmune conditions as lifelong diagnoses that must be managed rather than cured. Sina McCullough—who has a doctorate in nutrition and is the author of “Hands Off My Food!”—argues that diseases are primarily a state of imbalance, driven by...
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Here’s What People Get Wrong About Modern Warfare | John Spencer
Underground and urban warfare have become the decisive battlegrounds of modern warfare, yet for a long time, military doctrine has been built to avoid both, said John Spencer, a retired U.S. Army major and chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute. He’s repeatedly…
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How a Soviet Revolutionary Still Shapes American Politics | Bradley Thayer
Modern American politics is commonly framed as a face-off between traditional conservative and contemporary progressive values. Bradley Thayer, author of “America’s 100 Years’ War,” argues that a closer look at the tactics shaping Western institutions reveals a deeper ideological struggle—one…
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The War on Privacy—And How to Fight Back | Naomi Brockwell
Many people have come to accept pervasive surveillance as the price of modern life: that our phones, browsers, messages, purchases, and movements will inevitably be collected, analyzed, and sold to those with enough money or power. For many, there’s a growing sense that true privacy is…
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Here’s What Darwin’s Theory Can’t Explain | Michael Behe
Modern biology often posits Darwinian evolution and natural selection as a settled explanation for the vast complexity of the natural world. Yet, looking closely at the nanoscale machinery inside the cell reveals molecular systems that seem to defy a gradual, evolutionary unfolding, says Michael...
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How a Neglected Plaza Now Immortalizes Forgotten American Heroes | Matthew Taylor
It’s rare to see large-scale bronze installations built today. In Washington, D.C., as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebration, Matthew Taylor has transformed the long-neglected Freedom Plaza with a beautiful new memorial celebrating Revolutionary War heroes. He is an artist, filmmaker…
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The New School Where Teens Will Learn Classics—and Build Airplanes | Ian Rowe
Ian Rowe is a charter school founder who believes hard work and accountability—and rejecting victimhood—are the secrets to a good education. His school Vertex Partnership Academies just celebrated its first graduating class, with students moving on to college, the military, and futures that once...
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Ralph Norman Outlines Plan for Social Security Reform and Fiscal Overhaul
Ahead of the Republican Senate primary runoff tomorrow in South Carolina, I’m sitting down with Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) as he and Sen. Darline Graham make their final appeals to South Carolinian voters. In this episode, Norman dives into his core political priorities, emphasizing fiscal...
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HHS Uncovers Millions in Potentially Fraudulent Billing for Pediatric Gender Care | Asst. Sec. Brian Christine
🔥Invest in Frontieras: Opportunity closes August 27. https://ept.ms/4ghvnCo In this episode, Adm. Brian Christine, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), joins me to break down a major new HHS report on gender medicine, the unspoken consequences...
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Top 10 Biggest Revelations From the Fauci Diaries | Jeffrey Tucker
A trove of newly released documents, colloquially known as the “Fauci Diaries,” offer an unusually revealing window into the decisions and dynamics that shaped the COVID-19 era. Jeffrey Tucker spent days reading all the documents—over 1,100 pages of materials—which were prepared within the…
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How Spy Agencies ‘Massaged’ Trump’s Briefings to Bury Election Warnings | John Solomon
Newly released documents reveal how evidence of Chinese penetration of voter registration files and plots to interfere in the election were withheld or downplayed. The new files reveal one of the intelligence officers said they “deliberately massaged” the presidential daily briefing in 2020 to...
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Is China’s Mega Embassy in London Actually a Spying Compound? | Luke de Pulford
💰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...
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She Escaped North Korea 3 Times. Half of Her Family Didn’t Survive | Grace Jo
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…
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How Tech Overlords Profit Off AI Predictions | Carissa Véliz
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,...
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EXCLUSIVE: Kash Patel: The FBI’s War on Scam Centers Around the World
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…
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How One Peace Agreement Gave America a New Route Through Iran and Russia’s Backyard | Ambassador Narek Mkrtchyan
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...
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The Multi-Billion Dollar Industry Using Trafficked Slaves to Scam Americans | Timothy Blackwood
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...
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The Hidden Realities of Buying Eggs, Sperm, or a Womb | Katy Faust
💰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...
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How the CCP Is Turning America Against Itself | Tianliang Zhang
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...
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How Cuba Penetrated America’s Security Elite | John Suarez
🔥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…
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Why Taiwan is Fighting the World’s Largest Cyber War | Wang Ting-yu
🔥Check out Immersed and invest in the future of AI-powered spatial computing. Round closes July 30: https://ept.ms/4fY9c4b Taiwan 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...
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How Anti-Semitism Took Hold in America | Batya Ungar-Sargon
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...
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Britain’s ‘Strictest Headmistress’ Explains Secret to Her School’s Success | Katharine Birbalsingh
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...
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The Forgotten US Territory Where Chinese Birth Tourism Thrives | Cleo Paskal
💰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 There’s one place in America where Chinese nationals can enter without a visa. It’s...
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Steve Forbes: A Message to Anyone Feeling the American Dream Is Lost
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...
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‘35 Christians Are Killed a Day’: Inside Jihadi Violence in Nigeria | Judd Saul
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,...
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How Generations of Girls Are Pressured to Market Themselves Online | Freya India
🔥IMMERSED: Round closes July 30. Invest before the round closes. Learn more about Immersed here: https://ept.ms/4yurCls Freya 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...
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How Beijing’s New Law Seeks to Crush Dissent Worldwide | Guermantes Lailari
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…
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About this show
At a time when our nation is portrayed as increasingly polarized, media often ignore viewpoints and stories that are worthy of attention. American Thought Leaders, hosted by The Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek, features in-depth discussions with some of America’s most influential thought leaders on pertinent issues facing our nation today.
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