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Dad Saves America
by John Papola
Proud papa, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and arm-chair philosopher John Papola explores the biggest issues facing our country through the lens of fatherhood, releasing exclusive interviews and deep dives every week. We need to make sure the next generation of Americans is raised to thrive in a free society and be champions of civilization. Dad Saves America has hosted all sorts of experts in the studio, including Jonathan Haidt, Dr. Drew, Michael Shellenberger, Bret Weinstein, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Adam Carolla. www.dadsavesamerica.com
Episodes
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The Cornell 7 Scandal Exposed the Biggest Lie of Feminism
The Cornell 7 case has reignited the campus sexual assault panic of the mid-2010s. Jane Doe's own written statements described the events as consensual, but her story later transformed into a serious criminal allegation. Unlike the Duke lacrosse hoax, which turned out to be an outright…
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Victor Davis Hanson: The Left REALLY Hates the Middle Class
I sat down with Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the “The Counterrevolution”. Victor is a Stanford PhD who still lives on his family’s Central Valley farm that five generations of Hansons have called home, giving him a rare view of both the academic elite...
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France’s "Mostly Peaceful Jihad” Threatens the Whole Christian West
For the past three weeks, riots have spread across France. The corporate press is calling them mostly peaceful protests over school funding. Meanwhile, student rioters are singing jihadi rap. Second and third generation Muslim immigrants are radicalizing against the very country that raised them....
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How White Guilt Became the Most Powerful Weapon in Politics - Eli & Shelby Steele
I sat down with Shelby Steele, an author and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and his son Eli Steele, the filmmaker behind “What Killed Michael Brown?” Together, they’ve produced a new documentary, “White Guilt,” that brings Shelby’s 2006 book into the present political climate. Shelby…
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Trump's Going All-In on AI. Will His Midterm Gamble Pay Off?
On Tuesday, the CEOs of Nvidia, Google, Meta, xAI, Anthropic, and more joined President Trump to discuss the development of AI, or, as the President has rebranded it, Super Intelligence. While they’ve signed a voluntary pledge to police AI safety, Democrats want Washington to step in instead, as…
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Bad Therapy, Gender, and Lindsay Clancy Psychosis - Andrew Hartz, Ph.D.
I sat down with Andrew Hartz, a practicing clinical psychologist and the founder of the Open Therapy Institute. His organization is working to filter out the political bias that has become endemic in mental health care and connect patients with therapists they can trust. We get into: * The woke...
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Big-Government Progressivism Is a Su*cide Pact
1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones sent her daughter to a dysfunctional public school as a political statement, and is now paying the price. For years, socialists like Hasan Piker have flirted with banning private schools altogether under the theory that enrolling rich kids in failing…
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Ben Slivka Predicted the Internet Era. He Doesn't Buy the Hype About AI.
I sat down with Ben Slivka, an early Microsoft executive who led the team that built Internet Explorer, served 20 years on Northwestern University’s Board of Trustees, and has spent decades since as an angel investor across biotech, space, and software startups. We get into: * How cowardice…
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The Anthropic Whistleblower Is Not Who You Think He Is
AI researcher Jacob Coxon quit his job at Anthropic last week and became a whistleblower, warning that the race toward superintelligent AI is "gambling with our lives." Another Anthropic employee, Evan Hubinger, backed him up, putting the odds of AI apocalypse within a decade at over 10%. Then,...
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Catholic Historian: Here’s Why We Know That the Bible Is True
I sat down with historian of early Christianity Matthew Larsen, Ph.D., fresh off his shoot in the Middle East tracing the life of Paul the Apostle, to dig into the evidence for Jesus, the biblical canon, and the Catholic Church. We get into: * How historians actually know what’s true about the...
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25 Years After 9/11: How “Never Forget” Became “We Deserved It”
Zohran Mamdani just appointed Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who once represented an Al Qaeda member, as New York City's chief legal counsel. This sparked outrage from 9/11 families and a petition demanding that he not attend this year’s 9/11 memorial collected more than 100,000 signatures. A hundred...
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I Interviewed the 9/11 Mastermind’s Family. Here’s What I Discovered. - Richard Miniter
I sat down with investigative journalist and author Richard Miniter to reflect on the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Richard has spent decades reporting national security and foreign policy issues and has interviewed Islamist radicals, intelligence officials, and others across…
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Bond Market Breakdown: Are We Headed for Another Fall Financial Crisis?
The bond market wobbled this week, and Secretary Bessent is now buying back government debt just to keep long-term interest rates from climbing further. Bond market volatility in the early fall has a bad history of signaling worse to come, from 1929 to 1987 to 2008. The national debt sets a new…
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The Sexual Revolution “Liberated” Adults. But What About the Kids? - Katy Faust
I sat down with Katy Faust, founder of Them Before Us and author of “Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City,” to talk about what adults are and aren’t willing to sacrifice for the wellbeing of children. Katy has spent her career defending children’s rights to their own mother and father…
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The Lindsay Clancy Trial Has Exposed a Moral Psychosis in America
The Lindsay Clancy trial has exploded into the latest social media gender war over postpartum mental health, the role of mothers in society, and the nature of moral responsibility. The defense says postpartum psychosis is to blame and that she shouldn’t be held criminally responsible in the…
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How Elite Consensus Botched COVID, Climate, and the Economy - Dr. Steven Koonin
I sat down with theoretical physicist Dr. Steven Koonin, author of “Unsettled” and former Under Secretary of Energy for Science under President Obama, to discuss what he calls the “consensus trap.” He argues that the 2008 financial crisis, COVID policies, and climate alarmism all followed the…
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The Jason Arday Scandal Is White Guilt on Steroids
Last week, Cambridge’s youngest ever black full professor was found dead, days after resigning under investigation for plagiarism and his fabricated life story. Jason Arday claimed to have run 600 miles in six days, couldn't speak until age 11, and still earned a PhD by 30. When the scrutiny...
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Can the West Survive Its Crisis of Faith? - Os Guinness
I sat down with Os Guinness, author of “Our Civilizational Moment,” to discuss how the West has become a “cut flower” civilization. Os argues that the slow secularization of the West has left its freedom, virtue, and sense of meaning disconnected from the foundation that sustained them for...
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America Feels Like It’s Falling Apart. We Can Still Save It. - 500K Subscriber Special
Thank you to all 500K+ subscribers to Dad Saves America! This show began in response to the mental health crisis I saw emerging among my son’s peers. Then COVID lockdowns hit and turned my worst-case predictions into reality. Now, socialism is sweeping the Democratic Party and young women are...
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We Stopped Disciplining Kids. Now They’re Destroying Civilization. - Katharine Birbalsingh
I sat down with Katharine Birbalsingh, headmistress of Michaela Community School and the UK’s most outspoken voice on education, to mark the launch of our new YouTube collaboration, Strictly Education. Katharine runs one of the strictest schools in the UK, for mostly disadvantaged students from...
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The Democratic Socialists Have a Working Class Problem
Socialist Abdul El-Sayed just won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, but the exit polls tell the real story. He dominated in college towns and lost badly in the working class neighborhoods he claims to represent. The same pattern played out in Zohran Mamdani's election. The socialists calling...
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The Manosphere Is Only a Half-Answer for Young Men - Nick Freitas
I sat down with Nick Freitas, veteran, fellow podcaster, and author of “The Manbook,” to talk about what it actually means to be a man in the aftermath of the woke revolution. In recent years, manosphere figures like Andrew Tate have arisen as an answer for young men who feel cast out at school…
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“I Plead the Fifth”: How Fauci’s Lies Destroyed the Expert Class
Rand Paul just released Dr. Anthony Fauci's personal diary, more than 1,100 pages stored on government servers, and then made him answer for it before the Senate. Fauci’s response to almost every question was the same. He pleaded the Fifth, over and over again. But the real story isn’t the diary....
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Why Harvard Loses in the New College Rankings - Prof. Kevin Wallsten
I sat down with political scientist Kevin Wallsten to discuss his project building a new college ranking system from scratch. The standard metrics of acceptance rate, endowment size, and name recognition fail to address rising concerns about ideological bias and campus culture. With activism...
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Nolan’s Odyssey: Woke Disaster or Western Classic?
Christopher Nolan's “The Odyssey” opened last weekend and sent Homer's 2,800-year-old poem back up the bestseller charts. It also became the most fought-over movie in recent memory, with accusations of woke casting and the "1619 Project” treatment of the Western canon. I decided to see the movie...
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America Cut Off Its Christian Roots. Now It’s in Crisis. - Eric Metaxas
I sat down with bestselling author Eric Metaxas to discuss the Christian roots of America and what happens to our freedom if we forget them. His new book, “Revolution,” tells the story of the founding and the values that make America exceptional. We get into: * How the founders’ religious beliefs...
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Everyone Hates AI Data Centers. Here's Why They're (Mostly) Wrong.
New York just became the first state to halt new AI data center construction. Bernie Sanders and AOC want to take that policy national, and 63% of Americans agree with them across party lines. This has become the one truly bipartisan issue in our politics, but bipartisan doesn't mean good. The...
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Marx Died a Loser. Lenin Made Him a Legend. - Phil Magness
I sat down with economic historian Phil Magness to give Karl Marx the fairest hearing we could, and then find out how his ideas took over half the world and most of modern academia. We get into: * The historical context of Karl Marx’s writings * Why surplus value theory made intuitive sense and…
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Mamdani's Own Mom: "He Is Not an American AT ALL”
Last week, Zohran Mamdani “celebrated” this country’s 250th birthday by sitting behind George Washington’s desk and lecturing America about who we are. His own mother once said he isn't American at all, and never wanted to be. These days, most other countries have a higher opinion of the United...
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The 1619 Project Wasn’t About Race. It Was an Attack on Capitalism. - Phil Magness
I sat down with Phil Magness, economic historian and author of “The 1619 Project Myth,” to discuss how the New York Times rewrote the founding narrative of the United States, first in print but eventually in schools nationwide. We get into: * How Phil caught a fabricated claim about Excel and...
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The Real Reason Gen Z Doesn’t Care About 1776
Most Americans can quote a line or two of the Declaration of Independence, but almost no one has actually read the whole thing. Today I'm going line by line to unpack what Jefferson was actually arguing and why it matters even more now than it did in 1776. A generation raised with little...
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“It Began With a Gigantic Lie” - Harvard Western Civ Professor Resigns
I sat down with historian James Hankins, who recently resigned from Harvard after 40 years, to discuss why academia abandoned Western civilization, the institutional mechanisms that silence dissent, and how we can embrace the Western roots of America in the 21st century. We get into: * Why he…
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Our Government Was Never Meant to Look Like This
The United States is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Today I'm going back to the original text of the Constitution to uncover what it actually says, and just as importantly, what it doesn't. The Constitution never mentions health, education, or retirement. The president was never…
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American History Has Been Weaponized Against Us - Jack Henneman
I sat down with Jack Henneman, host of the “History of the Americans” podcast, to discuss the early history of the American colonies, the weaponization of history for political purposes, and why judging the past by today’s standards corrupts our ability to understand it. We get into: * Why Jack...
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The UK Learned to Hate Itself. Is America on the Same Path?
The world comes to America for the World Cup and falls in love. Europeans are singing our songs, losing their minds at Buc-ee's, and telling us we don't know how good we have it. Meanwhile, Rupert Lowe just released his 200-page report on the UK’s decades-long grooming gang disaster. The UK...
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Left VS Right Is Over. Federalism Is Our Way Out. - Tony Woodlief
I sat down with Tony Woodlief to discuss federalism, the collapse of left-right politics, and what it takes to raise kids through suffering. We get into: * Why federalism was the Founding Fathers’ most important contribution to governance * Whether Mamdani’s New York will teach Americans the...
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The Race Hustler Narrative Is on Life Support
Bari Weiss fires Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes and he compares it to losing a spouse. Karmelo Anthony's supporters call his conviction racist. Black YouTubers discover that the 1619 Project history taught in school is a lie. The institutions we were told to trust have been exposed as propaganda...
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George Soros, Birthright Citizenship, and the Lost Constitution - Randy Barnett
I sat down with Georgetown University constitutional law professor and originalist scholar Randy Barnett to discuss his books on his time as a Chicago prosecutor, how the Supreme Court has reinterpreted the 14th Amendment, and whether Trump’s birthright citizenship restrictions should be upheld…
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The Barbarians Are Inside the Gates… and We Invited Them
New York City elects a Muslim socialist immigrant as mayor. British police give preferential treatment to non-white criminals while arresting white victims as they bleed out on the street. Europe held back Muslim invaders for hundreds of years, but now its major cities are upwards of 10% Muslim....
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“Falling Behind” Is Public School Propaganda - Graham Frey
I sat down with education innovator Graham Frey to discuss what school is actually for, how structure and choice should be balanced in a child’s life, and why the "falling behind" framework scares families into staying at failing schools. We get into: * The six habits every kid should leave…
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"We Are Summoning the Demon." Is Elon Right About AI?
Elon Musk called artificial intelligence the biggest existential threat in human history. That was 2014. Now it's 2026, the models are writing their own code, data centers are triggering bitter political fights, and Pope Leo just made AI the focus of his first encyclical. Public sentiment on AI…
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How Woke Feminism Created the Manosphere - Wilfred Reilly
I sat down with political scientist and co-founder of Unified Solutions America Wilfred Reilly to discuss the state of the woke left, the toxic feedback loop between radical feminism and the manosphere, and the ongoing battle over American identity. We get into: * The SPLC federal indictment and...
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They Lied to Your Kids for 15 Years. The UN Just Admitted It.
The UN's top climate body just quietly buried the doomsday scenario that drove the past 15 years of climate panic, and almost no one noticed. The IPCC has officially declared RCP 8.5, its most extreme emissions model, implausible. That's the same model behind nearly every apocalyptic headline Gen…
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Why Africa Stays Poor (It’s Not Colonialism) - Magatte Wade
I sat down with Senegalese immigrant and entrepreneur Magatte Wade to discuss why Africa remains the poorest continent and why the most popular explanations are wrong. Colonialism, slavery, or IQ differences are the answers most people reach for, but the data says otherwise. Ethiopia was never...
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How Nations Actually Get Rich (It’s Not Socialism)
President Trump was in China this week, negotiating with Xi Jinping over Iran, Taiwan, and trade deals. China’s economic miracle has transformed the country into a major global power over the past few decades. The American left likes to spin that success story as a win for central planning and...
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Gad Saad: The Evolutionary Psychology Behind “Queers for Palestine”
I sat down with Gad Saad, author of “Suicidal Empathy,” to discuss the evolutionary psychology behind why the West is self-destructing in the name of tolerance. Empathy is a perfectly adaptive human trait, but like any biological mechanism, it can misfire. When ideological parasites like gender...
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The Left Is Turning Our Greatest Cities Into Ruins
New York City is broke under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. His socialist buddy, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, is turning off the crime detection system and letting violent offenders walk. LA Mayor Karen Bass is still dodging responsibility for mishandling the 2025 wildfires. This is the reality of...
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Mollie Hemingway: Justice Alito Is the Secret Hero of SCOTUS
I sat down with Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, to discuss her new book “Alito” about the underappreciated Supreme Court justice’s fight to restore the original meaning of the Constitution. Justice Samuel Alito authored the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and as…
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The SPLC’s Hate-Hoax Playbook Turns Normies Into Assassins
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was cut short last Saturday by yet another assassination attempt against President Trump. A Caltech-educated game developer armed with two guns charged the Secret Service checkpoint, ending in a brief shootout that injured one Secret Service agent. This…
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How Gavin Newsom Ran California Into The Ground - Joel Kotkin
I sat down with Joel Kotkin to discuss how California’s utopian ideology and Gavin Newsom’s disastrous governance have the turned the state into a cautionary tale. Joel breaks down how one-party rule became the norm in California, with the Democratic Party tying itself to both Silicon Valley...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Proud papa, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and arm-chair philosopher John Papola explores the biggest issues facing our country through the lens of fatherhood, releasing exclusive interviews and deep dives every week. We need to make sure the next generation of Americans is raised to thrive in a free society and be champions of civilization. Dad Saves America has hosted all sorts of experts in the studio, including Jonathan Haidt, Dr. Drew, Michael Shellenberger, Bret Weinstein, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Adam Carolla.
www.dadsavesamerica.com
HOSTED BY
John Papola
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Dad Saves America have?
Dad Saves America currently has 242 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Dad Saves America about?
Proud papa, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and arm-chair philosopher John Papola explores the biggest issues facing our country through the lens of fatherhood, releasing exclusive interviews and deep dives every week. We need to make sure the next generation of Americans is raised to thrive in a free...
How often does Dad Saves America release new episodes?
Dad Saves America publishes regularly with 242 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Dad Saves America?
You can listen to Dad Saves America on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Dad Saves America?
Dad Saves America is created and hosted by John Papola.
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