American Thought Leaders

Larry Sanger is the co-founder of Wikipedia and coined the name “Wikipedia' in 2001. He established many of Wikipedia’s founding policies, including the original neutrality guidelines, before he left in 2002.

Since then, he has become a vocal critic of Wikipedia’s growing ideological bias, particularly on politically charged issues.

Sanger says certain outlets are favored as sources while others are blacklisted, creating systemic distortion and exclusion of dissenting views.

Most of Wikipedia’s top editors are anonymous, which means that people have no legal recourse for lies or inaccuracies about them that may be publi...

While we often hear that free trade means cheaper goods, is it really that simple? What is the true cost of that? How can we measure the long-term decline of America’s manufacturing and industrial base and its impact on America?

John Gardner is the author of “Manufacture Local: How to Make America the Manufacturing Superpower of the World.”

“America has a lot of questions to ask itself about the morality of what we’ve done to our own citizens, but also the morality of chasing sweatshop labor in other nations,” he says.

Why is havin...

“What we’ve got today is too much money riding on seed oils. They can’t produce addictive, empty, junk food, processed food without the seed oils,” says Sally Fallon Morell.

For decades, Morell has led a grassroots movement to see healthy foods in every household in America.

“You need to get in the kitchen. [It] doesn’t mean you have to spend hours in the kitchen, but you need to get in the kitchen and learn how to produce healthy food for your family,” she says.

In this episode, she explains what’s wrong with our...

Mollie Engelhart was once a celebrated vegan farm-to-table restaurateur in California. When she decided to put meat back on the menu, a targeted campaign forced her to close her business.

She ultimately decided to make the painful decision to uproot her entire life, sell her farm, and rebuild from scratch in Texas.

She’s the author of the new book “Debunked by Nature: How a Vegan-Chef-Turned-Regenerative-Farmer Discovered that Mother Nature Is a Conservative.”

“We’re treating the soil and our bodies like we can outsmart them, but we’re getting sicker,” she says.

Once an a...

“President Trump talks about ‘drill, baby, drill.’ We’ve also got to mine, baby, mine. We’ve got to get back into this business,” says U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

China has a stranglehold on rare earths and critical minerals, controlling at least 85 percent of the refining of the 20 most important rare earth minerals, Burgum says.

As secretary of the interior, Burgum oversees nearly half a billion acres of federal land and plays a key role in the Trump administration’s energy dominance agenda.

In this episode, we dive into what the Trump...

In early September, during a joint press conference with Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo publicly announced the decision to eliminate all state vaccine mandates—including those required for schools.

In this episode, Dr. Ladapo explains the decision, how it will take shape, and his response to critics of the announcement who say there will be increased outbreaks of infectious disease.

“It’s just not appropriate for someone else to be able to dictate or force you to put something into your body.… If you own anything, you do own your body, just...

The Chinese communist regime has “created a market in the organs of their political enemies,” says Matthew Robertson, a researcher who has been investigating China’s organ transplant system for more than a decade.

Fluent in Mandarin, Robertson is a China studies research fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and co-author of a number of research papers on China’s organ transplant system including, “Execution by organ procurement: Breaching the dead donor rule in China.”

After conducting a forensic review of thousands of Chinese research papers, they found 71 cases where violations of the dead donor r...

Family farms in America are slowly disappearing, with a 2022 USDA census reporting that America lost 142,000 farms over just five years. The average farmer in America is now nearly 60 years old.

But it’s not government subsidies that farmers need to stay afloat, says Joel Salatin. What small farmers really need is the freedom to innovate and sell directly to local consumers—without facing a morass of red tape, regulations, and mandates.

Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia, is widely recognized as a leading pioneer of sustainable or regenerative farming practices that enrich the land, rath...

For decades, there has been an assault on the Western classical tradition and the core values, arts, and philosophy at the bedrock of Western civilization, says classicist Spencer Klavan.

Are we now witnessing a shift in this tide?

Klavan is the author of multiple books, including “How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises.”

He is also an associate editor at The Claremont Review of Books and host of the “Young Heretics” podcast.

“People are starting to realize that you can only scream and yell and tear down statues an...

How did the last nine years change Eric Trump? How did the second son of President Donald Trump react to the assassination attempt on his father’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania? And does he plan to run for political office in the future?

His new memoir is titled “Under Siege: My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation.”

“It’s the thousands of stories behind the scenes of how they try to dismantle our family and the greatest political movement in American history,” Trump says.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and t...

Since mRNA technology was deployed widely in the COVID-19 vaccines, developers have rapidly accelerated research into more mRNA products. Moderna alone has more than two dozen mRNA products in development.

But is the mRNA platform really the revolutionary breakthrough that its champions claim?

Since early 2021, Cole has been at the forefront of alerting the public to an unusual spike in cancer diagnoses following the widespread adoption of the COVID-19 genetic vaccines.

In this episode, Cole explains the risks he sees with mRNA technology and how he sees things shaking out at the National...

“South Africa moved from one race-based system to another race-based system. ... We need to move away from race-based systems,” argues Ernst Roets. He’s the Founder and Executive Director of Lex Libertas, an organization that advocates for constitutional reform and more decentralized governance in South Africa.

While many have highlighted the killings of farmers in recent years, this violence is emblematic of broader problems in South Africa, he says.

South Africa’s murder rate is among the highest in the world—more than seven times higher than the global average. And race-based policies and distribution of wealth...

What happens when a nation loses one of its most influential voices—and what can we learn from the legacy he leaves behind?

What is the role of faith in shaping America’s future, and how should we move forward?

In this episode, I sit down with pastor Jackson Lahmeyer to reflect on the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the work of the Trump administration to strengthen religious liberty in America.

“We have a lot to learn from Charlie’s methodology,” Lahmeyer said. “Charlie would reach you in your mind, but also he'd reach you in...

Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention facility in the Everglades has generated considerable buzz and controversy since it was first proposed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.

In this episode, we sat down with Uthmeier to discuss Florida’s aggressive efforts to curb illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking, what he sees as the politicization of the U.S. census, and his investigations into surveillance technology.

“In Florida, the most recent investigation we launched was into a company, Lorex. They make in-home or in-business cameras, everything from baby cams to nanny cams, doorbell cameras. … They capture the imagery...

In a moment that stunned the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping were recently caught on a hot mic talking about increasing longevity and even achieving immortality through repeated organ transplants.

For the last two decades, we’ve been reporting how the CCP kills prisoners of conscience, the main body of them being Falun Gong practitioners, for their organs.

Joining me today to unpack the significance of this moment and what it teaches us about the inner workings of the CCP is Epoch Times senior investigative journalist Joshua Ph...

As America has reeled from the assassination of Charlie Kirk, many have wondered what the future holds.

How will this tragedy transform America? Will political violence continue to escalate? What is the path forward?

To understand our current political and cultural moment, I sat down with legal scholar and political philosopher Robert George. He’s a professor and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

“We’re at an inflection point, and it’s very worrying, very dangerous,” George said. “We could easily fall into a cycle of rev...

How have screens and social media altered the brains of children? What is the long-term impact on their happiness and ability to be prosperous, fulfilled adults later on?

“Looking at the brain science, we really have to treat screens more in the category of a highly addictive drug like digital fentanyl than sugar,” argues Clare Morell, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of “The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones.”

“These companies are in a race to the bottom. They’re all in a race to get...

Is it possible that autism, Alzheimer’s, bipolar disorder, and other major health challenges might all be related to the gut?

That’s the question Dr. Sabine Hazan, a gastroenterologist and CEO of Progenabiome, has been probing for years.

The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the use of fecal transplants for research into the treatment of autism, and Dr. Hazan says this may open the door to real breakthroughs.

She hopes to compare the microbiomes of autistic children with their neurotypical siblings and see if fecal transplants can help treat autism. She’s alre...

In this episode, Jeffrey Tucker unpacks President Donald Trump’s growing dispute with the Federal Reserve and his efforts to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook for alleged mortgage fraud.

“There’s a lot more at stake than just this one regulation about residences and mortgages. It has to do with whether and to what extent the Fed is actually accountable to the President of the United States,” says Tucker.

He’s the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute and senior economics columnist for The Epoch Times.

How did the creation of the Federa...

With President Donald Trump recently challenging pharmaceutical companies to “justify success” of their COVID-19 products, I’m sitting down with scientist, physician, and author Dr. Robert Malone to get his insights into what’s going on behind the scenes.

Dr. Malone is currently serving as a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and also as a medical advisor for MAHA Action.

The recent firing of CDC director Susan Monarez was followed by the resignations of several top CDC officials. At the same time, Robert F. Kennedy Jr...

In less than a decade, euthanasia has become tied for the fifth leading cause of death in Canada, accounting for one in every 20 deaths since it was first legalized in 2016. Over 60,000 Canadians have died via euthanasia.

“This marks a massive cultural shift in how we live and die in Canada,” says Amanda Achtman, a leading critic of the practice and the founder of the Dying to Meet You Project.

Patients no longer need to be terminally ill to request euthanasia, and there are ongoing debates about whether minors or people with mental illnesses should be able...

When an 88‑year‑old Tennessee woman confronted representatives of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) when they came to survey her land for a methane gas plant project, her words—“you think you own something, you don’t own nothing”—left a lasting impression on country artist John Rich.

That moment became the spark for his new song “The Devil and the TVA” and the starting point for this conversation on “American Thought Leaders.”

In this episode, Rich reflects on his journey from Texas family sing‑alongs to writing No. 1 hits with bands Lonestar and Big & Rich. He explains why he...

For years, U.S. strategic missteps have empowered Tehran and Beijing, according to political theorist Yoram Hazony. Now, as a new strain of isolationism grows in America, Hazony says, both isolationism and hyper-interventionism have key flaws.

In this episode, we dive into President Donald Trump’s distinct foreign policy approach as well as what Hazony sees as an assault on nation-states and their right to independent decision-making.

Nationalism has been falsely vilified, and global governance has become the new mantra, he says.

Hazony recently released a revised edition of his 2018 seminal work, “The Virt...

Political economist Chenggang Xu grew up amid the upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution and in the 1970s was beaten, imprisoned, and subjected to years of forced labor by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Today, he is a senior research scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the new book, “Institutional Genes: Origins of China’s Institutions and Totalitarianism.”

For decades, Beijing has repeatedly deceived the world about its true intentions, Xu says. So why do we keep falling fo...

In this episode, I’m sitting down with award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon, founder and editor-in-chief of Just the News, for a deep dive into what we now know—nine years later—about the origins of the Russia collusion probe.

How did these events change America?

“We'll never know what history was stolen from us, what opportunities diplomatically were stolen from us, what security opportunities were thwarted because this dirty trick was allowed to extend so far,” Solomon says.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and...

How has Hollywood changed in the last several decades, and why are film productions leaving Los Angeles and increasingly going abroad? Where is the industry headed, and what role should Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood play?

“Hollywood spent probably the last 15 or 20 years basically telling half of its audience that they don’t want them to watch, that they hate them, that they’re deplorables,” says actor and filmmaker Nick Searcy. “They’ve driven half the audience away.”

Searcy played James Baker in the Reagan biopic last year and is perhaps best known for his role as Art Mull...

A few weeks ago, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, a prominent advocate for religious freedom and human rights, was invited to the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, alongside fellow religious freedom advocate Johnnie Moore.

They had an intimate meeting with the new president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa.

In this episode, the rabbi shares what he learned about al-Sharaa and whether he believes a peace between Syria and Israel is possible in the near future.

“There’s a term in Hebrew: It’s called Kabdehu ve Hashdehu, [which] means show respect and verify,“ he says. ”So, this is no...

As the Trump administration gives China another 90-day extension on elevated tariffs, I’m sitting down with China analyst Gordon Chang to get his read on U.S.–China trade talks, signs of infighting in Beijing and trouble for Xi Jinping, and the recent destruction of a Chinese coast guard vessel by a Chinese navy warship.

Chang is the author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Canadian-Chinese filmmaker Yan Ma knew from the outset that he was putting himself at risk for making a political thriller about a lab leak in China. “The Unrestricted War” is a movie that was inspired by the cover-up and outbreak of COVID-19 and spotlights how the Chinese Communist Party coerces its citizens, and even foreigners living within China, to achieve its ends.

Officials pressured Ma’s family members back in China in attempts to coerce him to stop the project. His Chinese team members faced similar pressure. Ethnically Chinese actors refused to participate in the film for fear o...

“As an economist, it’s extremely important to look at the data, rather than just on a theoretical basis,” says Mark Skousen. “We should be in a recession. Well, we’re not in a recession; looks like we’re coming out of slow growth, which is really important.”

In this episode, I sit down with economist Mark Skousen to discuss taxes, tariffs, trade, and energy.

“I think somewhere in between what the Fed wants and what Trump wants is a more reasonable approach to keep this economy on an even keel,” says Skousen. “The other thing that’s really...

How does the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) cognitive warfare manifest in the West? How prevalent is it? And how can Americans recognize it?

Few understand this elusive subject better than Robert Spalding. The CEO of Sempre, Spalding is a retired Air Force brigadier general and B-2 stealth bomber pilot, former senior director of strategy at the National Security Council, and author of “War Without Rules: China’s Playbook for Global Domination.”

“We have these enormous political warfare and psychological warfare campaigns happening in the United States. We have nobody that’s responsible for responding to them,” he...

“Veterans are not being told the risk of their medications,“ says Derek Blumke. “Doctors themselves are not aware of the risks of those medications.”

Derek Blumke served 12 years in the US Air Force and Michigan Air National Guard and is a longtime advocate for veterans. A bad experience with psychiatric drugs changed his life trajectory. He has been sounding the alarm about suicide and the overprescription of psychiatric drugs among veterans.

“If we’re going to treat a firearm with respect that we should and we do, which is making sure there’s a safety on, making sur...

Bob Healey was in his 60s battling terminal cancer with only a product prototype when he sought advice from business coach Clay Clark. Now, his company is booming.

It’s never too late to succeed, Clark says.

After building several multi-million dollar businesses, Clark developed a 14-step system to help budding entrepreneurs turbocharge their ideas.

During the pandemic, he helped his clients not just stay afloat but even thrive.

In this episode, we dive into how to grow a small business, what business schools fail to teach, and why America must re...

For years, award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson has been tracking the rise of censorship, biased “fact-checkers,” and what she describes as narrative-enforcing journalism.

How has today’s information landscape transformed? What does she make of the recent releases of new documents surrounding the Russia investigation? And will Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Trump administration be able to fulfill their campaign promises to reform the various health-related agencies?

Attkisson is the host of Full Measure and author of a number of bestselling books, including “The Smear,” “Slanted,” “Stonewalled,” and most recently “Follow the Science.”

In this episode, I sit down with the 28th governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, to learn about how he’s reducing his state’s vulnerabilities and dependency on communist China.

We also dive into Oklahoma’s push toward critical-mineral production and the governor’s mission to promote economic development and reignite the American Dream.

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 is surpassing American strength, whether it be naval forces or nuclear forces,” says retired U.S. Army Col. John Mills.

His four-decade career has spanned key roles from the Cold War era to the War on Terror. At the Department of Defense, he directed cybersecurity policy.

“I was brought into cyber in 2007 when the threat really was Russian cyber adventurism, but by 2012, from that point onward, it was all China—wasn’t even close,” he says. “For every dollar Russia spent on misadventure, China spent 20.”

In this episode, we dive into the Chinese Communis...

Former Trump national security adviser retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn found himself at the center of a national firestorm when he was charged with lying to the FBI over a phone call he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

The DOJ would later drop the case, saying there was no “legitimate investigative basis” to have targeted him.

In his new book “Pardon of Innocence,” he details his story.

As new documents are released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, we sat down with the 33-year military veteran to understand how he s...

“A quarter to a half of the exploitation that’s happening to our own nation’s youth ... it’s a caregiver doing it—it’s a familial figure,” Jaco Booyens says.

He is the founder of Jaco Booyens Ministries (JBM), an anti-human trafficking organization working to protect American children from predatory exploitation.

“We’re talking about a $52 billion industry of buying and selling predominantly women and children inside this country—American citizens. The discussion about an immigrant child or an immigrant in the country is a completely separate conversation,” he says.

Booyens says laws against human tra...

Kelly Walker, a local coffee shop owner in Tucson, Arizona, never imagined how his world would be turned upside down when he started speaking out publicly against COVID-19 mandates and the harm to children.

He and Sam Sorbo are cofounders of the Parents Demanding Justice Alliance. They have put together a report detailing alleged actions taken by local authorities to censor, surveil, and pressure parents who protested policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Editor’s Note: Kelly Walker previously has done work for The Epoch Times as a freelance marketing writer. Sam Sorbo previously hosted a sh...

In this episode, Rushan Abbas reveals how the Chinese communist regime has escalated its campaign against the Uyghurs.

Uyghurs are being mass surveilled, forcibly sterilized, and exploited as slave labor both in Xinjiang and in other provinces across China. There are growing signs of large-scale forced organ harvesting in the region—including an apparent special lane in the city of Kashgar’s airport dedicated to the transport of human organs.

In 2018, the Chinese regime imprisoned Rushan Abbas’s sister Gulshan in an apparent attempt to silence Rushan. Her sister was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and sh...