The Libertarian Institute - All Podcasts

(*This episode is mostly comprised of DHP Eps. 171 & 174, which were originally made & published back in 2018.)

In this DHP Reissue Two-Fer, CJ-in-2018 turns the DHP Heroes spotlight on one of his favorite filmmakers of all time, John Carpenter, best known for the horror & scifi films he made in the last 3 decades of the 20th century.

Join CJ as he discusses:



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Scott interviews Patrick Pillow about the series he just started publishing on the regime change in Egypt in 2011.

Discussed on the show:

Patrick Pillow is an independent researcher and writer focused on protest movements, foreign policy, and regime-change case studies. He also writes at Libertarian Overwatch on Substack.   

Sign up for the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom at scotthortonacademy.com

For more on Scott’s work:

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Starlink sounds like a simple story about connectivity, until you ask one question: who gets to decide when a “civilian” network becomes a weapon? We start by digging into Elon Musk’s statement on Ukraine, where he draws a hard boundary around Starlink and offensive drone strikes, and we explain why SpaceX points to Starshield as the proper channel for military use. From cost incentives to security blowback, we lay out why this fight is not just technical, it’s strategic.

Then we shift to Israel’s election aftermath and the growing pressure cooker around Iran. We w...

They’ve spent years telling you an independent vote is a wasted vote. We don’t buy it, and we walk through why the “safe” choice keeps delivering the same disappointment, the same hypocrisy, and the same top-down control. Karen Kotowski sits in for Kyle and talks with producer Chris Leonard about what independent voting actually looks like when you’re not trying to fit your life into a red-team or blue-team identity.

We use Matthew McConaughey’s viral case for independent thinking as a jumping-off point, then get specific about power. In a narrowly divided Cong...

A citywide Russia Ukraine ceasefire tied to a Melania Trump backchannel sounds absurd on its face, which is exactly why it’s worth taking seriously. We walk through what’s actually being reported, why a humanitarian corridor can still count as a diplomatic breakthrough, and how even “small” agreements test whether Moscow and Kyiv can coordinate anything at all after years of grinding war.

From there, we get into the story that won’t die: did Ukraine lose access to Starlink, Starshield, or neither, and who made the call? We talk about why the distinction matters, h...

An inch is not a “near miss” in politics, it’s a different timeline. Ken Silva joins me to lay out what we actually know about the Butler, Pennsylvania Trump rally shooting, what still makes no sense, and why the FBI’s slow drip of records feels more like narrative management than transparency. We talk about the death of rallygoer James Copenhaver, the frustrating reality of 75,000 pages sitting behind a monthly trickle, and the simplest unanswered questions that matter most: how security failed, what warnings were missed, and why key decisions like return fire timing still lack clear public explanat...

A president under pressure almost always looks for a villain, and today we’re asking a sharp question: is Zelensky becoming the White House’s favorite scapegoat? We react to Zelensky’s on-camera response, then pull the thread on how blame travels during a long proxy war, especially when diesel prices rise, approval drops, and the Iran war keeps dominating headlines.

We also get into the nuts and bolts that rarely make the talking points. Patriot missile deliveries stall, partners wait on approvals, and even Starlink becomes part of the leverage game. When PAC-3 interceptors are ba...

John and I continue reading and commentary on Ordinary Men.



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Scott interviews Bill Buppert about Iran, the defense industry, the geopolitical delusions of the West, how evolving weapons technology will shape the next few decades and more.

Discussed on the show:

Bill Buppert is the Smedley D. Butler Fellow for Military Affairs at the Libertarian Institute and host of Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare...

John and I continue reading and commentary on Ordinary Men

A rumored Putin Trump Xi summit sounds like diplomatic fireworks, but the bigger story is what it reveals about power and leverage as Ukraine’s position weakens. Larry Johnson joins me to parse the Reuters report, the shifting tone coming out of Washington, and the growing sense that US leaders are preparing to treat Ukraine as […]

Download Audio. Scott brings Larry Johnson back on the show to talk about all the Middle East news they couldn’t get to last week. They discuss the Iran war and the status of Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Saudi’s escalating war with the Houthis of Yemen. Discussed on […]

Download Audio. Scott interviews Robert Wright, author of the book The God Test, about how AI will impact our future. They discuss the threats AI poses to our safety and our economies. And they talk about the right and wrong ways to minimize those risks without sacrificing the genuine benefits offered by the technology. […]

Download Audio. Scott interviews Libertarian Institute Fellow Joseph Solis-Mullen about what’s happening in Ethiopia. Solis-Mullen gives us the historical context of the escalating conflict, the broader geopolitical context in the region and explains how Washington fits into all of this. Discussed on the show: “Things Fall Apart in Ethiopia…” (Libertarian Institute) Joseph Solis-Mullen is […]

Nationwide there has been an epidemic of police officers sexually abusing teens they are meant to mentor through Learning For Life’s Police Explorers Program.

It’s been quite some time since I have responded to “mail” so I have curated these questions to address:. Why the future of warfare is not clone wars? The Fall of Europe is inevitable, here is what it will look like. The rifle is no longer the future in any form of warfare. How systems […]

Trump is turning up the heat on Ukraine and Zelensky, and the timing is impossible to ignore: voters feel foreign policy in their wallets through gas prices and diesel prices. Kyle sits down with Connor Echols of Responsible Statecraft to parse what’s real policy movement versus loud rhetoric, including Trump’s complaints about U.S. aid and […]

The midterms are fast approaching, as is the “fall back” to Standard Time: that blissful-but-all-too-brief 4-month period in which our clocks & schedules align in a healthy way with our natural circadian rhythms, allowing us to flourish for 1/3 of the year until we “spring forward” back into the earthly hell known as “Daylight Savings.” […]

The fastest way to misread a war is to believe one leader can simply declare it over. We dig into President Trump’s claim that the Iran war will end “very soon” and test it against the hard constraints that actually decide timelines: the Strait of Hormuz, shipping attacks in the Persian Gulf, and the kind […]

I went fishing, and many of y’all had suggested I livestream while fishing. During the stream I discuss Sandra Birchmore.

The fastest way a “regional conflict” becomes a global problem is through chokepoints, and we spend this conversation mapping the ones that matter. Dave DeCamp joins me to explain why a US move toward direct intervention in Yemen could trigger the exact kind of escalation Washington says it wants to avoid, including threats to US […]

Download Audio. Scott interviews Larry Johnson about the status of Washington’s campaign to weaken the current Russian regime. Discussed on the show: “Dispatch from Moscow: The Collapse Narrative Keeps Missing the Real Russia” (Sonar21) “The Human Cost of The War Nobody Is Counting: Sulfur, Fertilizer and an Email from Florida” (Sonar21) Larry C. Johnson […]

If you feel like the headlines about Ukraine, Russia, and “energy deals” never add up, you’re not imagining it. We sit down with Larry Johnson to separate political theater from the underlying mechanics that actually move wars and markets and to ask why so many public claims collapse the moment you put real numbers next […]

A single debate clip can reveal an entire foreign policy reality: we demand ritual condemnation of October 7, then treat any mention of Gaza’s devastation as taboo. Kyle is joined by Nolan Denaro to unpack a heated Michigan campaign exchange and the bigger story behind it, including how U.S. politicians lean on inflated or debunked […]

A promise not to attack Iran before the US midterm elections sounds calming until you ask the uncomfortable question: who benefits from the world believing it? We sit down with Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski to sort through the noise, the incentives, and the real risk of escalation hiding behind confident social media posts and campaign […]

Something big hides inside a simple question: if the US and Israel are thinking about striking Iran, why would the timing cluster around elections? We pull apart a Reuters-style headline and treat it like a map, tracing how US midterm politics and Israel’s vote can shape escalation decisions just as much as military “readiness” can. […]

“Let them take out Los Angeles” is the kind of line that explodes online, but the real story is what comes after the clip: how an unpopular Iran war gets sold to the public, and how critics keep missing the most effective, factual attacks. Andrew Day returns to help us separate viral framing from what […]

The fastest way to sell a war is to blame the same villain for everything, and right now that villain is Iran. We walk through Donald Trump’s comments on the alleged FlyDubai attack and the broader pattern of turning unclear events into “proof” of an Iranian terror campaign. We talk attribution, the Sunni extremist profile […]

a Download Audio. Scott interviews Ian Proud about how he recently traveled to Russia to hear a speech from Putin, only to be detained by his own government upon his return. Scott and Proud talk about what happened and why he decided to go to Russia. They then discuss the broader state of the war. […]

We react to the new Down, listen to Church of Misery, and discuss Douglas Carter getting released from prison after 41 years on death row.

“Only because I wanted to go further.” That single line from Donald Trump’s Time magazine interview changes how you should read the entire Iran war timeline. I’m solo today, digging into the most relevant sections of the interview and separating performative victory claims from what the conflict actually looks like on the ground and in […]

The Iraq War has been a “still going” story for so long that it barely feels real when someone says it might finally be ending. We sit down with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson to talk through what the last American forces leaving Iraq could actually mean, not just for Baghdad, but for the bigger U.S. posture […]

“Only because I wanted to go further.” That single line from Donald Trump’s Time magazine interview changes how you should read the entire Iran war timeline. I’m solo today, digging into the most relevant sections of the interview and separating performative victory claims from what the conflict actually looks like on the ground and in […]

A lot of foreign policy talk collapses into slogans until you ask one simple question: if things are going fine, why are oil prices still telling a different story? We bring Larry Johnson back to sort through the gap between public claims and what the Strait of Hormuz, tanker security, and the energy market seem […]

Download Audio. Gordon Hahn returns to the show to talk about the notable rise of Azov’s Andriy Biletsky. He and Scott also discuss the obstacles to peace that are keeping this war going and some potential flashpoints for further escalation. Discussed on the show: Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West and the “New […]

Download Audio. Scott interviews Ted Snider about Ukraine. After years of Western journalists acting like Ukraine had just started turning the tide toward victory, the conflict remains frozen in a bloody stalemate. Scott and Snider dig in and discuss what’s actually going in and why all parties seem unlikely to pull back or stop […]

Trump takes the UN stage and talks about Iran the way politicians talk when they want options to expand a war without owning the cost. I walk through what he said, why it lands as bluster instead of strategy, and how that kind of rhetoric can still be dangerous when it becomes the basis for […]

I watched the Caleb Flynn trial and was shocked by how little physical evidence there was. Although I think the jurors got it right, could innocent people be convicted?

A single phrase can change the whole global chessboard: nuclear first use. We start by reacting to speculation about a US nuclear strike in Iran and lay out why even “unlikely” decisions matter when escalation could pull in Russia, China, and every other nuclear-armed state. Deterrence is supposed to prevent war, but it also creates […]

Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen has dragged on for years, but one detail should stop you in your tracks: the New York Times reports Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has reached out to Donald Trump three times asking for US military help against Ansar Allah and each time Trump declines. That raises a bigger question […]