The Libertarian Institute



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Eric Margolis returns to the show to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East. They cover the Iran war, Netanyahu’s advance knowledge of the October 7 attack, the relevance of the Epstein files to American foreign policy and more.

Discussed on the show:

Eric Margolis is a foreign aff...



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Scott interviews John Dudlicek, a civil engineer from Indiana, about the critical state of America’s water mains, dams and other crucial components of the infrastructure we rely on every day.

John Dudlicek is a civil engineer and VP of a construction firm based in Northwest Indiana. 

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

For more on Scott’s work:

Check out The Libertarian Institute: https://www.libertarianinstitute.org

Check out Scott’s other show, Provoked...

World War II is the one war we’re still not allowed to talk about like history, and that’s exactly why we should. I’m joined by Darryl Cooper to dig into what happens when a past conflict becomes a civic religion, complete with taboos, approved villains, and moral shortcuts that shape how Americans see today’s wars. When you try to tell the German perspective with real nuance, people often assume you’re “carrying water” for the worst actors. We explain why that reaction is so common, what it reveals about politics now, and how asking better questions can...

Bush says America didn’t overreact after 9/11. We don’t let that pass. Kyle Anzalone sits down with Scott Horton to walk through what Washington knew before the attacks, what it chose to ignore, and how a moment that demanded focused justice became an open-ended Global War on Terror. If you’ve ever wondered whether there was a serious middle ground between “do nothing” and “invade half the world,” this talk lays it out in plain terms.

We dig into the intelligence warnings that piled up, the political incentives to widen the fight, and al-Qaeda’s strategy of ba...

Dave Smith joins Kyle Anzalone for a wide-ranging conversation about Trump’s failures, the changing American political landscape, and what Dave sees as the rise of “Woke 2.0.”

After years of backlash against progressive politics, is the pendulum beginning to swing back? Dave and Kyle discuss whether the Trump administration’s record is breathing new life into a movement many on the right believed had already been defeated.

They also break down the growing frustration with Trump, the political realignment happening on both the left and right, foreign policy, war, MAGA, and where libertarians fit into...

The loudest voices keep insisting the U.S. is “winning” against Iran, but winning should be measurable and explainable, not just repeated until it feels true. We sit down with Matt Hoh to test the claims against what’s happening in the Persian Gulf, where the Strait of Hormuz remains a pressure point and U.S. forces are still absorbing attacks and burning through tempo. If the public story is victory, why does the conflict look like it’s settling into a long grind with no clear off-ramp?

We also go straight at the most frighten...

Netanyahu doesn’t just hint at confrontation with Iran, he says the quiet part out loud: the aim is to bring the regime down. We play the clip, then pull apart what that means in practice, especially when U.S. leaders keep selling the war as a narrower fight about nuclear weapons and missiles. If Israel’s stated objective is regime change, the “limited goals” storyline starts to look like marketing, not strategy.

We also look at the political incentives shaping decisions on both sides of the Atlantic. Netanyahu heads toward an October election with corrupti...



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Scott interviews Elizabeth Lane about the domestic and geopolitical situation facing the country of Georgia. Lane, who is Georgian, digs deep into the relevant history and explains how the various factions, on all sides, try to distort the historical narrative to better serve their interests.

Discussed on the show:

Elizabeth Lane is an investigative journalist and the host of Elizabeth Lane TV on YouTube. Follow her on X @imelizabethlane

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



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Scott interviews Scooter Downey, a producer at the Tucker Carlson Network, about his new documentary series on the Oklahoma City bombing.

Discussed on the show:

Scooter Downey is a filmmaker who, more recently, has been producing documentaries at the Tucker Carlson Network. Follow him on X @scooter_downey.

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

Hybrid warfare Is a can of worms, a fascinating conjoining of kinetic and non-kinetic means of achieving victory or stale between warring nations.

This second episode examines an historical example of what I think is the closest modern hybrid warfare modality in the Japanese Empire in the 1930s leading to WWII; the.Imperial Japanese Army’s Tokumu Kikan – Special Service Organizations that laid the groundwork for this phenomenon in the modern west.

References:

Richard J. Samuels Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community

John Llewelyn The Imperial Japa...

AOC gets asked a simple question with enormous consequences: should Benjamin Netanyahu be arrested if he lands in the United States while an ICC warrant hangs over him? We unpack why her cautious answer lands like a warning flare for the 2028 election, especially with younger Democratic voters who want clear accountability, a real break from blank-check military aid, and an end to rhetorical gymnastics about international law.

Then we shift to the right, where J.D. Vance’s supposed non-interventionist image runs into a wall of donor politics and hardline messaging about Iran and Israel. We...

Kyle and I talk.

“Total control” is easy to say on a podium, but war has a way of grading claims in real time. We sit down with Larry Johnson to sort through the latest reports of US strikes linked to the Strait of Hormuz, why mine warfare is still shaping the battlefield, and how a single chokepoint can rattle global oil prices, shipping risk, and energy security far beyond the Middle East.

From there, we get specific about what retaliation looks like on the map: missiles hitting US bases in Jordan, what “they shot them all down” can hide, an...

John and I continue reading and commentary on Ordinary Men.



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Scott interviews writer and podcast host Nolan Denaro about several columns he’s written recently for Antiwar.com. They dig into the shortcomings, failures and overall depravity of the war hawks in the current MAGA movement.

Discussed on the show:

Nolan Denaro is a political analyst, writer, and host of “The Quest For Clarity”...

Timeline, Buck’s article, my thoughts.

A foreign government buying ads on a US senator’s podcast sounds like satire until you follow the money. We dig into reporting from Connor Echols at Responsible Statecraft on how Israeli government “I Am Israel” ads ran on “Verdict with Ted Cruz” and how that ad revenue, via iHeartMedia, flowed to a pro-Ted Cruz Super PAC instead of landing in a normal media account. The details are technical, but the implication is simple: commercial ad buys can quietly reshape political incentives.

We walk through the campaign finance machinery that makes this possible, from Citizens United era...

“Economic D-Day” might sound like a clean alternative to missiles, but economic war has its own escalation ladder. Today with guest Andrew Day, we break down the Trump administration’s reported shift on Iran from overt military action to “Operation Economic Isolation,” and why secondary sanctions, trade pressure, and financial choke points can ricochet into global oil prices, medicine shortages, and the kind of retaliation that turns the Strait of Hormuz into the world’s most dangerous bottleneck.

We also connect foreign policy to domestic reality. If Iran tensions push gas prices up, voters feel it immediate...

The Strait of Hormuz is where slogans go to die. Today we take a hard look at the claim that the United States “controls” the strait because mines were cleared and surveillance is perfect, then we test that claim against something more revealing: the reported message relayed through Pakistan offering to lift sanctions if Iran reopens shipping. If Washington has control, why negotiate for access? I walk through the incentives, the contradictions, and what leverage actually looks like when global oil flows, insurance risk, and regional escalation are all tied together.

We also dig into Iran...

John ad I continue reading and commentary on Ordinary Men

“Economic D-Day against Iran” makes for great TV, but it only matters if the US can actually enforce it. Kyle sits down with Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and the writer behind Sonar21, to pressure-test the Trump administration’s new sanctions push, “Operation Economic Outcast,” and the claims that it will isolate Tehran, choke off military funding, and reopen business as usual in the Gulf.

We dig into what’s happening around the Strait of Hormuz, why official narratives can clash with independent shipping tracker data, and how visibility, radar, and maritime traffic shape energy marke...

“Economic war” sounds like a tidy solution until you look at what it actually does and what it rarely accomplishes. We sit down with Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski to pressure-test the latest U.S. messaging on Iran, from claims that sanctions will prevent a nuclear program forever to louder promises that Tehran’s government can be collapsed through blockade and financial pressure. We don’t treat this as abstract theory. We dig into how sanctions function in practice, why they often fail to produce regime change, and how they can still escalate conflict while pretending to be restraint.

A US senator gets a basic Taiwan and South China Sea question and freezes, defaulting to “I support the military.” That clip sets the tone for a hard look at how casually America treats foreign policy competence while Congress keeps voting on war funding, alliances, and the next escalation. We talk through why Taiwan policy, freedom of navigation, and China deterrence are not optional knowledge for people shaping US national security.

Then we dig into the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz, where the difference between “we control it” and “we can move some oil tonigh...

The fastest way to lose a war is to start one without an end state, and that’s the thread we pull from start to finish with Jim Webb. We get specific about what “no strategy” looks like in the real world: no clear objective, no believable measure of success, and no honest accounting for what happens when the other side attacks the thing that actually powers U.S. force projection, logistics. When the plan is blurry, every headline becomes the plan, and that’s how major powers stumble into disasters.

We also dig into the repo...

The centerpiece of this episode is DHP Episode 253: Academia is a Racket, which CJ produced back in late-February 2023, only about 6 months after he walked away from academia, after spending 22 years of his life in it (6 as a student & 16 as a teacher.)

In this episode, CJ mostly avoided the lowest-hanging & widely understood defects of academia in recent decades — ie, the rise to hegemony of once-fringe (even in academia) “Woke” ideology, & the exorbitant costs to the students of getting a college “education.”

Instead, drawing from his 22 years inside academia, he mostly focuses on structural (in the true sense of t...

Gas prices don’t rise in a vacuum. They rise when chokepoints tighten, reserves drain, and officials pretend the pain will stay contained. We sit down with Larry Johnson of Sonar21 to pressure-test the story you’re being sold about the war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and why “it’s only $4 a gallon” can quickly turn into a very different reality when global oil supply, diesel, and aviation fuel get squeezed.