The Elsa Kurt Show

We move from real life updates to the week’s biggest flashpoints and keep coming back to one idea: facts and incentives matter more than viral outrage. Along the way, we challenge the instinct to turn violence, scandal, and celebrity into content while pretending it has no consequences. 

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

•Behind-the-scenes stories from the Reacher set and what it reveals about teamwork and professionalism 
•Why live-streaming a Fort Hood execution risks propaganda, martyrdom, and more desensitization 
•The practical difference between supporting the death penalty and rejecting a...

The American Dream used to feel like a simple promise: work hard, buy a house, build a family, and slowly climb toward stability. Talk to a lot of 25 and 30-year-olds today and that same promise can sound like science fiction. Housing affordability is collapsing, interest rates are punishing, and even “doing everything right” does not guarantee financial independence anymore.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Mark Deluzio joins Elsa to dig into the hard questions behind that shift: what actually happened to the buying power of the dollar, why the cost of l...

A 57-year marriage doesn’t end neatly. It leaves an echo in every room, in every routine, and in the simple comfort of knowing someone is nearby. Author Harper Law joins us to talk about what happened after he cared for his wife through the final stretch of her life and then had to figure out who he was on the other side of that loss. What surprised me most is how honest he is about grief: you don’t “get over it,” but you can adjust, and you can still build a life that feels alive.

This is...

Pandas, power, and superintelligence shouldn’t belong in the same conversation, yet that’s exactly where we land as we sort through a week of headlines that feel like politics as performance. We start with Xi Jinping’s Washington visit and the kind of symbolism that gets dismissed as fluff but still moves relationships: flyovers, state dinner visuals, and panda diplomacy. Underneath the smiles are real stakes, including trade timelines and the careful, evasive language the US uses around Taiwan that can deter conflict or invite miscalculation depending on who’s listening. 

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn fr...

AI is moving into the workplace whether we feel ready or not, and the real question isn’t just what it can do. It’s what it does to us. I sit down with Dr. Christopher Warren, a nationally recognized safety and risk management leader and the author of “Artificiomics: Mitigating Human Risk of AI Technologies in the Workplace Using Industrial Hygiene Principles,” to talk about what happens to human judgment, trust, and workplace safety as companies rely more on AI systems, robots, and automation. If you’ve ever felt equal parts excited and uneasy about AI, this conversation puts langu...

A violin maker connects two lives, and that chance connection helps spark a spy thriller where music can give you away. I’m joined by Gerald Schoeltzel, a professional musician turned attorney and screenwriter whose résumé is as gripping as the fiction he writes. Gerald shares how he and co-author Leonid Prymak found each other through matching Italian instruments, then built Heard a Ghost: Love, Murder, and Revenge, a Russian espionage story set against Washington, DC power, opulence, romance, betrayal, and a spy hiding in plain sight.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purc...

They can block a camera from the Oval Office, but they can’t block the argument that follows. We dig into the White House press pool standoff and the question underneath it: is this a necessary pushback against editorialized “journalism,” or a precedent that will boomerang the moment power changes hands? We also walk through the real legal wrinkle people miss when they shout “First Amendment,” and why optics matter even when something feels technically defensible.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Then we pivot to Trump TV, launching at the exact mome...

Change shows up whether we invite it or not, and the hardest part is rarely the ending or the fresh start. It’s the stretch in between, when the old identity doesn’t fit anymore and the new one hasn’t arrived. That’s where so many of us feel lost, especially in midlife, retirement, or the later chapters of adulthood when the culture quietly tells us to fade out. 

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We sit down with Dr. Elaine Yarbrough and Dr. Bob Benson, authors of *Roadmap for a Brillia...

A child gets labeled “behind” and starts believing it. A parent gets told what “good” looks like and starts chasing it. Then life breaks the script, and you either cling tighter to the box or learn to see what was there all along. We sit down with Lindsey Erin Vesnic, author of the Amazon number one bestselling memoir Raising Light, for a raw and hopeful conversation about faith, family, and the miracles that shape how we parent.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Lindsey shares what it was like growing up with sev...

Imagine a world three centuries from now where the map has changed, the weather has changed, and “home” becomes a moving target. That’s the jumping-off point for my conversation with Norman Westhoff, a former medical doctor who now writes climate fiction (cli-fi) that feels less like a lecture and more like a lived reality. We start with the experiences that built his sense of scale, including early travel that made it easier to picture humans migrating, adapting, and rebuilding when the environment stops cooperating.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

From t...

AI is getting smarter, faster, and cheaper and the people building it are starting to sound genuinely uneasy. That is the moment we stop scrolling past the headlines and start asking the only question that matters: what happens to regular people when the tools get powerful enough to reshape jobs, education, security, and even politics. We also own the irony right up front, including the reality that AI is already woven into daily life whether you “use AI” or not.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We break down the latest warn...

A lot of people talk about “finding purpose” after the military. Dana Corriveau (https://www.mantlechallenge.org/events) actually had to fight for it. Dana served eight years in the United States Air Force in Security Forces, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and came home with the kind of accelerated maturity that doesn’t always fit neatly back into small-town life. Later, he builds a new career as a firefighter in Connecticut, but the deeper battle hits off the job: a divorce, a season of spiritual darkness, and the uncomfortable work of owning his choices instea...

The calendar forces two heavy anniversaries into the same week, and we can feel it. We start by naming what a lot of people avoid saying out loud: 9/11 is not just a memory, it’s a measuring stick. Twenty-five years later, we’re still asking what the United States actually learned about security, culture, civic duty, and the cost of pretending warning signs do not exist. We talk about how we personally handle the day, why some of us cannot watch the memorial programming, and why the emotions can flip from grief to fury when public life feels like it’s...

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

———
📚 Elsa's books: elsakurt.com/books
🎁 Free first chapter of Mae's Café: elsakurt.com
🎙 Be a guest on the show: calendly.com/elsakurt_official/thirtymin
⭐ Enjoyed it? Leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps!
❤️ Support the show: buzzsprout.com/614722/support

Support the show

Elsa's AMAZON STORE
Elsa's FAITH & FREEDOM MERCH STORE

Elsa's BOOKS
Elsa Kurt: You may know her for her uncanny, vi...