Honestly with Bari Weiss

Priests, Porn Stars and Public Intellectuals All Agree: Debate is Back.

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When The Free Press decided to rent a theater with 1,600 seats for our first-ever live debate a few months ago, most people looked at us with a mixtur...

You Are the Last Line of Defense

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Months ago, I was asked to give a lecture at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention. It was a surprising invitation for a number of re...

Sam Harris: The Bright Line Between Good and Evil

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For today’s episode, we’re thrilled to share the most recent episode of our friend Sam Harris’s podcast, Making Sense.  Moral confusion is pla...

Does Elon Musk Have Too Much Power?

08 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For the longest time, when you thought about the most powerful person in the world, the person who probably came to mind was the president of the Unit...

A World Spinning Out of Control

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

There are a lot of experts that you may have heard on the news in the past few weeks. People who know a great deal about Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran or...

How Hamas Executed a Massacre, and How One Israeli with Nine Bullets Fought Back

27 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been almost three weeks since Hamas attacked Israel. And there are three questions that, despite having reported on it so much over the last 20...

The Stories—and Stakes—of War in Israel

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve been following our coverage at The Free Press, you’ve noticed that we’ve been covering the war in Israel nonstop since it began. We’...

The New Axis of Evil: Condoleezza Rice on War in Israel and a Changed World

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early hours of Saturday morning on October 7, Israel was invaded by Hamas terrorists by land, air, and sea, which The Free Press has been cover...

Bring Back My Children: An Israeli Mother's Plea

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Given the war in Israel, we’re going to do something different on Honestly for a bit. Over the next few days—maybe weeks, depending on how the war...

War in Israel: Michael Oren Explains How ‘Evil’ Infiltrated the Country

07 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On October 7, Hamas terrorists streamed across the border in pickup trucks, on foot, by motorcycle, and even on paragliders. Once inside Israel, they ...

James Carville Says Wokeness “Is Over,” 2024 Will Be “Dangerous”—and Much More from the Democratic Political Icon

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

James Carville, America’s best-known Democratic political consultant, has been on the scene for a very long time and has worked on just about a thou...

We're All "a Little Bit Dumber": A Night Among GOP Hopefuls

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday night, Fox Business and Rumble hosted the second Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in beautiful Si...

Is Biden Too Old to Be President? Frank Foer Isn't Sure.

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As we tumble toward 2024, anxiety among Democrats is beginning to simmer. It’s easy to understand why. Just look at what happened last week: Biden w...

Replay: Why Leonard Cohen Ran Toward War

17 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1973, Leonard Cohen announced he was done with music for good. The same year, in October, war broke out in Israel. The Yom Kippur War would become...

What We're Listening To: Does Anyone Have a Right To Sex?

07 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, while our audio team is on summer break, we’re featuring an episode from one of our favorite podcasts: Conversations with Tyler, hosted b...

What We're Listening To: Richard Dawkins on UnHerd

31 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The team’s on vacation, so for this week’s Honestly, we’re sharing a favorite episode from a favorite podcast, one you may not have heard of: Un...

The First GOP Debate and The Elephant Not In The Room

24 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday night, Fox News and the streaming platform Rumble hosted the first Republican presidential debate with the eight GOP hopefuls who made th...

Meet Will Hurd: The Ex-CIA, Anti-Trump Republican Who Wants To Be President

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve been listening to this show for the past few months, maybe even since the 2022 midterms, you probably think I sound like something of a br...

How to Live After Profound Loss

10 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Colin Campbell says that the way our society treats grief—and people in grief—is cruel and backward, and it needs a radical reimagining.  He, of ...

Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Wants a Second American Revolution

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Vivek Ramaswamy, at 37 years old, is the first ever millennial Republican presidential candidate. He graduated from Harvard, then Yale Law School, and...

Are We In A Pre-War Era?

27 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, Walter Russell Mead wrote an outstanding article in Tablet titled “You Are Not Destined to Live in Quiet Times.” It’s about the parado...

Rethinking Higher Ed with Harvard’s Former President

21 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last week I found myself in Sun Valley, Idaho, at a conference with a lot of big wigs. Among them was Larry Summers—an economist, the Secretary of t...

Are We Living Through 'End Times'?

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Turchin is not like most historians.  For starters, he has an unusual background as an evolutionary biologist studying lemmings and mice. He sa...

When Ideology Corrupts Medicine—and How One Reporter Exposed It

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, Britain’s National Health Service made major news when they announced that they were banning the use of puberty blockers for children, e...

Affirmative Action, Gay Rights, and Free Speech: What The Supreme Court's Rulings Mean for America

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, the Supreme Court handed down, as they usually do as the term comes to an end, a flurry of highly anticipated major decisions. Two of them ...

Chris Christie Endorsed Trump Twice. Now He Wants To Eliminate Him.

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was one of 17 Republicans in a crowded field trying to beat Donald Trump. We know how that movie en...

RFK Jr. Is Striking a Nerve. He Explains Why.

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. is the rare Kennedy who hasn’t yet joined the family business. But at age 69—after a long career as an environmental la...

How To Dad in 2023: A Roundtable With Our Favorite Fathers

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Happy Father's Day! For today's episode, a conversation about fatherhood with three dads who have thought a lot about parenthood, masculinity and bein...

What Jordan Neely’s Death Tells Us About Mental Illness and Vigilantism

07 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On May 1, 2023, a 30-year-old homeless man named Jordan Neely boarded the F train in New York City. Neely appeared to be in the midst of some kind of ...

How to Live Longer and Healthier with Dr. Peter Attia

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s almost hard to believe, but in the 1950s doctors were frequently portrayed in TV commercials for. . . cigarettes. That’s because smoking w...

Get To Know Tim Scott: The GOP’s Newest Presidential Hopeful

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier today, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott entered the race for President. That makes him the sixth Republican candidate to get into the race, in...

Israel at 75: Miracles and Madness

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Seventy-five years ago this week, the Jewish community of Palestine (known as the yishuv) gathered in the art museum of Tel Aviv—then a city of less...

America Needs a Self-Help Book. Tim Urban's Got One.

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A few years ago, writer and cartoonist Tim Urban started becoming troubled by what he saw going on in the world around him. He noticed that while tech...

Peter Thiel Says America Has Bigger Problems Than Wokeness

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Thiel doesn’t shy away from taking big bets. From Facebook (he was the company’s first outside investor) to Gawker (he successfully conspire...

AI With Sam Altman: The End of The World? Or The Dawn of a New One?

27 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Just six months ago, few outside of Silicon Valley had heard of OpenAI, the company that makes the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. Now, this ...

‘My Friend’s Descent into Madness and Bloodshed’: An American Tragedy

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jonathan Rosen has spent the last few years trying to understand the story of his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor.  Michael Laudor was, by a...

Our Favorite Passover Conversation

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Exodus—the story of the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian slavery 3,000 years ago—is the ultimate story of freedom. And not just for Jews. B...

New York City Mayor Eric Adams

03 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

New York City has had a rough few years. It lost nearly four percent of its population during the pandemic. There was a historic crime surge, particu...

Rick Rubin Says Trust Your Gut, Not Your Audience

29 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

People don’t usually think about Adele in the same breath as Johnny Cash. The Beastie Boys in the same breath as Jay-Z. Justin Bieber and Slayer. Ne...

Bank Runs, Crypto Scams and World-Transforming AI with Tyler Cowen

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The last time economist Tyler Cowen was on Honestly about a year ago, inflation was the highest it had been in 40 years, gas prices were nearly $7 a g...

Why Men Seek Danger

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When most people think about war, they think about senseless killing, brutality, violence and horror. But when journalist Sebastian Junger thinks abou...

Honestly Presents: The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling

10 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Honestly presents Chapter 1 of The Witch Trails of J.K. Rowling Host Megan Phelps-Roper writes a letter to J.K. Rowling—and receives a surprising in...

Why Nikki Haley Is Running for President

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, Nikki Haley announced she is running for President. Haley is someone who has consistently proven doubters wrong: she was the first female ...

A Gen Z Religious Revival: 250 Hours of Worship in Kentucky

22 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For the past two weeks, tens of thousands of people, most of them college students, poured into a small chapel at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentuc...

Will Ozempic Solve Obesity in America? A Debate

15 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ozempic, the brand name drug for a medication called semaglutide, is one of the most popular drugs on the market right now. Originally developed to tr...

Why 65% of Fourth Graders Can't Really Read

10 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For many parents, the last few years have been eye-opening, as they saw the education system in America crumble under the weight of the pandemic. Scho...

A Golden Age of Gurus

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last decade, the internet has devolved into a playground for influencers who sell and show off anything and everything you could ever imagine...

America's Role in the Holocaust: Ken Burns on The Most Important Film He Will Ever Make

26 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ken Burns is the most famous documentary filmmaker in America. He has made 35 films over the past 5 decades on historical and cultural subjects like t...

America’s Broken Immigration System: An Honest Debate

17 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The debate about immigration brings out some of the deepest anxieties and biggest disagreements in America. And right now, all of it feels like it’s...

Raw & Unclassified: A Friday Roundtable

13 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From Biden getting on board the classified documents train to the raw milk revolutionaries who are skeptical of Big Dairy, today we bring you a roundt...

Bad Moms with Emily Oster

05 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When my wife Nellie was pregnant last year, we became obsessed with Economist Emily Oster’s book, Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy W...

A Holiday Treat with David Sedaris!

22 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

David Sedaris is a humorist and author of many best selling books: Calypso, Theft By Finding, Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, Me Talk Pretty One D...

The Twitter Files and the Future of the Democratic Party With Silicon Valley's Congressman

16 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ro Khanna is a progressive congressman representing California's 17th District, the wealthiest Congressional district in the U.S. He's the Silicon Val...

The State of the Black-Jewish Relationship in America: A Roundtable

09 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For the last month, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been all over the internet with his conspiratorial, antisemitic tirades. Most recently, he w...

Bibi Netanyahu: Israel's New Prime Minister. Again.

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a polarizing figure. For some, he's the ultimate defender of the State of Israel, willing to do whatever he think...

A Better Way to Disagree

23 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A few months ago, I had writer Freddie deBoer on the podcast for an episode we called, “Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?” We talked about h...

Nuclear War Games with HR McMaster

16 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson from the Russians. It was one of the most stunning victories for Ukraine since the war began eight m...

The Midterms No One Saw Coming: A Postmortem

09 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With inflation soaring, the worst crime wave in decades, and Biden’s approval rating at a pitiful 41%, everyone predicted last night’s midterm ele...

Who Do Voters Hate More? A Midterm Roundtable.

03 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Less than a week out from election day, and more than 20 million people have already cast their votes – a record number of early voters for a midter...

Has Criminal Justice Reform Made Us Less Safe? A Debate.

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past two years, the United States has experienced the largest crime surge in decades. Aggravated assaults went up. Shoplifting went up. Domes...

Why We Must Save Our Boys

19 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Let’s talk about the state of men in America: For every 100 bachelor degrees awarded to women, 74 are awarded to men; among men with only a high-sch...

How to Change Your Mind

13 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In a world where the personal has become political, and politics has swallowed everything, the stakes of changing your mind can feel really high. To c...

The Iranian Regime's Most Wanted Woman

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, a 22 year old Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested in Tehran by the Islamic Republic's so-called morality police for not weari...

From Racial Reckoning to Race Abolition

28 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode is borrowed from the feed of the great podcast The Fifth Column. Usually hosted by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, t...

The Great Canadian Mass Graves Hoax

22 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, The New York Times dropped a bombshell headline: “‘Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada.” As oth...

Eating Ourselves to Death

15 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Fifteen years ago, there was a lot of talk about the obesity epidemic. In 2008, Michelle Obama started a government program called “Let’s Move!”...

Has Freedom Failed Us? A Debate

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If there is a headline to the past half-decade, it’s this: liberal democracy is under threat across the West and populist movements are on the march...

Oberlin Accused the Gibsons of Racism. Now It Owes Them $36 Million.

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On November 9, 2016, the day after Trump was elected president, three students from Oberlin College were caught shoplifting wine from Gibson’s Baker...

Bill Barr Calls Bullsh*t

25 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Attorney General William Barr is only the second person in American history to lead the Justice Department twice: first under President George HW Bush...

Larry Summers: The High Price of Getting it Right

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Larry Summers is one of the most important economists in the world. He’s been the chief economist at the World Bank. He was Treasury Secretary under...

We Ignored Salman Rushdie’s Warning

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We live in a culture in which many people believe that words are violence. In this, they have much in common with Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,...

The Senate’s Only Black Republican Says: Stop Being Pessimistic

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Scott is a rare bird: He is the only black Republican in the Senate. But the quality that makes him arguably more unique at the moment is his opti...

Sex, Porn, Feminism: A Debate!

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s hard to think of an invention that has been more transformative to women than the birth control pill. Suddenly, American women possessed a powe...

The Eternally Radical Idea

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There is no organization that’s done more to fight for freedom of speech on American campuses over the past 20 years than FIRE, The Foundation for I...

Election Denial: A Roundtable

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Denying the outcome of elections has become alarmingly popular these days. In one corner, Democrats are claiming that gerrymandering has made our ele...

The Infamous Andrew Schulz

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a tried-and-true playbook for comedians who want to make it big: hit the road, get in front of as many audiences as possible, and try to gra...

Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Bari’s view, Freddie deBoer is one of the best writers in the country. It’s not because she always agrees with him. Hardly. Freddie is a self-d...

The New Founders America Needs

07 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There are nearly 4000 universities in the U.S.. Many of them have billions of dollars in endowments and histories that go back to well before the coun...

The Holy Anarchy of Fun

04 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

No writer stokes more consistent envy among Common Sense editors than Walter Kirn. Two of his essays from last year—The Bullshit and The Power and...

Power and Politics with Mike Pompeo

01 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With everything going on here at home you can be forgiven for not focusing on what’s going on in Mariupol or Hong Kong. But what’s going on in th...

America After Roe: A Roundtable

28 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Few decisions could inspire so much anger and sadness in one group of Americans—and so much joy and relief in another—than last week’s decision ...

Is Crypto Over? A Debate!

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you watched the Super Bowl this year, it was hard not to notice that cryptocurrency had fully arrived. Even Larry David was hawking crypto.  But ...

TGIF! Inflation, Drag Queens & DA's

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you read Common Sense, you know that the best day of the week is Friday, when Nellie Bowles delivers us all the news from the week that was. This ...

The Case for American Seriousness

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We live in a culture that is driven by nay-saying. In one corner, people insist that the individual stands no chance against structural and systemic m...

What To Do About Guns

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tulsa. Buffalo. Uvalde. Philadelphia. Chicago. And that’s just the past few weeks. If you’re like me, you’ve had too many despairing conversati...

Marianne Williamson on America’s ‘Dark Psychic Force’

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Marianne Williamson stood on the presidential debate stage in 2020 and spoke about the “dark psychic force” unleashed in America, she became ...

The Battle for the American Right

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We are living through a seismic political realignment. The parties and the political movements that fuel them are being dramatically redefined—and a...

What’s the Best Way to Raise Good People? A Debate

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There is no subject—not Trump, not abortion, not immigration, not taxes-–that is more contentious than the one we tackle today: parenting.  This...

The Yale Law Professor Who Is Anti-Roe, But Pro-Choice

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Akhil Reed Amar is the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale university, where he’s been teaching constitutional law since the rip...

TGIF: Welcome Back to Both 1973 and 1984

06 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you read Common Sense, you know that the best day of the week is Friday, when Nellie Bowles delivers us all the news from the week that was.  Tod...

Why This Gay Rights Pioneer Opposes Gender Ideology

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1989, Andrew Sullivan wrote “Here Comes The Groom,” an essay making the conservative case for gay marriage. Less than four decades later, the S...

Your Attention Didn't Collapse. It Was Stolen.

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The average American adult spends over three hours a day staring into their phone. If you’re a teenager it’s even worse – seven hours. What’s ...

TGIF! Libs of TikTok, CNN+ and Much More

22 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you read Common Sense, you know that the best day of the week is Friday, when Nellie Bowles delivers us all the news from the week that was.  Thi...

The Inflation Economy: What You Need to Know

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re confused about what is happening with the economy right now, so are we. Why is inflation up 8.5%? Who’s to blame? Is it the Democrats? O...

The Story That Made—and Saved—America

14 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Exodus—the story of the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian slavery 3,000 years ago—is the ultimate story of freedom. And not just for Jews. B...

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

12 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Perhaps you’ve noticed that the thing we call “social media'' is deeply antisocial—the thing that promised to unite us has done precisely the op...

TGIF! The Week That Was With Nellie Bowles and Katie Herzog

08 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you read Common Sense, you know that the best day of the week is Friday, when Nellie Bowles delivers us all the news from the week that was.  Thi...

Who By Fire: Why Leonard Cohen Ran Toward War

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1973, Leonard Cohen announced he was done with music for good. The same year, in October, war broke out in Israel. The Yom Kippur War would become...

How Big Tech Is Strangling Your Freedom

29 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

David Sacks is a paradox. The entrepreneur and venture capitalist helped lay the foundations of the digital world we now live in: He was one of the me...

Leaving the Mainstream to Build Media Without Fear

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are republishing Bari’s appearance on Hoover Institute’s Uncommon Knowledge Podcast, hosted by Peter Robinson.  Peter Robinson is proba...