The Chuck ToddCast
Interview Only w/ Katherine Mangu-Ward - The Libertarian’s Guide To The Galaxy
26 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Chapter 2: How do Americans discover their inner libertarian?
Guaranteed human.
Chapter 3: What motivated Katherine to write the op-ed 'Libertarians: We Told You So'?
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of Trump's cronyism on public perception of corporations?
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Chapter 5: How do libertarians view the risks of economic nationalism?
So use that code. Well, joining me now is somebody I've actually multiple iterations of my podcast over the years, but I think it's the first time since I left NBC that I have had her on.
Chapter 6: What is the libertarian stance on the social safety net?
It's Catherine Mangu Ward. She's the editor in chief of Reason magazine, essentially the magazine of the libertarian. movement, I would say. And I'll let her describe how closely aligned they are with the party itself. But what triggered the invite? And frankly, it was more of like, why haven't I had Catherine on sooner?
Chapter 7: Is there a libertarian argument for nationalized healthcare?
Was this op ed she wrote a couple of weeks ago in The New York Times that was so helpfully headlined? Libertarians tried to warn you about Trump. But maybe we got lost in an Aleppo rabbit hole. But I'm sorry for that. Sorry for that. That little poke and joke there going back to Gary Johnson. But Catherine joins me now. And Catherine, it's good to see you. Sorry it's taken so long.
Of course. Thanks for having me on.
So, you know, I use this all the time whenever I'm asked to do talks. I said, you know, we all find out how libertarian we are when we don't like the party that's in charge of our politics in any given moment, which is why when you see people from a majority party still behaving as libertarians before they're before they're partisans, it gives you a little bit of hope.
But there's not many of those folks that behave this way.
Chapter 8: How do prediction markets differ from sportsbooks?
But yeah. You know, I think fundamentally that's what this Supreme Court ruling last week in some ways was as a reminder that there is structure that should, you know, the whole goal of the founders was not to let anybody become a king and let unilateral control of government, arguably a libertarian point of view. So tell me your motivation for writing the op-ed. Was it I told you so?
You know, I actually have said in public, in fact, that I told you so doesn't usually win arguments. But what I discovered is that there is an exception here, which is when the I told you so is also kind of validating in the readers, in this case, the readers of The New York Times, something they had been telling themselves to. So part of what this piece is about is, you know,
libertarians have been making this sort of thoroughgoing, consistent case against the rise of executive power and kind of the imbalance that that's creating. But a lot of folks who identify as kind of mainstream Democrats or the kind of imagined reader of The Times are skeptical about those things when it comes to a bunch of the places where Trump has suddenly started pushing hard.
So we're talking here about trade, we're talking here about immigration, that kind of thing. There was already a lot of commonality there. So in some ways it was more of a remember how you're a little bit libertarian to my friends and readers.
No, it's it's I like to remind people that this and I think it's probably explains why it's been so difficult. for the libertarian movement to fully unify because there is a libertarian wing of the democratic party. It's, you know, I feel like Jared Polis in Colorado is sort of the poster child that most represents.
He would say, he goes, we're for freedoms, freedoms here, freedom on your body, freedom of economy, things like that. And then of course, we've, We've known there's a libertarian wing of the Republican Party for some time, but it went dormant for a little while. But it was what's interesting. It's it's mostly been a phenomenon geographically out west. Right.
When you look at the old Republican coalition pre pre Trump, it was the Western Republicans who were the conservatives who were. would quote unquote surprise people by vote sometimes because there was a libertarian streak in them. Alan Simpson is probably the best example of this in the previous era. And maybe Lisa Murkowski is the best example of this today.
Well, and you do see this in some unexpected places as well, like in Utah, where, of course, the politics are often quite dominated by Mormons, but where they do actually quite a good job of protecting minority rights, probably because of the backstory of Mormons, among other things, right? So their RFRA laws that protect religious freedoms, for example, are surprisingly libertarian.
You see a lot of school choice out West for similar reasons, sometimes with bipartisan or kind of mixed support.
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