The Free Press Interviews

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Free Press interviews always offer something different. We speak to the people who see changes coming. We speak to the people whose stories help us understand society. We speak to the people who are shaping America and the world. These are conversations you wonߴt find anywhere else, delivered with a dose of common sense. Only at The Free Press.

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  1. 1 DAY AGO · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Dennis Prager: The Battle Over Good and Evil

    For 50 years, Dennis Prager, one of the most important and influential conservative thinkers of the 21st century, has made a single core argument: Without God, there is no good and evil—only opinion. He advanced it on the radio, in five volumes of biblical commentary, in more than a dozen books on religion, morality, and the foundations of Western civil…

    49 min

  2. 2 DAYS AGO · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    A Message for Iranian Regime Apologists

    Since the start of the Iran-Israel-U.S. war, there has been reasonable criticism of how the war is being conducted as well as questions about the clarity—and viability—of its end goals. At The Free Press, we have published a range of voices reflecting many sides of that debate. Then there are the people who take it a step too far. Conspiracy theorists have spiraled on both the far right and far left—in some cases, bleeding into overt antisemitism or apologism for the Iranian regime. Take far-right influencer Nick Fuentes: There is “very little upside for Americans and for the United States. As we know, the upside all belongs to Israel. The risk is ours. Blowback, collateral damage, loss of life: That’s ours. That belongs to us. And it’s really looking like we’re being drawn further and further.” Of President Donald Trump, he said: “You are a demonic force. You are a liar. You are diabolical. You are a traitor.” Tucker Carlson has suggested that the Chabad movement, one of the largest Jewish organizations in the world, is helping orchestrate the military campaign against Iran. Meanwhile, on the left, responses have ranged from a popular TikToker composing a ballad for Mojtaba Khamenei—the new Supreme Leader of Iran—to a Students for Justice in Palestine account glorifying an Iranian strike on a U.S. Navy base, to widespread “Hands Off Iran” protests where people are filmed shouting, “The biggest threats in the world today are Israel and the USA.” How has anti-war sentiment on both extremes of the political spectrum morphed into pro-regime propaganda, anti-Americanism, and antisemitism? Elica Le Bon is an Iranian attorney and activist. She explains how the far right and far left found common cause, and how this convergence is shaping the global information war around Iran. She also discusses the privilege of living in a liberal democracy, how that can cloud people’s judgment about dictatorial regimes, and the risks of a scenario in which the regime is weakened but ultimately remains intact.

    32 min

  3. 5 MAR · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    How Iran Became China’s Weapon

    On Saturday, the United States and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and at least 40 Iranian leaders. Iran is now retaliating against American allies and military assets in a counteroffensive that has killed at least six American service members. In the days since, social media has filled with a single narrative: Israel dragged the United States into a misbegotten war to serve Israeli interests. But Free Press Middle East analyst Haviv Rettig Gur sees it differently. “For years, Iran has funded terrorism, harassed global shipping, threatened America’s allies, and kept the Middle East expensive and unstable,” he wrote in The Free Press. But that’s not all. According to Gur, this war is also about China. Here’s what he means: About 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports go to China, helping Beijing build large oil reserves that could keep its economy running during a naval blockade. China, Russia, and Iran have also held joint naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important oil choke points. And Iran’s navy, missile sites, and coastal bases could threaten American ships and global shipping lanes in the event of a wider conflict. In Gur’s view, Iran functions, for China, as an energy supplier, a military outpost, a naval threat to U.S. forces, and a lever over global oil supplies. And in a conflict between the United States and China, Iran would be a critical partner for Beijing. Haviv breaks down how Iran made itself China’s most important ally in the Middle East, how the two countries have become economically and strategically intertwined, why that is so dangerous for the United States, and why—at its core—this isn’t only Israel’s war. It’s America’s.

    18 min

  4. 4 MAR · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Confessions of a Former Marijuana Evangelist

    In the past 15 years, the consensus on marijuana has changed dramatically. After Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize weed in 2012, others quickly followed suit—and marijuana is now legal for recreational use in 24 of the 50 states. With widespread legalization, the stigma that surrounded weed has largely fallen away. Almost overni…

    32 min

  5. 26 FEB · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Will Robots Replace Women in the Bedroom?

    Sex shows up everywhere in American culture. Think: the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders; popular sex icons from Madonna and Britney Spears to Tate McRae and Sabrina Carpenter; the 75-foot Calvin Klein billboard on Houston Street in New York; the millions of “thirst traps” flooding social media; and popular TV shows, from Sex and the City to Heated Rivalry. Don’t get me wrong—I love both shows. But the point is, sex, hypersexualization, and eroticism are inescapable. And yet, despite living in the most sex-saturated culture in history, people are having less of it. Among millennials and Gen Z, one in three men and one in five women report not having had sex in the past year. Among men in this age group, sexual inactivity has almost doubled since the early 2000s. But why? For an answer, I turned to Dr. Debra Soh, a neuroscientist and sex researcher, and the author of the new book Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy. In the book, she attributes the decline of sexual activity to forces like dating apps, social media, polyamory, the economic and social challenges facing young men, hormone-disrupting chemicals lowering testosterone, fewer Americans having committed partners . . . and the list goes on. In short, our modern world has produced a sex recession. Filling this vacuum, Soh says, are artificial proxies for intimacy, ranging from the fairly standard—OnlyFans and parasocial relationships—to the bizarre: AI sex companions and high-tech sex robots, some costing upward of $100,000, with the ability to vocalize an orgasm in multiple languages . . . who knew! So what is the future of sex? How is this environment distorting marriage and families? Is true intimacy possible without another human being? Are all of these techno-fixes solving a problem or enabling it? And how do we bring back real relationships?

    1h 13m

  6. 24 FEB · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Confessions of a Former OnlyFans Model

    Taylor Fogarty once made $15,000 a month for making content on OnlyFans. She was a self-described “degenerate” party girl in Brooklyn—drinking, doing drugs, dating women, drifting between identities, and eventually signing up for sugar-daddy websites because, as she tells it, “It just felt normal.” Sex work was empowering, she was told. Men were going to…

    39 min

  7. 18 FEB · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Confessions of a Former Climate Activist

    Before I met my colleague Lucy Biggers, she was an activist fighting to ban plastic straws and posing with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg. In today’s episode of Confessions, Lucy tells us about how she became an activist who built a huge following making videos about the dangers of climate change. In her time in the movement, Lucy protested the Dakota Access Pipeline, pushed for the Green New Deal to be passed, and advocated for a ban on plastic straws. Fast-forward to now, and Lucy describes herself as a climate realist. She doesn’t think the world is going to implode because the Earth is heating up, and she definitely doesn’t think paper straws are going to save us. In our conversation, we talk about the moment Lucy started to question the climate science orthodoxy, what it took to walk away from the cause she was so involved in, and what the science tells us now about climate change.

    36 min

  8. 15 FEB · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    They Questioned Trans Medicine for Kids. The World Is Just Catching Up.

    For much of the past decade, parents of children distressed about their gender were asked by medical providers: “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?” Parents and communities were told it was their responsibility to affirm the identity of every child who said they were transgender and help secure a medical treatment plan. A wave of childr…

    49 min
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About

Free Press interviews always offer something different. We speak to the people who see changes coming. We speak to the people whose stories help us understand society. We speak to the people who are shaping America and the world. These are conversations you wonߴt find anywhere else, delivered with a dose of common sense. Only at The Free Press.

Information

  • Channel
    The Free Press
  • Creator
    The Free Press
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Provider
    Runaway Media Inc.

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