What the Hell Is Going On

AEI Podcasts
AEI Podcasts
  • 4.4 (630)
  • Politics
  • Updated Biweekly

The American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen address the questions we’re all asking in their podcast, “What the Hell Is Going On?” In conversational, informative and irreverent episodes, Pletka and Thiessen interview policymakers and experts, asking tough, probing questions about the most important foreign policy and security challenges facing the world today.

  1. 2d ago

    WTH Are We Doing To Replenish Our Weapons Stockpiles? Anduril’s Chris Brose Explains.

    What the hell is happening with U.S. defense technology? Chris Brose, the President and Chief Strategy Officer of defense tech firm Anduril joins us to talk about how private defense companies are innovating and revolutionizing American national security, America’s lousy defense acquisition habits, and what we can learn from Ukraine and the war with Iran. The traditional US defense industrial base is slowly cranking out exquisite and outdated weapons. If things don’t change, we risk losing a war to China. We discuss the crucial shift towards technological advancement, what the Pentagon and Congress must do, and what this means long term for the safety and security of the American people. Chris Brose is President and Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril Industries, a venture-backed defense technology company. He is the author of The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare (2020) and formerly senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From 2014-2018, he was the staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee supporting then Chairman John McCain. From 2009-2014, Mr. Brose served as senior policy advisor to Senator John McCain, and from 2008-2009, he was senior editor of Foreign Policy. From 2005-2008, he served as policy advisor and chief speechwriter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and began his career in government as a speechwriter for Secretary of State Colin Powell, from 2004-2005. Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

  2. Sep 11

    WTH Live! Remembering 9/11 25 Years Later with Stephen Hadley and J.D. Crouch.

    On the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we hosted a live recording of the podcast, What the Hell Is Going On?, featuring former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and former Deputy National Security Adviser J. D. Crouch II. Both Mr. Hadley and Dr. Crouch were serving in the Bush administration on that terrible day. Together, we discuss the attacks, the global war on terror, the state of America’s fight against Islamist extremism, and the United States’ safety and security one quarter century on. Stephen Hadley is a principal of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm founded with Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, and Anja Manuel. He is an executive vice chair of the board of directors of the Atlantic Council and is also the former board chair of the United States Institute of Peace, where he continues to serve on the Board of Directors. J. D. Crouch II is managing director for global strategy at Gallagher Insurance. A longtime national security and foreign policy leader, Dr. Crouch has served as deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, and US ambassador to Romania. He later served as president and CEO of the United Service Organizations. At Gallagher, he focuses on the geopolitical forces shaping global business, risk, and strategic decision-making. Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

  3. Sep 3

    WTH Is Happening With Midterms? With Josh Kraushaar.

    In our back-to-school episode, we welcome the return to D.C. by diving straight into the upcoming midterm elections. Who the hell is running? What the hell do they believe in? Where the hell are particularly crucial races? Between the Iran War, heightening antisemitism, the increasingly popular DSA, and possible AI bubble, American voters have no shortage of issues to weigh at the polls. We are pleased to host Josh for a discussion on what November might bring, and its implications for broader American policy in the future. Josh Kraushaar is the editor-in-chief of Jewish Insider, and is a political analyst for Fox News Radio. With a track record of identifying election trends before they become conventional wisdom, Kraushaar is one of Washington’s leading political analysts. Josh will soon be publishing a weekly column analyzing the latest political developments for JI and is also the author of Axios’ weekly Sunday Sneak Peek newsletter, which focuses on the big-picture forces driving American politics. Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

  4. Aug 27

    WTH Should I Read This Summer? "Subversion and Seduction" by Audrye Wong.

    What the hell is Beijing doing to seduce Washington? Join us for the last in our summer book series for a discussion with Dr. Audrye Wong for a conversation about her new book, Subversion and Seduction: China’s Economic Statecraft. How the hell has Beijing gained influence inside the United States? What the hell are their carrots and sticks? We debrief the state of China’s seduction campaign and Audrye’s policy suggestions to counter Beijing. Audrye Wong is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where her work focuses on China’s foreign policy, economic statecraft, propaganda and disinformation campaigns, and foreign influence operations. Previously, Dr. Wong was a professor at the University of Southern California and postdoctoral fellow at the Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft joint program of the Harvard Kennedy School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program. She has also held affiliations with Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Wilson Center, the Brookings Institution, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is fluent in Mandarin. Dr. Wong holds a PhD, MA and AB from Princeton. Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

  5. Aug 20

    WTH Should I Read This Summer? "Israel on Trial" by Roy Altman

    In the third part of our What The Hell summer reading series, Judge Roy Altman joins us for a discussion on the questions posed in his book, “Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law.” What the hell are the charges? Who the hell are the plaintiffs? Altman applies his legal and ethical training to put Israel on trial. Together, we analyze the ultimate question: guilty or not guilty? After being confirmed to a seat on the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 2019, Judge Roy K. Altman, at 36, became the youngest federal district court judge in the country—and the youngest federal judge ever appointed in the Southern District of Florida. He received his JD from Yale Law School, where he was projects editor of the Yale Law Journal. Altman clerked on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Stanley Marcus and was appointed a federal prosecutor at the US Attorney’s Office in Miami, where he twice received the Director of the Executive Office of US Attorneys’ Award for Superior Performance by a federal prosecutor. Altman was named a partner at the Miami law firm Podhurst Orseck, where he represented the victims of airplane crashes and bank fraud conspiracies. He received a BA from Columbia University, where he played quarterback on the football team and pitched for the baseball team. Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

  6. Aug 13

    WTH Should I Read This Summer? "Twenty Times I Almost Died" by John Spencer

    In the second edition of our What the Hell summer reading series, John Spencer shares stories from his latest book, “Twenty Times I Almost Died: Life Lessons from the Edge of Survival.” From fighting swarms of killer bees in Panama, to 25 years in the military, to conducting war research in Gaza, Spencer has consistently pushed the line. WTH does a person take away from these experiences? We discuss his incredible experiences and the life lessons that are learned on the edge of danger. John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, and military analyst. An internationally recognized authority on urban warfare, military strategy, and modern conflict, he is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts on urban warfare. During his Army career, he served as an advisor to the Army's senior four-star general and other senior leaders as part of strategic research organizations spanning the Pentagon and the United States Military Academy at West Point. Since retiring from the Army, he has continued to advise senior military leaders, heads of state, and militaries around the world. Spencer currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project. Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

  7. Aug 6

    WTH Should I Read This Summer? "The Arab Case for Israel" by Hussain Abdul-Hussain.

    Kicking off our annual What the Hell summer book series, Hussain Abdul-Hussain discusses his new book, "The Arab Case for Israel: And Other Essays from a Distant Conflict". Having grown up in Beirut and in Baghdad surrounded by anti-Israel rhetoric, Hussain recounts his journey from accepting the region's conventional wisdom to concluding that normalization with Israel is one of the Arab world's greatest strategic opportunities. He argues that economic cooperation, not perpetual conflict, offers the best path to a more prosperous and stable Middle East, and that the Abraham Accords demonstrated what is possible when governments prioritize the future over a mythical past. WTH is preventing more countries from following that path? And can the promise of the Abraham Accords still be realized? Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the author of the book The Arab Case for Israel (Wicked Son/Post Hill Press 2026). He champions immediate, unconditional, and comprehensive peace between every Arab nation and the Jewish state. Hussain’s research focuses on Arab affairs, spanning Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Sudan. His career launched as a reporter, and later managing editor, at Beirut’s The Daily Star. In Washington, he helped launch and manage the congressionally funded Arabic satellite network Alhurra Iraq before leading the Washington bureau of the Kuwaiti daily Alrai. He has also served as a Visiting Fellow at London’s Chatham House. His latest book is The Arab Case for Israel and Other Essays from a Distant Conflict (2026). Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

  8. Jul 30

    WTH Are Americans Not Having Babies? Nicholas Eberstadt Explains.

    America is on track to become a "net mortality society," where deaths outnumber births. As births plummet to almost 25% below replacement, the United States faces a future with a shrinking population, and the consequences extend far beyond the American family. Nicholas Eberstadt argues that falling birth rates reflect a deeper cultural shift away from marriage, family, and the institutions that have long sustained prosperous societies, raising difficult questions about economic growth, immigration, Social Security, and America's future. He examines the consequences of the men-without-work problem in the wake of the COVID pandemic, the role of AI in shaping immigrants’ job opportunities, and how socialism’s growing popularity in America affects the labor market. Combined with fertility rates collapsing across the developed world and loneliness reaching unprecedented levels, can America capitalize on our advantages in a way that China can't? Or are we bound to the same fate as other countries like Poland or Japan? Can public policy reverse these trends, or is this ultimately a crisis of meaning and norms rather than economics? Ultimately, what happens when societies stop replacing themselves... Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and is a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research. He has written numerous books and monographs, including His many books and monographs include Men Without Work: Post-Pandemic Edition (2022); Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis: Dimensions, Causes, Implications (2010). He has offered invited testimony before Congress on numerous occasions and has served as consultant or adviser for a variety of units in the US government. In 2020, he received the Irving Kristol Award, AEI’s highest honor. Read the transcript here. Subscribe to our Substack here.

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The American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen address the questions we’re all asking in their podcast, “What the Hell Is Going On?” In conversational, informative and irreverent episodes, Pletka and Thiessen interview policymakers and experts, asking tough, probing questions about the most important foreign policy and security challenges facing the world today.

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