The Federalist Radio Hour

McKay Coppins, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Wilderness, joins Federalist Radio to discuss the healthcare fail by Paul Ryan. Coppins also shares about his interactions with Donald Trump and his profile of Fox News host Tucker Carlson. You can make just as much of a case against House leadership, he said. Sure, maybe [Paul Ryan] is a policy entrepreneur. He has popularized ideas within his party, but he is not a legislator. He doesnt have a lot of experience actually translating those ideas into law. Coppins discusses Tucker Carlsons eviscerating interviews, and makes the case that he is now one of the most powerful people in media. Not only does he have one of the highest rated shows on cable news, he also counts President Trump as a loyal viewer, he said.

Tom Nichols is a professor at the Naval War College, Jeopardy champion, and author of the new book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters. Nichols joins Ben Domenech on Federalist Radio to discuss how increasing access to technology, information, and education has lead to a rejection of experts and an inflation of our own narcissism. There a false intimacy and pedestal of expertise that we give to celebrities and anyone on television. The boomers went from trusting to no one to trusting any idiot with a symmetrical face in business casual, Nichols said. There comes a time to say, I cant speak to that issue. Nichols describes how people react to the errors of experts. When experts are wrong, they have a double duty. They not only have to fix it. They have to own it. They have to come forward with it, he said. People want to scapegoat experts for things that are just bad life choices.

Marc Dunkelman is the author of The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community, and he joins Federalist Radio to discuss an epochal shift in our social landscapes and daily interactions that have always been essential in civil discourse and compromise. Dunkelman discusses how both technology and disappearing institutions have changed the type of people we come into contact with.  Because there are only 24 hours in a day...we are choosing to invest in the inner and outer most rings... and we are abandoning those middle rings, he said. And it is in the middle rings where you come into contact with people who generally have different points of view than you. The non-cognitive skill of grit is also a characteristic that studies show is needed to maintain a bond with someone whom you disagree. People abandon neighborly relationships. They dont engage in conversations about religion or politics or whatever social issue...because they are afraid of what might happen if the other person that they are talking to takes a different view.

Shane Harris, senior writer on national security at the Wall Street Journal, joins the Federalist Radio to discuss James Comeys hearing this week, current FBI investigations, CIA hacking operations, and other Wikileaks stories. Reporting on this story is like feeling your way around in a dark room, Harris said. The sense that I have gotten has always been is that its looking at more than just Carter Page, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort, that there may be a more extensive examination of contacts. Potentially financial ties. Harris shares some of the basics that everyone should know about privacy, cyber security and protecting their devices. Once a week turn the phone off and reset it. If someone actually did manage implant something on your phone, reseting the phone sometime actually can kick it off, he said.

Science journalist Michael Lemonick tells the story of Lonnie Sue Johnson, a woman whose unique memory loss has led to groundbreaking studies in neuroscience, learning, and memory. Lemonick is the opinion editor at the Scientific American and his new book is The Perpetual Now: A Story of Amnesia, Memory, and Love. After an infection burned through Johnsons hippocampus, she was left with almost no memories, and the inability to form and retain new ones. I began to understand that unlike H.M., she had a vastly rich trove of memories and abilities that neuroscientists could go about testing and deepening our understanding of memory, Lemonick said. Domenech and Lemonick discuss our brains ability to fabricate memories that didnt happen, as well as forget ones that did. Every time we retrieve a memory, the actual memory itself gets mixed in with stuff we have learned subsequently, Lemonick said.

Senior editor Mollie Hemingway interviews Michael Wear, a former White House staffer serving the President Obamas faith-based initiatives and evangelical outreach. Wear is the author of Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America. Wear recounts how Obamas faith messaging and invitations to people of faith was a central piece of his election, as well as some of the failures and controversies that would arise in the administration. In particular moments, policy decisions were made, not to resolve conflict, but to stoke it, and thats something that in one hand is quite disappointing, Wear said. On the other hand it shows that there are other paths that could have been taken, and if we reject using some of these issues to stoke divides, then maybe we arent as far away from our politics bringing folks together as we think.

Rebecca Berg is a national political reporter at RealClear Politics and a political analyst at CNN. She sits down with Mary Katharine Ham in studio to recap this weeks news from the White House including Trumps budget, the health care bill, the upcoming SCOTUS confirmation hearing, and the hiring of Omarosa as an assistant to the President. Even though budgets coming from the Presidents office rarely pass Congress, anger heightened this week over the cutting of funding for PBS or Meals on Wheels. Even when we are talking about a budget that will never pass, we still cant talk in a mature way about making priorities in a budget, which is what budgets are supposed to be, Ham said. Berg shares her reporting on the relationship between Donald Trump and his former Apprentice contestant, Omarosa. She became the driving force behind the first season of the show... and so ever since then Donald Trump has held her in really high regard, she said.

Don Boudreaux is a Senior Fellow with the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He joins todays Federalist radio to dispel the myths about trade and how its impacted middle class living standards. They also discuss the economics of healthcare, manufacturing, and more. If it is the case that trade destroyed our manufacturing, then we would have seen a decline in our American manufacturing. We dont see that, he said. We see a decline in manufacturing employment. That comes mostly from innovations, labor-saving technology. Bourdreaux contrasts Ronald Reagans intelligence on trade to Donald Trumps approach on the issue. That level of economic knowledge and clarity is completely the opposite of what Trump and his advisors have on matters of trade. You can follow more of Boudreauxs writing at Cafe Hayek.

Rod Dreher is a senior editor at the American Conservative and author of the new book, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. Dreher joins Federalist Radio to explain the ancient ways of the Benedict Option, the roots of religious decline in America, and how Christians can save their culture and communities. In order to be faithful witnesses in this world we are in and to not be drawn to the left or the right... we have to return to a more robust version of Christianity rooted in the past, Dreher said. You cant turn the clock back, but if you study Christian history... and realize what believers of previous ages believed, we can live that out now. Domenech asks Dreher to reconcile the need for Christians to retreat from the culture, with the call to be light and live in the world. If we are going to live in the world faithfully, then we have to some extent withdraw from the world for the sake of formation, so we can be salt and light in the world, Dreher said.

Alejandro Villanueva is an offensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers, former Army Ranger, and Bronze Star recipient. He joins Federalist Radio to discuss his career in the military, the NFL, the transition between the two, and fishing in rural Pennsylvania. Villanueva described growing up on a military base in Spain, watching Marines land and his discovering his own desire to serve. When you see the attitude and the tension in the air of when a unit is about to deploy, you can really understand it, he said. If I could have stolen their uniform and got on a plane, I would have done that but I had to wait for my turn. In 2014, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin noticed Villanueva at a pre-season game, just before he got cut from the Eagles. I knew it was going to be very unusual to see a football player saluting the flag, but obviously thats Army regulation and I had to follow it, Villanueva said.

Peter Suderman returns from the weekend at SXSW in Austin, Texas, to join Ben Domenech on Federalist Radio. They discuss the good and bad at SXSW this year, as well as Paul Ryan, the House health care bill, and new movies out like Kong: Skull Island. Suderman is an editor at Reason Magazine. Senator Cory Booker presented at SXSW and spoke on the power of love bringing America together. He basically didnt mention policy once in the opening remarks, Suderman said. Basically, love as a theory of government turns out to mean everything that Cory Booker supports. Later they discussed the GOPs messy repeal and replace plan, and whether this is surprising or disappointing coming from Paul Ryan. Now that [Paul Ryan] is in leadership, Speaker of the House, I think he really feels an obligation to keep the party together and that is his first job. The policy entrepreneur part has really become secondary, Suderman said.

Philip Klein is managing editor at the Washington Examiner and author of the book, Overcoming Obamacare. Klein helps us navigate the Republicans health care plan presented by Paul Ryan this week, and the difficulties behind both the policy and the politics of repeal and replace. Politically you have this situation in which you had to figure out legislation thats going to unite factions within the House, within the Senate, where you have a fragile majority and youre trying to get something through, he said. Later in the hour Klein explains the debates over tax deductions vs. tax credits, pre-existing conditions, and medicaid expansion.

Scott Greer is an editor at The Daily Caller and author of the new book, No Campus For White Men. Greer joins Federalist Radio to discuss the heated conflicts on American college campuses with a particular tie to race issues, and other ways white privilege has been inserted into our culture and politics. Greer says the way privilege is now tied to race has created a new moral culture of victimhood. Everyone is competing to be the bigger victim to prove that they are victimized, he said. It has nothing to do with socio economic status...it primarily has to do with racial identity. Domenech and Greer also discuss the recent protests against Charles Murray, how state lawmakers can make a difference at public universities, and the new race-savvy horror movie Get Out. andnbsp;

Ben Domenech starts off this episode of Federalist Radio sharing some news and a personal note for our listeners. Later in the hour, he is joined in studio by David Schoenbrod, author of DC Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of  Washington. Schoenbrod explained the real reasons for our broken political system and the sleights of hand that politicians use to avoid accountability. What really made things go haywire started in the late 1960s, where the representatives were basically able to take credit for the good parts of regulation and avoid blame for the bad parts of regulation, he said. Later in the hour, they discuss how even today with the new healthcare legislation, Congress continues to pass off their responsibility to make law onto the regulatory bureaucracies.

Christine Emba, writer and editor of In Theory at the Washington Post, joins Mollie Hemingway on this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, where they discussed free speech in the context of recent protests on college campuses and the A Day Without a Woman strike. They also talk authoritarianism, political turmoil, Lena Dunhams Girls, and how the sexual revolution has hurt women and dating. The upcoming womens strike is getting pushback on the idea that its only women of privilege that can afford to take the day off or risk losing their job. There is this question, Who is this feminism for? Emba said. You find these questions of intersectionality, of representation, of class, equality, and structure, I think really infiltrating the movement and theres a lot of friction. Later in the hour, they discuss the pushback against Trump and recent confusion on intelligence leaks surrounding the administration. I hope that people of all political stripes understand the damage of intelligence agencies being engaged in the this type of behavior and how much it does to undermine peoples confidence in institutions, Hemingway said.