Shane Smith Has Questions

Shane Smith Has Questions

Shane Smith Has Questions is a dynamic, apolitical podcast hosted by Shane Smith dedicated to getting to the bottom of prominent instances of misinformation and disinformation while revealing the fascinating fundamental truths (if there are any?) of the most interesting and convoluted social and political issues of our time. For advertising opportunities please email PodcastPartnerships@Studio71us.com We want to make the podcast even better, help us learn how we can: https://bit.ly/2EcYbu4 Privacy Policy: https://www.studio71.com/terms-and-conditions-use/#Privacy%20Policy

Episodes

September 3, 2026 73 mins
At 23, Adam Mockler has become one of the most prominent young voices in liberal political media, building an audience of millions through rapid-response videos, debates and viral clips. Adam joins Shane Smith to explain why Republicans dominated the online attention economy—and why Democrats are still struggling to catch up. They discuss the failures of the 2024 Democratic campaign, Kamala Harris’s risk-averse media s...
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Most people know Ben McKenzie from The O.C. Over the past several years, however, he has made an unlikely transformation into a serious crypto investigator—and, as Shane puts it, a hell of a journalist and filmmaker. McKenzie joins Shane to discuss his documentary, Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, and the journey that took him from casual crypto skeptic to interviewing major industry figures, anticipating...
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Can one lawsuit change the future of American elections? Why almost everyone misunderstands Citizens United The legal mistake Lessig says created Super PACs Elon Musk's reported $270 million in political donations—and why it matters to this case  Whether billionaires are effectively buying political influence Why this case is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court if the current ruling stands  ...
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When did politics stop being about solving problems and start becoming a team sport? Former Republican strategist and The Bulwark host Tim Miller joins Shane Smith for a conversation about the forces that reshaped American politics—from the collapse of the Republican establishment to Donald Trump's takeover, the rise of partisan media, and why our information ecosystem rewards outrage over understanding. Rathe...
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Sean Penn has spent much of his life going places most people only experience through headlines — wartime Kyiv with Zelenskyy, Chávez's Venezuela, Castro's Cuba, Iran before the Green Movement, and deep inside cartel country in Mexico with El Chapo. In this conversation with Shane Smith, Penn reflects on meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in wartime Kyiv, traveling through Iran before the Ahmadinejad era, spending time with Hugo Ch...
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For more than a decade, Gelareh Kiazand reported from some of the world's most complicated and misunderstood places. From covering life under the Taliban in Afghanistan to documenting everyday life inside Iran, her work focused on telling stories from the ground — often in places where politics, war, and international headlines rarely capture the full picture. In this conversation, Shane Smith sits down with Gelareh to ...
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Ken Burns has spent more than five decades telling America's story. From The Civil War and The Vietnam War to Baseball, Jazz, and The U.S. and the Holocaust, his films have shaped how generations of Americans understand their country. In this conversation, Shane Smith sits down with the legendary filmmaker to talk about much more than documentaries. Together they explore why America feels so di...
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Who actually controls the biggest secret in modern history? For decades, UFOs were treated as conspiracy theories, fringe science, or tabloid fodder. Today, senators, intelligence officials, military officers, and even presidents are publicly discussing unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). What changed? This week, Shane sits down with filmmaker Dan Farah, director of The Age of Disclosure to discuss the gro...
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Shane Smith and Andrew Callaghan sit down with the anonymous creator behind Explosive Media, the Iranian team whose AI-generated LEGO videos became one of the most viewed and controversial media phenomena of the recent Iran-Israel conflict. With a team of fewer than ten people, their videos reached hundreds of millions of viewers and sparked debate about propaganda, AI, meme culture, and the future of information warfareIn this rar...
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What happens when artificial intelligence becomes more powerful than the institutions meant to govern it?Shane Smith sits down with Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, creator of Infinite Scroll, and one of the leading voices on AI ethics, for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of AI, warfare, work, politics, and humanity itself. This conversation is a starting point, not a conclusion. Explore addi...
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How is AI changing modern warfare? And are we already entering the age of autonomous war? Shane Smith and VICE News travel to Morocco for African Lion 2026 — one of the largest military exercises in the world — to get an inside look at the technologies rapidly transforming the battlefield. From AI-assisted targeting systems and autonomous combat vehicles to suicide drones, robotics, quantum computing, and next-generat...
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As tensions between the United States, Israel, and Iran continue to escalate, Shane Smith travels to Tehran for a rare interview with Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry.Esmail Baghaei has been in the news today, confirming that Iran is examining the U.S. response to Iran’s latest peace proposal, delivered through Pakistan. As a potential deal to end hostilities hangs in the balance, we gave the Ira...
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After the latest U.S. government release of UAP/UFO files, filmmaker and investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell returns to Shane Smith Has Questions for a deep dive into what may be the biggest disclosure moment yet. Jeremy and Shane Smith break down the new government “data dump,” the whistleblowers testifying under oath, military footage from Syria and the famous Tic Tac encounters, all...
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What happens when America never learns the lessons of its longest wars? Former Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko joins Shane Smith for a brutally honest conversation about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, corruption, contractors, the military-industrial complex, and the trillion-dollar cycle of endless war. After overseeing more than 700 investigations into waste, fraud, and abuse during the 20-...
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San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan joins Shane Smith for a raw conversation about why California feels broken and what it would actually take to fix it. They discuss the reality behind homelessness, why housing is so expensive, and how bureaucracy and bad incentives have made it nearly impossible to build. Mahan explains how corporate power, regulation, and political complacency have created a system that continually becomes more expensi...
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Scott Galloway sits down with Shane Smith to talk through why the system feels off right now and why more people are starting to notice. They get into how wealth keeps concentrating at the top, why the middle class isn’t growing the way it used to, and how big tech and corporate power quietly shape the rules. Galloway lays out why capitalism only works when the middle class is strong and what happens when it isn’t. The...
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Ian Bremmer, one of the most connected geopolitical minds on the planet, sits down to explain the Iran crisis in brutally honest terms: why regime change was a fantasy, how Iran is somehow making more money since the war started, and why the real pain at the pump, at the grocery store, in your portfolio hasn't even hit yet. This isn't cable news spin. This is the unfiltered truth from someone who actually talks to world leaders. F...
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The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed, and energy expert Amos Hochstein is calling this the single greatest energy crisis in global history bigger than the 1973 OPEC embargo. With roughly 10 million barrels of oil per day missing from global markets, prices have surged from $60 to nearly $100 a barrel, gas is climbing toward $4 a gallon, and major producers like Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar have already slashed production. Accordin...
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Shane Smith sits down with Senator Bernie Sanders for a conversation that cuts straight to the heart of America's biggest crisis artificial intelligence. Bernie warns that a handful of the world's wealthiest men are quietly engineering the most consequential revolution in human history, one that could wipe out millions of jobs overnight and leave ordinary Americans with nothing but unanswered questions. Driverless trucks, automated...
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Shane Smith travels to Venezuela for a special episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, on the ground for the first meeting between U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez — the Trump administration’s first official visit since the regime change.Reporting from Caracas, Shane gets rare access as U.S. officials engage Venezuela’s new leadership and begin shaping what come...
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