In The Tank

In The Tank

The weekly flagship podcast from The Heartland Institute features in-depth policy discussions connected to current news. Host Donald Kendal leads the discussion with the usual crew of Heartland Institute Vice President Jim Lakely, Socialism Research Center “Commissar” Justin Haskins, Editorial Director Chris Talgo, and others at this national free-market think tank. The entertaining and informative discussions often hit topics such as the environment, energy policy, Big Tech censorship, the troubling rise of socialism, globalism, health care, education, that state of freedom in America and around the world, and much more. This podcast is also available as part of the Heartland Daily Podcast, the “firehose” of all the organization’s podcasts that take deep and entertaining dives into public policy.

Episodes

July 3, 2025 93 mins

On this special 500th episode of the In The Tank Podcast, the team takes a look at Culture -- from pop culture like movies, to broader American cultural trends like national pride. Is the dominant left-wing culture finally on its way out? Or are recent flops just a a hiccup in some eternal progressive march? Should conservatives even participate to try to influence it, or is it a lost cause?

The Heartland Institute's Linnea...

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Riots are once again breaking out in California, all the way to Chicago and East coast cities. The National Guard is on the streets of LA to handle violent protests against ICE, and it seems there is evidence that these multi-day protests are anything but organic. Similar protests are planned around the country this weekend, attempting to counter a military showcase parade President Trump has planned for the 250th birthday...

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Join The Heartland Institute's Linnea Lueken, S.T. Karnick, and Jim Lakely as they dive into Episode 497 of the In The Tank Podcast. This episode explores timely and provocative topics, including the Democrats' ongoing quest to find their own version of podcast superstar Joe Rogan—can they cultivate a voice that resonates widely in the digital age?

The team also discusses President Joe Biden's reliance on the autopen presid...

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The legacy media that half this country relies on to inform them about the world is irrevocably broken. For the past five years, they’ve lied constantly to cover up the biggest political scandal of the century: that Joe Biden has been in accelerating cognitive decline since before he was sworn in as president.

Of course, it's worse than that. The media attacked anyone who merely stated that obvious fact, calling what you sa...

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The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen just completed another polling study—this one asking people how worried they are about AI and what should be done about it legislatively. To no one's surprise, people are worried and think the government has a responsibility to get ahead of it.

We’ll also cover the way people can fool even themselves with AI, how some are totally outsourcing their thinking to it, what effect that has (o...

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The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports released a new poll showing that 71% of Democrats support Elon Musk being IMPRISONED for his DOGE work. This insane position is held by 80% of self-reported "liberals" from the polling. The poll results were released the same day as this episode.

This is sadly not very shocking, as we take a look at what leftist-dominated Reddit says about Elon in our Unhinged segment. We also d...

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May 1, 2025 76 mins

Spend any time at all watching or reading the news, and you may notice an odd trend in the Democrat party-- they seem to be embracing policies more and more that totally alienate the "normies," people who hold generally average views on social and political issues. Democrats increasingly favor extreme positions, like defending gang members and embracing ideologies that would have been universally rejected just a few years ...

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Tariffs are the subject of heated debate not just between Democrats and Republicans, but within the spectrum of right wing economic thought as well. Trump has announced reciprocal tariffs for every country on the planet, in an attempt to end unfair trade imbalances across the board. Some countries have already started falling in line, the question is, what will the end result for American citizens be?

The Heartland Institut...

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The 2024 election will go down in history as a radical and lasting political realignment in America on the right. The Republican Party of the 80s and 90s is gone, and with it the influence of past presidents and the thought leaders of the right. In their place is a new populism led by former Democrats who were driven out by radical leftists. But is this unusual coalition of former Democrats and populist writers and YouTube...

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Who actually runs this country? Voters asked for real change in November, and Donald Trump and his team are doing all they can to deliver it as quickly as possible. Yet federal judges use questionable authority to thwart it, keeping the Deep State status quo of unaccountable opposition to the people’s will — which includes shoveling YOUR MONEY to their connected leftist cronies.

Who is really in charge of the Executive Bran...

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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo present episode 487 of the In The Tank Podcast. Former ITT host Donald Kendal returns after only a few months and the world has gone insane. Suddenly, the left is burning the most popular electric vehicles while a Republican President promotes them in front of the White House. No, the world did not go insane, it was driven to insanity by an incredibly cor...

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The Heartland Institute's Tim Benson wrote a paper analyzing the money funneled to green groups through the Inflation Reduction Act, where everything predictably cost way more than our government claimed. The Supreme Court decided that a district judge could tell the President when and how to pay USAID contractors, and Canada retaliates against Trump's tariffs. The President gave his first address to Congress, to the surpr...

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The "experts" are still trying to rewrite the narrative on the government response to COVID, and one of President Trump's picks supports the questionable PRO Act. Meanwhile, VP Vance had strong words for the Orwellian language controls in Germany, and DOGE continues to uncover corrupt and wasteful government spending.

The Heartland Institute's Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo will discuss all of this and more on t...

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Carefully constructed narratives and funding related to public health are being re-evaluated by this new administration, bringing sunlight to disinfect a contaminated NIH. Critics of President Trump and DOGE claim that Trump's actions represent a Constitutional crisis, Politico finally admits that Democrats were wrong to claim the economy was great under Biden, and RFK's confirmation process continues amid significant push...

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The Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the status quo continue, causing the right people to worry about their next paychecks. Nations around the world are coming to the negotiation table on subjects no one thought they would, while some very unstable individuals are attempting to incite violence in retaliation against Trump's efforts.

The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and H. Sterling Burnett dig ...

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It’s an understatement to say that Donald Trump hit the ground running to start his interrupted second term. The speed and precision with which he has canceled nearly every achievement of the Biden nothing this country has ever seen before. It is simply breathtaking, and happening at such a frenetic pace it is difficult to keep up.

The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo will do their best, thou...

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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo present episode 480 of the In The Tank Podcast. At the beginning of his inaugural address, President Donald Trump declared "The golden age of America begins right now." And within hours of this statement, Donald Trump began signing a series of executive orders, taking the first steps toward fulfilling this promise. On this week's episode, the ITT crew is ...

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The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken and Jim Lakely are joined by writer and commentator Jon Gabriel​ for episode 479 of the In The Tank Podcast.

With the certification of Trump’s election victory, the ousting of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada, and other progressive defeats around the world in recent years, could this spell the beginning of the end for global progressives? Are big companies and big tech final...

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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo present episode 477 of the In The Tank Podcast. 2024 was an incredibly important year, filled to the brim with massive stories and events. The ITT crew recaps the year, giving their takes on what was the biggest news of the past 12 months. Also, the ITT crew talks about Heartland's biggest impactful moments of 2024. And last, they will make some bold pred...

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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, Justin Haskins, and Chris Talgo present episode 476 of the In The Tank Podcast. As Donald Trump prepares to take office in 2025, President Joe Biden is riding out his last days in the Oval Office. But instead of just focusing on the orderly transfer of power, Biden seems like he may be trying to sabotage Trump's upcoming term before it can even start. Peculiar foreign po...

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