The American Compass Podcast

The abundance agenda claims to offer a new path, one centered on housing, energy, and expanded state capacity. But are advocates of abundance offering a genuine political shift? Or are they just repackaging neoliberalism for the Trump era?

At the Abundance 2025 Conference, Oren debated Matt Yglesias, editor of Slow Boring, in a session moderated by Marshall Kosloff, host of The Realignment. During the debate, Yglesias framed abundan...

Last Friday, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Trump did not have the authority to issue emergency tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), setting up a pivotal Supreme Court battle over the future of the policy tool.

Chad Squitieri, professor of law at the Catholic University of America, argues IEEPA’s grant to “regulate importation” clearly includes tariffs, while Peter Harrell...

America’s political elite assumed Wall Street would finance its future. Instead, private capital chased software and speculation, leaving the nation dependent on foreign supply chains for most manufactured goods. The result is a hollowed-out industrial base that no tax credit alone can fix.

Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs and president of the New American Industrial Alliance, joins Oren to lay out the case for a distinctly ...

In the 1990s, Silicon Valley thought access to China would help open their markets and liberalize the nation. Instead, their engagement ended up empowering the CCP and helped build the Chinese surveillance state.

Geoffrey Cain, an investigative journalist and author, joins Oren to explain how some Big Tech firms were captured by China, risking U.S. supply chains by making them vulnerable to Chinese coercion and theft. They focus on ...

America once relied on oceans, industrial might, and large stockpiles to give her strategic depth—the ability to maneuver economically, militarily, and technologically during conflict. But those buffers have eroded in the age of drones, cyberattacks, and supply chains controlled by China.

Nadia Schadlow, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and Deputy National Security Advisor during the first Trump administration, joins Oren to di...

Economists and politicians told us that President Trump’s tariffs would spark foreign retaliation and drive up domestic prices. But current economic data are beginning to tell a different story.

Anna Wong, chief U.S. economist at Bloomberg Economics, joins Oren to discuss what the post-Liberation Day data are telling us. As tariff rates begin to stabilize due to trade deals, Wong breaks down how tariffs are reshaping firm...

From working as a welder to taking on BlackRock as West Virginia’s first Republican-elected state treasurer in decades, Riley Moore’s trajectory has been anything but conventional.

Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) joins Oren to discuss what a conservatism rooted in the dignity of work, the importance of family, and responsive to the needs of working people looks like. Plus, he and Oren unpack the importance of Republican leaders r...

As the Trump administration reshapes how federal dollars flow to universities, reform-minded academics are rethinking how to fix the systemic problems on campus without jeopardizing important research.

Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management and Nobel Laureate in Economics, joins Oren to unpack why our nation’s bloated and bureaucratic universities need reform and how smarter use of federal fun...

Even as the U.S. begins decoupling from our Asian rival, the threat of a second “China shock”—one where the country’s economy dominates key resources and minerals—is rapidly emerging.

Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Oren to dig into how China’s new wave of industrial overcapacity, currency manipulation, and continued cheap exports could ravage America’s economy a second time. They explore how th...

Are we all post-liberals now? 

The leading voice in the debate about what comes after liberalism, Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen, joins the podcast to discuss where American politics is headed now that the push for a globalized society has failed to survive contact with geopolitical reality.

He and Oren unpack the failures of the liberal age, from free trade and open borders to foreign wars of adventure, and how a new conservati...

The United States remains wholly dependent upon China for 95% of rare earth elements, 100% reliant on imports for 15 critical minerals, and over 80% reliant for eleven more. These minerals enable everything from batteries to semiconductors—and without domestic access, America’s technological dominance is at risk.

Robert Bryce, a leading energy policy scholar, joins Oren to explore how decades of shortsighted policy let China dominat...

Over the last two weeks, an online battle has broken out among the New Right over the Israel-Iran conflict and the Trump administration's bombing of an Iranian nuclear facility. Regardless of whether the recent ceasefire between Iran and Israel holds, the events so far have drawn clear dividing lines within the coalition. What does "America First" mean for Middle Eastern policy?

Josh Hammer, author of Israel and Civil...

Economists have claimed for years that Americans are prospering more than ever before. So why do so few people feel that way?

Philip Pilkington, author of the forthcoming The Collapse of Global Liberalism, joins Oren to discuss how these economic metrics are obscuring real problems. The two challenge the assumption that consumption is an unalloyed good and discuss the need to think about our nation's economic health in a way th...

When news broke that the local paper mill in Chillicothe, OH, was closing its doors and laying off 780 employees, one Ohio senator made it his mission to fight for those workers.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) joins Oren to talk about his efforts to put American workers and their families first. The freshman senator explains how his background led him to Congress and breaks down the forces driving the political realignment he’s helping l...

Today’s Republican Party has come a long way from the days of William F. Buckley, Jr., but his legacy continues to be felt across the conservative movement.

Sam Tanenhaus, former editor of the New York Times Book Review and author of the newly released Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America, joins Oren to discuss the conservative statesman’s life and work. The two discuss how Buckley viewed himself as a reactionar...

Vice President JD Vance joined Oren Cass at American Compass’s five-year anniversary celebration for a wide-ranging discussion of the ongoing political realignment, the importance of conservative economics, and where the movement goes from here.

During their conversation at the New World Gala, Vance and Cass discuss the rapid shift in conservative thinking on issues like trade, industrial policy, and education, as well as the Trump ...

American conservatism has never been static. Changes in our national political environment have previously shifted what the Republican Party stands for. But how does today’s New Right compare to earlier realignments driven by President Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley Jr.?

Before the June 3rd release of The New Conservatives, Matthew Continetti, director of domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, joins Oren ...

Globalization and deindustrialization have brought with them a sense among American workers that the good jobs they could once count on have disappeared. As family-supporting careers evaporate, service jobs with lower pay and unpredictable hours take their place in many communities across the country.

Zeynep Ton, professor of practice at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, joins Oren to discuss what a better future of work could look ...

The Trump administration’s new trade policy toward China has revealed just how deeply enmeshed major American corporations are with our chief geopolitical rival. Apple’s story is perhaps the most dramatic.

Patrick McGee, author of Apple in China and San Francisco correspondent for the Financial Times, joins Oren to discuss how Apple, like so many other nominally American companies, is constrained by the rules, regulations, and indus...