The John Stossel Interviews

Politicians always want to “improve” our economy.But again and again, they make things worse.

“The more we move away from free markets, the worse things become” says economist Don Boudreaux, author of “The Triumph of Economic Freedom."Boudreaux explains how government intervention made the Great Depression last longer, caused the Great Recession, and more.He also debunks myths like the "growing gap" be...

Fearmongering media say climate change is “our greatest threat in thousands of years.” Climate change is real, but is it the apocalypse? Climate researcher Roger Pielke Jr. doesn’t think so. But just expressing skepticism got him attacked by our government.

Al Gore blamed extreme weather on climate change. “Every storm is different now because it takes place in a warmer and wetter world.” But that isn...

Who owns you?Government often acts like they own us.But lawyer Tim Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute reminds us, we own ourselves.“People should not have power over other people’s lives,” says Sandefur.His book, You Don’t Own Me, talks about that, and how popular culture often reflects this message.“Ours is a nation where the individual’s right to pursue happiness is written into it’s fou...

Politicians say they can “fix” the economy.But economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises pointed out how government “fixes" lead to bigger problems.Hayek and Mises predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. They warned that centrally planned economies fail.But today, socialism is popular again. New York and Seattle have elected socialist mayors.Many politicians still believe that government can manage the econo...

“I'm going to speak the truth here, and this is not pleasant for people to hear.” In my podcast with author Heather Mac Donald, she says uncomfortable things about race, crime, feminism and more.For example, she says, “The reality of our world today is not white privilege. It's black privilege.” She says many jobs and colleges today unfairly favor black candidates with fewer skills. “Harvard until rece...

I don’t bother interviewing most politicians. But former presidential candidate Andrew Yang is interesting.

Unlike most politicians, he has experience as an entrepreneur, he criticizes politicians for their "magical thinking," and he even left his party (the Democrats) to start the "Forward Party."

I spoke to him in 2021, soon after its launch.

We discuss if a third party could ever succeed, where politicians' magical thinking ...

Are we witnessing the fall of the American empire? Are we doomed to fall, like Ancient Athens, Ancient Rome and others?

No. But if we don’t learn the lessons of history, we could be.

To avoid collapse, historian Johan Norberg argues we especially need to learn from the rise and fall of past golden ages—like Ancient Athens, Ancient Rome, China’s Song Dynasty, the Italian Renaissance, and more.

“What sets these ...

I once reported how great Wikipedia is. But now, it’s manipulated by leftists.

That’s a big problem because its bad information corrupts AI and search results.

In this podcast, Ashley Rindsberg of NPOV Media explains how, “Wikipedia's information spreads into everything online.”

That means when your ask ChatGPT, Google, or your phone a question, it’ll likely to take leftist spin straight from Wikipedia.

I ...

“You can’t put a price on life!” say politicians, pretending to be compassionate, spending other people’s money.

But Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, says you CAN put a price on life.

He's distributed funds to the victims of 9/11, the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Boston Marathon, the Deepwater Horizon spill, the Virginia Tech shooting, the Aurora movie theater shooting, ...

"If your kids went through puberty on a smartphone with social media, they came out different than human beings before” says Jonathan Haidt, author of the bestseller “The Anxious Generation.”He argues that childhood is now phone-based instead of play-based, resulting in anxious and depressed kids. "They know that life would be better if they didn't spend five or six hours a day on social media. They know that, but...

James Lindsay once exposed the woke left’s insanity with a hoax. Now he’s exposed part of the right for bashing liberty and even embracing Marxist ideas.To prove it, he sent a conservative magazine a revised version of "The Communist Manifesto." They published it! He calls them the “woke right" because they "behave like the tyrants of the woke left." In this podcast, Lindsay explains why they’re a problem. W...

Activist Robby Starbuck got companies like Target, Walmart, and Toyota to drop their woke DEI policies. It sounds hard to believe one man could do that, but he did. From DEI trainings to mandatory "ally" pledges, Starbuck posts videos about absurd woke things that big companies do behind closed doors to please activists. In this podcast, he explains how this fight against corporate America worked, how DEI hurts America, and what ma...

Charles Ryu escaped from North Korea not once, but twice!

He experienced starvation, torture, and years of propaganda.

North Koreans, even those who escape, fear talking about socialist tyranny because the regime might kill their families.

“Not just you, but your entire three generations will be wiped out,” explains Ryu.

He is only willing to talk because he has no immediate family left in the country.

Now he educates Am...

People who run businesses are often smeared. But they shouldn't be.

“Making our lives better is what entrepreneurs do. We take it all for granted,” says Yaron Brook, Chair of the Ayn Rand Institute.

In this hour-long conversation, Brook defends the marketplace and the self-interest that drives it.

He also carves out the path of self-interest through mountains of big issues: war, poverty, immigration, drugs and children--ev...

Professor John McWhorter, author of "Woke Racism," argues that condescending leftist ideology hurts black people.

We spoke a few years ago when few others were pushing back on those ideas. But I learned a lot from my half-hour interview with him, so here's our full discussion.

For one, the Columbia linguist points out "Woke Racism" hurts black people in many ways: from treating them as incapable of logic, to calling for abolition of ...

Michael Malice, the popular podcaster and author, reminds us that tyranny can be defeated. It’s been done before.

In this podcast, Malice shares stories of life under totalitarian regimes, and explains how the media was often complicit in totalitarianism.

Malice’s distrust in government is why he’s calls himself an anarchist.

He makes the case that things like food, education, and even security, are better left in pr...