American Thought Leaders

Mar 27 2025 200 ep. 47 mins 1.1k
American Thought Leaders Podcast artwork

At a time when our nation is portrayed as increasingly polarized, media often ignore viewpoints and stories that are worthy of attention. American Thought Leaders, hosted by The Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek, features in-depth discussions with some of America’s most influential thought leaders on pertinent issues facing our nation today.

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Hoping DOGE’s Scalpel ‘Doesn’t Hit an Artery’: Cleo Paskal Warns About Dangers of Potential Cuts in the Pacific

Mar 27 2025 56 mins  
From cutting programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development to putting Voice of America employees on paid administrative leave, the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been aggressively seeking to reduce government spending on international initiatives.But some such spending may be worth keeping.Cleo Paskal, senior fellow at th

Antidepressants Are Having Horrific Effects on Sexual Function: Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring

Mar 25 2025 54 mins  
“Fifteen or 16 percent of the population [is] now taking antidepressants … When they’ve gone out and asked people who actually use these medications whether they’re experiencing sexual dysfunction, approximately 60 percent of people will [affirm] it.”Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring is a board certified psychiatrist, former FDA medical officer, and director of the Taper Clinic. He

How the CCP Infiltrated America’s Critical Infrastructure: Michael Lucci

Mar 22 2025 38 mins  
Michael Lucci is the founder, CEO, and chairman of State Armor. He helps states enact policies and solutions that protect their assets from foreign adversaries like communist China.“They’re trying to invade our homeland, and they likely have developed the capacity to make life very difficult, to create crises within the United States—whether it’s power, whether it’s waste

I Saw a Culture of Conformity in Universities. So I Started My Own: Pano Kanelos

Mar 20 2025 42 mins  
Over the years, Pano Kanelos, the founding president of the University of Austin, observed a growing “homogenization” and “bureaucratization” of higher education. He saw school programs becoming more and more similar, administrators outnumbering students and young adults being taught that the pathway to success is dependent on censorship and adherence to the status quo.“W

Rep. Rich McCormick Calls for Tougher Measures to Combat CCP Hacking and Espionage

Mar 18 2025 35 mins  
In this episode, we sit down with Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), a decorated veteran who served over 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy as a helicopter pilot and a medical corps officer.As a lawmaker, he has co-sponsored legislation to challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rampant economic espionage and tech influence campaigns, and a resolution supporting form

Peter St Onge: Will Trump and DOGE Succeed in Gutting the Regulatory State?

Mar 15 2025 68 mins  
In this episode, we dive into President Donald Trump’s multi-pronged strategy to revitalize America’s economy, from aggressive reciprocal tariffs to massive DOGE cuts, and a large-scale deregulation effort to promote business growth.The Code of Federal Regulations is now over 190,000 pages long. A 2017 Auburn University study found that each federal regulator effectively “cos

Alina Habba Reveals New Executive Orders Are Coming to Counter Human Trafficking

Mar 13 2025 20 mins  
Half a million unaccompanied minors entered the United States between 2019 and 2023, and experts fear many of them have been trafficked. And that does not include the children who crossed the border with individuals falsely claiming to be their family members. So where are all these children now?Alina Habba, who is currently serving as counselor to the president, says she’s worki

Inside Communist China’s War on Religion: Marco Respinti

Mar 11 2025 37 mins  
There are few people who have played a more important role in broadly supporting the rights of religious believers in China than Marco Respinti, director-in-charge of the Bitter Winter magazine.“In the first six to eight months of our existence online as a magazine, some 40 people who were connected to us on the ground were arrested in China. … Half of them simply disappeared,�

Mike Rowe: Why Are 7.2 Million Able-Bodied Men Not Looking for Work?

Mar 08 2025 31 mins  
President Donald Trump has promised that he will bring back American manufacturing during his presidency. What if there aren’t enough Americans who want to work those jobs?“Every year for the last decade or so, for every five tradesmen who retire, two replace them,” says Mike Rowe, Emmy Award-winning TV host of the Dirty Jobs series.“If we don’t have a workforce who is di

Trump’s Transactional Diplomacy: Is It Really a Bad Thing? | Col. Grant Newsham

Mar 06 2025 41 mins  
President Donald Trump has been widely criticized for his “transactional” approach to diplomacy. But is that really such a bad thing?In this episode, I sit down with China expert and retired U.S. Marine Col. Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow with the Center for Security Policy, to discuss Trump’s approach to diplomacy and negotiations and how America can leverage what h