The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

Tech lords such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are among the richest humans who have ever lived and have an enormous sway over the American political system but even that isn’t enough for them. They also want a compliant media, one that echoes their ideas, doesn’t investigate their business practices, and goes after their enemy. This is the subject of a new book by Eoin Higgins: Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. I talked to Eoin about two of the major figures in this story, Peter Thiel, a plutocrat who is eager to abandon the human species and Matt Taibbi, a onetime anti-establishment voice who now has become a standard reactionary. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands [https://redcircle.com/brands] Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy [https://redcircle.com/privacy]

Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been as unstable as the man himself, shifting quickly from pushes for restraint to escalating wars in the Middle East. This volatility is a function not just of Trump’s personality but the contradictions and competing factions that are gathered under the term America First, as well as the continued power of the foreign policy establishment that Trump has claimed he defeated but which maintains a strong capacity to shape policy. To talk about Trump’s foreign policy and the factional battles that have bedevilled his administration, I spoke to Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.  In particular we take up the attacks on Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defense for policy. Colby was the subject of a Politico hatchet job [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/08/elbridge-colby-trump-administration-frustrations-00443337] which claimed he was running a rogue foreign policy. Justin critiqued this analysis here [https://www.cato.org/blog/defense-elbridge-colby]. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands [https://redcircle.com/brands] Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy [https://redcircle.com/privacy]

Writing in The Nation, Pamela Alma Weymouth drew a contrast [https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-bezos-washington-post-press-freedom-amazon/] between Kay Graham, her late grandmother who was publisher of The Washington Post when it fought Richard Nixon’s administration on The Pentagon Papers and Watergate, with the current owner of the newspaper, Jeff Bezos. Unlike Graham, Bezos has been all too willing to bend the knee to a corrupt president. I talked to Pamela about Bezos and other contemporary corporate leaders who are undermining journalistic integrity at a moment when it is needed more than ever. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands [https://redcircle.com/brands] Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy [https://redcircle.com/privacy]

Over the last decade, centrist Democrats have diligent courted Never Trump Republicans, hoping that this cohort could help create a new consensus politics to oppose the MAGA coalition. From the start, this strategy seemed flawed: after all, this faction is very small and also carries a lot of baggage. In particular, neo-conservatives such as William Kristol and David Frum, now Never Trump stalwarts, were responsible for two of the biggest foreign policy disasters in American history, George W. Bush’s War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq. Have this Never Trump conservatives learned from history? Alas, as my colleague David Klion points out in a recent column [https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-neocons-iran-war/], many of them haven’t. Kristol and Frum are now cheerleading the attack on Iran (although to be fair their former ally Robert Kagan is more skeptical). I talked to David about the neocons and why they remain a pernicious force in American politics even if they vote against Trump.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands [https://redcircle.com/brands] Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy [https://redcircle.com/privacy]

Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have reported that Elon Musk, currently trying to mend a feud with his quondam political ally Donald Trump, is a heavy user of mind alternating substances ranging from Ketamine to LSD to mushrooms to cocaine. While this story has been treated as one about the foibles of one increasingly erratic powerful man, it has wider implications. The financial journalist Jacob Silverman, author of an upcoming book about Musk, notes that there is a wider drug culture in Silicon Valley, rooted in the supposed performative enhancing power of drugs as well as an ideological commitment to elitism, accelerationism and technological transcendence. I took up these matters in a recent column and Jacob helps flesh out this story. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands [https://redcircle.com/brands] Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy [https://redcircle.com/privacy]