The American Compass Podcast
Our mission is to restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity. The American Compass Podcast features conversations on a wide variety of policy issues aimed at helping policymakers and the broader public navigate the most pressing issues that will define the future of the conservative movement in America.
Episodes
175 episodes
Leading Citizens with Dr. Matt Mehan
Curtailing public chaos and institutional corruption are vital objectives to reclaiming a healthy American citizenship. But what can ordinary people do to rein in corrupt elites? And why have elected officials failed to push back for generation...
Training the Whole Worker with Dr. Jacob Imam
The traditional four-year college degree is dramatically falling out of favor with parents and would-be students. One clear problem is that today's educational offerings don't help students build the skills they really need, both for the jobs o...
When There’s No One to Call with Sam Pressler
Many men without college degrees have nearly nonexistent social support, and are often one point of failure away from living in isolation, according to a new research report, Nobody to Call. ...
What Does 'Tech' Really Mean? with Cory Gardner
Political conversations around tech tend to gravitate toward AI, chips, and advanced robotics, but these topics are far removed from what most Americans think of as the types of technology that power their daily lives. For most, tech is about c...
How to Reclaim American Citizenship with Chris Griswold
At the 2026 New World Gala, American Compass introduced Reclaiming American Citizenship, a new "project for the people" to confront the existential task of revitalizing what it means to be an American citizen, not merely as a matter of...
Economic Security Is National Security with Scott Bessent
After decades of sacrificing economic security for the sake of the free market, American policymakers are returning to the wisdom that economic security and national security are inextricably linked. At American Compass’s 2026 New World Gala, T...
Magnifica Humanitas with Chris Griswold, Leah Sargeant, and Max Bodach
Pope Leo XIV’s highly anticipated encyclical marks a significant milestone in the debate around artificial intelligence and what it means for the future of humanity.To analyze the document and its many implications, Oren speaks with Amer...
America's Foreign Policy Future with A. Wess Mitchell
Foreign policy debates have taken center stage in the second Trump administration, from U.S.-China relations to the ongoing war in Iran. To assess the situation, Oren speaks with A. Wess Mitchell, who co-founded The Marathon ...
Why Democrats Can't Learn with Ruy Teixeira
The Democratic Party continues to reel from its 2024 electoral defeat and struggles to connect with the American people. But the party remains captured by special interests and sacred cows that its leaders refuse to confront.Fe...
The End of the Iran War? with Bradley Devlin
What’s going on in Iran? Who controls the Strait of Hormuz? And why did America get involved in the first place?Bradley Devlin, politics editor at the Daily Signal, joins Oren to try to make sense of the current state of...
A Real Fix for the Affordability Crisis with Chris Griswold
The affordability crisis has become Washington’s favorite talking point, but the solutions proposed so far won’t solve it. From capital gains tax cuts pitched as relief to renewed enthusiasm for Chinese investment as a growth strategy, many pol...
The Net Neutrality Panic with Ajit Pai
The fight over net neutrality was supposed to determine the future of the internet. Advocates of net neutrality warned that repealing it would lead to censorship, higher costs, and the collapse of an open web. But nearly a decade later, those p...
Measuring Machine Intelligence with Chris Painter
Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, but our ability to measure what these systems can actually do—and the risks they may pose—has lagged behind. Headline benchmarks and viral demos offer snapshots of a system's performance, but they s...
Neither Girlboss, Nor Tradwife with Emma Waters
“Girlboss” feminism promised a world in which women could seamlessly balance ambitious careers and flourishing family lives. But in practice, that vision has proven far more brittle, often demanding total commitment to work while sidelining mar...
Fixing Finance with Rohit Chopra
The financial industry is supposed to be our economy’s plumbing, quietly channeling capital to investments where it’s needed most. But in today’s system, that plumbing is leaking. From rising credit card rates and opaque lending products to the...
Want to End Illegal Immigration? Hire American, with Daniel Kishi
Immigration enforcement has long been framed as a question of border security, but the Trump administration's success at stopping illegal crossings has turned the public's attention toward removing illegal aliens who have become enmeshed in com...
Escaping the College-For-All Trap with Dan Currell
For decades, Americans were told that success was simple: graduate high school, enroll in a four-year college, and launch a career from there. But as college enrollment has expanded and costs have skyrocketed, the results have become increasing...
Tech and Labor, Friends or Foes? with Alex Karp and Sean O'Brien
Artificial intelligence continues to advance, but the debate over its economic consequences takes place mostly in two separate spheres: amongst the technologists developing the technology and the workers whose jobs may be transformed by it. As ...
The Future of Trump's Tariffs with Mark DiPlacido
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit the president’s use of emergency tariff authority set off a wave of commentary declaring the end of Trump’s trade agenda. But one week later, the reality looks far more complicated than what the chat...
What Economists Get Wrong with Luigi Zingales
For decades, economists, armed with elegant models, powerful data, and firm conclusions about how markets should work, have claimed to be practitioners of a hard science. Yet in an era of financialization, political backlash, and rising ...
Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists with Oren Cass
Capitalism has undergone a profound shift, as our financial system has moved away from its primary role of channeling capital into productive investments. Corporate priorities have instead turned toward maximizing short-term shareholder returns...
What Happened to the Starter Home? with Bobby Fijan
America’s housing shortage is often framed as a simple supply problem, but building the kinds of homes families actually need has proven far more complicated. While capital continues to flow into large suburban developments and luxury apartment...
Solving the Welfare Fraud Crisis with Shad White
America’s welfare programs have long operated on the assumption that states and nonprofits could responsibly steward federal dollars with minimal oversight. But a series of explosive fraud cases—from California to Mississippi to Minnesota—have ...
Dispatches from Davos with Oren Cass
The annual gathering of the world’s leadership class at the World Economic Forum in Davos bills itself as high-minded forum for increased global cooperation in the now-struggling old international order. But, in practice, it’s more of a concent...
How to Solve the Affordability Crisis with Daniel Kishi
Inflation may have cooled, but Americans still feel squeezed. Groceries are still expensive, housing and health care costs continue to outpace wages, and consumer credit debt continues to balloon, leaving a gap between encouraging economic data...