{"id":293060,"date":"2025-07-26T10:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T10:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/293060\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T10:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T10:31:11","slug":"epstein-columbia-ukraine-fed-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/293060\/","title":{"rendered":"Epstein, Columbia, Ukraine, Fed Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If I\u2019m being totally honest, a lot of my motivation for hosting this podcast is selfish: Every week, it gives me an excuse to talk to some of the smartest and most accomplished people in the world about their ideas. But with so many bewildering things happening in the world, I sometimes find that, much as I relish that opportunity, it doesn\u2019t quite satiate my need for connection and conversation. In fact, I often find myself craving a way to assemble some of my smartest podcast guests to discuss and debate (and commiserate about) the events of the past week.<\/p>\n<p>Well, a few weeks ago, I thought: Perhaps the podcast can give me an excuse for doing that as well\u2026 That\u2019s how the idea for The Good Fight Club (get it?) was born.<\/p>\n<p>This is a bit of an experimental episode. But if you like it, we will assemble an all-star crew recruited from the Persuasion universe to discuss current events on a regular, perhaps even weekly, basis. Hopefully, you will enjoy eavesdropping on these wonderful thinkers trying to make sense of our world as much as I do.<\/p>\n<p>We are keeping this episode freely accessible to all listeners. But if you want to make sure to get all full episodes of The Good Fight Club\u2014and of course our standard episodes in which I interview today\u2019s leading thinkers in a 1-1 format\u2014please become a paying subscriber today!<\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/yaschamounk.substack.com\/account\/add-podcast?utm_source=all-podcasts&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Set Up Podcast&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:&quot;button-wrapper&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/yaschamounk.substack.com\/account\/add-podcast?utm_source=all-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"button primary button-wrapper\" target=\"_blank\">Set Up Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Oh, one more thing. Did you enjoy this new format? Do you have any suggestions for how to improve it? Or do you think we should stick to those tried-and-tested interviews? Please let us know about your thoughts by leaving a comment or emailing Leo on leonora.barclay@persuasion.community.<\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.persuasion.community\/p\/the-good-fight-club-1\/comments&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Leave a comment&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persuasion.community\/p\/the-good-fight-club-1\/comments\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"button primary\" target=\"_blank\">Leave a comment<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!WFi7!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fec8c5464-55c6-4c22-b318-db95425ce102_5184x3456.png\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/ec8c5464-55c6-4c22-b318-db95425ce102_5184.jpeg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"971\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/ec8c5464-55c6-4c22-b318-db95425ce102_5184x3456.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:971,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:14958625,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.persuasion.community\/i\/169241481?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fec8c5464-55c6-4c22-b318-db95425ce102_5184x3456.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\"   loading=\"lazy\" class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This week, Yascha Mounk is joined by Mona Charen, Francis Fukuyama, and Ivan Krastev to discuss how the latest revelations about Epstein will affect Donald Trump, the Trump administration\u2019s war on universities, Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s bill on anti-corruption agencies, and the recent attacks on the independence of the Fed.<\/p>\n<p>Mona Charen, syndicated columnist and author, is Policy Editor of The Bulwark and host of two weekly podcasts: The Mona Charen Show and Just Between Us.<\/p>\n<p>Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies and Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, IWM Vienna.<\/p>\n<p>Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University. His latest book is <a href=\"https:\/\/us.macmillan.com\/books\/9780374606718\/liberalismanditsdiscontents\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liberalism and Its Discontents<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following <a href=\"https:\/\/yaschamounk.substack.com\/subscribe?next=https%3A%2F%2Fyaschamounk.substack.com%2Faccount%2Fadd-podcast%3Futm_source%3Dall-podcasts&amp;skipPodcastSetupPage=true\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">this link on your phone<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community<\/p>\n<p>Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Connect with us!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/3nhfO2XVPsv2wZafZ5n7Hk\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spotify<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-good-fight\/id1198765424\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cDovL3RoZV9nb29kX2ZpZ2h0LmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a><\/p>\n<p>X: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Yascha_Mounk?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@Yascha_Mounk<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoinPersuasion\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@JoinPersuasion<\/a><\/p>\n<p>YouTube: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheUtopianMagazine\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yascha Mounk<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCsyw69DKDfr9Vj1PkRmnI7w\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Persuasion<\/a><\/p>\n<p>LinkedIn: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/persuasion-community\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Persuasion Community<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If I\u2019m being totally honest, a lot of my motivation for hosting this podcast is selfish: Every week,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-293060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114919078885938275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}