Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Today, a delightful and scintillating and inspiring and disconcerting and thought-provoking and discombobulating and many-other-multi-syllabic words-ing romp with one of the most celebrated philosophers in the English-speaking world. A.C. Grayling is a British philosopher who has written more than thirty books on everything from the nature of consciousness to the history of freedom to what it means to live well. Now, he is warning about the fragility of liberal democracy and on a speaking tour to Australia he joined Josh to discuss the crisis of meaning in the West, the rise of authoritarianism, and what remains of the self when the machines get smart too.

For an issue we don’t normally know how to talk constructively about, can Josh and one of the most outspoken anti-abortion activists model what a genuine, but respectful, disagreement can actually look like? Joanna Howe is best-known for her viral videos on YouTube and social media debating people in the street about abortion, confronting politicians outside their offices, and smacking down pro-life politicians for not being pro-life enough. She's a law professor and a Catholic whose hundreds of thousands of followers cheer her on as she owns the libs and argues for abortion to be illegal because it is murder from the moment of fertilisation. She joins Josh to have a rational debate about an emotional topic, and try in some small way, to help you have less toxic and more constructive conversations of your own. You can find Josh’s previous conversation with the American family-values anti-surrogacy activist Katie Faust, here.

What is the end game in Iran? What is the blockade achieving? What cards does Iran still hold? Last week, the end was in sight with a two-week ceasefire. Then talks in Pakistan between the US vice president and the Iranians went nowhere, and Trump suddenly imposed a blockade. Since Monday, U.S. forces say they’ve now completely halted all economic trade leaving Iran’s ports. Iran say they’ll retaliate if the blockade continues. Where does the escalation lead? Does Trump have anything left up his sleeve? What exit ramps are there for either side? Steven Simon served in the US State Department, where he specialised in the Middle East and counter-terrorism on President Clinton’s National Security Council. President Obama brought him back into the White House to serve as the NSC’s Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa. He’s a leading world expert on Iran and co-wrote a book in 2011 called “The sixth crisis: Iran, Israel, America and the rumors of war.” His most recent book is “Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.” Steven joined Josh to explain the logic (or illogic) of Trump’s blockade... and what thirty years of shaping US policy in the Middle East has taught him about how this conflict is likely to end.

This week on Josh Vs The News: why Trump's new naval blockade is a catastrophic strategic blunder, the stunning fall of Hungary's Viktor Orbán (and his zebras), and Australia is in the news for reasons that are not shark attacks nor bushfires. Plus: Why oil prices affect Americans even when America produces its own oil.

Were top Nazi leaders mad? Were they evil? Were they like religious fundamentalists, committed to a deranged ideology? Or were they just amoral narcissists grasping for power in the wrong place at the wrong time? Jack el-Hai wrote the book which became the movie "Nuremberg", in which Russell Crowe plays Hermann Göring. In Nuremberg jail, awaiting trial, 22 senior Nazis were interviewed by a young U.S. Army psychiatrist. Psychiatrist Dr Douglas Kelly was only supposed to assess the Nazis’ mental fitness to stand trial. But he became obsessed with identifying a “Nazi personality”. He spent months with Goering, the man who was to succeed Hitler, hunting for traits or disorders that could identify who might commit such atrocities in the future. His private notes were kept secret by Kelly’s family until they released them to Jack. He joined Josh to share what he learned, and what we all should understand about evil.

Sam Jay is an Emmy-nominated comedian and former writer on Saturday Night Live. She walked away from becoming an SNL cast member to host her own HBO talk show about uncomfortable conversations called 'Pause with Sam Jay'. She has a Netflix stand-up special, an HBO stand-up special, and her latest show is We The People, nominated for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards last year. This is the final episode of the Uncomfortable Conversations Comedy Festival extravaganza. Josh headed to Melbourne for a ten-hour Substack Live marathon with five of the greatest comedians. Sam joins Josh to wrestle with her gayness, her blackness, her americanness, her creativeness, her differentness and sameness.

Donald ‘Taco’ Trump has once again lived up to his nickname. After weeks of escalating threats to obliterate Iran's power plants, bomb them back to the Stone Age, and declare that "a whole civilization will die tonight," the President has blinked. Again. Josh breaks down the entire chaotic timeline of Trump's Iran strategy, and argues that these past two weeks may have written Trump's political epitaph. The crudeness, the bombast, the "you crazy bastards" diplomacy has become so unseemly that Trumpism itself may finally be toast. Plus: Why the Artemis moon mission matters (stop asking why we're going back), what Survivor teaches us about coalition building, and why jihadists really shouldn't get nukes. Thank f*ck for Taco.

Dave Hughes is a legend of Australian television, radio and stand-up comedy. He has been so ubiquitous on TV and radio for the past 30 years that almost every Australian has a Dave Hughes impersonation. This episode is part of the Uncomfortable Conversations Comedy Festival extravaganza. Josh headed to Melbourne for a ten-hour Substack Live marathon with five of the greatest comedians. You’ll get a new episode every 48 hours for the first two weeks of the biggest comedy festival in the world. He joined Josh to discuss being poor, being rich, getting famous, and insulting the radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands.

Steve Vizard is Australia's Johnny Carson. Tonight Live with Steve Vizard was Australia's Tonight Show in the 1990s, after Vizard had previously created two of Australia's biggest-ever sketch comedy shows. This episode is part of the Uncomfortable Conversations Comedy Festival extravaganza. Josh headed to Melbourne for a ten-hour Substack Live marathon with five of the greatest comedians. You'll get a new episode every 48 hours for the first two weeks of the biggest comedy festival in the world. Steve joined Josh to recount tales of the golden age of late-night television, the mishaps of hosting a live show every night, Kimmel, Colbert and how broadcast TV is evolving… and Andy Lee interrupts the podcast briefly.

Zainab Johnson is a black muslim female New Yorker with a half-million instagram fans and the title of Variety magazine’s Top 10 Comics to Watch. This episode is part of the Uncomfortable Conversations Comedy Festival extravaganza. Josh headed to Melbourne for a ten-hour Substack Live marathon with five of the greatest comedians. You'll get a new episode every 48 hours for the first two weeks of the biggest comedy festival in the world. Zainab joined Josh to school him on comedy, Islam, and marsupial reproductive biology. Her Amazon Prime special is ‘Hijabs Off’

Think of Tom Ballard as a young John Oliver, who hosted Australia's national nightly satirical news television show ,"Tonightly with Tom Ballard". He returns to the show to discuss his getting cancelled for doing a Nazi salute, punching down, anti-semitism, Gaza & Zionism, cancel culture and offensive comedy. This episode is part of the Uncomfortable Conversations Comedy Festival extravaganza. Josh headed to Melbourne for a ten-hour Substack Live marathon with five of the greatest comedians. You'll get a new episode every 48 hours for the first two weeks of the biggest comedy festival in the world. Ballard's stand-up show is ‘Be Funny Challenge (Impossible)’ and his play about stand-up and cancel culture is ‘JKS: a Comedy(?)’ Tickets at comedyfestival.com.au

Across the West, young people are finding it harder to build their careers, afford homes, and start families. But have we assumed they’re all the same, and been so busy treating the symptoms of their unhappiness that we've accidentally made them more miserable? A major new study has divided young Australians into six "tribes": from far-left student activists to family-oriented nationalists, from pragmatic strivers to the affluent and already comfortable. They have almost nothing in common politically, but they all want the same things: financial security, home ownership, meaningful work, a family. The difference between them isn't money or politics, but whether they believe the barriers in their way are within their control. Parnell Palme McGuinness is a columnist at the Sydney Morning Herald and a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. She’s previously worked for the Australian Liberals, our conservative centre-right party, and the German Greens. She joins Josh to explain the six tribes she identifies in her report, ‘Generation Trapped: Housing, handouts, and the collapse of young Australians’ life satisfaction’, and why understanding them is key to resolving the tensions simmering across the West, from intergenerational equity and immigration to the rise of populism.

Everything is awesome humans. Well at least it is when Uncomfortable Conversations Community Manager (and resident Tocqueville expert) Evan Pivonka joins us. Josh and Evan went live to answer your questions and explore some underreported stories: Ozempic zombies, insider trading allegations, humans about to return to the moon, and the lost art of talking to strangers.

What is going on with Trump’s foreign policy? Attacking Iran, decapitating Venezuela, threatening Cuba. Is America flexing its greatness, or flailing? Is there a method to the madness? What is really going on inside the room where it happens? Stephen Biegun was the United States Deputy Secretary of State in the first Trump Administration. He was also the special representative for North Korea, charged with overseeing America’s North Korea policy and running the first ever in-person negotiations between the two country’s leaders. While Trump was tweeting about “Rocket Man”, Biegun was trying to make history. What was it like to work with Trump on complex foreign policy negotiations? What happened on last-minute sorties across the DMZ with the leader of the free world? And what has Stephen’s experience in seeing Trump’s worldview, first hand, taught him about strategy, Putin, Ukraine, and Iran? Biegun worked in the George W. Bush administration as a member of the National Security Council under Condoleezza Rice and was a senior executive at the Ford Motor Compnay. He joined Josh on a visit to Sydney to deliver a major lecture at the Lowy Institute, which kindly facilitated this conversation about American power, diplomacy, war, and the Trump you don’t see behind the scenes.

Cities that rock and cities that suck do a few things differently. They need to hit a bullseye on high-vs-low density, walkability, law and order, red tape, congestion pricing and a host of other things. Which cities nail it? And how can yours do better? Eamon Waterford is a world expert on what the best cities get right. He's the chief executive of a think tank, the Committee for Sydney, that represents the interests of all the big players in Sydney’s economy: not just property developers but local councils, banks, architects, consultants, law firms, universities. He assesses how cities all over the world can evolve into the best version of themselves. Eamon joined Josh to riff on Mamdani, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, Los Angeles; on the tension between low-density suburbs and walkability; between infrastructure and green spaces; between untrammelled development and too much risk aversion. If you want to live in the city of your dreams, listen up.

Step away from the doomscrolling. Take a breath. Let the waves crash. In this week's edition of Josh vs the News, Josh offers something different: a tonic for tumultuous times. Instead of dissecting the latest outrage or geopolitical crisis, he invites you to zoom out and remember what actually matters. How do you find peace when artificial intelligence threatens widespread, fast, and traumatizing change across every sector of society? When the news cycle never stops? When even our political tribes have become echo chambers of certainty? Consider this your permission to touch grass, smell the roses, and remember that the waves of the South Pacific will keep crashing long after today's outrage has faded.

How can a bunch of equations on a piece of paper reflect the deepest facts about reality? How is it that every single object, from a skyscraper to a black hole to your liver, obeys mathematical gobbledegook? And how do physicists deduce that gobbledegook just by solving written puzzles? Today's episode will blow your mind with curiosities about the fabric of reality, the size of the biggest numbers, and how a simple probability problem, posed by a popular television game show, the Monty Hall Show, captivated America for years. Adam Spencer is a former radio host, keynote speaker and the University of Sydney's ambassador for mathematics and science. His TED Talk was "Why I fell in love with monster prime numbers" and he has a new Substack, NerdNews by @adambspencer. Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

Everyone’s had something to say about Iran. But they're missing the most important piece. In this week's powerful editorial, Josh invites you to shift focus away from the tsunami of hot takes, of Trump takedowns, of condemnations and victory proclamations and self-certainty on both sides. Take a reprieve from the chatter and consider the question most commentators have skipped.

The national director of Turning Point Australia (the Aussie chapter of Turning Point USA) isn't your typical Christian nationalist. He's a 28-year-old Lebanese-Australian influencer, educator and activist. How should we understand the goals of the new, nationalist right? From Trump to Farage to the National Rally in France, from the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany to the meteoric rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party in Australia, it's time to understand who we're dealing with. Joel Jammal gained popularity protesting Australia's Covid lockdowns. Nigel Farage convinced Charlie Kirk to hand Joel the keys to the Turning Point franchise. He now has more than 600,000 followers and a billion views, with a newspaper and a podcast serving Christian nationalism to hundreds of thousands of people disillusioned with mainstream politics. This is not your grandpappy's conservative party. Joel joins Josh to debate immigration, Brexit, Trump and the future of democracy.

David Frum had a front-row seat the last time America went to war against a Middle Eastern adversary. He was in the George W. Bush administration in the lead-up to the Iraq War. In fact, as one of Bush's speechwriters, he wrote the line that came to define American foreign policy for the first decade of the 21st century. Four months after the World Trade Center towers were turned to rubble, President Bush channelled Frum in his State of the Union speech, saying that rogue states which harbored, financed and aided terrorists -- like North Korea, Iraq and Iran -- "constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world." This idea, of America being at war with an alliance of dangerous terrorist states, provided the rationale for going to war with one of them, Iraq. In fact, David Frum went on to write a book in 2004 with a fellow neoconservative, Richard Perle, a chief architect of the Iraq War, entitled "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror". It became a bible of neoconservative foreign policy, in which Frum and Perle argued, among other things, for taking immediate, decisive action against Iran. Fast-forward 22 years and David Frum is one of the most prominent and persuasive conservative voices against Donald Trump. He has written two anti-Trump books, "Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic", and "Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy". He's a staff writer at The Atlantic and the host of the podcast The David Frum Show. And since the invasion of Iraq, his view of American power has grown more nuanced. David joins Josh to explain the precarious position in which war with Iran puts not just the Middle East... but American democracy itself.