The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College historian who makes American political history accessible, joins a lively conversation about democratic breakdown, Trump’s challenge to the postwar order, and Congress fading from the fight. They dig into how power shifts back to the public, why storytelling can spark political renewal, and how community-minded politics can counter fear and scarcity.

Alastair Campbell, former Tony Blair press secretary and political strategist, joins for a sharp look at America, Iran, and a shaky Western alliance. They dig into NATO’s hesitation, why standing up to Trump matters, the failures of regime change, partisan media’s protection racket, Netanyahu’s reliance on force, and whether democracy can still win back younger voters.

Casey Newton, Platformer editor who covers social media and algorithms. Renée DiResta, Georgetown researcher who studies misinformation and rumor spread. They probe how algorithms and product design steer users toward extreme content. They examine Silicon Valley incentives, political weaponization of disinformation, and attacks on researchers. Short, urgent conversations about attention, moderation, and fixing platform harms.

Paul Scharre, Pentagon policy veteran now at CNAS, offers deep expertise on autonomous weapons. Dr. Sarah Shoker, UC Berkeley researcher and former OpenAI geopolitics lead, studies generative AI in warfare. They discuss how AI is woven into targeting and logistics. They probe tech firms’ ties to the military, opacity of contracts, governance options, escalation risks, and hardware as a policy lever.

Wendy Sherman, former U.S. deputy secretary of state and Iran negotiator, offers diplomatic perspective. Christiane Amanpour, veteran international journalist, brings on-the-ground Middle East reporting. They discuss U.S. military choices over diplomacy. They analyze Iran’s retaliation, regional consequences, the limits of strike-driven policy, and why lasting peace hinges on broader political solutions.

Ali Velshi, television journalist and economics commentator, brings a Canadian-informed view on U.S. policy. He explores immigration’s economic realities and how it fuels entrepreneurship. He examines rebuilding a flourishing middle class through taxation and public investment. He critiques media incentives, trust erosion, and proposes collective models to restore reliable journalism.

Oren Cass, chief economist at American Compass who studies how policy reshapes worker prosperity. He traces financialization’s rise and how shareholder-first incentives hollow out real investment. They discuss deregulation, buyback rules, industrial policy like CHIPS, and cultural shifts away from equating profit with social value.

Richard Thaler, Nobel Prize–winning economist and behavioral economics pioneer, discusses human biases, loss aversion, and the endowment effect. He explores nudges like opt-out savings and small design changes, debates bigger policy 'shoves' for climate and healthcare, and examines how markets and institutions shape real-world choices.

Radley Balko, investigative journalist focused on policing and civil liberties, and Joseph Cox, tech reporter tracking government-surveillance ties, unpack how immigration enforcement is using surveillance tech. They discuss militarized federal forces, ICE’s use of tracking and facial recognition, corporate-state partnerships like Palantir, and how communities push back against opaque, powerful tools.

In this engaging discussion, Adam Tooze, a historian and economic analyst known for his insights on global economics, joins Ivan Krastev, a political scientist and chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies. They dive into Trump’s controversial obsession with Greenland, revealing its implications on U.S.-Europe relations. The duo contrasts Western Europeans' shock with Eastern Europeans' fears regarding American tactics. They also debate Trump's impact on the post-war order and the precarious balance between democracy and authoritarianism in a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape.