Newt talks with Sean Spicer, the 30th White House Press Secretary, about his new book, “Trump 2.0: The Revolution That Will Permanently Transform America.” They discuss how President Trump’s second term in office could be among the most consequential in history. Spicer argues that Trump’s second term will be fundamentally different because of four years of planning by groups like the America First Policy Institute and Gingrich’s America’s New Majority Project, which studied lessons from the first term and built a detailed policy blueprint. He emphasizes that Trump now relies on long-standing loyalists who understand his agenda to serve in roles in the White House and cabinet, reducing internal resistance that hindered his first term in office. Looking ahead, Spicer defines the key theme of Trump 2.0 as “permanency” using legislation rather than executive orders to lock in policy changes that cannot be easily reversed by future administrations. Their conversation concludes with a discussion about Spicer’s extensive political memorabilia collection.

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Newt talks with Carl DeMaio, California State Assemblymember, representing District 75, and Chairman of Reform California. They discuss the California governor’s race and the “top two” primary election system. DeMaio describes the risk that Republican candidates may face by potentially being shut out of the general election if no Republican candidates receive a 35% share of the primary vote. After candidate Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race, establishment Democrats are coalescing their support around Xavier Becerra, while billionaire Tom Steyer continues to spend millions of his own money on his campaign. DeMaio urges Republicans to vote for the Republican candidate that is polling the highest to secure a position in the runoff election. They also discuss the details of the California Voter ID Initiative; a proposed 2026 constitutional amendment DeMaio co-authored that would require voter identification and citizenship verification in all future California state elections.

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Newt talks with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (NY-21st), Chairwoman of the House Republican Leadership, about her new book, “Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities.” They discuss how America’s elite universities, once proud symbols of academic excellence, have become centers of far-left indoctrination and division. Stefanik traces her own political and professional trajectory, from volunteering for the New York Republican State Committee at age 14 and ultimately running as a 28-year-old underdog who has become a long-serving New York Republican in Congress. Drawing on her experience as a Harvard alumna, Stefanik argues that many elite universities have shifted from liberal leaning but pluralistic to ideologically lopsided, with a dramatic imbalance between Democratic and Republican faculty and a growing culture of political indoctrination over academic rigor. Stefanik’s participation in the hearing with university presidents was a historic turning point in the national debate over higher education. She concludes by expressing her hope, both as a policymaker and as a parent, that this earthquake in public awareness will help restore American universities to global excellence.

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Newt talks with Brian Blase, President of the Paragon Health Institute, about their new report, “The Hospital Cost Crisis: How Government Policies Drive Consolidation, Undermine Competition, and Fuel Soaring Prices.” Hospital prices have increased three times faster than inflation and more than twice as fast as worker wages since 2000, making rising hospital prices a major threat to middle-class families. Their discussion highlights that hospital care now totals about $1.6 trillion annually, roughly one-third of national health expenditures, and that large hospital systems deploy substantial lobbying resources, including over $115 million in federal lobbying in 2025 alone, to preserve favorable policies and block reforms. Blase explains how cost-based reimbursement in Medicare historically encouraged hospitals to increase costs, fueling administrative bloat and higher spending, a dynamic that still persists when higher hospital costs trigger higher government payments. He argues that Medicare’s centrally set prices and cost-based methodologies distort the entire healthcare market. Policies that pay more for the same service in a hospital than in a physician’s office further drive consolidation and higher prices. As potential solutions, their conversation emphasizes price transparency.

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Newt talks with New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Dr. Arthur Herman, about his new book, “Founders Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump,” and the enduring founder mindset in American history, business, and culture. Herman defines a new generation of founders as Americans who embody a core national trait: the belief that individuals can build new enterprises, institutions, and futures through risk-taking, creativity, and self-reliance. He traces this founder spirit through business titans such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk, arguing that their innovations transformed society and exemplify American exceptionalism in entrepreneurship and innovation. They discuss President Lincoln’s deep engagement with technology and commerce, his advocacy for railroads, his work as a railroad lawyer, his unique status as the only U.S. president with a patent, and his vision for a transcontinental railroad, as evidence of a founder’s technological and economic mindset. Herman identifies the core traits of founders and encourages listeners to see the fire of genius within themselves and to consider whether they might be founders shaping the nation’s next chapter as it marks its 250th anniversary.

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Newt talks with former FBI counterintelligence special agent Wayne Barnes, whose 29-year career included working KGB espionage, running double agents, recruiting hostile intelligence officers, and debriefing Cold War defectors before becoming a private investigator, signature expert, and specialist in recovering stolen impressionist paintings. Barnes recounts his path from inner-city Philadelphia through Penn State and Villanova Law into the FBI, where high scores on a language aptitude test led to Romanian training in Monterey and a Washington Field Office posting focused on Eastern Bloc counterintelligence. Barnes’ book, “A Traitor in the FBI: The Hunt for a Russian Mole,” documents his investigation to uncover an internal FBI spy for the Russians, Robert Hanssen. After he wrote the book, it was a seven-year struggle to get it through FBI pre-publication review. An initial submission in 2016 was returned almost entirely redacted except for half a page, leading to multiple trips to Washington, wording changes, and securing permission from 32 named individuals before final clearance.

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Newt talks with Wayne Crews, the Fred L. Smith Fellow in Regulatory Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. His work explores the impact of government regulation of free enterprise. They discuss CEI’s annual report “Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State.” Crews argues that rising federal spending and regulation move together, citing post-COVID laws such as the CARES Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act as examples of “hyper-regulatory” spending that expands the administrative state even before agencies write rules. Crews contends that government is ill-suited to pick market winners, set prices, or manage sectors like energy and finance, and that market forces—suppliers, customers, investors, media, and civil society—already discipline firms without heavy-handed regulation. He stresses that rejecting overregulation does not mean “no regulation,” but rather preferring competitive over political discipline. Crews warns that massive federal spending has weakened the coalition for regulatory reform by aligning businesses, governors, and mayors with Washington through funded mandates and programmatic strings tied to priorities like DEI, climate, and the “care economy.”

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Newt talks with former Congressman and physician Dr. Greg Ganske about the growing public health risks posed by online sports betting and emerging prediction markets, framed by a broader discussion of sports’ role in personal development and community life. Dr. Ganske argues that sports uniquely teach discipline, teamwork, goal setting, and community cohesion. He warns that the rapid expansion of online betting, driven by ubiquitous smartphone access and aggressive advertising campaigns featuring major sports leagues and star athletes, threatens this integrity by increasing incentives for cheating, point shaving, and manipulation at both professional and collegiate levels. Dr. Ganske highlights gambling disorder as a medically recognized condition associated with loss of control, financial ruin, deception, and bankruptcy, affecting an estimated 2-4 million Americans, with another roughly 10 million people at high risk. Their conversation also examines prediction markets on platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, which position themselves as regulated futures markets under the CFTC but, in Ganske’s view, exploit regulatory gaps while enabling betting on elections, assassination risks, and other sensitive events, compounding incentives for abuse. Dr. Ganske outlines potential federal responses, favoring regulation over outright bans due to constitutional and First Amendment concerns.

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