National Insecurity

A huge spat broke out recently between President Trump’s high-profile Silicon Valley supporters, such as Elon Musk, and his MAGA base. At the heart of the disagreement was H-1B visas, a program that supporters claim brings in much-needed, high-tech talent and labor to the U.S. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a leading expert on immigration issues, explains the common misconceptions about H-1B visas and discusses immigration policy in the next Trump administration. 

Though Trump supporters broadly agree on the need to stem illegal immigration, they don't all agree on how to deal with legal immigration. While Trump's supporters in Silicon Valley tend to extol the virtues of legal immigration, MAGA voters in the president's political base want to reduce it. The recent spat between these two groups over H-1B visas was merely a manifestation of this larger disagreement. Where does Trump stand? Is his position contrary to that of his core supporters? In this clip from our latest episode, Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, discusses with host Ying Ma.

What will Trump's foreign policy look like in his second term? Does it make sense for the president-elect to rail against "stupid, endless wars" and then nominate Florida Senator Marco Rubio--a neoconservative with great sympathy for endless wars--as Secretary of State? We discuss Trump's nominations for top national security posts, disagreements between Trump and establishment Republicans on America's role in the world and the proper approach to Ukraine and Russia, as well as schisms within the Make America Great Again Movement on how to deal with China. Cohosts Doug Bandow and Ying Ma are joined by Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, and Tom Switzer, executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.

With the U.S. presidential election about a week away, we break down the differences between Trump's and Harris's foreign policy approaches. How might they deal differently with China, the Middle East, Ukraine and Russia, and the world in general? We also discuss the support each candidate has received from national security experts and the shamelessness with which many who publicly or privately hated Trump pursued power in his last administration.

In recent years, Washington has become increasingly concerned about an impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan. What are America's strategic interests in Taiwan? Should we fight China to defend the island if Beijing invades? What can we do to prevent a war? We discuss with Prof. Andrew Nathan, a distinguished scholar of Chinese politics and foreign policy at Columbia University.

We discuss the latest updates of the Russia-Ukraine war, including incentives (or lack thereof) for Russia to enter into a ceasefire, danger of the war spilling over to Europe, implications for America and Europe should Ukraine fall, lack of evidence of impending Russian aggression beyond Ukraine, urgent need for the U.S. to enter into peace negotiations with Russia, what Rep. Thomas Massie calls a "psyop" by the intel community to get Speaker Mike Johnson to support Ukraine aid, and much more.

What might President Trump’s China policy look like if he were to return to the White House? Will China invade Taiwan later this decade? How can we avoid armed conflict with China in the Taiwan Straits and in the South China Sea? How should America deal with its most serious strategic adversary? We discuss with Stephen Yates, senior fellow and chair of the China Policy Initiative at the America First Policy Institute.

The House of Representatives recently voted overwhelmingly to ban TikTok unless the company is divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, within six months. Lawmakers worry that the Chinese government, through TikTok, could get access to vast troves of American data and spread mass misinformation to the American public. We discuss the national security risks, the proper protections for TikTok's American users, and the irony of the app being popular enough to incur congressional wrath.

The U.S. Senate just passed a bill to provide another $60 billion to Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. Is it in America’s national interest to continue arming Ukraine? Is Washington helping to stop autocracy and safeguard the U.S.-led world order, or is it risking nuclear confrontation with Moscow and an expansion of the war into Europe? And why has the Ukraine issue revealed such deep divisions on the Right?   In the first episode of this new foreign policy podcast, Ying Ma hosts a lively discussion with Stephen Bryen, a leading defense and technology expert; Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the CATO Institute; and Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest.