Today's guest is the Libertarian Party's candidate for president Chase Oliver, who wants to phase out Social Security and Medicare for younger Americans, create a 21st century version of Ellis Island, and get the government out of bedrooms and boardrooms. A longtime antiwar activist, he also wants to bring American troops home and slash the Pentagon's budget. Despite such ultralibertarian positions, a number of high-profile Libertarian Party figures and state parties have declined to endorse him because he is not part of the national party's Mises Caucus and he believes that the nonsurgical transitioning of minors should be decided by doctors, parents, and kids without the state intervening. Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Oliver about misunderstandings surrounding his opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, how he first encountered the Libertarian Party at a gay pride event, and why he thinks millennials and Gen Z are particularly ready to listen to libertarian ideas after constantly being lied to by boomers like Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

0:00— Introduction

1:29— Economic policy & entitlement reform

11:45— Immigration reform

19:55— COVID-19 policy

22:21— A message to younger voters

24:20— The cases for and against Kamala Harris

28:21— How Libertarians can appeal to Millennials & Gen-Z

29:52— The case against Trump and Vance

32:07— Are Millennials cynically attached to institutions?

33:29— Libertarian Party conflicts

36:12— Ad: Students For Liberty

37:44— A libertarian view on trans issues

44:59— Being the first openly LGBTQ national candidate

46:55— LNC's unusual collaboration with RFK Jr.

51:05— Uptick in Gen-Z LGBTQ identification

53:32— Oliver's political evolution

56:53— Foreign policy: Ukraine, Israel, and China

1:04:40— Could Trump or Harris turn more libertarian?

Today's sponsor:

Students for Liberty (SFL). Are you a freedom-loving college student seeking a platform to amplify your voice? Then you need to check out Students for Liberty, a global hub for liberty-loving students like you. With members in over 100 countries, empower yourself and others to champion freedom. Visit StudentsForLiberty.org to discover how you can join their movement and contribute to building a freer future.

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The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie

Chase Oliver: Q&A With the Controversial Libertarian Party Candidate

If you ever wanted to live in a world of endlessly fascinating conversations about the arts, science, and philosophy, you're going to love today's guest—Anna Gát. She's the person behind a membership platform called Interintellect, which hosts hundreds of online salons a year. While some of them feature superstars like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, relationship guru Esther Perel, and economist Tyler Cowen, all of the salons are built around civil yet engaging discussions on interesting cultural ideas.

Interintellect's stated ambition is to reinvent French salon culture for the 21st century, and the platform is increasingly hosting in-person events too. Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Gát about why she started Interintellect, how it grew to have tens of thousands of participants all over the world, and how her new podcast, The Hope Axis, fits into her vision of a future marked by optimism (guests on the podcast have included economist Noah Smith, online-culture analyst Katherine Dee, and Quillette founder Claire Lehmann). They also talk about how her early years in post-communist Hungary shaped her worldview and ambitions.

0:00—Introduction

1:29— Interintellect : a public marketplace for intellectual salons

3:31— Gát's background & vision

14:05— Interintellect's scope of events

19:05— A perpetual festival with multiple paths for participation

23:38—Ad: Bank On Yourself

25:30— An apolitical self-moderating cultural community

27:52— Interintellect's global reach

31:39— "The Hope Axis" podcast

37:07— Why is 'doomerism' so appealing to millennials?

42:32— Using the hope axis to defeat "no way out" mentality

45:55— Gát's intellectual heroes

Today's Sponsors:

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The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy that doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. The next event is scheduled for Wednesday, September 11, and features Fox News' Kat Timpf, whose new book is I Used To Like You Until…(How Binary Thinking Divides Us). Tickets are $15 and include beer, wine, soft drinks, and food. Go here for details.

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Anna Gát: Building an Intellectual Community for the Politically Homeless

Today's guest is Nick Cave, the music legend who emerged from Australia in the 1980s. Over the years, Cave has written screenplays, soundtracks, and novels, and has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, from Johnny Cash and Kylie Minogue to P.J. Harvey and Neko Case.

Known for his brooding and meditative mystique, he coauthored the bestselling Faith, Hope, and Carnage in 2022, receiving plaudits for openly discussing his struggles with heroin addiction, his lifelong fascination with Jesus Christ, and his artistic development. Since 2018, he's published The Red Hand Files, where he answers readers' questions in a manner that is deeply vulnerable, touching, and insightful. Wild God, his rave-reviewed new album with his longtime band The Bad Seeds, is out on August 30.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Cave about his unshakeable commitment to free speech, how the death of his 15-year-old son affected his art, his abiding interest in ritual and religion, and why he refuses to join artist boycotts of countries such as Israel.

This interview was recorded on location at the storied Electric Lady Studios in New York City.

0:00—Introduction
1:09—Ad: The Dispatch
2:15—The Red Hand Files
8:13—Connecting with audiences after loss
16:20—The Birthday Party's early days in London
20:10—Is Nick Cave a "goth"?
25:19—Ad: Bank On Yourself
27:09—New album, Wild God
29:53—Transcending cynicism and contempt
33:23—AI, pessimism, and losing avenues of meaning
39:35—Religious yearning and doubt
45:32—Defending free thought and expression
48:25—Kanye West's antisemitism and extraordinary creations of gospel music
50:26—Antisemitism, Jews, and Israel
52:47—Roger Waters, Brian Eno, and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
58:33—Brief stint in Los Angeles
59:50—Loss and creation during COVID-19
1:03:10—Social media and censorship
1:05:10—The freeing effects of aging

Today's sponsors:

Bank On Yourself: Bank On Yourself is a proven retirement plan alternative that banks and Wall Street are desperately hoping you never hear about. It gives you guaranteed, predictable growth and retirement income; access to your money for any purpose with NO questions asked and NO government penalties or restrictions; and the peace of mind that comes from knowing the minimum guaranteed value of your retirement savings on the day you plan to tap into them. Go to Bank On Yourself.com/WORD and get a free report about the retirement plan alternative that lets you bypass banks and Wall Street, and take back control of your financial future.
The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy that doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. The next event is scheduled for Wednesday, September 11, and features Fox News' Kat Timpf, whose new book is I Used To Like You Until…(How Binary Thinking Divides Us). Tickets are $15 and include beer, wine, soft drinks, and food. Go here for details.

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The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

Nick Cave: I See The World As ‘Systemically Beautiful’

Today's guest is Mike Pesca, who publishes The Gist podcast every weekday. The Gist, which launched in 2014, is a tight 30 minutes of news, interviews, and opinions on the biggest issues of the day. Pesca is a veteran of NPR and Slate—experiences that have made him an outspoken critic of legacy media, especially its willingness to overthrow longstanding commitments to objectivity and fairness in pursuit of progressive versions of "moral clarity."

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with him about his controversial 2021 separation from Slate after he defended a New York Times reporter's use of a racial slur, why once-vaunted newspapers such as The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times are rightly losing readers and money, and whether the old world of three broadcast TV networks and heavily gate-kept media had any value.

Today's sponsors:

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The Reason Speakeasy: The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy that doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. The next event is scheduled for Wednesday, September 11, and features Fox News' Kat Timpf, whose new book is I Used To Like You Until…(How Binary Thinking Divides Us). Tickets are $15 and include beer, wine, soft drinks, and food.

An Evening with Richard Dawkins, hosted by Nick Gillespie. Nick Gillespie interviews the legendary scientist in Milwaukee on September 20 as part of his "final bow" tour.

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Mike Pesca: How NPR Lost Its Way

Today's guest is Kat Timpf, whose new book is I Used To Like You Until…:(How Binary Thinking Divides Us). In a totally insane election season, this just might be the most important book of the year. A sequel of sorts to 2023's You Can't Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We're All in This Together, it seeks to show how politics overwhelms common decency and basic logic.

Timpf, who co-hosts the super-popular Gutfeld! late-night show, explains to Reason's Nick Gillespie why she tells some people she works in porn instead of at Fox News, what it's like being libertarian at a conservative network, and how she gets people to engage with each other rather than vilify one another. This podcast was taped in front of a live audience in New York City.

Today's sponsors:

ZBiotics. ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Make ZBiotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Get 15 percent off by going to ZBiotics/TRI and using the code TRI at checkout.
The Reason Roundtable live in New York!, Monday, November 4. Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch will conduct a live taping of The Reason Roundtable at The Village Underground the night before the election. Tickets are $25, doors open at 6:00 P.M., Ticket includes admission to an afterparty. Details here.

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Kat Timpf: An Unapologetic Libertarian at Fox News

Today's guest is Billy Binion, who joined Reason's staff in 2019 after stints at an opera company (!) and as a contractor for NATO (!!). He has written blockbuster stories about the abuse of power by cops and courts, and he just produced an incredible documentary about a citizen journalist in Laredo, Texas, who sued the city after they arrested her for reporting on a couple of controversial local stories. It's a case that could have major First Amendment implications for independent reporters.

Nick Gillespie talks with Binion about what drives his interests in such topics as civil asset forfeiture, SWAT teams run amok, and people who get arrested after using unlicensed guns to ward off would-be killers. They discuss how, contrary to most news accounts, today's Supreme Court is less polarized than the country it serves. And they also talk about how Binion's time living in California and Texas back to back gives him a distinct perspective on blue and red America—and insight into what sort of government governs better, if not quite best.

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Billy Binion: Civil Liberties Don't Just Belong to the Rich

Today's guests are Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini, author of Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP, and American Enterprise Institute fellow Ruy Teixeira, coauthor most recently of Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with them about the presidential election, how the working class has become the most important—yet most neglected—part of the electorate, and whether libertarians have anyone to root for in national politics.

Today's sponsors:

St. John's College. Explore 3,000 years of human thought on campuses in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in Annapolis, Maryland. From the Greek philosophers who are the wellspring of democratic ideals to America's founding fathers to contemporary critics who question everything: Each is welcome at St. John's College. In-person and online Master's degree courses are offered, too.
ZBiotics. ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Make ZBiotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Get 15 percent off by going to ZBiotics/TRI and using the code TRI at checkout.
The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly unscripted discussion in midtown New York City that doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie. The next one is on Thursday, October 24, and features the Stony Brook sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, whose new book is We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. Tickets are $15 and include beer, wine, soft drinks, and light food.

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Will Trump or Harris Win the Working-Class Vote?

Today's guest is Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, the co-founder of Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB), a nonprofit that translates books and articles about limited government, freedom of thought, and market economics into Arabic and other languages, and distributes them for free in the Middle East and other parts of the world. (Full disclosure: Reason's Nick Gillespie is on the board of IBB.)

Gillespie talked with Al Mutar about IBB's new book, Untold Stories of the Middle East, which celebrates entrepreneurs in Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere whom IBB has given startup grants; how the October 7 attacks on Israel and fighting in Gaza and Lebanon will affect the region for decades; and what it was like to grow up in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein, various Islamic terrorist groups, and the U.S. occupation. This conversation was taped in front of a live audience in New York.

Today's sponsor:
The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy that doubles as a taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie. Go to reason.com/events for information and tickets to the next one.

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Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: Peace In The Middle East Through Capitalism

Will history be made? Will it end? Joining Gillespie are The Fifth Column's Kmele Foster, Bloomberg economics columnist Allison Schrager, and many more special guests, who will break down the weirdest—and possibly the most consequential—election season in any of our lifetimes.

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Live on Election Night! The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

In the wake of massive victories by Donald Trump and Republicans, here's a question worth asking: What does today's GOP really stand for? Longstanding support for free trade and overseas wars seems to have been replaced with tariffs and non-interventionism.

Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis are the authors of The Myth of Left and Right. They argue that the way we talk about the political spectrum misleads and confuses us because it reduces complex special-interest coalitions to one or two issues that really aren't representative of what the parties actually stand for. As a result, they say that the next four years will be as fractious within the GOP (and the Democratic Party too) as the last four.

Today's Sponsor:

ZBiotics. ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Make ZBiotics your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Get 15 percent off by going to ZBiotics/TRI and using the code TRI at checkout.

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Hyrum and Verlan Lewis: Stop Buying the 'Left v. Right' Myth

Founded in 1968, Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Our podcast offerings include:

The Reason Roundtable
Every Monday, the libertarian editors of the magazine of “Free Minds and Free Markets”—Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Peter Suderman—discuss and debate the week’s biggest stories and what fresh hell awaits us all.

The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie
Want to know what comes next in politics, culture, and libertarian ideas? Reason’s Nick Gillespie hosts relentlessly interesting interviews with the activists, artists, authors, entrepreneurs, newsmakers, and politicians who are defining the 21st century.

The Soho Forum Debates
Reason presents a libertarian-themed debate series recorded monthly before a live audience in New York City. Moderated by former Barron's Economics Editor Gene Epstein, the Soho Forum features Nobel prize winners, radical thinkers, and other public intellectuals facing off over the future of bitcoin, veganism, sex work, illegal drugs, electric vehicles, abortion, robotics, government debt, and other controversial topics.

New tracks tagged #The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie