Conversations with Coleman

Latest Episodes:

Coleman Hughes vs. Peter Beinart Debate: Should Israel Be a Jewish State? Jun 15, 2026

Show notes

Peter Beinart is a writer and author who has contributed to The New Republic, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. He grew up a committed Zionist and has spent the last decade publicly refuting that position, arriving at the view that Israel cannot be reconciled with the principle of equality under the law. His most recent book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, caused shock waves in the Jewish world. In this conversation, Coleman and Peter debate the Palestinian right of return and whether it’s comparable to Israel’s Law of Return for diaspora Jews. They argue over whether a one-state solution would produce equality or civil war, and whether the idea of comparing Israel to South Africa holds up under scrutiny. They get into the role of jihadist ideology in the conflict, whether Iran constitutes an existential threat to Israel, and what it would actually mean for Israel to be a democracy.

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Is America’s Racial Reckoning Over? With John McWhorter Jun 08, 2026

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John McWhorter is back. This time, Coleman and John analyze where America stands on race in 2026, whether the woke moment is genuinely behind us, and what may have replaced it. They also get into why black men are increasingly voting Republican, how mass immigration has subtly shifted the conversation on race, and what the Supreme Court's recent Voting Rights Act decision actually means.

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Why You Shouldn’t Be Scared of AI Jun 01, 2026

Show notes

Aman Verjee has had one of the more unusual careers in finance. He started on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers, joined PayPal in its earliest days and worked alongside Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, and eventually became a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Along the way he developed an obsession with the history of finance, which led to his upcoming book, A Brief History of Financial Bubbles. He joined Coleman to talk about what the biggest bubbles of the last 500 years have in common, what they reveal about the societies that produced them, and what actually caused the 2008 crisis. Then they look at the questions that everyone is asking: Is AI a bubble, and how will it end?

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What People Who Choose Assisted Death Actually Say May 26, 2026

Show notes

In 2016, Canada legalized assisted dying for the terminally ill. Since then, the law—medical assistance in dying, or MAID—has expanded dramatically—to people with chronic but non-terminal conditions, with disabilities, and potentially those with mental illness as the sole underlying condition.

Rupa Subramanya, The Free Press’s Canada correspondent, has spent years reporting on this slippery slope, interviewing patients, doctors, and families along the way. She discusses with Coleman where the line should be, what some of the strangest assisted dying cases reveal about the system, and what Canada’s experience should tell the rest of the world.

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Michael Shellenberger on the Psychology of Left-Wing Violence May 18, 2026

Show notes

Michael Shellenberger is the author of San Fransickco and Apocalypse Never. He’s a former progressive activist, and one of the most prominent advocates for nuclear energy in the country. In this episode, he and Coleman dig into the Epstein story and why the evidence falls far short of the conspiracy theory most people believe; the savior complex he sees underlying progressive politics and its connection to recent left- wing violence; and what California and other blue states are finally starting to get right about homelessness after years of getting it catastrophically wrong.

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The War Before the War: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Israel-Palestine May 11, 2026

Show notes

Oren Kessler explains the origins of Palestinian nationalism, the myth that Jews started the conflict in Israel, and why peace in the region has been elusive.

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Walter Russell Mead on Christian Zionism, the ‘Israel Lobby’ Myth, and the Psychology of Antisemitism May 04, 2026

Show notes

Why do Americans support Israel? The standard answers—D.C. lobbying, shared democratic values, strategic benefits—all miss something. Walter Russell Mead, one of America's foremost foreign policy scholars, traces the real answer back to 17th-century Calvinist theology, and argues that Christian Zionists were advocating for a Jewish homeland long before most Jews were. Mead joins the show to make the case that the famous Israel Lobby thesis is actually historically incoherent. To explain where antisemitism comes from and why it keeps coming back, he offers a nuanced defense of American global engagement against the America First movement’s more isolationist impulses.

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The Case for Drinking Alcohol Apr 27, 2026

Show notes

Most researchers who study alcohol focus on what it does to your body. Edward Slingerland is more interested in what it does to your friendships. In his book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, the University of British Columbia professor argues that alcohol has functioned for thousands of years as humanity's most important social lubricant, and that the modern war on drinking is costing us something we can't easily replace. He and Coleman dig into the anthropological origins of alcohol, why drinking has always been communal, and why giving it up isn't as simple as your doctor thinks. Slingerland argues the loneliness epidemic and the sobriety trend may not be a coincidence. They also touch on Slingerland's background in early Chinese philosophy, and the surprisingly direct path from ancient Daoist texts to a book about getting drunk.

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Who Decides What’s True on Wikipedia? Apr 20, 2026

Show notes

Ashley Rindsberg has spent years investigating how ideological bias corrupts institutions that present themselves as neutral arbiters of truth. His book The Gray Lady Winked exposed how The New York Times got major stories wrong across decades of reporting. Now he turns his attention to Wikipedia, the internet’s default encyclopedia and one of the most influential sources of information in the world. Rindsberg finds that while Wikipedia remains a reliable resource for most topics, its most politically charged articles have been quietly captured by a small group of anonymous editors working to push a coherent ideological agenda. He and Coleman dig into how these editors operate, how a handful of people can dominate entire topic areas, and why almost nobody can stop them. They also get into the specific case of Wikipedia’s Israel-Palestine coverage, where a group of around 40 dedicated editors have made over a million edits across thousands of articles. And they discuss why all of this matters far beyond Wikipedia itself, as the encyclopedia’s biases are absorbed by Google, fed into AI systems, and baked into the information infrastructure and AI systems that will increasingly decide what counts as true.

The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.

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Help Us Win the Internet’s Highest Honor Apr 16, 2026

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Click this link, make an account, and vote for Conversations with Coleman!

⁠https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/individual-episode/interview-or-talk-show⁠

Hi guys,

Coleman here, sharing some exciting news: Conversations with Coleman has been nominated for a Webby Award. This is the internet’s highest honor, and we need your help to get over the finish line! I am currently in second place in the “Best Interview or Talk Show” category, and voting ends Thursday, April16, at midnight ET.

We’re up against some of the greats of mainstream media—I can’t believe I’m up against Oprah!—but we believe this show, this community, and our shared passion for independent, thoughtful, heterodox journalism can tip the scales in our favor.

If you have 30 seconds to spare, we’d be honored if you’d show your support and vote for our show. We all know the importance of having these rigorous, challenging conversations out in the open.

Thank you all so much for your support!

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