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Latest Episodes:

Episode 1017: Greatest American Inventions — The Airplane Jul 29, 2026

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Two bicycle mechanics from Ohio, with no college degrees and no government funding, beat every well-financed rival to achieve the impossible. On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds over the dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina—and humanity's earthbound existence ended. Newt tells how Wilbur and Orville out-engineered the experts, building their own wind tunnel and testing over 200 wing shapes while a Smithsonian-backed rival failed twice with $50,000 in government money. Within a decade, aircraft reshaped war, travel, and commerce—proof that outsiders willing to do the work can rewrite the rules.

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Episode 1016: Greatest American Inventions — The Telephone Jul 28, 2026

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Alexander Graham Bell grew up obsessed with the human voice—his family taught elocution and speech to the deaf. That obsession led him, on March 10, 1876, to transmit the first intelligible words over a wire: "Mr. Watson, come here." Newt traces Bell's race against rival Elisha Gray, the birth of what became AT&T, and the telephone's explosive spread from 21 subscribers to millions within decades. More than a faster telegraph, the telephone rewired human expectations, making instant connection across distance the new normal—a standard every communication technology since has been measured against.

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Episode 1015: Greatest American Inventions — The Electric Telegraph Jul 27, 2026

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In 1844, a painter named Samuel Morse and machinist Alfred Vail shattered the oldest limit on human civilization: the speed of information. Their electromagnetic telegraph sent messages by wire at the speed of electricity, ending an era when news traveled no faster than a horse or a ship. Host Newt opens his 15-part series, Greatest American Inventions: 1776 to 2026, with Morse's historic first transmission—"What hath God wrought"—and traces how the telegraph created the template every future network would follow: infrastructure, standards, and value that grows with scale. It's the origin story of modern markets, journalism, and connected America.

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Episode 1014: The Power of Pull — What Most Startup Founders Get Wrong Jul 26, 2026

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Most startup founders are doing it backwards — and Harvard Innovation Labs fellow Rob Snyder spent two miserable years learning that the hard way. After failing to sell a product that made perfect logical sense, a single phone call from a Dunkin' franchisee changed everything: the customer didn't want what Snyder was selling but offered to pay for something else entirely. That pivot took his company from zero to $4 million in revenue. Snyder joins Newt Gingrich to discuss his new book, The Power of Pull, and the counterintuitive framework he's used to help 50 startups reach their first million in revenue. They explore the "pain cave" every founder enters, why pushing your product onto customers almost never works, what a "hell yes customer" looks like, and how the fastest-growing startups turn one great success story into a repeatable factory.

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Episode 1013: Bad Counselors — An All-American Made Film Jul 23, 2026

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For years, Hollywood executive Chris Fenton helped American studios chase the Chinese market — inserting pro-Beijing messaging into films, moving production offshore, and teaching China's own industry how to compete. Now he regrets it. Fenton joins Newt to explain how 60% of American film and TV production has moved overseas, costing Los Angeles alone more than 40,000 jobs, and why the US is the only major film-producing nation without a federal production incentive. His answer: Bad Counselors, a 100% American-made comedy — American cast, crew, and financing — shot in North Carolina, Tennessee, and California, hitting theaters nationwide July 22nd. Fenton also makes the economic case for a national film production incentive backed by a bipartisan congressional coalition, arguing that a simple 10% federal rebate could cut offshore production nearly in half and restore Hollywood's American identity.

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Episode 1012: Inside the Ukraine War – Drones, Diplomacy, and the Risk of Escalation Jul 19, 2026

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The Ukraine war has now outlasted World War I — and there's no clear end in sight. Former CIA Russia analysis director George Beebe joins Newt for a sobering assessment of where things stand. They dig into how AI-guided drones costing $17,500 apiece are reshaping the battlefield and challenging a century of military doctrine, why Ukraine's deep strikes on Russian oil infrastructure are more effective than previous campaigns but still can't win the war alone, and what it would actually take to get Putin to the negotiating table. Beebe argues the conflict is not just a bilateral Russia-Ukraine dispute — it's a larger confrontation over the foundations of European security that requires the United States at the table, not just as mediator. He also warns that the window for a negotiated compromise may be closing, and that the escalatory risks — including nuclear — are higher than most people realize.

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Episode 1011: Americans Who Made the 20th Century — From Ronald Reagan to Hedy Lamarr Jul 18, 2026

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What does it mean to have the American can-do spirit — and who best embodied it during the most turbulent century in our nation's history? Author Richard Battle joins Newt to discuss his new book, AmeriCANS Who Made America: 20th Century — The American Century, the fourth volume in his celebrated series. Battle profiles 43 patriots, leaders, and innovators who carried America forward through the Spanish flu, two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Space Race. The conversation brings several of them to life: Audie Murphy, the orphaned farm boy who became World War II's most decorated soldier; John Wayne, who used film to inspire patriotism; Ronald Reagan, the everyday American who became president; Martin Luther King Jr., who achieved more for civil rights in 13 years than the previous 350; and Hedy Lamarr, the Hollywood star whose wartime invention became the foundation of Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth.

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Episode 1010: Rick Scott – It's Time for the Senate to Do Its Job Jul 15, 2026

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With the SAVE America Act stalled in the Senate for the third time, Senator Rick Scott is sounding the alarm. The former two-term governor and successful entrepreneur joins Newt for a frank conversation about the Senate's capacity, and willingness, to get things done. Scott makes no secret of his frustration: the Senate has been in session only 79 days this year, and the SAVE America Act — requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID at the polls — has passed the House three times and is still going nowhere. Scott lays out his plan for the weeks ahead, from pushing the SAVE Act to avoiding a government shutdown and makes the case for bringing bills to the floor and making members vote. He also discusses healthcare transparency, runaway deficits, and what it truly means to do the job voters sent you to Washington to do.

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Episode 1009: Glory, Grief, and the Gavel The Most Dramatic Speaker's Race in a Century Jul 12, 2026

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In January 2023, Kevin McCarthy endured five grueling days and 15 rounds of balloting to win the Speaker's gavel — the most dramatic Speaker's race in a century. John Leganski was at the center of it all. As McCarthy's Deputy Chief of Staff and the youngest floor director in House history, he watched up close as a small band of "Never Kevins" brought the People's House to a standstill. Now he's written the definitive inside account: Glory, Grief, and the Gavel. Leganski joins Newt — himself a former Speaker — for a candid conversation about the "Maybe Kevins" versus the "Never Kevins," the last-minute phone call where President Trump unleashed a private tirade, the emotional moment the gavel was finally won, and how the very coalition that delivered the speakership ultimately destroyed it nine months later.

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Episode 1008: Trump's Superpower The Founders Return Jul 11, 2026

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What would the Founding Fathers think of America today? That question sparked historian and novelist Johanna Neuman's new book, Trump's Superpower, in which George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and other founders — plus revolutionary-era writer Mercy Otis Warren — are summoned back to earth for America's 250th birthday and dropped into today's culture wars. Neuman joins Newt Gingrich to discuss the novel's premise, her argument that reclaiming the founders is President Trump's greatest political strength, and why she believes the Founding Fathers are trending again in American culture. The conversation also covers Neuman's remarkable journalism career — from covering the Reagan White House and Jim Baker's State Department to writing Gilded Suffragists, her award-winning history of the fashionable New York socialites who helped push women's suffrage over the finish line.

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