Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

What if the fight for America’s soul wasn’t just political, but theological? A powerful movement inside Christian America believes it is on a divine mission to rescue the nation’s institutions; from education and media to business and government. Their chief cheerleader was Charlie Kirk, whose organisation, Turning Point USA, is now better positioned to reshape American life than when he was alive. In the same month as Kirk's assassination, by sheer coincidence, a book was released revealing the incredible backstory of Kirk's plan: The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy. Its author, former journalist and academic Dr Matthew Boedy, joins Josh to explain how a vision of two evangelists in the '70s became the blueprint for a cultural takeover, and how its most modern champion, Charlie Kirk, built a machine capable of turning online outrage into real-world political power.

Insane house prices are destroying the middle-class dream of home ownership. Or... are they? Is there actually a housing crisis? Or are most people, in fact, comfortably paying historically-unremarkable mortgage repayments for a desirable product? Economist Cameron Murray argues for this unpopular (you might even say “uncomfortable”) heterodox view. While many of his peers, like our recent guest Peter Tulip, argue that house prices are too high because of a lack of supply, Cameron reckons they’re actually… checks notes… just fine. Josh pushes on this theory, from interest rates to immigration to the politics of property, in a conversation that asks what really drives up the property price tag, what we’re really paying for... and why we just can’t stop talking about it.

He’s been called the most successful environmentalist in Australian history, and one of the most influential in the world. Former Senator Bob Brown co-founded the world’s first Green Party, in Tasmania in 1972. He led the Australian Greens in Parliament for decades and spearheaded a pivotal moment in global environmentalism, when he helped save the pristine Franklin River from being dammed. Senator Brown joined Josh in Sydney to talk about his life of protest and purpose, from heckling President George W. Bush to being openly gay when it was still illegal. They discuss the phoney choice of voting for major parties, the pickle the modern left finds itself in, and why love and wildness are the keys to saving the planet. His new book is Defiance: Stories from Nature and Its Defenders.

It’s the second anniversary of the October 7th attacks, and the Middle East is abuzz with a new plan that would see an independent Palestinian body administer the Gaza Strip. Could the Gaza War end up delivering real peace? What would it take, in Israel, Palestine and beyond, for the horrors of the past two years to give way to something better than the previous status quo? Yaakov Katz is the former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post after devoting many years as the paper’s military correspondent. He was briefly senior adviser to Naftali Bennett (a former - and, many believe, likely future - Israeli prime minister) and Yaakov’s new book is While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East. Yaakov and Josh reflect on the intelligence and military breakdowns that led to October 7th, the clash between Israeli policies and world opinion, the disillusionment of many Jews with the Gaza War, the trauma on both sides, and whether the future for Arabs and Jews might, in fact, be more hopeful than you’ve been led to believe.

Is it racist to worry that there are more immigrants in London than white English? Has the UK reached a tipping point in its conversation about Britain’s national identity? What’s going on? Race riots; migrant detention hotels ablaze; the prime minister condemning Elon Musk for using “dangerous and inflammatory” language at a nationalist protest with the far-right agitator Tommy Robinson. What happened to tea cups and crumpets, umbrellas and bowler hats - or even the “Cool Britannia” of the London Olympics? Dominic Frisby is an English comedian, musician, author, and philosophiser about social justice, diversity, finance, economics, and all things cultural. As a Brexiteer (and a return-to-the-gold-standard Bitcoiner), he rejected accusations that he was “far right” with his hit song “We’re All Far Rigt Now”. It broke the internet with tens of millions of views and lyrics like “Worse than Winston Churchill, worse than Enoch Powell, Klu Klux Clan and Jimmy Fallon, we’re all racist now. Oh, the countryside is racist. Dogs and cats are racist. Eating meat is racist... We’re all far right now.” Dominic sat down with Josh to wrestle with crime in London, immigration, race, conspiracy theories, freedom of speech, how to avoid a civil war, and why China is secretly stashing bazillions of dollars in gold.

It’s a fact. The way our governments raise and spend money benefits older, richer people, and disadvantages younger people who are trying to build wealth. If we’re going to hold society together - and keep liberal democracy robust - we need massive economic reform. But what does that mean?Allegra Spender is one of Australia’s most popular members of parliament. She belongs to no political party, although her centre-right group of independents, unofficially called the “Teals”, helped to sweep the conservative government from power in 2022. As a former corporate executive and management consultant, Spender recently joined a major economic reform roundtable to advise the government about radically increasing productivity. Spender emerged with controversial ideas about how to make life better for those starting out… and, in so doing, how to shore up democracy for everyone.

Trump. Gaza. Artificial Intelligence. Authoritarianism. Assassinations. Climate Chaos. Russia. Social media. The far right. Terrorism. Political division. How bad are things? More importantly: How would we know?Every generation believes things are falling apart. And at some point, they’ll be right. But the social psychologist Adam Mastroianni argues that we’re exhibiting a kind of doom paralysis right now.Even if things were as bad as they seem, they’re more likely to be solved - and you’re more likely to be constructive - if you assume they’re not.Mastroianni has a PhD from Harvard and studies how knowledge and ideas spread, and how people think about each other. His terrific Substack newsletter is Experimental History, and he joins Josh to help us understand why some people feel powerless, and some enthusiastic, about the challenges ahead.

What happens when the public's understanding of a global event is hijacked by online psuedo-experts? How should scientists express uncertainty when everyone's suspicious? Was Anthony Fauci the victim of a crazed conspiracy, or is there something fishy in the official origins of Covid-19? The inside story of how the Covid lab leak hypothesis went mainstream is just one of the tales which the science journalist Elizabeth Finkel investigates in her new book. Josh is still suspicious of the Wuhan lab so the two of them debate the wet market, gain of function research, China's secrecy, RFK's disinformation, Occam's razor, and how to do good science in a post-truth era. Finkel is the co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of COSMOS magazine and a regular contributor to Science magazine. Her new book is Prove It: A Scientific Guide for the Post-Truth Era.

What holds liberal democracy together in an age of social media, tribal politics and rising violence? Josh has been trying to get Waleed Aly to submit to doing this show for years, and finally nailed him down. Do not miss this powerful episode. Waleed is a controversial superstar Down Under. He's the recipient of Australia's highest journalism award, a Walkley, and its highest television prize, a Gold Logie, for hosting The Project, a nightly network news panel show, for more than ten years. He's also a professor of politics working in the Monash University Global Terrorism Research Centre. A practising Muslim, he has a deep understanding of extremism on the left and right.  Don't miss Waleed and Josh, two very different intellects, in this frank, far-reaching conversation about extremism, free speech, and whether our civic fabric can withstand the pressures of technology and ideology.

What does "Zionism" mean after the destruction of Gaza? As Josh wrestles with this question himself, Charlotte Korchak is his Zionist guide today. She's a young, vibrant, American-born educator about Israel who joined Josh on her whirlwind trip to Sydney. The pair of them wrestle with justice, Jewishness, antisemitism and how Zionism should coexist with a Palestinian state.

America's pre-eminent conservative youth activist, Charlie Kirk, has been assassinated while speaking at a Utah college. Josh shares his thoughts... and reintroduces a classic monologue about America, violence and guns.

What can a stunningly beautiful, dirt-poor, corrupt, tropical-island nation teach us about the battle between China and the West... and about how climate chaos will affect you?A lot, it turns out. In this bonus episode, Josh is on the ground in Solomon Islands, where leaders from across the Pacific are currently attending the 54th Pacific Islands Forum Meeting. Beneath all the happy-talk about foreign aid is a deeper subtext. The big rich players (i.e. Australia) are trying to bribe their tiny South Pacific neighbours into siding with the West instead of China.Josh visits a freshwater spring in the jungle with one of Australia's leading hydro-geologists, Sam Buchanan, who's stationed in Solomon Islands to manage its long-term water projects. Sam works for the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, The Pacific Community, and is a world-leading expert on water security and climate resilience in small island developing states. He's also one of Josh's oldest friends, who brought to Josh's attention this amazing story in a forgotten tropical battleground.Josh and Sam drive around Guadalcanal, the country's main island (and the site of the famous WWII battle in which a young naval officer named John F Kennedy made his name), discussing how the country gets its water, how it gets energy, how foreign aid is distributed, how geophysicists are using MRI technology to scan for underground water, and what this all has to do with DOGE, Trump, and subsidence in the Central Valley of California.

Josh reflects on the death of his dad after years with Alzheimer’s - the strange in-between of losing someone before they’re gone, and the lessons he wishes he’d acted on earlier. Then, a live recording of Josh delivering the official eulogy at the funeral.

Why is housing in Australia so unaffordable, and what can be done about it? Peter Tulip, former economist at the US Federal Reserve and the Reserve Bank of Australia, now chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies joins Josh to unpack the roots of the housing crisis. They discuss supply and demand, heritage rules, immigration, infrastructure, and why the dream of home ownership is slipping out of reach for younger generations.

What is the future of the media? Are we doomed to inhabit our own social-media news bubbles, tailored by algorithms to keep us “engaged”? Will readers return to old-school news outlets? Or is there a third way? That’s Substack’s bet. The platform is transforming the media landscape by enabling journalists and creators to speak directly to users. Just as Josh was embarking on Substack’s first-ever around-the-world livestream marathon, the company announced a new round of funding, vaulting it past a billion-dollar valuation and making it one of Silicon Valley’s “unicorns”.  Substack’s co-founders are Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, who were kind enough to sit down with Josh to discuss the conflict between free speech and hate speech, the decline of legacy media, the role of video, the challenges of living in a social-media world… and the future of their little company that’s becoming very, very big.

How does an adventurous, open-minded, well-travelled young bloke get interested in nationalism... and then in Western supremacy... and then white pride... Until he becomes so obsessed with protecting Western Civilization from Islam, that he shoots nearly a hundred innocent Muslims and livestreams the massacre to cheering racists around the world? The official government line is that the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooter was a lone wolf. The killer himself cultivated this image. But the movement that radicalised him is a complex network of persuasion. It starts with goofy alt-right memes. It moves on to far-right forums like 4Chan & 8Chan. And it expresses itself in real-world groups like the white supremacist "migrant hunters" with whom the Christchurch shooter embedded in central and eastern Europe. Joey Watson is a young investigative journalist who's been painstakingly exploring the far-right internet swamp - and travelling to Serbia, Austria and Bulgaria - to retrace the Christchurch terrorist's radicalisation. Joey and Josh discuss how immigration, nationalism, Islam, bigotry and the internet are being built into an ideological powder keg... and how we might defuse it.

Nick Cave is one of Australia’s biggest musical exports. But after forty years as a rockstar - and the death of two sons - he's become something else: A unofficial poet laureate and philosopher king through his online letters project, The Red Hand files. Nick sat down with Josh in London on the Szeps Live World Tour to discuss songwriting, grief, faith... and, as a bonus, to critique some of Josh's recent episodes.

Jimmy Carr is one of the most successful stand-up comics on earth. His hilarious, brutal crowd work is a viral sensation. His Netflix specials are smash hits. He hosts huge UK television panel shows and is currently touring the US, UK & Europe (and Australia and New Zealand early next year) with his latest live show, JIMMY CARR: LAUGHS FUNNY. Jimmy and Josh caught up in-the-flesh in London on the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon to discuss crowd work, Elon Musk, immigration, COVID, and Kanye. All info and tickets for Jimmy’s tour are available at www.jimmycarr.com

He’s been grilled before Congress, clashed with Bill Maher, and built a reputation as one of the most interesting young intellectuals in America. Coleman Hughes doesn’t just write and broadcast, he also plays a mean jazz trombone, bringing the same contrarian rhythm to politics as he does to music. During the Szeps Live World Tour’s jaunt through New York, Josh and Coleman sat down to dive into race, identity, Trumpism, and whether the Left can find its groove again.

As the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon barrels along, Josh and his long-suffering producer, Jono, cruise their rented convertible into the hills of Northeast Los Angeles. There, they track down the ultimate iconoclast, Meghan Daum - former Los Angeles Times columnist, humorist, defender of sanity and all-round cultural firebrand.  Meghan's independent media empire is The Unspeakeasy - a podcast, Substack publication and a community for freethinking women. Enjoy this sparkling ramble through the culture wars.