On episode 58—recorded from Lord Ravenscroft's desolate manor—Charles reviews objections to his approach to counting states, relates the most recent problems he's had with his golf cart, and talks to Tim Carney about his new book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be. Among the questions Charles and T…

On episode 57, Charles announces a special jigsaw puzzle and relates which 44 states he's visited before talking to Robert Frommer about an extraordinary case of civil asset forfeiture. The dial-up tone in the introduction was recorded by lintphishx and is used under a CC 3.0 License.Charles C. W. Cooke, Robert Frommer

On episode 56, Charles talks to Father Nathaniel Meyers, the Pastor of the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Buffalo, MN, about whether God exists, how we can know, and whether it ultimately matters. Fr. Meyers's reading list: St. Augustine's City of God A Contemporary Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God Anything by Cardinal Ratzinger Lett…

Charles invites Gareth Russell to tell him all about his latest book, The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court. Among the topics they discuss are the wives of Henry VIII, the use of séances to get one's own way, the first performances of Macbeth and Hamlet, the writing of the King James Bible, snobb…

Charles introduces a new section on the show: Manatee Fact Hour. Then he invites that reprobate Kevin Williamson on for another throwback show. Presented by Prang and Company. The dial-up tone in the introduction was recorded by lintphishx and is used under a CC 3.0 License.Charles C. W. Cooke, Kevin D. Williamson

def generate_podcast_intro(episode_number, host_name, guest_name, topic): intro = f"On episode {episode_number} of the {host_name} Podcast, budget cuts destroy the introduction and {informal_name} talks to {guest_name} about {topic}." return intro episode_number = 53 host_name = "Charles C. W. Cooke" informal_name = "Charles" guest_name = "Timothy …

On episode 52, Charles talks to Peter Suderman about cocktails. Among the topics discussed are: What is a cocktail? When were they invented? How have they changed over time? What is the 'cocktail renaissance'? How have laws affected their production or development? And how did Peter get into this in the first place? The dial-up tone in the introduc…

In episode 51, Charles confesses that he is genuinely morose about the end of the Jaguars season, and then talks to his colleagues about their own sporting highs and lows. For just $5/month, you can help a sad male fan. The dial-up tone in the introduction was recorded by lintphishx and is used under a CC 3.0 License.…

On episode 50, Charles is rudely prevented from staging his radio play by the Ghost of Luther Abel. After that, he talks to Rafael A. Mangual about crime. (Here's his book.) Among the questions they discuss are why Rafael believes that the U.S. has a "decarceration problem"; whether too many Americans are in jail; whether the justice system is "rac…

On episode 49—so called because there have been 48 others—Charles talks to Russ Roberts, the host of the EconTalk podcast and the president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. Among the topics they discuss are: What life has been like in Jerusalem since October 7; why Russ started a podcast so early; why he's less interested in economics than he used t…

On episode 48, Charles celebrates the Jacksonville Jaguars' 34-14 victory over the Tennessee Titans, and then talks to Steve Simpson about the core of America's system of government: the separation of powers. Among the questions discussed are: What is separation of powers? Why does it matter? Does America still have it? Can it co-exist with the mod…

On episode 47, Charles tries to work out why some of the anti-Israel protests have bothered him so much, and then talks to Ruy Texeira about the current state of the Democratic Party. Among the questions asked are: Why is Texeira's new book called 'Where Have All the Democrats Gone?' when the Democrats seem to be doing fine? Why is the "shadow Demo…

On episode 46, Charles talks to Dan Senor about the horrors of October 7. Among the topics discussed are: What happened? Why did it happen? Why would Hamas's apologists say it happened? Was Dan surprised that it happened? Does he worry about another Holocaust? Has he been shocked by the reaction in the United States? What will happen next? Why does…

On episode 45, Charles admits that he missed the podcast's anniversary. Then he talks to Yascha Mounk about his new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. Among the topics discussed are where identity politics comes from, how it spread so fast over the last ten years, why it's a problem, whether opposition to it should be …

On episode 44, Charles talks to NPR's Steve Inskeep about his excellent new book on Abraham Lincoln, Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America. Among the topics discussed are whether the book is a call for engagement in the modern era, whether practical politics gets a bad rap, what Lincoln really thought about African-Americans, w…

On episode 43, Charles answers a question about atheism and individual rights: "How can your belief in unalienable rights be squared with your professed atheism?" Then he talks to Heather Mac Donald about her book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives. The dial-up tone in the …

On episode 42, Charles answers a question about the game of Rugby, and then talks to Douglas Brunt about his fascinating new book about Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine and, at one point, one of the most famous and interesting people in the world. Among the questions asked are: Why have we not heard more about Diesel? What sort of w…

On episode 41, Charles talks to the historian Niall Ferguson about Cold War II (not Cold War 2.0). Among the questions asked are: What is a Cold War and why are we in one? Is China now more ideological than it was twenty years ago? Should America be taking more drastic action at home and abroad? What sort of tools should the United States be creati…

On episode 40, Charles talks to Winkfield Twyman Jr. and Jennifer Richmond about their book, Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America. Among the issues discussed: Have our conversations about race got worse despite conditions for African-Americans having improved? Is racial solidarity necessary in a country that once had …

On episode 39 of the Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles talks to Rob Long, a writer and the founder of Ricochet.com, about the ongoing "Hollywood Strike," which is now on its 114th day. What's it about? Is it justified? How—and when—will it end? Why do entertainment figures have unions? Is streaming ruining everything? Will this strike make it wo…

On episode 38, Charles begins by rebuffing a takeover attempt from a ghostly Luther Ray Abel. Afterwards, he talks to the novelist Lionel Shriver about immortality, the topic of her recent cover story at National Review. What are the personal and societal implications of immortality? What drives her to write about that topic? Does Lionel want to li…

On episode 37, Charles talks to historian, Andrew Roberts, about Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte, King George III, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and others. Among the topics discussed: Where did Churchill get his literary ability? What would have happened if Britain had made peace with the Nazis in 1940? Was Napoleon a 'tyrant'? Is the U.S. un…

On episode 36, Charles begins by highlighting his favorite parts of Becky Pringle's astonishing speech to the 2023 NEA Conference, and then chats with "school-choice evangelist" Corey DeAngelis about the dramatic increase in interest in his prescriptions since COVID-19 changed the world. Among the questions Corey answers are: "What is school choice…

On episode 35 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles begins by answering a question about what he prefers about England and what he prefers about America, and then talks to Eli Lake about whether the Espionage Act of 1917 ought to exist, and whether Donald Trump ought to have been charged under it. The dial-up tone in the introduction was reco…

On episode 34, Charles talks to Tim Carney about his book, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse. Among the topics they discuss are what constitutes "the American Dream," whether that American Dream is "dead" (as Donald Trump charged in 2016), and, if so, when that decline started and what caused it. After that, Charles as…

On this pop-up episode, Charles talks to the Pacific Legal Foundation's Ethan Blevins about the Supreme Court's decision to strike down affirmative action, and then answers a question about his time at King's College Choir School in Cambridge. The dial-up tone in the introduction was recorded by lintphishx and is used under a CC 3.0 License.…

On episode 32—released on the 32nd of the month—Charles talks to Gareth Russell, who wrote a book about the Titanic (Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era) and who, a couple of years ago, was invited to take a trip on the Titan submersible that sank this week. Among the topics Charles and Gareth discuss are why…

On episode 31 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast—this one with 100% less Luther Abel—Charles chats with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya about his reflections on the pandemic. What did he get right? What did he get wrong? Has the public health establishment learned its lesson? Does it deserve to be trusted? If so, how would we get back to that? Does Dr. Bhatta…

On episode 30 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles welcomes back his old Mad Dogs and Englishmen co-host, Kevin Williamson, to talk about cities, crime, whether libertarians were wrong about marijuana legalization, going to Italy, shooting snakes with revolvers, and who is going to be the Republican nominee in 2024. No PPE money was destroye…

In this special "pop-up" episode, Charles talks to Andy McCarthy about why, since Episode 5, Andy has changed his view on whether or not the FBI is irredeemable and should be abolished. The dial-up tone in the introduction was recorded by lintphishx and is used under a CC 3.0 License.Charles C. W. Cooke, Andy McCarthy

On this week's episode of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast—the first since Charles got a haircut—Charles talks to Elbridge Colby about Taiwan. Among the topics discussed are why Taiwan matters more to the United States and the West more generally than, say, the Falkland Islands; whether Americans are prepared for an invasion; if China is our biggest…

Is free speech more at risk in the U.K. or the U.S.? Should Britain adopt a First Amendment? How can it possibly be legal for the police to place "non-crimes" on Brits' criminal records? Why is Scotland so censorious? And is it getting better? On Episode 27, Charles talks to Toby Young about these questions and more. He also discusses the delicious…

Episode 26 begins with a Q&A. The first question has to do with infringements on constitutional rights. “Why is it okay to infringe on a right when it comes to requiring voters to register, but it isn't okay to infringe on a right when it comes to requiring gun owners to register?” The second returns to a familiar frame: “As a well known rollercoas…

This week's episode features another whole-show conversation, this time with Daniel Hannan, the writer, blogger and Conservative member of the British House of Lords. Charles and Daniel chat about William Shakespeare, the subject of Daniel's fantastic piece in the most recent issue of National Review. On the table are whether Shakespeare invented t…

On episode 24, Charles starts off by answering two questions. (1) "Were he alive today, would Ben Franklin be repairing old cars or modifying golf carts?" (2) "What do you think the practical end goal of judicial Originalism is supposed to be?" Then it's time for a conversation with pollster and strategist, Giancarlo Sopo, who answers questions abo…

On this 23rd—but not 22nd or 24th—episode, Charles starts by taking on the preposterous idea that if one thinks that Donald Trump ought to have been impeached for what he did in 2021, the unrelated criminal case against him in New York must therefore be correct. Afterwards, Charles talks to Stanford's Lanhee Chen about whether California is salvage…

Overwhelmed by the number of questions he's received about his decision to emigrate, about the USA vs. the UK, and about whether he'd ever consider moving back to England, Charles asks Sam Negus, a fellow British Americaphile (and, now, a fellow American citizen), to chat with him about what it's like to move from the Old Country to the New World. …

In the wake of the second largest bank failure in American history, Charles eschews his monologue in order to chat to someone who knows what he's talking about: the economist, John H. Cochrane, who is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a co-host of the show Goodfellows, and the author of the Grumpy Economist b…

Well, he waited for nineteen episodes, but eventually he let it all out. Charles explains why he is so worried about the constitutional crisis that President Biden has created with his illegal order "forgiving"—read: transferring—student loan debt. If it's not fixed, he argues, there is trouble ahead. After that, he asks Noah Rothman some tough que…

The soufflé must be ordered with 24 hours' notice, but, as good luck would have it, this episode must not. This one shakes it up a bit and begins with a Q&A. "If you were to create a British Mount Rushmore, what four faces would it display?" Charles was asked by some rotter who then excluded "John, Paul, George, and Ringo" from eligibility. Charles…

It's the day after the Super Bowl, and that means it's time for episode 18 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, which, this week, features a monologue about last week's remarkably embarrassing State of the Union address (which shouldn't exist), and an interview with Marian Tupy, co-author of Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation…

How many people can say they knew someone who assassinated a president? Charles's guest today is Paul Gregory, whose fascinating book, The Oswalds, relates his relationship with Lee and Marina. Paul tells Charles how he met the Oswalds, what he thought of them, why he still feels some "shame," why he thinks all the conspiracy theories are bunk, and…

It's Friday, and it's 5 o'clock somewhere. That means it's time for episode 16 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, in which Charles addresses everyone's favorite topic—how we can address our deficits and national debt, and why, despite their protestations, the Republicans aren't serious about doing so—and then chats with Vic Matus about his book on…

On the fifteenth episode of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles looks at the case of hockey player Ivan Provorov, and argues that a tolerance for political silence should, in almost every imaginable circumstance, be the default position. Charles's guest this week is Billy Binion, a writer at Reason who tells him about the many disturbing cases…

In this fourteenth episode of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles proposes that you should be deeply suspicious of anyone who picks up a cause, and, ten minutes later, sounds as if they’ve been fighting in favor of it for their entire life. Such people are impressionable, excitable, and ridiculous—and, ultimately, dangerous. After that, he ask…

In the thirteenth episode of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles argues that the ongoing freakout over the House of Representatives's apparent inability to find a Speaker is silly. Perhaps the opposition to McCarthy is frivolous. But it's not a national security threat, or a crisis. Next, Charles talks to Andy Kaplan, a cardiac electrophysiolo…

In this pre-Christmas edition of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles makes the case against conservative nihilism, even when things look really bad. Afterwards, Charles talks to Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs, about America's imperiled work ethic, the brilliant 50-year "PR campaign" in favor of four-year college degrees, and the likelihood that some…

As promised, Charles sings all four operas from Wagner's 'Ring Cycle' — Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Larry's Giant Subs — while accompanying himself on the Mongolian nose flute. In between arias, he argues that the Republican Party's choice is obvious: it can either find candidates that are palatable to the majority, or it can keep on…

This is Episode Ten of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast. Or, as the Founders might have written it: Epiſode 10. Why did English speakers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries do that? What did it denote? When did it stop? Charles starts the show by explaining what he's found. Then, it's on to a debate with Michael Brendan Dougherty on the ques…

It's Thanksgiving, so Charles takes a break from complaining about this politician or that policy or the thing he just read in the newspaper and reflects upon the miracle that is the modern world. He could have been born in Sparta in 400BC, but he wasn't; he was born in England the 1980s, and got to live in America in the 21st century. How lucky is…