Heritage Events Podcast

Reverberations from the 2016 Presidential election continue to rattle the national political stage. In Bet You Didn’t See That One Coming, former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich offers his analysis of the unexpected election of Donald J. Trump, the resultant earth-shattering changing of the guard in Washington, how it’s turned establishment politics on its head, and what it all means for the future of the nation. The 24/7 media circus that follows President Trump distracts from the fundamental issue of what his election means for America going forward. Bet You Didn’t See That One Coming explains how Barack Obama’s progressive policies helped ignite the ultimate anti-Obama political warrior – and how a neophyte politician’s new blend of populism, nationalism, and traditional Republican policies is pulling a polarized country back toward the right. Governor Robert L. Ehrlich is a graduate of Princeton University and Wake Forest University School of Law and is a former Governor of Maryland as well as a former United States Congressman and state legislator. He is also the author of Turn This Car Around,America: Hope for Change, and Turning Point, in addition to columns and opinion pieces that have appeared in America’s leading newspapers and periodicals, including The Washington Examiner,The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, and National Review. Currently, Governor Ehrlich is a partner at the firm of King & Spalding in Washington, D.C.

America’s child welfare system is overburdened. The opioid crisis is putting thousands more children at risk. In response, some states are recruiting new families to foster and, in some cases, to adopt through partnerships with faith-based agencies and faith communities. Other states are suspending cooperation with child welfare agencies because of their religious beliefs. These disagreements have led to litigation in multiple states and the displacement of thousands of children. As the need for the number of foster and adoptive families increases, America needs solutions that work best for children. Please join us for an address by Governor Bevin followed by a panel discussion on this pressing issue.

A powerful, heartbreaking, and redemptive account of a boy who endured a childhood of poverty and abuse in an American Southwest trailer park named Cloud 9. Abandoned by his father at age two, Rick Sylvester lived with an abusive mother whose struggles as a member of the working poor led her to drugs, alcohol, theft, and prostitution – and eventually attempted suicide. Rick battled depression, anxiety, and PTSD as the chaos, neglect, and unpredictability of his childhood seemed to doom him to follow in his mother's footsteps. Well into adulthood, Rick stumbled through unemployment and divorce, using drugs and alcohol to numb the pain until he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Miraculously, though, he overcame the odds and today is a happy husband and father. How did this happen? Rick's answer is this: "It was the Lord." Ericka Andersen’s new book, Leaving Cloud 9, offers a powerful message of hope to those who are drowning from an undeserved childhood and feeling ignored and hopeless.

Join us for the release of The Heritage Foundation’s Blueprint for Balance – a detailed policy agenda for Congress to balance the budget without raising taxes, ensure a strong national defense, and protect individual liberty and economic freedom. Heritage experts will review the need for fiscal and policy reforms this year, the opportunities before lawmakers to make their mark on appropriations and the budget process, and what’s next on tax reform. With fiscal year 2019 spending bills in full swing in Congress, lawmakers are setting spending priorities and pursuing policy reforms for next year and the years ahead. At the same time, the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform is holding hearings to identify and recommend reforms to improve the budget process this fall. With $21 trillion in national debt, a projected $800 billion deficit this year, and a budget process that has not worked as intended since 1996, reform is critical to reviving fiscal discipline and preventing a fiscal crisis from undermining economic growth, opportunity, and prosperity for Americans.

President Reagan’s often mocked strategy of “peace through strength” won the Cold War. Critical to that success were his nuclear deterrent polices. By both modernizing our strategic nuclear deterrence while also initiating what would become a nearly ninety percent reduction in American and Soviet (now Russian) deployed strategic nuclear warheads – he changed the strategic nuclear landscape. Join us as our speakers review not only this history, but also explain how the lessons of the Reagan Presidency and the end of the Soviet empire hold key historical lessons which we can apply to today’s strategic and nuclear challenges.

Born into a military family, Harris Faulkner revered her father, a decorated career officer who served three tours of duty in Vietnam and raised his children with the values and ideals of the U.S. military. Accompanying him from posting to posting, young Harris experienced firsthand how success in life was rooted in the knowledge, integrity, and leadership that came from her military surroundings. Indeed, these formative lessons in leadership and work ethic became the guiding principles for her career as a journalist, lessons she credits with her rise to become one of the top hosts on Fox News. In 9 Rules of Engagement, she shares the advice, wisdom, and tools that she absorbed through her military upbringing, examining how these ideals have shaped her professional and personal outlook and how everyone can incorporate them into their own lives. Using her father’s career as the backdrop to her experience, Faulkner explores the lessons in courage, duty, patriotism, and responsibility that helped her succeed, demonstrating the truth to the axiom that in military families everyone serves – together. Along the way she also interviews current and former military families, generals and other officers, and tells stories from her father’s career to illuminate how and why the message and mission of the military is so effective at changing lives both on and off the battlefield. Harris Faulkner anchors her daytime show, Outnumbered Overtime with Harris Faulkner, in addition to cohosting the talk show Outnumbered. In 2017, she moderated the Women’s Inaugural Breakfast, a bipartisan inauguration event in Washington, DC. She lives in New York City.

Islamist terror networks such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have had consistent success in recruiting local youth. This has helped such groups regenerate their ranks despite a string of military defeats in recent years. An equally troubling modern phenomenon has seen Western children taken by their parents to live under the control of terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. There have also been children born in this territory to Western parents. As the “Caliphate” collapses, many of these families will be returning to Europe. While there has been significant focus on how governments should respond to the threat posed by the adults, the appropriate approach towards the children – who have been relentlessly exposed to ISIS propaganda – is not nearly as developed. These challenges present a unique quandary for governments around the world. What should the response be from the international community? How effective has the response been so far? What programs can draw at risk youth away from Islamist ideology? What should the balance be between promoting religious freedom versus human rights more broadly? Our panel will assess the nature of the threat and suggest appropriate policy responses.

Originally constructed in 1921, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is sacred ground at Arlington National Cemetery. When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, selected eight of America’s most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time in The Unknowns, Patrick O’Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animating the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America’s service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Celebrated military historian and bestselling author Patrick O’Donnell illuminates the saga behind the creation of the Tomb itself and recreates the moving ceremony during which it was consecrated and the eight Body Bearers, and the sergeant who had chosen the one body to be interred, solemnly united. The Unknowns is a timeless tale of heeding the calls of duty and brotherhood.

When we think of constitutional law, we invariably focus on the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal court system. Yet much of our constitutional law is not made at the federal level. In 51 Imperfect Solutions, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton argues that American Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal constitution, in protecting individual liberties. 51 Imperfect Solutions addresses four different areas of constitutional law: equal protection, criminal procedure, privacy, and free speech and free exercise of religion. Traditional accounts of these bedrock debates about the relationship of the individual to the state focus on decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. But these are only part of the story. Judge Sutton corrects this omission by looking at each issue – and some others as well – through the lens of many constitutions, not one constitution; of many courts, not one court; and of all American judges, not federal or state judges. A central conviction of his work is that an under-appreciation of state constitutional law has hurt state and federal law and has undermined the appropriate balance between state and federal courts in protecting individual liberty. Several ideas for reform are also offered to correct this imbalance. Join us for an interesting and lively discussion with Judge Sutton on his new book, followed by comments by Ed Whelan.

Jonathan Johnson is the President of Medici Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of online retailer Overstock.com. He played an integral role in getting the retailer known for its furniture stock to accept cryptocurrency, and he leads Medici’s efforts to pioneer growth and innovation in applying the blockchain to financial systems and beyond. Under Johnson's leadership, Medici has invested in several cutting-edge blockchain technology firms, and it successfully completed the world's first blockchain-based stock offering on its tZERO platform. Join us for a discussion of how this technology could reshape the financial industry.

The Senate Agriculture Committee has slated the week of June 11th for markup of its farm bill. Despite repeated calls for fundamental subsidy reform it appears that the Senate Agriculture Committee bill will be maintaining the status quo. One of the fighters for reform is Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). For years the Senator has been leading the charge to push for common sense reforms, such as ensuring that only actual farmers receive subsidies, and setting payment limits for commodity programs. He has also noted in the past that “there’s a problem when 10 percent of farmers receive 70 percent of the benefits. What’s worse is that the 10 percent receiving most of these benefits are wealthy farmers who use the money to bid up land prices and keep young and beginning farmers from the business.” As a farmer, citizen and legislator, Senator Grassley can provide a unique perspective on what reforms need to be made in the upcoming farm bill. After his remarks, there will be a panel of experts to further discuss farm subsidy reform.

The Rise of China is a reality. Its influence – and the opportunity it represents – is being felt from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Southeast Asia, however, is a neighbor. Indonesia, in fact, given Indonesian maritime claims, is right next door. Indonesia has a centuries-long history of dealing with China’s power. How should its government today see the balance between threat and opportunity represented in its rise? How should it make the most of China’s economic contributions to the region’s development? How should it push back on unwelcome initiatives, particularly around issues of maritime security? Where are the intersecting areas of interest with the United States and how should it view a U.S.-China rivalry? What is ASEAN’s role? These are just a few of the questions on the table for this event. Please join us we explore them and many more with our distinguished guests.

Grace Kennan Warnecke’s memoir, Daughter of the Cold War, is about a life lived on the edge of history. Daughter of George F. Kennan, one of the most influential diplomats of the 20th Century, as well as wife of the scion of a newspaper dynasty and mother of the youngest owner of a major league baseball team, she eventually found her way out from under the shadows of others to forge a dynamic career of her own. Born in Latvia, Warnecke lived in seven countries and spoke five languages before the age of twelve. As a child, she witnessed Hitler’s march into Prague, attended a Soviet school during World War II, and sailed the seas with her father. In a multi-faceted career, she worked as a professional photographer, television producer, and book editor and critic. Eventually, like her father, she became a Russian specialist, but of a very different kind. She accompanied Ted Kennedy and his family to Russia, escorted Joan Baez to Moscow to meet with dissident Andrei Sakharov, and hosted Josef Stalin’s daughter on the family farm after Svetlana defected to the United States. While running her own consulting company in Russia, she witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and later became director of a women’s economic empowerment project in a newly independent Ukraine. Daughter of the Cold War is a tale of these adventures and much more. It is a compelling memoir of Warnecke’s path through life – a whirlwind journey of survival, risk, and self-discovery through a kaleidoscope of countries, historic events, and fascinating people.

The concept of “soft power” evokes for many a benign alternative to the exercise of hard power as nations strive for strategic influence abroad. Among the United States and its democratic allies, soft power involves public diplomacy, people-to-people programs, student exchanges, cultural outreach and broadcasting news to foreign publics. For authoritarian regimes, however, the open exchange of ideas that characterize democracies is seen as a weakness and vulnerability to be exploited. In our globalized information environment, countries like China and Russia practice a very different kind of influence projection, termed “sharp power” by the authors of a new study published by the National Endowment of Democracy. As we near the anniversary of President Reagan’s address at Westminster in defense of liberty and democratic values, please join us for a discussion of the emerging “sharp power” threat.

What are the ramifications of the sudden termination of the planned meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un? What factors led to the cancellation and has the door been permanently closed on a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear problem? Will North Korea abandon its moratorium and resume nuclear and missile tests and escalate tension on the Korean Peninsula. Will there be a resumption of advocacy for a U.S. preventive military attack on North Korea? As Pyongyang, Seoul, Beijing, and Washington engaged in summit diplomacy, Japan had been the neglected partner. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had established the closest relationship with President Trump of any world leader but then seemed ignored during the summit mania. Does the U.S.-North Korea summit cancellation vindicate Abe’s firm approach to Pyongyang or has there been lasting impact on his political strength as well as Japan’s relationship with the United States? Join us as two panels of distinguished experts discuss these and other topics as well as make recommendations for U.S. policy in the uncertain time ahead.