The months-long protests in Hong Kong continue to escalate, with demonstrators and police officers violently clashing at a university campus this week. As protests continue against Communist China, what lessons does the battle for freedom against the Communist Soviet Union hold for Hong Kong? Former Polish President, Solidarity founder, and Nobel Prize winner Lech Walesa weighs in.

The former President of Poland and founding Chairman of Solidarity Lech Walesa joined the podcast to discuss his experience with anti-government protests and offer advice to the people of Hong Kong. Promising to stand with demonstrators, Walesa states that he would be willing to go to Hong Kong and fight for the democratic ideals that protesters are demanding.

November 4th marked the 40-year anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis, when a group of Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans captive for 444 days. Four decades later, has the Islamic Republic of Iran changed its ways? And what role does the hostage nightmare continue to play in US-Iran relations?

Kenneth Pollack joined Dany and Marc to explain what happened on that day 40 years ago, and how the hostage crisis set Iran on a course of enmity with the United States. The three discuss Operation Eagle Claw (the failed US rescue mission), how the crisis contributed toward President Jimmy Carter’s removal from office, and whether President Donald Trump’s Iran approach differs from those of his predecessors.

Everyone in Washington set their hair on fire following White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s apparent admission of a quid pro quo for assistance to Ukraine in his news conference last week. But are quid pro quos really that bad? (Depends on the quo.) Has the US government used them before? And shouldn’t foreign aid always be dependent on getting something that’s good for America in return?

Dany and Marc sat down with former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff director Lester Munson to discuss those fateful Latin words. Munson explains that contrary to what many in Washington are saying today, the United States uses quid pro quos in foreign aid all the time. In fact, Americans should expect the US to use quid pro quos when giving away their hard earned tax dollars to foreign governments. That said, no president should leverage aid on getting a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent.

What the hell is going on with impeachment? Is President Trump about to be removed from office? Or will this backfire on the Democrats? As the impeachment inquiry drags on, new questions about Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders, the Bidens’ involvement in Ukraine, and the future of American politics continue to emerge.

This week, Dany and Marc sat down with Karl Rove, “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, to figure out exactly what’s going on in Washington. The three discuss whether Trump broke the law, how average Americans view the impeachment process, and what all this means for the 2020 presidential race.

Seventy years ago, on October 1^st 1949, Mao Zedong Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party stood in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Since then, relations between the US and China have developed along an unstable timeline sometimes seeing the two nations working in unison toward shared objectives, while at other times being at odds politically and economically. Through it all, AEI scholars analyze the relationship and provide actionable policy recommendations to Congress and the White House.

The post The People’s Republic of China appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.

Two of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil facilities were attacked on September 14, setting fire to and severely damaging the world’s largest oil refinery. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes, but the US has said there is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen, instead blaming Iran. So who’s really responsible? And should the US respond?

As world leaders try to make sense of the recent attacks, Dany and Marc sat down with Katherine Zimmerman to learn more about the different actors and rivalries in the region, and the Saudi and Iranian roles in Yemen’s ongoing civil war. They also speculate over how the strikes will affect the US-Saudi alliance and already fragile US-Iran relations.

Antisemitism is on the rise once again both in the United States and abroad. Worse yet, this awful hatred manifests itself not only in the depths of Twitter, but also within the governments of vibrant democracies. Just last week, Israel barred two US congresswomen from entering the country, citing their anti-Semitic comments.

What explains this renewed phenomenon? While in Europe, Dany and Marc interviewed Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Conducted from the former concentration camp, the three discuss the rise of antisemitism today and the importance of preserving the memory of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

Protests in Hong Kong turned violent this week, with police officers firing tear gas and rubber bullets, and demonstrators vandalizing a Chinese government building. How long will Beijing tolerate democratic rumblings from Hong Kong without a major crackdown? Could this be the next Tiananmen? And will the United States react if Beijing responds with force?

Hong Kong expert Gordon Chang joined Dany and Marc to explain what’s going on in Hong Kong, and what it all might mean for the Chinese Communist Party. Chang also discusses the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China, how protests could affect the US-China trade relationship, and whether the US should be doing more to support the people of Hong Kong.

Last week, President Trump decided to call off a military strike on Iran after the country downed an unmanned US drone. Numerous news outlets reported that the president stood down from that decision because he saw General Jack Keane point out on television that it was possible that Iran’s strike was a fluke.

On this episode of “What the Hell Is Going On?” Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen address recent Iranian provocations and US cyber strategy with General Jack Keane. They also discuss Trump’s visit to North Korea and the president’s relationships with dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.

What the hell is going on in North Korea? Is Kim Jong Un really executing people using piranha-filled tanks? Recent reports state that the North Korean regime is carrying out executions and purges over the failure to reach a nuclear agreement with the Trump administration.

On their second episode of “What the Hell Is Going On?” Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen discuss North Korea with AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt. The three cover what might happen to someone who falls out of favor with the North Korean regime, the future of US-North Korea nuclear talks, life in one of Kim’s gulags, and the likelihood of North Korean denuclearization.