American Thought Leaders

Rob Henderson grew up in poverty in Los Angeles moving from foster home to foster home, seeing addiction, instability, and family breakdown all around him. He joined the U.S. Air Force at 17, entered Yale University at 25 with help from the GI Bill, and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He climbed “every rung on the American class ladder,” as he describes it.

But at Yale and other elite universities, he saw the spread of radical ideas—abolish the police, empty prisons, dismantle marriage, decriminalize all drugs—ideas that he understood would be devastating to the communities he grew up in.
And that’s how he came to develop his now famous concept of luxury beliefs: “Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the affluent … while inflicting costs on the less fortunate members of society,” he says.
How is it that these ideas came to be so pervasive? And what are their true consequences for society?
Henderson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor of City Journal, and bestselling author of “Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.”
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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It’s been over six years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, yet much of the scientific establishment still seems unwilling to acknowledge or openly debate where this virus came from.
In this episode, Matt Ridley, co-author of “Viral,” breaks down the significance of newly declassified documents released by Homeland Security Secretary Tulsi Gabbard and the evidence of a coordinated cover-up of COVID-19’s origins.
Ridley delves into a key paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published by Nature Medicine, exposing how the authors themselves believed that a lab leak was a likely possibility while publicly pushing the opposite narrative.
Troubling questions arise: Why hasn’t the international community held China accountable for what happened at the Wuhan lab? Why is America so attentive to cybersecurity, but completely blind to biosecurity? And why are there such close ties between Western scientific research and Chinese dual-purpose facilities like the lab in Wuhan?
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

“We will not let Communist Party of China define who we are,” said Taiwan’s Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, who has been sanctioned by Beijing and labeled a “separatist.”

Despite Beijing’s ever-growing hostility toward Taiwan, she is not deterred.
In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has escalated its “gray zone” operations, naval aggression, large-scale encirclement drills and missile tests, and aircraft incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has promised to seize Taiwan—including by force if necessary.
Beijing has also aggressively sought to isolate Taiwan internationally and peel away its allies. Only 11 countries and the Holy See still maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan as of 2026.
“China’s cognitive warfare, psychological warfare, political warfare, legal warfare, and very aggressive interventions in our domestic society and politics [have] become an increasingly serious problem,” Hsiao said.
Born to a Taiwanese father and an American mother, Hsiao previously served in Taiwan’s legislature and as the island’s top representative in Washington, where she became known for her “cat warrior diplomacy.”
Although Taiwan is only about the size of Maryland, it plays a pivotal role in the global economy, producing more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors—the chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones, cars, and much of tomorrow’s technology.
It is also America’s fourth-largest trading partner, and nearly half of all global container ships—dwarfing even shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—sail through the narrow Taiwan Strait, carrying trillions in trade.
“Everything we’re doing today in strengthening Taiwan is to prevent an invasion, to prevent that scenario from happening,” Hsiao said.
Recently, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau established a secure information-reporting channel for Chinese nationals to submit intelligence tips—a unprecedented move for Taiwan.
In this episode, I sat down with Hsiao in the presidential office of Taiwan to understand what’s really at stake here and how Taiwan is working to strengthen its whole-of-society resilience and deter a greater conflict.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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With Chinese leader Xi Jinping repeatedly stating his plans to take Taiwan by force if necessary, many are wondering: What might such an invasion look like, and how prepared is Taiwan to defend itself and withstand such an assault?
Enoch Wu is working to tip the balance in Taiwan’s favor. Born in Chicago to Taiwanese parents, he decided to quit his lucrative career as a finance executive in Hong Kong to join Taiwan’s special forces in his early 30s. And he’s since devoted his life to preventing Taiwan from being wiped from the map by its large totalitarian neighbor.
In 2020, he founded Forward Alliance to train ordinary Taiwanese in trauma medicine, search and rescue, establish communication networks, and organize shelters during a crisis.
The group has now trained tens of thousands of ordinary Taiwanese to become de facto first responders through partnerships with local churches, schools, and other community groups.
Wu explains his philosophy: while the military serves as a country’s sword, societal resilience serves as its shield.
At the heart of our conversation is an urgent message: “The whole point of living in a democratic society,” Wu says, “is that we are all owners, and we have to take responsibility. We can’t treat democracy like a heritage that’s just passed down. You can’t take it as a given. You have to continue to nurture it. You have to invest in it. You have to improve it.”
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Leonardo da Vinci once wrote that the key to developing a “complete mind” was to “study the science of art. Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

In 2009, Sherry Zhang and a group of dedicated California parents who were disillusioned with the schools in their area decided to co-found an academic institution that would put this philosophy into practice.
A former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory postdoctoral chemist, Zhang shares her unexpected journey from working in a garage tech start up to being a founding member of a classical academy.
In this episode, Zhang discusses the core philosophy behind classical education—built upon three tenets: truth, goodness, and beauty. She reveals how intensive training in classical Chinese dance, ballet, visual arts, and music causes students to develop habits of perseverance, focus, and attentiveness that transfer to academics.
In an age dominated by instant gratification and digital distraction, Zhang explains how the structure of classical arts provides order that children long for.
One student, Hugo, came to the San Francisco High School of the Arts unable to focus and with failing grades. After one year at the school, he began to prosper academically, and his mother was stunned. His story is just one among many, Zhang says.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.