Kibbe On Liberty

Author Matt Ridley is well known for his book "The Rational Optimist," which argued that the world is consistently getting better year after year. In the 15 years since that book was published, however, world events have convinced many people that the opposite is actually true. Matt Kibbe sits down with Ridley to discuss his next book project, in which he will update and reflect on his earlier conclusions to see whether there is still reason to be optimistic or if in fact it is rational to be a pessimist.

In a divided America where various groups, including men and women, are increasingly at each other’s throats, is there a way to set aside hatred and judgment in order to love one another? Matt Kibbe sits down with author and educator Warren Farrell to talk about his new book, “Role Mate to Soul Mate,” which seeks to help couples communicate better and build stronger relationships. The same principles apply to political discourse as well. Instead of listening and understanding, too many people have fallen back on accusations and finger-pointing, to the point where it leads to horrific acts of physical violence, such as the murder of Charlie Kirk. Farrell’s work is crucial if we want to live in a country where individuals are treated with kindness and humanity instead of being demonized for their opinions.

At the Universidad de la Libertad in Mexico City, Matt Kibbe sat down with Pano Kanelos, chancellor of the University of Austin, to talk about how higher education has gone wrong and what can be done to fix it. In the wake of the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk on a college campus, the fact that universities have become increasingly hostile to open discourse and the pursuit of truth has become more obvious than ever. Ideologically driven curricula, combined with rising costs and the student debt crisis, have made higher education a less appealing prospect, which is a shame when you consider that the purpose of universities was always supposed to be the expansion of human knowledge, not just preparing students for the job market.

Economists are united in pointing out that tariffs on foreign goods are really nothing more than a tax on American consumers, but what fewer people understand is that Trump’s policy on trade is not really about revenue or even about economic protectionism. Matt Kibbe is joined by Phil Magness, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, to explain how the tariffs represent a unilateral expansion of executive power that is now being challenged by the courts. It’s important to remember that Trump will not be president forever, and sooner or later, a Democrat is going to occupy the White House again. At that point, Democrats will be more than happy to use these expanded executive powers in ways that will horrify Trump’s base.

Stoicism and libertarianism are two philosophical systems that at first glance may not seem to have much in common, but Matt Kibbe caught up with Ryan Holiday, host of the "Daily Stoic," to attempt to find some common ground. The philosophy created by ancient Romans like Marcus Aurelius not only teaches us how to cope with adversity but also the importance of becoming the best version of ourselves and continuing to learn from others. In an era when everyone is an armchair philosopher with the ability to safely preach views from the comfort of X, it's useful to remember that we actually need to do the hard work, both to improve personally and to make the world a better place.

As more people who traditionally identified with the progressive Left become disenchanted with woke authoritarianism, libertarianism is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, attracting such unlikely voices as RFK Jr. and Nicole Shanahan. Matt Kibbe caught up with evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, host of “The DarkHorse Podcast,” to talk about how we can cooperate in building a big-tent movement that values personal freedom while not imposing purity tests and alienating this new wave of potential allies.

Some of the biggest names in the liberty movement recently gathered in Texas to celebrate the 90th birthday of Ron Paul, the former congressman and presidential candidate who has inspired so many to become interested in libertarianism. In this special episode of "Kibbe on Liberty," Matt Kibbe sits down with Tom Woods, TEXITcoin founder Bobby Gray, former Rep. Justin Amash (R/I/L-Mich.), and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) to share their memories of Dr. Paul and the impact he has made on their lives. More than any other single individual, Ron Paul is responsible for creating a movement unlike any America has seen before. Even today, more than a decade after his last presidential run, when you ask someone why he cares about liberty, the answer is likely to be Ron Paul.

From school shootings to childhood mental illness and overmedication, it’s clear that something is not right with young boys in America. Yet political correctness, anxiety about racism, and the exaltation of single mothers have prevented many from identifying and trying to correct the problem. Matt Kibbe sits down with Adam Coleman, author of “The Children We Left Behind,” to underline the importance of fathers in raising strong and resilient children. The data on mass shooters shows an almost one-to-one correlation between violent males and boys who grew up without their fathers, with no positive male role models to teach them how to be men, how to protect and provide for others, and how to take responsibility for their own actions. If we want to solve the boy crisis in America, we have to be honest about the fact that strong families are essential and that broken homes lead to broken people.

Public television in the United States has come under fire for its one-sided promotion of leftist ideology, resulting in the recent announcement that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will soon shut down due to funding cuts. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Matt Kibbe sits down with Daniel Harmon, executive producer of “Tuttle Twins,” a show that teaches sound economics to kids, to discuss the exciting fact that President Javier Milei is using the show to replace communist propaganda on Argentinian public television. Milei is already showing the world that free-market economics can quickly revitalize even struggling economies; now he’s showing that public institutions don’t have to be all biased in the same direction. Harmon explains how his media company, Angel Studios, is moving the global conversation toward personal and economic freedom.

At this year’s FreedomFest in Palm Springs, California, Matt Kibbe sat down with Chef Andrew Gruel to talk about food freedom and making America healthy again. Chef Gruel’s philosophy involves cooking simple dishes with quality ingredients to create great-tasting comfort food. However, this is made harder than it needs to be due to government regulations and corrupt unions that raise the prices of food, rely heavily on low-quality imports, and consolidate the industry so that Americans have less competition and choice in what they eat.

At this year’s FreedomFest in Palm Springs, California, founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics, Jennifer Sey, sits down with Matt Kibbe to defend the radical proposition that boys and girls are different and that men cannot become women simply by putting on a dress. As a former competitive gymnast, Sey has a particular interest in protecting women’s sports from male athletes who have an unfair advantage over female athletes. This issue was recently publicized in a heated online back-and-forth between swimmer Riley Gaines and gymnast Simone Biles, who has since deleted her X account. XX-XY Athletics is a clothing brand Sey started to support female athletes who might otherwise be afraid to speak out to defend themselves against accusations of bigotry or hate from the woke Left.

Typically, Americans on the political Left worry about corporate power while those on the Right worry about government power. But the real danger is when corporations and government collude to dictate how you ought to live. We saw this during COVID, when experimental vaccines were pushed onto the American people, earning pharma companies big profits while they were shielded from any liability for the harm their products may cause. At this year’s FreedomFest in Palm Springs, Matt Kibbe caught up with Del Bigtree, host of “The HighWire,” who has devoted most of his career to researching the vaccine industry. He points out that the pharma lobby is more powerful than the banks or even defense contractors and that they effectively control much of what our government does, meaning that our system is neither as capitalist nor as democratic as we imagine.

Many people receive unjust sentences in federal prisons, but few have the kind of mother who will devote more than a decade of constant activism to get them released. When Ross Ulbricht was given two life sentences for founding an encrypted marketplace called the Silk Road, his mother, Lyn, founded FreeRoss.org, bringing his case to the attention of the liberty movement, the crypto movement, and eventually President Trump, who offered Ross a full pardon on his second day in office. Now, Ross is free and speaking out about the secret horrors that go on inside prison walls. Instead of taking a well-earned break, Lyn has started Mothers Against Cruel Sentencing to advocate on behalf of others given cruel and unusual prison terms. To find out more about MACS or to help, visit: https://mothersagainstcruelsentencing.org

At this year's FreedomFest in Palm Springs, Matt Kibbe caught up with legendary economic maven and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes to find out how President Trump is doing so far in terms of economic policy. They discuss the error of increasing tariffs on America's trading partners, the problems with Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and potential ideas for reforming the country's badly broken health care system. Toward the end of the conversation, Forbes offers his advice to the president on what he is doing right, what he could be doing better, and a few things he might not have thought of to unleash the power of the American economy once more.

At this year's FreedomFest in Palm Springs, Matt Kibbe caught up with noted anarchist and troublemaker Michael Malice for a short conversation about how to persuade people to support less (or even no) government. Along the way, they discuss the philosophy of Ayn Rand, whether cats are actually blue-pilled, and why libertarians ought to take themselves less seriously and embrace fun and humor in their messaging, even though they face difficult challenges in the realms of politics and public opinion.

While Matt Kibbe and the Free the People team were trying to enjoy the company of their fellow libertarians at this year’s Porcupine Freedom Festival, the Trump administration insisted on harshing the vibe by dropping bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Scott Horton, director of the Libertarian Institute, sat down for this episode of “Kibbe on Liberty” to debunk some of the neoconservative claims that are always trotted out to justify American intervention in the Middle East. The same propaganda strategy that was deployed to start the Iraq War is being used again, almost verbatim, to advocate for regime change in Iran. Despite what you may have heard, war is not in America’s best interests and needlessly puts our troops in harm’s way.

The government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was such a naked power-grab on such an unprecedented scale that even five years later, we are still struggling to hold the responsible parties accountable and to even fully process what happened. One unintended consequence of lockdowns, however, was exposing some ugly truths about who is really in charge in America. Matt Kibbe sits down with Debbie Lerman, author of “The Deep State Goes Viral,” to talk about whether our elected officials actually have the power to change things or whether someone else is pulling the strings. The word democracy means rule by the people, and we like to tell ourselves that our politicians are bound by the consent of the governed. In a post-COVID world, however, it’s becoming less and less apparent whether that remains the case in America.

As riots rage across Los Angeles and the conflicts between ICE officials and illegal immigrants escalate, why does it seem like nobody in Washington is actually interested in fixing America’s broken immigration system? Matt Kibbe sits down with Steven Olikara, CEO of Bridge Entertainment Labs and former Democratic Senate candidate, to discuss how both Democrats and Republicans have an interest in exacerbating the problem in order to use it as a campaign issue in the next election. This is yet another example of what Olikara calls “the division industrial complex,” which seeks to keep Americans polarized and at each other’s throats. Instead of falling into this trap, Olikara stresses the importance of sitting down for civil conversations with those who hold differing opinions and working to find common ground that can lead to real solutions. The political establishment wants to keep us divided because that’s how it retains its power. It’s important to understand the rules of their game.

The fight over President Trump’s "big, beautiful bill" is boiling over, shattering the White House alliance with Elon Musk. Join host Matt Kibbe in an exclusive sit-down with Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as they dissect the bill’s massive new spending and skyrocketing debt — provisions Paul warns could bankrupt America and spark runaway inflation. Plus, Paul reveals his bold plan as chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security to wield new subpoena powers, targeting Anthony Fauci and others who lied to protect the pandemic industrial complex.

As the Republicans in Congress are poised to spend trillions more, while ignoring all of Elon Musk's DOGE recommendations, some members of the administration and Trump loyalists are running defense, attempting to convince voters that their gargantuan reconciliation bill actually puts America first. Matt Kibbe tears this narrative apart, pointing to the hypocrisy of neocons who claim to care about small government while repeatedly voting for more spending to fund endless wars. Drawing on his experience as a budget economist and a Tea Party organizer, he explains that Republicans are setting themselves up for a clobbering in the midterm elections if they fail to enact any of the changes voters demanded in 2024.