The

The I'm traveling for a few days, but we'll be back with a new episode next Friday.

In the meantime, I wanted to share

something I thought some of you might enjoy. A few weeks ago, I took part in a monk debate. The monk

debates are fascinating if you haven't heard of them. They've been going for 15 years. They're this

Canadian nonprofit. They put out two big debates a year on these really contentious topics. If you go to their

site, it's in the show notes, and you become a member, you can watch this whole video archive.

There's a classic one I recommend from 2010. Is religion a force for good in the world,

with Tony Blair debating the late Christopher Hitchens? But this one, the one I participated in, was on the motion,

quote, be it resolved, this is America's Golden Age. And I was arguing against the motion,

as you might imagine. I don't think this is America's golden age. And I was doing so alongside

Ben Rhodes, the former senior advisor to Barack Obama and the co-host of Pod Save the World.

On the other side, arguing for the motion, was a president of the Heritage Foundation and the architect of Project 2025, Kevin Roberts, and Trump's former senior counselor, Kellyanne Conway.

The Monk debates have very kindly allowed us to share the full audio of that debate.

Here, I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to tonight's Monk debate.

Thank you. to tonight's monk debate. Tonight we're going to debate the golden age of America, as the President has just proclaimed.

Is it real? Is this happening before our eyes?

Or is something different unfolding?

Is something darker underway? What we're going to do now is have this audience vote on tonight's resolution. So we're going to have one vote at the beginning of the evening, another vote at the end. You're voting on our motion, be it resolved. This is America's golden age.

I sense everybody's had a chance to vote.

Okay, I see a few people want a moment more.

...