Podcast
Tim Talks Politics
Hosted by Tim Milosch · EN
Tim Talks Politics curates high-quality information from across the political spectrum to help you accomplish three things:
1. Understand the whys and hows of government process and policy
2. Become a better political conversationalist
3. And most importantly - build a better political culture through a deeply informed, locally engaged and relationally charitable citizenship
The goal of this podcast is information and education, not opinion and hot takes.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Isolationism and Religion in American Conservatism with Stephen Mansfield
2w ago00:31:45Tap to summarizeOne of the more surprising developments in American politics in 2026 is the rift in American conservatism between those who are supportive of President Trump’s war with Iran and those adamantly opposed to it. Stranger, and scarier, still, is an anti-Israel component of the opposition camp that comes uncomfortably close to antisemitism. In this podcast, Stephen Mansfield and I revisit our earlier discussion on isolationism in American conservatism and consider where this trend in conservative politics goes from here. Can it be a healthful corrective to military adventurism and American overreach? Can it thread the needle between a balanced critique of American allies and a respect and honoring of the same? Can it safeguard America from future conflicts and threats? We don’t settle on firm answers in this discussion. Rather, what you get is a thoughtful discussion and exercise in intellectual humility and self awareness.Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →The Kurds in the New Middle East with Stephen Mansfield
4w ago00:51:40Tap to summarizeOn the podcast today, I’ve brought back a returning guest and one of the leading American voices on the Kurds, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Mansfield. Stephen has worked closely with the Kurdish diaspora in America, and has traveled in Kurdistan. There are few people in America that are better positioned to talk about the Kurds, their history with the US, and their potential role in a rapidly changing Middle East.Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →Iran, Hormuz, and Assessing Global Risk with Ron Dodson
Apr 2200:53:00Tap to summarizeRod Dodson, hedge fund manager, global risk expert, and fellow Substacker is back on the podcast today to talk about the war with Iran and its strategic implications. In particular, Ron and I delve into what strategic objectives ought to be in a conflict like this one that pits a global superpower against a middle power that sits astride a global trade artery.e discuss the dynamics of alliance politics and how they influence decision making and may not always work in the interest of the stronger party. We both agree that while the war is demonstrating the value of a military alliance with Israel and the Arab states at the operational level, but disagree on the extent to which those alliances negatively impact America’s grand strategy.We also discuss the information domain and the propaganda war that has emerged in the American media, and the Trump administration’s apparent mishandling of the messaging. Ron rightly points out here and in his American Mind articles linked below that the constant reference to a nuclear threat hasn’t done the administration any favors. Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →Operation(al) Epic Fury with Matt Van Hook
Apr 800:53:01Tap to summarizeIt’s not every day that you get the former Deputy Chief of Staff for US Air Force Central Command lined up to talk about the war in Iran, but that’s what you folks have today! You’ve heard Matt Van Hook on the podcast before to talk about everything from Abraham Lincoln to Operation Midnight Hammer, and if you’ve listened to those shows you know Matt’s a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. That alone would give him some credibility to discuss the operational and strategic aspects of what has been dominantly an air war with Iran. But even more than that, Matt has spent significant chunks of his career in this particular theater of operations (Middle East) and area of responsibility (CENTCOM). Today on the show, Matt and I work on sorting information from dis/misinformation when it comes to assessing the war, reframe the conversation on alliances away from the American media’s Euro-centric view and towards one that takes America’s regional allies into consideration, and Matt leverages the grandaddy of Western military thought, Carl von Clausewitz to give us a crash course on how to assess a military operation that’s unfolding in real time. Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →America and the Ayatollahs (Rebroadcast)
Mar 2500:41:01Tap to summarizeThis is a rebroadcast of one of my earliest podcasts (apologies for the rough audio) because I think the content is more important than ever. Namely, the historical context of US-Iran relations pre- and post-1979 revolution has largely been ignored in conversations and debates surrounding Operation Epic Fury. As readers of my newsletter know, I truly believe that chronology and context are critical for understanding global events and why they unfold the way they do. This episode is my attempt to (re)introduce some chronology and context into our understanding of the conflict with Iran.In its own way, it’s an interesting artifact in itself. When I first aired this episode, it was at the tail end of the first Trump administration. Six years have passed since then that saw a global pandemic, the exit and return of Donald Trump to the Presidency, and, of course, Operation Midnight Hammer. Incredibly, the basic dynamics of the US-Iranian relationship have remained largely unchanged as breakdown throughout this episode.Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →The Return of Christian Nationalism? with Mark David Hall
Mar 1100:58:27Tap to summarizeMark Hall returns to the podcast to discuss the reemergence of Christian nationalism as a topic of interest to the Washington media.Mark and I review some of his work on White House-appointed advisory boards related to religious liberty and how that ties in to (or doesn’t) the conversation on Christian nationalism. We then pivot to breaking down a recent survey by PRRI that seems to have contributed to renewed concerns about Christian nationalism’ prevalence in conservative politics. We find that much of the pearl clutching seems to stem from a misreading of the data, or rather, reading the data through preestablished lenses, despite there being no meaningful change in terms of actual numbers of Christian nationalists in America.In the course of the discussion, we also uncover a key data point in the survey that undermines a significant driver of the alarmism that often accompanies reporting on Christian nationalism.Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →One Year of Trump 2.0 with Scott Waller, Matt Van Hook, Dustin Steeve
Feb 2501:07:16Tap to summarizeIt’s a panel discussion on the podcast today as Dr. Scott Waller, Dr. Matt Van Hook and Dustin Steeve rejoin the podcast to unpack the arguable normal first year of Trump 2.0 despite the consequential vibes. Bottom line, despite movement on key campaign promises with measurable results, Waller notes that the Trump administration’s first year is something of a “normal” presidency, and Van Hook makes the point that what makes it feel consequential is that the Biden administration was just so poor in its execution that “normal” presidential behavior makes it seem extreme. Steeve underscores that point by unpacking the extent of the Biden administration’s dereliction of duty on immigration, in particular.With the midterm election cycle taking shape and voters registering some displeasure with the economy and the handling of immigration, my guests all agree that the Trump administration has leaned into doing the hard work of governing, even if it means short term pain in the approval ratings, a posture for which we give the Trump administration high marks, even as we wait to see how a lot of these efforts play out.Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →The Political Philosophy of the Trump National Security Strategy with Ron Dodson
Feb 1101:06:42Tap to summarizeYou’d think that with all the power moves Trump is making on the international stage (Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, etc.) the publication of the administration’s National Security Strategy in December of 2025 would’ve been the source of much public attention. Unfortunately, mainstream media largely overlooked the document with much of the analysis relegated to the foreign policy community.That’s all set up for introducing my guest who offered a very intriguing and original take on the NSS: it’s a true strategic document in that it’s primarily focused on first principles and philosophical arguments. In other words, it’s a work of political philosophy as opposed to a work of bureaucratic prioritization.More intriguing, my guest isn’t some career foreign policy type or academic who spends his days buried in the particulars of global politics and international security concerns. My guest today is Ron Dodson, the founder and CEO of Dallas North Capital Partners, a Texas-based hedge fund, and something of a polymath.My burning question for Ron is “How did a hedge fund manager in Dallas see something in the NSS that the broader foreign policy community missed?” Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →The Ethics of Drones and Autonomous Systems with Kerry Chavez
Jan 2801:15:39Tap to summarizeUS Air Force Academy professor Dr. Kerry Chávez is back on the show to pick up where we left off in our last conversation: the ethical considerations, quandaries and pitfalls surrounding drones, AI, and other emerging tech in their military applications.While a lot of attention has been focused on armed drone use in war zones, there’s a whole realm of military application that drones and emerging autonomous vehicles that may be less visible to the public eye and cadres of armchair generals on X: medivac, ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), C2 (command and control), and other many other “back end” elements of military logistics. While these non-kinetic applications for emerging technology may appear at first blush to be ethically and morally neutral. However, when considering things like the field performance (and limitations) of these vehicles, the potential for bias in data being fed into them, and the still nascent norms, legal, and regulatory components governing their use by states (nonstate actors are a whole other consideration) Kerry suggests that there’s more of the ethical and moral here than meets the eye. Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
Transcribe →Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and the Abraham Accords with Joseph Epstein
Jan 1400:56:35Tap to summarizeWe’re back for 2026 and another season of the Tim Talks Politics Podcast. 2025’s end of year project, The Kirk Effects, was wonderful and worthwhile, but it did draw my attention away from the international sphere before taking that holiday break. Now, as we enter 2026, the world is in flux in a way few thought possible just last month. Before we dive into conversations on Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, etc. (don’t worry, they’re in the pipeline), I want to start the year off with a conversation on Central Asia and Kazakhstan’s ascension to the Abraham Accords.To discuss this critical region and the potentially huge impacts of the Abraham Accords on that region, Joseph Epstein returns to the podcast to give us a dime tour of the region and to flesh out the possibilities surrounding Kazakhstan joining the Accords. Subscribe to Tim Talks Politics on Substack for the full show notes (30% off for podcast listeners)!
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