Secretary of State Marco Rubio has released the Trump administration's plans for reorganizing the State Department—a first step toward reducing what the White House calls a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy. The proposed reforms could reshape U.S. engagement with the world, ending America’s human rights advocacy, shuttering key diplomatic offices, and threatening the very infrastructure that supports global U.S. leadership. With Congress holding the purse strings and foreign governments watching closely, how far will these reforms go—and at what cost to American influence and values abroad?

In this episode, Jacob Heilbrunn speaks with Paul Saunders, the president of the Center for the National Interest. Saunders served in the George W. Bush Administration from 2003 to 2005 as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs.

Music by Aleksey Chistilin from Pixabay

President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping new global tariffs last week sent shockwaves through international markets, igniting fears of economic slowdown and triggering retaliatory measures from major trading partners like China. The consequences are already reverberating through the global energy system: oil and gas prices are sliding, producers are under pressure, and the clean energy transition faces fresh headwinds as tariffs hit solar panels, EVs, and battery components. With geopolitical tensions simmering and economic uncertainty rising, could Trump’s tariff gamble reshape the global energy landscape for years to come? And how vulnerable is Russia’s oil-dependent economy in this new low-price era?

In this episode, Paul Saunders speaks with Tatiana Mitrova, a Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and Director of the New Energy Advancement Hub. Mitrova has twenty-five years of experience in dealing with global energy markets, including production, transportation, demand, energy policy, pricing, and market restructuring.

Music by Aleksey Chistilin from Pixabay

What should America's grand strategy look like in a world shaped by resurgent great powers, regional conflict, and rising multipolarity? As China pushes to dominate the Asia-Pacific and Russia asserts itself in its near abroad, the stakes for global order—and for U.S. leadership—have never been higher. Meanwhile, the Trump administration faces the challenge of distinguishing first-order priorities from second-order distractions. Should Washington continue pursuing global primacy, or shift toward a leaner, more focused strategy rooted in realism? In this episode, Jacob Heilbrunn speaks with Ionut Popescu, Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas State University. Dr. Popescu is the recent author of No Peer Rivals: American Grand Strategy in the Era of Great Power Competition.

Music by Aleksey Chistilin from Pixabay