How One Man Overcame His Autism

A lot of people are wondering if things in LA would look different if Rick Caruso had won the mayoral race against Karen Bass in 2022. If he had been mayor when devastating fires began in the city last month, would he have prevented them from consuming about 40,000 acres, which is more than twice the area of Manhattan? At the time he ran, many quietly supported the billionaire real estate mogul—scared to come out publicly against the candidate backed by Barack Obama and celebrities like Shonda Rhimes and Arianna Grande. But now many in LA are texting me, saying they wish he had won. Indeed, some of these lifelong Democrats are now saying that they are Republicans, or the very least they’re whatever Karen Bass isn't. Caruso may have lost then, but he’s acting now like a de facto public official, launching and funding a nonprofit he calls Steadfast LA. He’s leveraged his connections to get companies from Netflix to Amazon to J.P. Morgan to help restore critical infrastructure in the city, he’s worked on how to quickly rebuild homes with the help of AI, and he’s figuring out ways to use America’s most advanced technology to prevent future fires. Now, everyone in California is watching to see what Caruso does next. Will he run for mayor again? Or perhaps even governor of California? And most pressingly, can Caruso figure out a way to save Los Angeles? We also talk about ethical issues around inmates and private-sector firefighters, and about hot-button topics in California—like Trump's plans for immigration, or how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and trans issues are affecting public schools. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

18 Feb 1h 6min

Running The Free Press is Bari’s hobby, but her true passion is being a yenta. And one thing Bari has learned from talking to young singles is that there is a total breakdown of sexual relations these days between men and women.  Some blame social media, dating apps, or the alleged feminization of men. But Louise Perry blames the sexual revolution. In 2022, Louise wrote this for The Free Press: “The sexual revolution isn’t only a story of women freed from the burdens of chastity and motherhood. It’s a story about the triumph of the playboy.” This argument is the crux of her book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, which has just been adapted for young adults—called A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century: The Young Adult Adaptation of ‘The Case Against the Sexual Revolution’. This Valentine’s Day, Louise is here to explain how we went wrong as a society on dating, sex, porn, and marriage; how it is impacting women and men differently; how and if we can get back on track; how to date effectively in 2025; and how a revival of Christian sex ethics might be the answer. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Feb 1h 18min

It’s Trump’s third week in office and there is no shortage of news to report. Last week, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard advanced in their congressional confirmation hearings for Health and Human Services secretary, FBI director, and Director of National Intelligence, and criticisms of Gabbard resurfaced over her meeting with former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in 2017, and over her defense of Edward Snowden—who she refused to call a traitor. Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States, making him the first foreign leader invited to the new Trump White House. At a press conference with President Trump, he looked like the dog that caught the car when Trump announced that the U.S. would take control of Gaza, and that the 1.7 million people living there would be resettled elsewhere.  Trump also issued an executive order imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid programs, which totaled around $70 billion in 2023. Meanwhile, Kanye has gone nuts again; Trump backed DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts and said Elon would be heading to the Pentagon next, causing shares of defense stocks like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to tumble; and the vibe shift came for the Super Bowl.  To unpack it all today is Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon and political fundraising powerhouse Brianna Wu. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. --- Get $10 for free when you trade $100+ with code HONESTLY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Feb 55min

Two weeks ago, America thought it was leading the AI race. Then out of nowhere, an unknown Chinese start-up turned the American stock market—and that assumption—on its head. DeepSeek, a Chinese company founded less than two years ago, released a free AI chatbot that rivals the most advanced available open AI products. And they did it despite America’s prohibition on shipping our most advanced microchips to China.  America was caught flat-footed, asking how did this happen? And could we actually lose this tech war?  Now, if your understanding of computers stops at the term hard drive, don’t worry. Today on Honestly, Bari has two incredible guests, experts on both AI and China, who are going to break it all down for you. Tyler Cowen is an economics professor, AI expert, and a must-read writer at his blog, Marginal Revolution. He is joined today by Geoffrey Cane, an expert on China and the author of The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey Into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.  Today, how this happened and what it means. And can America win the AI war with China? Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Feb 1h 5min

Did you know that Joseph Stalin could sing with perfect pitch? Or that he was so scared of his wife that he would hide from her in the bathroom? Did you know that Peter the Great liked to surround himself with naked dwarfs? Did you know that Catherine the Great—long smeared as a nymphomaniac—was actually a lovelorn monogamist? Or that King Herod’s genitals once exploded with maggots? Most historians bore you with dry accounts of battles and treaties, and it’s hard to remember any of it. But not Simon Sebag Montefiore, who writes 900 pages that you cannot put down. Sebag is one of the most important historians alive today. His many books, like Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, The Romanovs, and Catherine the Great & Potemkin are essential to understanding power, politics, revolution, dictatorships, and above all, human nature. While most of Sebag’s books are biographies of people, Jerusalem is a biography of a city—a city, as he writes, that is “the house of the one God, the capital of two peoples, the temple of three religions, and the only city to exist twice in heaven and on earth.” The book takes you through Jerusalem’s 3,000-year history, from King David to Bibi Netanyahu. It is a must-read. It has sold more than a million copies, and it has just been reissued in paperback. With the ceasefire deal underway in Israel and with Trump a few weeks into his second presidency, we could not think of a better person to talk to than Simon about this moment and how to understand it.  Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 Feb 1h 5min

Fourteen years ago, Amy Chua published Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It was received less like a book and more like a nuclear bomb. Here are some headlines from the time: “Why I Will Never Be a Tiger Mom.” “Why Amy Chua Is Wrong About Parenting.” “Amy Chua Is a Circus Trainer, Not a Tiger Mother.” “The Human Race Needs Elephant Mothers, Not Tiger Mothers.” “Amy Chua's Recipe for Disaster and the Externalized Cost of Book Sales.” Then, just as the publicity around Tiger Mother died down, Amy came out with The Triple Package, about why some ethnic groups succeed. People called her racist. Then she came out in support of Brett Kavanaugh's court nomination in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal (before he was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford). Afterward, people accused her of misogyny and grooming. And she was almost forced out of Yale for it.  Then, in 2021, she was accused of hosting boozy dinner parties during COVID lockdowns and “dinner party-gate” was born. Yale punished her by barring her from teaching her “small group” first-year student contingency.  Fast-forward to 2025. And the tables have turned. Being a strict “tiger mom”? In. Free speech? In. Wokeness and hypersensitivity? Out. Covid lockdowns? Definitely out. Vicious character assassinations at Senate confirmations? Out. As Free Press reporter Peter Savodnik just wrote: “The ideas that Chua was pilloried for are suddenly back in fashion.”  Just a few weeks ago, she attended the inauguration of the incoming president and vice president—one of whom happens to be her former student and mentee.  It’s easy to be a weather vane—to go where the wind blows. It's hard to be Amy Chua—to stand up for your beliefs even when they are not popular, even when it means personal consequences. On today’s episode, live in D.C. during inauguration weekend, Chua explains how and why she won—and what it feels like to be vindicated.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Feb 44min

It’s President Donald Trump’s second week in office, and he has wasted no time being the wrecking ball he promised his voters he would be. On Tuesday, he issued a memo freezing trillions of dollars in federal funding, in his attempt to purge the government of “woke ideology,” which was followed by chaos and confusion—and ultimately blocked by a federal judge. Earlier in the week, Trump convinced Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro to accept deported Colombian migrants—who Petro had turned away from his borders only a day earlier—after Trump threatened a 25-percent tariff on Colombian imports to the U.S.  Back in Congress, the Senate narrowly confirmed Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense in a dramatic tie-breaking vote cast by a hurried J.D. Vance who showed up just in the nick of time. Meanwhile, RFK Jr. is currently having his highly anticipated confirmation hearing to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Just as that began, Caroline Kennedy—the only surviving child of John F. Kennedy—came out Tuesday with a bombshell public denunciation of her cousin, calling him unqualified, “a predator,” and a hypocrite. She also alleged that he used to “put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks.” Can’t say we had that on our 2025 bingo card… Finally, the Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek sent tech stocks plummeting on Monday (to the tune of more than $1 trillion) after it rolled out a new app on the U.S. market that is a fraction of the cost of American AI competitors. All of which brought up questions—and panic—about our brewing AI war with China.  To talk about it all, Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik is joined today by Brianna Wu and FP investigative reporter Madeleine Rowley, who spoke to Hegseth this week about his plans to end diversity, equity, and inclusion in the military. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Get $10 for free when you trade $100+ with code HONESTLY: https://kalshi.com/honestly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Jan 46min

There has been a cultural sea change over the last year when it comes to health in America. It is shepherded by an unexpected coalition of nutritionists, longevity experts, wellness influencers, holistic and functional medicine doctors, moms wearing babies and natural deodorant, mushroom shamans, and some vaccine skeptics. They’ve gathered under the banner of Make American Healthy Again, or MAHA, and they’re here to tell us that plastic cutting boards, Diet Coke, and pasteurized milk—all things that once seemed perfectly normal in American life—are actually killing us.  A decade ago, if you read that list of personas you would think MAHA is some woo-woo, hippie progressive movement. But here we are in 2025, and this is the same group that helped usher Donald Trump to power.  What does MAHA stand for? What does it look like when it marries itself to power? And what will MAHA actually be able to accomplish over the next four years, under their fearless leader—and risky Health and Human Services nominee—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?  Live in D.C. during inauguration weekend, Calley Means, Jillian Michaels and Vani Hari explain. Calley is the founder of Truemed and co-author of Good Energy. Jillian is America’s original fitness expert and the author of nine books. Vani is the founder of Truvani, and you probably know her from her blog Food Babe. She also got Subway to remove “the yoga mat chemical” from its breads. And, the fact that there was a yoga mat chemical in its bread is the whole purpose of this conversation. Today, the three MAHA whisperers explain why this movement just might be the most powerful political force in American life. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Jan 1h 7min