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Honestly with Bari Weiss

Honestly with Bari Weiss

By: The Free Press
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 The most interesting conversations in American life happen in private. This show brings them out of the closet. Stories no one else is telling and conversations with the most fascinating people in the country, every week from The Free Press, hosted by former New York Times and Wall Street Journal journalist Bari Weiss.© 2021 Honestly with Bari Weiss Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Woody Allen on Life and Death

    Woody Allen on Life and Death
    Sep 17 2025
    You know the name Woody Allen. Everyone does. He’s made some of the most acclaimed films ever made: Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors—he list goes on and on and on. He’s made an astonishing 50 movies. You see his influence everywhere, from sitcoms to stand-up to just about every rom-com made since Annie Hall premiered in 1977. And in the process, he turned himself into America’s most unlikely leading man: short, thinning hair, bespectacled, and exceptionally neurotic. Now, at age 89, Allen is out with his first novel, What’s With Baum? Its protagonist is an anxious, smart Jewish writer with a messy personal life who gets himself in a great deal of trouble. Yes, it’s like a Woody Allen movie in book form. It’s also funny and delightful, and touches on a major theme of our age: the idea that an accusation, once made, is as good as a conviction. Allen knows something about that. In 1992, his longtime romantic partner Mia Farrow discovered that Allen had begun a relationship with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Allen was in his 50s at the time, Previn was just 21. All hell broke loose, with Farrow accusing Allen of grooming and preying on her daughter. The scandal became fodder for tabloids and late-night talk shows but soon took a much darker turn, with Farrow accusing Allen of molesting their 7-year-old daughter Dylan in August 1992. The charges were never proven in court—indeed they were twice dismissed—but the court of public opinion was another matter. Today on Honestly, we get into everything about Allen—from the accusations to his subsequent cancellation in the MeToo era to his childhood in Brooklyn and his climb from Flatbush to the commanding heights of American comedy, film, and culture. We delve into how he’s changed and the many ways in which he hasn’t. We talk about his marriage to Previn, which is still going strong after 28 years. His thoughts on President Donald Trump, NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, The New York Times, and American politics more broadly. We’ll hear what he thinks about life, death, and aging as he approaches 90, and much, much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 36 mins
  • Charlie Kirk’s Murder and the Rise of Political Violence

    Charlie Kirk’s Murder and the Rise of Political Violence
    Sep 11 2025
    Yesterday, in broad daylight, in front of a crowd of 3,000 people at Utah Valley University, Charlie Kirk was shot dead. Kirk was not just a husband, not just a father, and not just one of the most prominent young conservative voices in the country. He made his name doing something fundamental to the American project: disagreeing out loud. He famously said, “When people stop talking, bad stuff happens.” And so his thing was going to campuses, setting up a tent, and asking people to change his mind. People on campuses lined up to challenge him, often fiercely debating—and that was the point. He was a living embodiment of our First Amendment. As Matthew Continetti wrote in our pages: “The attack didn’t just deprive a family of its center. It struck at the ties that hold a free society together: open assembly, civil debate, viewpoint diversity. Like every terrorist act, the shooting was meant to instill fear—in this case, fear of speaking out, of exposure, of making a difference.” And as shocking and tragic as his murder is the response to it: the people online celebrating—yes, celebrating—his death simply because they disagreed with his politics. Today Bari sits down with Ben Shapiro, Senator Mark Kelly, Matt Continetti, Katherine Boyle, Konstantin Kisin, and The Free Press’s own Eli Lake and Maya Sulkin to reflect on Kirk’s life and this awful moment in American history—and to consider how we can begin to look forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 28 mins
  • Justice Amy Coney Barrett

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett
    Sep 8 2025
    When Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the Supreme Court, she was in some ways an unlikely choice. She was living in South Bend, Indiana, not New York or D.C. She went to Notre Dame Law School, making her the only justice that didn’t go to Harvard or Yale. She’s the mother of seven kids. And, at the time of her appointment, she’d largely spent her career as a professor, with just under three years on a federal appeals court. To put it bluntly, Amy Coney Barrett was an outsider. But people close to President Donald Trump saw something: She was an originalist. A former clerk for Antonin Scalia. A devout Catholic with real intellectual bona fides. And a rising star in the conservative legal movement. In short, she was the ideal jurist to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After her 2020 nomination, the left called her inexperienced and a religious zealot. They said her confirmation hearing was rushed, and that she would undermine trust in the Supreme Court. But with a 52–48 vote, just six weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Barrett was confirmed—without one Democratic vote. She took her seat at the highest court at just 48 years old, and became only the fifth woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court. Considering how our nation’s most powerful people stick around into their 80s, she’ll likely have a major impact on American law and life for decades to come. We’re now five years into her time on the bench. And in a turn of events, CNN ran a piece last year titled “The Last Best Hope for Supreme Court Liberals: Amy Coney Barrett.” Newsweek ran “Amy Coney Barrett Is Liberal Justices’ ‘Best Chance’: SCOTUS Analyst ” and The New York Times ran “How Amy Coney Barrett Is Confounding the Right and the Left.” How did we get from “dangerous, religious zealot” to “last best hope”? On one hand, Barrett has done what one would expect of a Republican appointee: voting to overrule Roe v. Wade; voting to outlaw affirmative action; and voting against the administrative state. At the same time, she has voted with liberal justices in some of the most pivotal cases—and in Trump-related cases, she is the member of the conservative supermajority who has sided in Trump’s favor the least. In short, Barrett surprises. She just wrote a new book called Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, where she makes the simple but salient points: Her job is not to like all of her decisions, nor is it to please the media or a president. It’s to follow the text of the Constitution, full stop. On Thursday night Bari sat down for a rare conversation with Justice Barrett at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York City. Bari also asks her about key cases like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the birthright citizenship case, nationwide injunctions, the shadow docket, transgender minors getting medical treatment, her willingness to dissent with liberal justices, her response to people who call her an “evil DEI hire,” and so much more. This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Make your tax-deductible donation today at www.thefire.org/honestly New episodes of The Isabel Brown Show can be viewed on DailyWire+ here: www.dailywire.com/show/the-isabel-brown-showFollow Isabel on X: www.x.com/theisabelbFollow Isabel on Instagram: www.instagram.com/theisabelbrown Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 18 mins
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