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The Fifth Column

The Fifth Column

by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch

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Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition. www.wethefifth.com

Episodes

#527 - War is Over (If Hamas Wants It)
#527 - War is Over (If Hamas Wants It)

October 9, 2025 | 01:41:25 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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* Subscribe to our YouTube channel already! * A shirt full of toothpaste * Whiskey in a jar * Your dumb, complaining emails * A roundtable of cranks and weirdos * Happy 100 year anniversary Antifa! * People. People. It ain’t fascism. And it ain’t ISIS. * Wait, Twitter IS real life!!!!!! * The long shadow of 2020 * Remembering Seattle’s WASP autonomous zone * Ted Cruz’s hoop dreams * Sammy Hagar vs. the government shutdown * Should we tariff Canadian stunt pilots? * Death to the paper tigers! * We’re cautiously optimistic... * When Bari met 60 * Charm, offensive * I bet you don’t remember *this* shitty Vice deal * You CANNOT talk to TNC that way * Journo shock! Moron social media hyperventilates about unacceptable lesbian! * Norman Finkelstein does a yiddish racism * Sorry about these A*** C*** song titles If you prefer to watch this video over on YouTube, just click here . Thanks for reading The Fifth Column (A Podcast)! This episode is public so feel free to share it. Follow The Fifth Column YouTube: @wethefifth Instagram: @we.the.fifth X: @wethefifth TikTok: @wethefifth Facebook: @thefifthcolumn This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

UNLOCKED: Russ Roberts, on the Weight of History & the Elasticity of Memory
UNLOCKED: Russ Roberts, on the Weight of History & the Elasticity of Memory

October 7, 2025 | 01:39:45 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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Last month, after years of you people begging us, we finally had on the great Russ Roberts —author, educator, and proprietor of the phantasmagorically influential podcast EconTalk . The extremely wide-ranging conversation , whose pre-Pivot-to-Video video is available to Never Fly Coach subscribers , one of the most could you please unpaywall this so I can share it? episodes in recent memory, and so here we are. You SAID you wanted to share this. So share this! Pretty please? * Russ’s drinks by the pool with Hitchens * How potato chips are made. And what it tells us about economics * Backwards towards “artisanal” * How will a NatCon economy perform? * It ain’t all doom and gloom (surprisingly) * Do academic economists matter? * Russ talks to Milton Friedman * Do long-term economic trends tells us anything?? * On moving to Israel * On returning to a (relatively) calm America * Notes from Russ’s father * A TikTok war * Was Moneyball wrong? Or do people just not understand Moneyball ? * The Close Encounters mashed potato mountain * And much, much more This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #279 - Behind the Scenes With Kanye West Documentarian Nico Ballesteros
Members Only #279 - Behind the Scenes With Kanye West Documentarian Nico Ballesteros

October 5, 2025 | 00:20:13 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com The Fifth Column’s resident Kanye aficionado Kmele Foster sits down with Nico Ballesteros, director of In Whose Name? , a 100% verité documentary that follows Kanye West over the course of six tumultuous years. Just 18 years-old when the project began, and shooting on an iPhone, Ballesteros spent 15 hours a day recording every aspect of Kanye’s life from…

#526 - Megyn Kelly is All Out of Generosity
#526 - Megyn Kelly is All Out of Generosity

October 2, 2025 | 01:08:58 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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It’s fine if you want to listen to this episode on Apple podcasts or Spotify or Substack. We get it! That’s the way you’ve always done it! But you do realize that after 525 episodes (not including the hundreds of subscriber-only episodes), we’ve finally launched the Fifth Column video podcast , right? And you know that you are required by federal law to subscribe to the new Fifth Column YouTube channel ? Ok...thanks...and now...Megyn Kelly... * Botox and Scotch * When Megyn went “temporarily insane” * To be frivolous and Oprah-like * You’re my inspiration, Ben * From traffic cop to a truncheon-wielding cop * Escalation is bad. “Yes, but one must fight fire with fire.” * Principle vs. vengeance * Does Andy McCarthy have Trump Derangement Syndrome? * Megyn “speaks fluent MAGA” * More MAGA than libertarian or NRO… * We need to talk about Candace * “Tucker is in a different camp” * Wait, Moynihan has some opinions about the awfulness of Candace If you prefer to watch video over on YouTube, just click here . The Fifth Column (A Podcast) is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Follow The Fifth Column YouTube: @wethefifth Instagram: @we.the.fifth X: @wethefifth TikTok: @wethefifth Facebook: @thefifthcolumn This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #278 -- Goliath’s Curse Author Luke Kemp on Why (and When) Empires Collapse
Members Only #278 -- Goliath’s Curse Author Luke Kemp on Why (and When) Empires Collapse

September 29, 2025 | 00:16:15 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Oh sure, everyone’s go-to for imperial collapse tends to be Rome, but what broad lessons are there to be gleaned from every single other civilizational implosion, from Mesopotamia to the Mayans to the forgotten pyramid builders along the Mississippi River? Such is the intriguing set-up for Goliaths Curse : The History and Future of Societal Collapse , the…

Members Only #277 - Andy Rooney Hangovers, Nazi Beekeepers, and Ex-Canadians
Members Only #277 - Andy Rooney Hangovers, Nazi Beekeepers, and Ex-Canadians

September 27, 2025 | 00:19:12 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * If you’re a Never Fly Coach subscriber, remember that you get to watch the video version of this episode ! * The morning after pill and Roy Campanella’s glove * Why does Moynihan look like late-stage Nick Nolte? * Have a SoCal venue suggestion for a Fifth live show? * Comparatively, Alex Jones isn’t that bad (Ed. note: Spoke too soon! Immediately following this rec…

#525 - John Spencer Views Explosion
#525 - John Spencer Views Explosion

September 25, 2025 | 01:35:57 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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Matt and Michael are joined by John Spencer , Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute. •Gary Busey and the B-movie military raid on the Turkish Embassy •Bagging and tagging isn’t as bad as it sounds •20/20 De-Baathification •Post 9/11 Islamophilia •The hockey analogy for war with Hamas •Human shielding & bomb shelter inequities •Gaza vs Berlin 1945 •Journalism in Gaza •The IDF’s absent PR operation •Starvation, genocide, and Wikipedia •Amalek •Trump’s 180 on Ukraine •Comedian Dave Smith on military aid •God bless Russian incompetence •Red Dawn had it all wrong •Cancel John’s tickets to Stalingrad •John Spencer, expert? The New York Times is on it. •NFC-level members get a video preview of this episode here! •Speaking of video, we’re launching on YouTube any day now… SUBSCRIBE! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #276 - The Cancelling of an American Talkshow (w/ Greg Lukianoff)
Members Only #276 - The Cancelling of an American Talkshow (w/ Greg Lukianoff)

September 19, 2025 | 00:18:31 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * Pretty sure FIRE president Greg Lukianoff is the perfect guest for this moment… * A requirement of Judaism * FIRE on fire these days * Come on man, it was the FCC! * My husband got Kimmel fired! * The latest campus free speech ranking * FYI, lots of dumb young people are cool with political violence * Is does the university have a psycho incubation problem? * So who should be …

#524 - BTW, Venezuela is a Dictatorial Commie Narcostate (w/ Thor Halvorssen)
#524 - BTW, Venezuela is a Dictatorial Commie Narcostate (w/ Thor Halvorssen)

September 18, 2025 | 01:28:12 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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* See below for the video version of this episode! * On Candace and Megyn * That source, says Thor, the Venezuelan, is a big booster of the shittiest people on Earth * How they shot my mother (Hugo Chavez edition) * The failure of the Human Rights Industry™ * How Venezuela collapsed * It’s not a country. It’s a drug cartel * The hierarchy of South American drug trafficking * The real reason the US struck those “drug boats” * So the 93% cannot defeat the 7%? * Was former congressman Aaron Shock corrupted by Venezuelan commies? * Crooked congressmen. Crooked Kennedys? * A crooked American oil magnate? * On dissident heroism—and American cynicism * The nobility of the human spirit * The useless UN * The million dollar roller bag * How the bad guy$ $pread their influence * And much, much more! As previously mentioned, Never Fly Coach-level subscribers have access to our early video efforts . Wonky angles, swiveling chairs, ugly timecodes, no title sequence…you get the idea. BUT…your feedback has been amazingly positive thus far. If you want to add your two cents (and see our ugly mugs), upgrade and get access to the ever-evolving pilot episodes ! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #275 - The Elasticity of Memory & the Weight of History (w/ Russ Roberts)
Members Only #275 - The Elasticity of Memory & the Weight of History (w/ Russ Roberts)

September 13, 2025 | 00:21:34 | News & Politics, Comedy | Explicit

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * See below for the video version of this episode! * Russ’s drinks by the pool with Hitchens * How potato chips are made. And what it tells us about economics * Backwards towards “artisanal” * How will a NatCon economy perform? * It ain’t all doom and gloom (surprisingly) * Do academic economists matter? * Russ talks to Milton Friedman * Do long-term economic trends tells us …

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