'The Circus' creator: 'I got to pull back the curtain' on Charlie Kirk



Mark McKinnon, political strategist to George W. Bush and John McCain and creator of “The Circus” on Showtime, was caught off guard in the last election.

McKinnon, who admits he was a “radical lefty in college,” was shocked to see just how strong the conservative presence within Gen Z was — and how these conservatives used platforms like TikTok to spread their message.

“Suddenly on TikTok this guy named Charlie Kirk started popping up everywhere,” McKinnon tells James Poulos of “Zero Hour,” noting that he “had a very conventional notion and wisdom about Gen Z and how they were, how they acted, and how they’re likely to act in that election.”

And that conventional wisdom was wrong.


“And then I saw these TikToks of Charlie Kirk showing up on these college campuses with mostly young men — but not all young men — but lots of them in red hats, and it got my attention,” he continues.

That’s when McKinnon decided to go to a Charlie Kirk rally in Atlanta, Georgia.

“It was fascinating. It was really interesting, and it really opened my mind about what was happening with that cohort, for one thing. But also Kirk himself,” he says, “was very diplomatic and very cordial to me and invited me in.”

“I got to pull back the curtain and saw the whole operation and how it worked, and you know, his model is really interesting because he invited these crowds just all through social media,” he continues, noting that you couldn’t walk through the plaza the rally was held in because it “was so packed.”

Not only was it packed, but Kirk made sure to answer “every single question that was asked.”

Kirk even chose questions from clear leftists over those who were wearing red hats, despite being non-confrontational.

“Charlie’s a fascinating case,” Poulos comments. “Coming out of that kind of Ben Shapiro moment where it was like, ‘Click to watch the libtards get destroyed with facts and logic,’ you know, Charlie went in a slightly different direction.”

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Texas vs. the Cartel: The DEADLY border showdown



Many small towns in Texas have been overrun by illegal immigrants under the Biden administration — but under Trump that’s hopefully all about to change.

“There was a sigh of relief in Texas when it at least came to the border, because we knew we weren’t going to have to fight our own federal government when it came to actually enforcing the laws,” Greg Sindelar, CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, tells James Poulos of “Zero Hour.”

While it’s been “very overwhelming” for these small towns, Sindelar notes that it was the “system working as designed.”

“So Texas had to jump in. We spent billions and billions and billions of dollars trying to just stem the tide a little bit, but what we learned from that is Mexico is not a good faith actor in this, and I’m talking about the government of Mexico,” he explains.


“And I know they’re very upset by the president saying that they are tied to these cartels. Well, I’m here to tell you they are, at this point, mostly a failed narco state. They have seeded 30% to 40% of their land to these cartels,” he continues, adding, “they let them run anything that they want to do.”

“It’s absolutely horrific what is happening, and the Mexican people are suffering because of it, and Texans and Americans are also suffering because of it,” he adds.

This is why it’s not only important for America to crack down on cartel activity as Trump has promised but Mexico as well.

“Our futures are intertwined,” Sindelar tells Poulos. “If we can’t get Mexico back into being a functioning state again, then we will continue to have these problems, and we’ll continue to pour an immense amount of money and lose an immense amount of American lives until they get their act together.”

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‘They’re crooks’: 'The Young Turks' founder admits conservatives were right about the Deep State



Cenk Uygur, founder of “The Young Turks,” has long found himself at odds with those on the right. However, unlike most on the left, Uygur’s attention has shifted from the right to the establishment.

“News has not been news for so long. People have forgotten. They’re, like, demanding propaganda, and they’re like, ‘Why won’t you say that Obama is a saint?’

"And I’m like, ‘But we’re on the left; we don’t want him drilling in the Gulf,’” Uygur tells James Poulos on “Zero Hour.”

“On what planet should I not criticize that?” he asks, adding, “Are we supposed to morph our policies around these politicians and their donors?”


While Uygur doesn’t believe that right-wing media is any better than the left-wing media, it’s the mainstream media he takes real issue with.

“Most of all, mainstream media is the ones that claim to be objective. And I think they’re the least objective, the least truthful. Not because their facts are wrong, but because their framing is so absurd — that politicians aren’t crooks. They’re crooks. That donor money doesn’t affect politicians? You’ve got to be mental to think it doesn’t affect politicians,” he explains.

“So the Democratic Party, unfortunately, has gone so pro-corporate,” he continues.

“They’re so blinded by their own bubble, James. That’s the most important thing. Everybody’s in their bubble, and in their bubble they’re 100% right.”

This is what Uygur believes led to the results of the 2024 election.

“2024 to me was the most watershed moment for so many reasons, because the establishment finally realized the country hates them,” he adds.

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‘Family, faith, and grit’: Did Stallone just give Hollywood a knockout punch in new film?



Many films coming out of Hollywood recently have faced heavy criticism, not only for often pushing “woke” values but for being unoriginal — and Dick Boyce aims to change that.

Boyce is an investor and entrepreneur who has co-produced a new film alongside Sylvester Stallone called “Lost on a Mountain in Maine.” The story spans multiple generations and returns cinema to a time before smartphones, helicopter parenting, and digital overload.

“I just found there was an opening to do a movie like Disney used to make. Timeless values of family, faith, and grit that people could relate to,” Boyce tells James Poulos on “Zero Hour,” explaining that the film is about a boy who spent nine days without food or shelter and survived.


The film appears to bridge the divide between the older, less tech-savvy generations and the newer, digital-native generations.

“To tell stories to remind people that there is this continuity, that despite the fact that we’re going through all these iterations of really head-snapping change in many cases, there’s still a thread that’s stronger than that, and it might not be super obvious, but family is part of that,” Poulos comments.

The film also calls into question the impact of technology on these younger generations.

“They aren’t growing up in a way that is the best way, I think, to have a fulfilled, open, engaged life,” Boyce says, adding, “That does concern me about the evolution of technology.”

“There’s always been a lot of focus on the potential harms of technology, and those can be real, as with anything, as with fire. You know, these tools, you can always use them in the wrong way, and it can harm you,” Poulos agrees.

“I think the real question is what are you missing out on if you disappear into the phones, what are you running away from, what are you afraid of, that kind of temptation to willfully step back from real life? I think that’s where the real hazards can be,” he adds.

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Poisoned for profit: The invisible hands controlling your children’s health



In the 1990s, the two largest food companies were R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris — both of which also still make highly addictive cigarettes to this day.

So it’s no wonder that our food, like cigarettes, is also incredibly addictive.

“I mean, they took scientists to make our food addictive and have thousands of chemicals that they’ve co-opted the scientific agencies like the FDA and the USDA to let them in,” White House adviser Calley Means tells James Poulos on “Zero Hour.”

“Our food is literally weaponized to be addictive,” he adds.


“The science has become absolutely just a PR mechanism for industries that want us sick,” he continues, noting that 77% of Americans of military age are not able to join the military because of poor metabolic health.

But it’s not just food that’s making Americans sick.

“I think one of the big issues with health and metabolic health is that a lot of the things that threaten us, I think threaten us to an existential degree, are part of modern innovation. Like you look at artificial light, it’s actually really disruptive,” Means explains.

“It’s really disruptive to our hormone system,” he continues. “If you have a light on in a chicken coop, they lay two times more eggs. That’s just one input. You look at all the technology, being on our phone all day, the food that we have, all this disruption to our circadian rhythm, our chronic stress.”

These advancements in technology, Means says, have “led us to get detached from nature” and “detached from the awe and curiosity of our bodies.”

And these industries making us sick have zeroed in on children.

“The invisible hand of the incentives of these industries,” Means explains, “from tech that wants our kids addicted to their phones all day, to food which wants kids addicted, to the pharmaceutical industry that wants kids on drugs, there’s really, I think, an invisible hand that’s been against kids.”

“There’s millions and billions and hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars to be made from getting a kid sick, from getting them addicted, from keeping them in fear,” he continues. “This is something that the Trump administration, just in modern society today, we have to balance, because we do want to unleash responsible innovation, but we have lost touch of common sense.”

“And I think that’s kind of the message that Bobby Kennedy and Trump have really resonated on. It’s really a getting back to basics message,” he adds.

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Wikipedia scandal exposed: Big Tech manipulates what you see



Wikipedia is no longer what it used to be, and co-founder Larry Sanger knows exactly why.

“Wikipedia can be used to advance a particular social and political agenda,” Sanger tells James Poulos on “Zero Hour.” “This becomes evident only if you know a lot about the topic. So sometimes the only people who are really qualified to tell whether a treatment of a topic is neutral are the people who know a lot about the topic.”

“It’s gotten really, really bad, though, in the Trump years, I mean really noticeably,” he continues, “and I think that is what sort of enlightened people about the problem. So while conservatives and Libertarian and anti-establishment types, they generally continue to despise Wikipedia, this seems to have had little impact on Wikipedia itself.”


“Why would it?” he adds. “This is a feature of the mainstream media. They’re not going to change, and Wikipedia now is essentially a summary of what the mainstream media thinks, at least when it comes to current events, politics, social issues, and so forth.”

However, it’s not just the twisting of the truth to fit a political agenda that’s bothered the co-founder, but the lack of care taken to stop others from spreading horrifying imagery on the website.

This became an issue to Sanger when he was enlightened to the existence of pedophile rings and “graphic representations of child rape on Wikipedia.” He reported it to the FBI in 2010.

“It didn’t do any good. They didn’t follow up. It’s still there. That did change my views insofar as I felt now it’s important to speak out about this, especially in this context,” he explains. “They’re not trying to hide their disdain at all any more, and from my point of view, it felt like simply speaking about such things as a moral imperative has emboldened me to say things that I have believed for many years.”

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Trump’s great awakening: Why Americans rejected wokeness



There will always be a small group of far-left, radical woke preachers fighting the Trump administration and the will of the American people — but that group is getting smaller — and no one is more surprised than the creator of “Dilbert,” Scott Adams.

“It’s like common sense broke out, and I think that’s the thing that’s uniting people. It’s like, well there are just some things that just make sense, like, we can’t have a $35 trillion debt,” Adams tells James Poulos on “Zero Hour.”

“I think people just woke up and said, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t even political. We all want less crime, it kind of doesn’t make sense to have an open border, even if you’re a Democrat.’ So I think maybe the wokeness just got pushed to the point where it just broke,” he continues.


What helped push Americans to this point, Adams explains, is that “the smartest and bravest” openly decided to support Trump.

“I think we may have passed into this at least temporary, nonpolitical point where you can have John Fetterman say good things about the DOGE effort,” he continues. “The amount of common sense, smart, brave, firepower that all got concentrated in one place, honestly, it feels like 1776 just resurrected.”

While Adams didn’t see this coming, he did believe that after January 6, more Americans would gravitate toward Trump.

“I predicted that he would be more popular everyday that he was out of office, and I don’t think that was a common prediction, but sure enough, I also predicted that Biden would go down in history as the worst president. And there was a survey today that says he’s ranked the lowest, at least in that survey,” Adams says.

“So those two things, I did see coming. Trump rising, Biden falling. But wow, I didn’t see the common sense breaking out,” he adds.

“I think a lot of people are hungry for a new kind of purple America, one where the political divisions aren’t as sharp,” Poulos chimes in.

“Most people think that the only way to get to purple America is through blue America, and what we found is that actually the road maybe runs through a much redder America,” he adds.

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Zorp Corp: Decentralizing critical infrastructure



Is humanity doomed to be subjugated to technology and bureaucratic power? As cryptocurrency slips closer to the hands of governments and tech giants, it may seem that the future of tech is already written in stone. However, some people are proposing a freer, more independent future in the digital landscape, refusing to bend the knee to the authoritarian trends in our society.

On “Zero Hour,” Logan Allen, entrepreneur, software developer, and founder and CEO of Zorp Corp, sat down with James Poulos to discuss cryptocurrency, the importance of critical infrastructure, and the future of technology.

Allen talked about the competing “cults” currently vying for power in the age of cryptocurrency. According to him, Silicon Valley represents the worship of technology, while the D.C. “Paper Belt” represents the worship of bureaucracy. Allen, however, said he is placing his bets on a third option, the worship of God: “All you need is a cult that truly believes in God, in competence, and in generational transfer of knowledge. If you have that, you win on a long enough timeline.”

Unfortunately, these other cults recognize the power of cryptocurrency and are seeking to take control of it. Currently, the industry is not as free as it may sound: “Most of the cryptocurrency industry is centered around building a series of virtual scam games, where the game is to play a lottery where you’re guaranteed to lose money if you’re not an insider.”

Zorp Corp, which finds itself at the intersection of critical infrastructure and decentralized currency, recognized a serious problem that needed a solution: “The problem is that we are not training new people to understand the infrastructure that keeps our water clean, that keeps our power plants running, that keeps our trains from derailing, that keeps our supply chains working. We’re not training new people to do these things because the people that are smart are instead being trained to send emails to each other. This is a civilizational killer.”

Logan Allen’s company seeks to provide a solution to the generational skills problem as well as an alternative future of technology to the ones Silicon Valley and the Paper Belt are proposing: “We’re trying to make tools that allow software developers to build things with 100 times less effort and man-hours. We want to make it so that people can build tools that are more secure, more stable, require fewer updates, and require small organizations to maintain and keep running.”

To hear more about Zorp Corp, zero-knowledge proofs, the future of cryptocurrency, and the battle for supremacy between technology and bureaucracy, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

Jeremy Carl explains anti-white hatred in America



According to the propagandists, the “white supremacists” won the 2024 election. What now? As people think about the next four years and beyond, some are fearful that Trump and his administration will strain race relations even farther. However, others believe that Trump’s victory marks a turning point for facing racial problems in our system today.

On “Zero Hour,” Jeremy Carl, political commentator, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and author of the new book "The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart," sat down with James Poulos to discuss racism, the new Trump administration, and the systemic problems that America faces today.

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On the subject of race in America today, Carl addressed the elephant in the room: DEI policies and discriminatory practices have pushed white people away from many of our institutions. Carl said, "If I want to go to an Ivy League school and I am a white guy without connections, it's pretty much impossible. That is unfortunately the system we're in today."

However, he expressed optimism that the consensus of the 2024 election showed signs that real change could be coming soon: “In some ways, the particularly multiethnic element of this coalition that Trump has put together gives him a unique platform where this multiethnic coalition is saying, ‘No, we’re not going to treat people this way [discriminate on the basis of race].'"

Far from white supremacy, Carl thinks that this “multiethnic coalition” for Trump is a sign that people of other races condemn the mistreatment of whites and want things to change. They gathered in support of Trump, who “was just himself. In the same way that he’s still wearing the suit when he goes to McDonald’s, he didn’t try to put on the work overalls or gold chains like a rapper. He didn’t apologize for being a white Boomer, but he’s like, ‘Hey, I love America, you love America, we can both do our thing here.'”

He added that Trump acted as a lesson for all white people in America today: “He never apologized for who he was.”

To hear more about what Jeremy Carl had to say about racism, the civil rights movement, and the new Trump administration, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

Crisis of modernity: Jonathan Pageau on wisdom and identity in the West



Everyone knows this: The West is declining, and it doesn’t seem like there’s much we can do to stop this collapse. We have entered a hall of mirrors, and only the most perverse among us feel at home. While it may seem inevitable, there might be ways to slow down this decline or even reverse it. But first, we must diagnose the illness that is tainting our civilization. Why is the West so sick?

On "Zero Hour," Jonathan Pageau — writer, artist, and host of "The Symbolic World" podcast — sits down with James Poulos to discuss the West’s civilizational decline, the nature of identity, and the loss of wisdom in modernity.

Asked about the causes of the civilizational collapse, Pageau answers, “You’ve heard people talk about the clown world. Our civilization has reached a carnival point. ...The whole aesthetic of the carnival, or the fringe, is that there’s a loosening. And that loosening can be expressed as maybe a lot of liberty but also libertinage to move into excess with your desires. But that also quickly becomes a kind of breakdown.”

They also talk about the West’s loss of identity. Pageau pins this loss on a misunderstanding of what identity is, explaining that identity is most fundamentally tied to a participation in the world: “We tend to forget that identity is something you engage in. Singing the national anthem, for example, is much closer to identity than thinking about who we are. Volunteering for something, participating in the world, being a father, husband, member of your community. ... In practice, a lot of the identity problems just go away because you don’t have time to think about it.”

Of course, there is also the problem of technology and the modern scientific mindset. We have discarded questions of what we ought to do in favor of if and how something can be done: “There’s a difference between wisdom and understanding. We have a lot of understanding and capacity to explain things now, but we have put aside the notion of wisdom, which is which path we should be following. We don’t ask ourselves the question of why we should do anything, especially in the technological world.” He uses the example of the theologian, who, in the old days, was “the man who prays.” Today, the theologian is simply an expert in theology, who may even be an atheist.

Poulos and Pageau go on to talk about Pageau’s work on retelling traditional fairy tales. Recognizing what Disney was doing to fairy tales, he has taken it upon himself to do them justice in a modern context.

To hear more about what Jonathan Pageau has to say about identity, religion, civilizational decline, and the reclamation of fairy tales, watch the full episode of "Zero Hour" with James Poulos.