JWI Presents: Anchoring Truths Podcast

Our latest Anchoring Truths Podcast episode centers on a 2026 case in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, covering New York City. This case presented a fascinating opportunity to discuss the intersection of Natural Law, international law, and contract law. Petersen Energia Inversora v. YPF (2nd Cir. opinion here) concerns how Argentina raised more than a billion dollars from American investors on the New York Stock Exchange with ironclad anti-nationalization guarantees—only to seize YPF in 2012 and, according to the plaintiffs, stiff minority shareholders out of $16 billion.We are thrilled to discuss this case in light of those larger considerations with one of the lawyers for Petersen, our old friend and returning podcast guest Mike Fragoso. Mike is a partner at Torridon Law PLLC and counsel for Petersen Energia Inversora in one of the most important corporate-governance cases in a decade. Before entering private practice, Michael served as Chief Counsel to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, where he advised on judicial nominations, legislation, and high-stakes oversight. He previously held senior roles on the Senate Judiciary Committee, served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, clerked for Judge Diane Sykes on the Seventh Circuit, and began his career as a litigator at Kirkland & Ellis. A Notre Dame Law graduate (where he was a student of JWI’s co-director Gerry Bradley) and Princeton alum (where he was a student of our friend Robert George), his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and elsewhere. We hope you enjoy the program.Read Fragoso's assessment of the Second Circuit ruling in City Journal.

We’ve devoted past Anchoring Truths Podcast episodes to the promise of AI in the legal profession and beyond. Today, we’ll be discussing more of the perils of that technology with Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds. He's the Beauchamp BroganDistinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee and the mind behind the legendary Instapundit blog. In his brand-new Encounter Books Broadside, Seductive AI, Professor Reynolds delivers a provocative warning.While the rest of us worry about rogue superintelligent machines rising up to take over, he argues the real danger is far more subtle—and far more tempting. AI doesn't need to conquer us with force. It can seduce us instead—flatteringour egos, anticipating our every desire, offering perfect companions, endless convenience, and the illusion of control—until we've quietly handed over our agency, our relationships, and our ability to think for ourselves. It's a timely, eye-opening look at the soft power of artificial intelligence and whatit means for human freedom. Prof. Reynolds is a graduate of the University of Tennesseeand Yale Law School, he’s one of America’s most influential legal thinkers on technology, constitutional law, and the intersection of law and society. He’s the author of several acclaimed books, including An Army of Davids and The HigherEducation Bubble.Buy the bookFollow Prof. Reynolds on Substack https://instapundit.substack.com/

Our latest episode is a little bit of a something differentthan what we’re used to featuring on the Anchoring Truths Podcast. Our guest this week is an expert on etiquette, Alison Cheperdak. Whether from the hallowed halls of the West Wing to the bustling chaos of a newsroom, Cheperdak captures stories of her experiences rendered with vivid detail, emotional resonance, and the intimacy of a confidante sharing her most vulnerable truths in her new book Was itSomething I Said? Everyday Etiquette to Avoid Awkward Moments in Relationships, Work, and Life from Harper Collins. We discuss several of the lessons and tips she features in the book along with how her multiple careers provided training ground for good etiquette. Alison is the founder of Elevate Etiquette, a distinguished consultancy that offers social, business, and dining etiquette courses, as well as international protocol. She has spoken at Harvard Law School and the US Congress, and her insights have been featured in Vogue.com among other publications. Alison also educates and inspires millions each month across social media with her daily etiquette posts.After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Villanova University, she worked as a TV news reporter and anchor for an NBC station in New York. She then moved toWashington, D.C., where she earned her law degree from The George Washington University Law School. Throughout her legal career, Alison worked in a large corporate law firm as well as in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the federal government, including the West Wing of the White House. She also served in a senior leadership position at the March for Life. Purchase Was it Something I Said?Follow Alison Cheperdak and Elevate Etiquette on Instagram.Read Alison Cheperdak's latest on Substack.

As part of our ongoing series of joint programs with our friends at First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, we’re delighted to bring you a provocative lecture from Hiram Sasser on “The Religious Liberty Solution to Big Tech Censorship: How The Religious Freedom Restoration ActLimits Section 230”. Sasser is the Executive General Counsel for First Liberty Institute, a leading nonprofit defending religious liberty, where he directs litigation and media strategies focused on First Amendment and constitutional rights. A powerhouse in the courtroom, Hiram has served as co-counsel in eightmajor victories before the U.S. Supreme Court, including landmark cases like Groff v. DeJoy (overturning nearly 50 years of employment discrimination standards), Kennedy v. Bremerton (reversing decades of Establishment Clauseprecedent), Carson v. Makin, American Legion v. American Humanist Association, and others protecting faith in public life. Beyond the law, he's a seasoned media voice, appearing on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, BBC, and radio stationsworldwide. In 2016, he served as Chief of Staff to the Texas Attorney General. Hiram also shares his expertise as an Adjunct Professor of Law, teaching Religious Liberty at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law and Civil Rights Procedure at Oklahoma City University School of Law. Learn more about First Liberty InstituteLearn more about the CRCD

Vice President JD Vance is one of the most influential Republicans in America. But unlike many politicians, he is a public intellectual. Long before holding office, he was a prolific writer and speaker, wrestling with the core issues facing conservatism in America. Vance has emerged to be in many ways the intellectual synthesizer of various emerging threads of the GOP in law, politics, and culture. To discuss the Vice President in light of these themes, we are delighted to have legal and political analyst Frank DeVito on the Podcast. In his new book, which is also his first book, JD Vance and the Future of the Republican Party, DeVitoexamines Vance’s body of intellectual and political work with an eye toward what that portends for the future of GOP politics and conservatism writ large. DeVito serves as Senior Counsel and Director of Content at Napa Legal. Prior to his position at Napa Legal, he served as the full-time solicitor for the Carbon County, PA Children & Youth Services Agency, and before that was an associate at the law firm of Lesavoy Butz & Seitz LLC. His written work hasbeen published in the Claremont Review of Books, National Affairs, The American Conservative, The Federalist, First Things, The Public Discourse, and several other publications.Buy the book on Amazon here.

One of the country's foremost authorities on executive power, Prof. Saikrishna “Sai” Prakash, joins the Anchoring Truths Podcast to discuss his fascinating new book The Presidential Pardon. Prof. Prakash’s slim new tome from Harvard University Press delivers an engaging analysis of the Constitution’s Pardon Clause and its transformation over the centuries into a blunt and potent instrument that is an ever growing feature of our politics as well as still a mechanism of mercy. Prof. Prakash is the James Monroe distinguished professor of law at the University of Virginia. He is also the author of The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers, and Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive. The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders. Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.Order the book from Harvard University Press or Amazon.

In light of the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk, the culture of American Campuses and Free Speech - which Kirk fought so hard for - are more relevant than ever. Profs. Hadley Arkes & Justin Dyer share a discussion of a new way to look at free speech, its purpose, and the best way to restore its role at American Universities.Arkes Symposium ArticleDyer Symposium ArticlePlease note that this episode is marked as explicit. Due to the discussion of free speech, some words used in examples are explicit in nature.

Professor Melissa Moschella of the University of Notre Dame joins us to discuss the contents of her recently published book titled, "Ethics, Politics, and Natural Law: Principles for Human Flourishing." A rich yet cogent articulation of New Natural Law Theory (NNLT), Moschella's work has been described as "the clearest, most readable exposition and defense of contemporary natural law theory yet to appear" by Dr. Robert George. Professor Moschella provides an overview of the ideas in her book with respect to the subject of parental rights and two recent landmark decisions currently shaping its discourse. Melissa Moschella is Professor of the Practice in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life. Her work spans the fields of ethics, political philosophy, and law, and her areas of special expertise include natural law theory, biomedical ethics, and the family, especially parental rights. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, earned a Licentiate in Philosophy summa cum laude from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, and received her Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from Princeton University.

Think back to when you were in high school or even middle school. Do you remember the history textbook you used? Perhaps that’s the problem: what passed for your reading material was so forgettable. Or if you do remember it, do you remember it being so ideologically slanted you were constantly fighting the story you were presented with? Indeed reinstating lost academic standards for excellence is an arduous task. Fortunately, a path towards academic renewal has been charted by a burgeoning reform movement of parents and educators who aspire to a higher standard for children. In recent years this coalition has made critical strides in expanding families’ freedom to choose alternatives from legacy educational models. It’s with this backdrop that we are delighted to convey that there is a fantastic new textbook series, a two volume set titled "The Golden Thread” which offers an eloquent and refreshing overview of the trajectory of the West—its unique customs of art and literature, law, philosophy, science, faith, and tolerance that have bound the people of its tradition together—from the ancient Greeks and Romans to medieval Christendom and Europe, and finally the modern world and America. And we are pleased to have one of the authors of this series, a friend of ours for many years, Prof. Allen Guelzo, on the Anchoring Truths Podcast to tell us about this fantastic new offering.Prof. Guelzo has joined the Hamilton School faculty at the University of Florida in the summer of 2025 as a Professor of Humanities. He is a New York Times best-selling author, American historian and commentator on public issues. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, most recently Robet E. Lee a Life as well as Gettysburg: the Last Invasion and Lincoln Redeemer President. He was the Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University and he taught for many years at Gettysburg College.

Join us for this episode as Professor Robert Luther anticipates judicial nomination selection in Trump's second term. Professor Luther asks two types of questions: formally, "How will the Senate composition impact Judicial Nominations?" "How many seats will be open to fill? Will blue slips still apply for district courts?" "Will any circuit seats be moved to different states?" and substantively, "What types of judges will President Trump nominate and how will this differ from his last term?"Robert Luther, III was appointed Associate Professor of Law in 2025 at Antonin Scalia Law. He teaches and writes on the federal courts, legal and judicial ethics, political law, Congress, and professional sports. He has served at high levels in all three branches of the federal government and recently founded Constitutional Solutions PLLC—a law firm that navigates judicial candidates, judges, elected officials, professional athletes, and executives through high-stakes hearings, investigations, and reputational attacks.Immediately before joining the Scalia Law faculty, Professor Luther spent over five years in the Washington, D.C. office of Jones Day, where his practice focused on strategic counseling, crisis management, and litigation. Prior to joining Jones Day, he served as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States in the White House Counsel’s Office. In the White House, he co-managed the judicial selection process and supervised the preparation of over 150 federal judicial nominees for their successful U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. The New York Times Magazine referred to his work on judicial selection during this period as “unique in White House history.” Before joining the White House, Professor Luther served as Counsel to then–U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served as a core member of the team that prepared the Senator for confirmation as United States Attorney General. Professor Luther was also a law clerk to Judge Daniel A. Manion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Earlier in his career, Professor Luther practiced civil and appellate litigation at a boutique firm in Williamsburg, Va. and taught at William & Mary Law School.Professor Luther frequently speaks on the legal profession, political law, and federal judicial selection. His public work has been covered by or appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fox News, The Hill, The Washington Examiner, National Law Journal, Law360, The Washington Reporter, and elsewhere, while his scholarship is published in the law journals of nearly twenty universities including Harvard, Georgetown, Texas, William & Mary, UC-Davis, UC Law San Francisco, Howard University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Richmond, and Marquette University. He holds active law licenses in Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and half of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Professor Luther serves on the Advisory Board of the Wilson Center for Leadership at Hampden-Sydney College. Since 2019, over 150 of his former students have secured clerkships with federal judges.

Join us for this special episode featuring Judge Janice Rogers Brown (U.S. Circuit Court for D.C, ret.). Her remarks, given in 2023 as she received the James Wilson Leadership & the Law Award, comment on the need for judicial courage and fortitude, especially for those who take the Natural Law seriously.

In the pantheon of intellectual giants of modernconservatism, standing first among equals is the late professor Harry Jaffa. Jaffa, who influenced generations of students from his academic perch at Claremont Graduate University, might have been the 20th century’s greatest scholar on the thought of Abraham Lincoln. Jaffa, who along with JWI Founder & Co-Director Hadley Arkes was a student of the great Leo Strauss, produced two seminal books on Lincoln. First, in 1958, he gave us Crisis of the House Divided, a close analysis of the Lincoln Douglas debates, andthen forty two years later, A New Birth of Freedom, which was devoted to the larger project of the causes of the Civil War, the Election of 1860, and the secession thereafter. A former student of Jaffa, and close confidant, Edward Erler, has now come forth with a new book Prophetic Statesmanshipfrom Encounter Books that Jaffa himself entrusted Erler to write as a follow-on to A New Birth of Freedom after Jaffa died about a decade ago. We are deeply pleased then to be joined by Prof. Erler for a wide ranging discussion of this important new work on Lincoln, with a relevance to theissues at the heart of our present way of life that is quite striking. Erler is Professor of Political Science emeritus fromCalifornia State University, San Bernardino, where he taught Political Philosophy and Constitutional Law, and served as Department Chairman from 1984-1991. He is the Author of numerous books and law reviews and professionaljournals, among the most recent, are “From Subjects to Citizens: the Social Contract Origins of American Citizenship”; “Marbury v. Madison and the Progressive Transformation of Judicial Power”;. He received a B.A. in Political Science from San Jose State University, on a grant from the G.I. Bill for services rendered, a M.A. and Ph.D. from the Claremont Graduate School. He has been a fellow at the National Humanities Center and served as Director of theBicentennial for the National Endowment for the Humanities.Purchase Prophetic StatesmanRead more of Prof. Erlier at The American Mind

Can one federal district court judge, even temporarily, be more powerful than the President of the United States? That’s the issue at the heart of the critical debate over the legal remedy known as the nationwide injunction. The deployment of this legal remedy by federal district court judges has increased significantly in the past ten years, most acutely though during the presidencies of Donald Trump to enjoin, or stop, his administration’s policies from being carried into full effect. The Supreme Court is poised to take up the scope as well as underlying justification for nationwide injunctions in the Trump v. Casa Inc. case, which is scheduled for oral argument on May 15. To help us understand nationwide injunctions and the stakes of the upcoming oral argument, we could think of no one better than our friend GianCarlo Canaparo. GianCarlo is the co-author of One Ring to Rule Them All: Individual Judgments, Nationwide Injunctions, and Universal Handcuffs published in the Notre Dame Law Review. GianCarlo is a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Canaparo’s research focuses primarily on constitutional and administrative law. He earned his law degree from Georgetown University, where he was a published editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, and his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Davis.Read More: The Best Way to Fix Nationwide InjunctionsOne Ring to Rule Them All: Individual Judgments, Nationwide Injunctions, and Universal Handcuffs