In this episode of WTH Extra! Dany and Marc discuss Marc’s column in the Washington Post, Does Trump want Putin to get Ukraine’s $26 trillion in gas and minerals? Ukraine is a mineral superpower, with some of the largest reserves of 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals in the world. And with the help of U.S. assistance, Ukraine has successfully defended roughly 80 percent of its known mineral deposits. If the U.S. continues to help Ukraine secure and develop its natural minerals, we can not only deal a strategic blow to Beijing and Moscow, but also bring enormous financial benefits back to the American people.

Read Marc's article in the Washington Post here.

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Americans have lost faith in the expert class, and in some cases, for good reason. So-called “experts” didn’t just destroy livelihoods during the COVID pandemic or make China rich through normalized trade relations, they also looked down upon and antagonized the American people in the process. What role will experts play in the second Trump administration? And how can the expert class begin to regain the trust of the American people?

Robert Doar is the president of the American Enterprise Institute. While at AEI, Mr. Doar has served as a co-chair of the National Commission on Hunger and as a lead member of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity. He first joined AEI in 2014 to lead the Institute’s opportunity and mobility studies program after serving for more than 20 years in leadership positions in the social service programs of New York State and New York City. He is the host of the podcast One on One with Robert Doar.

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In roughly ten days, opposition forces in Syria were able to accomplish more than they did in a decade and topple the tyrannical Assad regime. But as the dust settles, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham – the U.S. designated terrorist organization that led the march to Damascus – will have to prove that it has moved on from its anti-Western Jihadist ideology and is committed to rebuilding a Syrian state that meets the needs of its people. Why did Assad’s regime collapse so quickly? And what does the future of Syrian governance look like?

Hassan Hassan is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of New Lines Magazine, an initiative of the New Lines Institute, and the founder of the institute’s Human Security Unit. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (2016, Reagan Arts).

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