Yuval Levin is an Israeli-American political theorist and one of the most influential conservative thinkers in Washington. He directs Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, founded and edits the policy journal National Affairs, and writes for The New York Times and National Review. A student of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he is best known for books that read the present through political philosophy, from The Great Debate on Burke and Paine to American Covenant, his 2024 argument that the Constitution was built to hold a divided nation together.
Bill Kristol spent four decades as a top operative and editor of the American right - chief of staff to Dan Quayle, founding editor of The Weekly Standard, co-architect of the Project for the New American Century - before becoming one of conservatism's most prominent defectors. Today he runs Defending Democracy Together and is editor-at-large of The Bulwark, where the man once called 'Dan Quayle's brain' now spends his days arguing against the movement his family helped invent. In May 2026 he registered as a Democrat.
Danielle Pletka is a distinguished senior fellow in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where she has shaped conservative thinking on the Middle East, Iran, and national security for more than two decades. A former senior Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer under Jesse Helms, she co-hosts the AEI podcast 'What the Hell Is Going On?' with Marc Thiessen, teaches at Georgetown, and appears regularly across major print and broadcast media.
David Frum is a Canadian-American staff writer at The Atlantic and host of The David Frum Show, the podcast where he turns four decades of conservative argument on the movement that produced him. He coined the phrase 'axis of evil' as a speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote ten books, and became one of the most quoted voices of the Never Trump right. The son of legendary Canadian broadcaster Barbara Frum, he left the Republican Party in November 2024 after a lifetime inside it.
Kevin D. Williamson is an American journalist and author who roams the country as national correspondent for The Dispatch, filing the Monday-morning newsletter Wanderland and the recurring column Econ for English Majors. A former roving correspondent who spent 15 years at National Review, he writes about economics, liberty, and the texture of American life with a prose style that prizes wit, contrarianism, and the long view. He is the author of seven books, including The Smallest Minority and Big White Ghetto.
Oren Cass is the founder and chief economist of American Compass, the think tank that rewired the economic playbook of the American right. A former Bain consultant and domestic policy director for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, Cass turned against the free-market orthodoxy he once served and built an intellectual case for tariffs, industrial policy, and worker power that now echoes through the speeches of JD Vance and Marco Rubio. He is the author of The Once and Future Worker and editor of The New Conservatives, and a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times.
Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. A Princeton-trained historian who started at National Review as an intern and never really left, he has spent more than two decades as one of the most cited voices in American conservatism, championing 'reform conservative' ideas like expanding the child tax credit and rethinking monetary policy. He is also a contributing editor to the policy journal National Affairs and a frequent television commentator.
Reihan Salam is the fifth president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a Brooklyn-born son of Bangladeshi immigrants who climbed from editorial researcher to one of the most cited voices on the American right. A former executive editor of National Review and associate editor of The Atlantic, he co-wrote Grand New Party with Ross Douthat and authored Melting Pot or Civil War?, making the case for a working-class, multi-ethnic conservatism and a skills-based immigration policy.
Ross Douthat is a New York Times opinion columnist, author, and podcast host who became the paper's youngest regular op-ed writer in 2009 at age 29. A conservative Catholic convert with a knack for diagnosing cultural drift, he wrote 'The Decadent Society' and 'Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious,' and now hosts the Times Opinion podcast 'Interesting Times,' where he interviews figures from across the political spectrum about the New Right and a shifting world order.
Ben Shapiro is the editor emeritus and co-founder of The Daily Wire, host of The Ben Shapiro Show, a syndicated columnist since age 17, and the author of more than a dozen books. A Harvard-trained attorney turned media operator, he has built one of the most-listened-to political podcasts in the United States and helped grow The Daily Wire into a conservative media company valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Steven Blake Crowder is a dual American-Canadian conservative political commentator, comedian, and media host best known for 'Louder with Crowder' - a daily podcast and YouTube show with nearly 6 million subscribers. The architect of the viral 'Change My Mind' debate format, Crowder built an independent media empire through his Mug Club subscription service on Rumble, surpassing $7.5 million in subscriptions within five months of launch after breaking with TheBlaze in 2022.
Tucker Carlson is an American journalist, commentator, and founder of the Tucker Carlson Network, an independent streaming and podcast operation he launched in late 2023 after his exit from Fox News. He hosts long-form interviews on X, YouTube, and TCN, where his guests have ranged from Vladimir Putin to obscure scientists, mechanics, and dissidents - a deliberate pivot away from the cable-news format he helped define.
Joe Lonsdale is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded Palantir Technologies, Addepar, OpenGov, and 8VC — a firm managing over $6 billion in assets. A chess prodigy turned PayPal intern turned Peter Thiel protege, Lonsdale built his empire around the belief that the most important companies are the ones governments and defense establishments can't function without. Based in Austin, Texas, he hosts the American Optimist podcast, co-founded the University of Austin, and runs the Cicero Institute — all while backing defense tech titans like Anduril at a $30.5 billion valuation.
Mona Charen is a syndicated political columnist, author, and podcast host who has spent four decades at the center of American conservative commentary. A former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan and one of the original Never Trump voices, she writes with unflinching honesty about the GOP's drift toward extremism. Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and host of The Mona Charen Show on The Bulwark, she is one of the few conservative commentators who has maintained intellectual consistency through decades of partisan turbulence.