This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch discuss the riots engulfing France and whether the country's increasingly unsustainable welfare state has made it ungovernable. They examine competing claims that immigration and austerity are fueling the unrest, the political gains being made by the French right, and why even modest pension reforms provoke fierce resistance.
The conversation turns to the United States, where President Donald Trump's tariffs are losing support among blue-collar voters and Republicans are struggling in traditionally conservative areas like Ohio. The panelists then discuss the abrupt departure of White House press secretary Katie Zacharia after just five days on the job. Later, they examine Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D–Mass.) opposition to a proposed $45 billion merger involving McCormick and Unilever. Finally, a listener asks why libertarians don't follow the Democratic Socialists of America's example by trying to reshape the Republican Party from within.
0:00—France's riots and the imploding welfare state
